Archive | April, 2012

Montreal week 1

April 23, 2012 by Bill General

Day 2 in this city. Today, I explored my surroundings, and to my pleasure I found that there is a Metro and Shoppers Drug Mart (they call it Pharmaprix here in Quebec) right by where I live! Also, it seems that St. Joseph’s Oratory is in my backyard.

After 2 tries I successfully (I think) acquired a weekly bus pass. Apparently, in Montreal it goes something like this, first you must have an OPUS card, then you “load” trip plans onto the OPUS card, here I am, thinking it will be a paper pass, I tried to purchase a weekly plan at Shoppers without the OPUS card, and the kicker, the cashier spoke only French, so that was no go, then second try, after more researching, I found out that I needed the OPUS card first, with some broken French and half mixed English, I was able to acquire an OPUS card and a weekly pass.

I need to learn French.

Work is interesting, never the less, busy, hectic, and I’m just getting the round of thing. I get to work Downtown which makes commuting easier.
Error: the communication with Picasa Web Albums didn’t go as expected. Here’s what Picasa Web Albums said:

No album found.

Montreal day 1

April 21, 2012 by Bill General

Today Is The First Day Of The Rest Of My Life. I woke up at 7:30am, said my goodbyes with Kevin, having crashed on his couch last night.

Today I am going to Montreal. I am taking the Grey Hound to Toronto, then the Via rails to Montreal.

Getting off the train station at the Central Station in Montreal give me the first shocker, everything is in French, and there is almost no English subtitles. While my luggage was still checked in, I found a McDonalds to grab a quick bite, and second shocker, even McDonalds are in French. Thank god that the cashiers spoke English. This is going to be a fun 8 months here.

UW Bug Me Not Chrome Extension

April 13, 2012 by Bill General

While procrastinating for my exam today I wrote a quick Chrome extension.
Step 1:

Install the extension

Step 2:

Configure the extension by giving it your Quest username and password.

Step 3:

Visit CAS enabled site as usual.

Step 4:

????

Step 5:

Profit. Well automatic login.

Thoughts? The extension is unfortunately not idiot proof yet…

Biology Undergrad Society

April 12, 2012 by Bill General

Still can’t believe how these guys would do free tutoring for first year BIO classes.

Region of Waterloo Open Data

April 8, 2012 by Bill General

FINALLY! Open data from the region of Waterloo and the GRT!

I can finally create the Android App that I wanted to create from CS446!

Region of Waterloo Open Data Catalog

Open Data Waterloo Region (Twitter: @OpenDataWR)

General Transit Feed Specification Reference

Made a quick proof of concept of the application:

The user now can check the next bus without wasting text messages, as well as can do it without an internet connection.

The app can also map out the bus route, and the user can know where exactly to get off, etc.

However, one thing that would be great, is if GRT can release live data, thus the riders could track exactly where the bus is, and would have a more realizable schedule than ever. Also this could have the potential to replace the GRT Trip Planner.