Invite The World

These numbers (new area codes) have been long planned, and are coming close to take effect…

New area code “236″ for BC will take effect in June 2013.
Area code 672 has been reserved for British Columbia once area code 236 is exhausted.
Current area codes for BC include: 604, 250, and 778.

New area code “437″ for Toronto will take effect in March 2013.
Currently Ontario has 11 area codes covering the whole province.

Further reading…

If you are interested, or just for a little bit more information for your future reference, here is the List of North American Area Codes (current and future) -
View by the code: LINK
View by country, state or province: LINK

Sorry about the extended silence of the travel plan of our guests!

Things are mostly set…
1. Air tickets are issued – and the arrival date is June 30, 2012.
2. Hotel rooms are confirmed – a 2-bedroom Garden Suite at Fairmont Waterfront Vancouver.
3. Other prize items are being processed by Tourism Vancouver.

Our guests will stay in town for about one month – there will be a total of five. We have been researching many points of interest and have booked some of them so far. Vancouver Island, Whistler, Okanagan and even Banff and Jasper are considered.

If you have suggestions of great spots to share please feel free to reply to this post so we could look into those (also as good reference for visitors of this blog).

Traffic and moving around could be a challenge, as we only have two cars but do not have a vehicle that could accommodate more than 5 persons. A 7- or 8-seater minivan would be ideal. Any sponsorship suggestions (arrangements) would be very welcome!

Will write again soon.

And again, my family, our guests and I are very grateful of receiving the prizes from the Invite The World campaign organizer and the sponsors:
-Tourism Vancouver (the organizer)
-Canadian Tourism Commission
-TELUS
-Lululemon
-The Vancouver Hotel Destination Association
-Downtown Vancouver Business Imporvement Association
-Vancouver Airport Authority

Grand prize providers:
-The Fairmont Waterfront
-Birks
-Bluebird
-Hawksworth Restaurant at the Rosewood Hotel Georgia

A friend of mine (Loming) sent me info of this new tool today – An app that could convert room pictures into a floor plan from your smartphone or tablet. Great for practitioners in the real estate market!

App converting room picture into floor plan

The app is named MagicPlan – it doesn’t just draw floor plans. It can measure the size of the rooms, draws the floor plan and creates a DXF file, PDF document, JPEG images and a web site with an interactive floor plan.

The app comes with a “free to use” and some “per fee” options (as always!). The pricing is very reasonable (my personal view) – 2.49 CAD or USD per plan (plus the DIY time spent – again, as always ^_^).

Link to the MagicPlan site if you wish to explore further:
www.sensopia.com

The long version of the title of this topic is: Apple paid $3.3 billion in income taxes worldwide in 2011, on $34.2 billion in before tax profit worldwide in 2011.

The above figures were quoted from The New York Times (April 28, 2012) by Tim O’Reilly in his very insightful article that I found on Google+ (see links below).

I share this article because I agree to the fact that in today’s business one has to think GLOBAL, and the story shows how Apple has worked this out so perfectly for them.

Take this Apple story as an example:
Imagine this (I use “imagine” because I am certain no one will really “consider” it): If Apple were to manufacture iPad 100% in the US, I would guess that 99% of those who now have an iPad might not have had one in the first place.

1) How Apple Sidesteps Billions in Taxes (April 28, 2012) (Link)

2) Apple’s Response on Its Tax Practices (April 28, 2012) (Link)

3) Tim O’Reilly’s article on Google+: (Link)

Wanna meet up for an inspection tomorrow? Your $450M renovation project is ready…

When I first texted the above news to members in my circle I got some questions back. So I would like to first explain a little bit before moving on:

1) The building to be inspected: BC Place in Downtown Vancouver. An event entitled BC Place Community Weekend is being held during the weekend April 28-29, 2012, and the admission is free. Pardon me if I have used jargon of our industry in real estate sale: I play the open house event as “house inspection” by owners of a construction work they had paid to complete.

2) The renovation project: The work to rebuild with a retractable roof that has costed British Columbia taxpayers $450M ($450,000,000). So the word “your” in my initial invitation would mean us taxpayers that could include you and me.

BC Place open house - a screen shot of the BC Place website

No matter what your comment would be on the spending, BC Place is part of our life and as part of the community and the Province, I encourage everyone to take a chance to enjoy a moment of it!

Link to photos:
Photo Album at Google+

For months I have been worrying about reaching the free storage limit of my Gmail account. It was approaching the 70% mark *and counting*! And you know what – the worry was so real that it in effect had made it a practice of mine to keep staring at the bottom-left of the Gmail screen whenever I log in – see image in green box below. (For me, deleting read messages from my inbox is not an option – I keep all messages since day 1.)

And today I have a huge relief! I just noticed that my storage usage has reduced to 49% only, and that the storage limit has increased to 10240 MB (10 GB) from its previous 7.5 GB. And this has in fact just officially happened on April 24, less than two days ago!

My current usage at the time of writing this post (image):

Competition is G!

Continue reading…

This is a follow-up on my earlier post titled “The 2012 MAC Golden Cube Event”. In that post I said I hope to get a copy of the group photo that was taken at the end of the event…

With the help of Melanie Briggs, Sales Director at MĀC Marketing Solutions, I got the great picture of that magnificent view! My BIG thanks to her and her great team!

I am glad to be able to share this great picture – Over 300 REALTORS waving hands to you!

Wonder how the new Port Mann Bridge would look like when it’s done? Well, that could only be found out when it is completed sometime in late 2012 or early 2013.

However, for a preview of the “product” there is an album of photos I took earlier this month…

Continue reading…

The Second Annual MAC Golden Cube Awards dinner was held on April 16, 2012 at the River Rock Casino Resort in Richmond, British Columbia. Glad to be part of the event that evening! Over 400 guests were seen at the meeting (my guess only, haven’t got the exact figure from the organizer).

Continue reading…

Have just learned from tonight’s TV news and would like to share this great project with you – The Google’s “Art Project”. This is where you could view 30,000 HD images of works of art from over 150 museums across 40 countries…

What is the Google’s ‘Art Project’? Here’s what Googleartproject.com/faqs/ has to say:

The Art Project is a collaboration between Google and 151 acclaimed art partners from across 40 countries. Using a combination of various Google technologies and expert information provided by our museum partners, we have created a unique online art experience. Users can explore a wide range of artworks at brushstroke level detail, take a virtual tour of a museum and even build their own collections to share. With a team of Googlers working across many product areas we are able to harness the best of Google to power the Art Project experience. Few people will ever be lucky enough to be able to visit every museum or see every work of art they’re interested in but now many more can enjoy over 30 000 works of art from sculpture to architecture and drawings and explore over 150 collections from 40 countries, all in one place. We’re also lucky at Google to have the technology to make this kind of project a reality.

Want to have a tour of The White House? Click this link to start:
http://www.googleartproject.com/collection/the-white-house/museumview/

To explore the Google’s Art Project click this link:
http://www.googleartproject.com/faqs/