This week I had my first experience at an Island Regulatory And Appeals Commission (IRAC) hearing. In it, were 14 people dressed in nice suits discussing the possibility of adding 2 new gas stations to Stratford. These 14 people impact whether the third largest town on PEI can handle 2 new gas stations for a total of 3 retail outlets. The hearings have been going on for 10 days now for at least 7 hours a day. That's a whooping 70 hours per person in these hearings. Multiple that number by 14 people and they've clocked in over 980 hours. ...

Earlier this year, the PEI Rocket came to me looking for a easy way to communicate with their players and billets. In the event that the Rocket wanted to extend their players curfew, they needed an easy way to send a message to all the players and the billets so they are aware of the new curfew. Another scenario was that if the team wanted to cancel a practice for what ever reason, it involved calling the 20 players up to notify them of the cancellation. ...

It's that time of the year again! Oh wait, it is always that time of the year as there's always something going on! But starting Monday, an annual tradition will reach it's 30th birthday. That is, Small Business Week!  The events start off early Monday morning at 7:30AM at the Train Shed on the Montague Waterfront with a free Reception & Trade Fair which is going to be sponsored by Active Communities and the Eastern Chamber of Commerce. After the reception, things move down to Cruise Manda on the Montague Waterfront for Breakfast onboard the "fully weather protected" boat. The event will consist ...

I just finished reading in the Eastern Graphic how Island East selected HeadSpace Design of Halifax, Nova Scotia. I am sure Headspace Design is capable of doing the job but that's not the point. Throughout the article it was saying how Island East wasn't happy with the previous Island company that did their website. They said that the company, based in Charlottetown, did not develop an easy to use website and that was one reason they selected Headspace Design. A few paragraphs later, the article goes onto read the "Goal is for the website to increase economic development in Eastern ...

As Islanders are aware, PEI has a large amount of farmers with at least $400 million dollar a year being pumped into our economy directly from the amount of product our farmers sell. We put on events based around agriculture such as Old Home Week, Charlottetown’s weekly farmers market, Kensington’s Community Harvest Festival, Crapaud Exhibition, Fall Flavours, the Dundas Plowing Match, and the list goes on and on. With our Farmers and Fisherman going through the tough times, I think Montague should have it’s own Farmers Market down on the waterfront on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. Montague was the initial ...

Summerside created their own TV commercials to encourage people to move to Summerside. I find some of the Island TV advertisements very lacking however the Summerside ones are mighty impressive. While I am not sure if they will hit the spot with people coming here, I do find they are extremely well done. Fenian Films films of Hamilton, Ontario completes the 30 second spots, that will being shown on CBC & TSN over the Canada games. Well done Summerside, well done! ...

Social Media is empowering users of the internet to have the ability to post their own content online. We have gone from the old times where just website staff would contribute to now-a-days where even big corporations like Futureshop encourage users to contribute to things like their online system which allows you to contribute by rating products. One of the earliest forms of social that I can remember is newsgroups as anyone could join the discussion. I am told, there was a chat line before this which you dialed into however I can not remember the name. One of the most popular ...

Hello, welcome to my little corner of the Eastern/Western Graphic blog! I am John Morris and I am a web developer from good ol' Prince Edward Island. I've been developing websites for the past 10 years and lately been working a lot with social media so be sure to checkout my Twitter or LinkedIn! I've been blogging for a bit as well through my own company. I started morriscode in April 2008 after I sold my hosting company, dotServing. I will be blogging about tech items such as the internet, wireless technologies and might even tabble a bit in politics! Oh ...