Back in Business
Dazed, tanned, and broke. These three words pretty much sum up my state right now, after spending three weeks in Tokyo, Okinawa, and Taipei. I’m currently at Narita Airport waiting for my flight to Toronto, where I will catch another plane back to Ottawa.
It’s been a while since my last post, but now that I’m finally finished my winter semester I can start writing here more often. I will also try my best to catch up on unanswered comments! It’s starting to sink in that there are only two more semesters of school left… I can’t wait to finish completely!
The highlight of this past semester was diving into the world of interactive multimedia. For one of our classes, we were taught an open-source programming language called Processing. My classmates Grant Lucas, Mark Pintar and I built the ‘faceTable’, which was an interactive table display that would display the user’s Facebook information by using customized Reactivision markers. Words don’t do it justice – we will be posting videos of it in action on Vimeo once we make the demonstration videos.
Plans for the summer
This summer I’d like to find and share more hacks and tweaks in Shopify that would allow storeowners to add unique features to their store. I’d also like to write more tutorials to help storeowners get started with their stores.
In my spare time, I plan on playing around with Processing and OpenFrameworks in an attempt to create some cool visual displays. Particle systems is an example of something I’d like to create using one of these two languages. I’ll also be playing shows with the band The Mudplots, as well as work on another band project that I have brewing 
Anyway, I’m off to kill some more time – two more hours until my flight to Toronto! Don’t fail me, Reddit…
UPDATE: A random elderly man from Calgary just approached me with a super-serious look on his face asking if I could check something for him using the wifi on my laptop. Thinking it was an emergency, I opened up my laptop. Turns out he just really needed to know the result of the Pittsburgh vs Montreal game for his hockey pool. Canadians are awesome 
Reading Week
Back in January, I returned to Carleton University to resume my studies after a 1-year work term at Shopify. This week is Reading Week, and I’m temporarily back at Shopify to do some work. It’s really nice to be back in the office, although it makes me want to drop out of school and stay here forever 
School’s been pretty hectic. MEL Scripting, marketing, and product design methodology have all been keeping me pretty busy. Because of this, I won’t be writing any Shopify-related tutorials during the semester, but I hope to get back into it during the summer.
There is one class that I really enjoy at school, taught by an awesome new teacher called James Acres. He introduced us to the world of Processing and Arduino, and it’s like discovering Lego again for the first time. It’s our first time creating interactions between the physical and digital world, and it’s truly been a fascinating experience.
March is going to be one tough month with all the assignments and whatnot, but I think it’ll go by quickly. I can’t wait for this semester to be over with!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian peoples! I hope you guys are having an awesome long weekend so far.
I apologize for the lack of updates recently, I’ve been extremely busy with client projects, side projects, and moving. I do have a few Shopify tutorial ideas floating around in my mind, but I haven’t had much time to sit down and write them out. I’m hoping that in the coming weeks things will start to slow down.
So a couple of weeks ago, a bunch of my friends at Carleton University got together and started a student club called CUJA (Carleton University Japanese Association). I was appointed to be the web master and graphic designer, so I’ve been working on their branding, their website, and their membership cards. I’m still working on the mock-up of the site, shown below (a big, big thank you to my chums Mark Dunkley and Daniel Weinand for their tips and advices!).
Just yesterday one of the CUJA execs and I went to Staples to order the membership cards that I had designed. They won’t be ready for another 4-5 days, but I can’t wait to see how they turn out!
Another thing that was keeping me busy was moving. A couple of weeks ago I had moved from my former apartment to my parent’s place so that I can live with them until the new apartment becomes available. It’s my first time living at home in two years, so it was definitely a heart-warming experience (free food is also a huge plus!). I’ll be moving to the new place in about a week, and once I settle in I’ll be working more on the Shopify tutorials.
Well that’s enough rambling for today! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!