I downloaded Google’s new browser (Chrome) yesterday and I made it my default browser for now… I have found a couple of things that is already bugging me as a user, but I’ll give it a try for a little longer. Unforunetly I can’t really tell any speed difference because my Internet here is considerately slower, so everything is taking its time to come up. I do like when you open a new tab and your history shows up, instead of a blank page or (even worse) your default home, and that you can drag tabs out and they become new windows.

The two things I have found that is bugging me that I do all the time are: I can’t drag an image out of a web page and drop it into another application… So I have to open IE for that. And if you right-click on an image, there’s no “properties” option… so you can’t see the location/size/name of an image… Kind of annoying, but I’ll see if I can live without those.

Also, I just added Google Chrome to I-stats… Hey, Google Analytics, it didn’t take it but 2 seconds, why is it taking you guys so long? Yes, Google has been working on this browser for over 1 year and, so I heard, Google Analytics haven’t managed to display it correctly yet … They display it as “Firefox”, even tough the visitors’ user agent is “Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US) AppleWebKit/525.13 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/0.2.149.27 Safari/525.13″ … which is more a Safari than a Firefox to me…

This is from Google Analytics Blog on Sept 2nd: 

“Q. Will I see Google Chrome listed as a browser in my Google Analytics reports?
A. Yes, very soon. We’ll let you know immediately once the change happens.”

Very soon??? 2 seconds, guys… Come on!

I’m almost settled in Montreal and I need to start working soon.

I thought I was going to have all time of the world, but it seems like I have a lot going on already. Yesterday I met some people at Brutopia for our first Montreal NewTech meetup. I had a great time: good beer, nice people… I’m loving Montreal. I can’t believe I waited so long to come back here.

Anyway, today I got my stuff from UPS… Everything seemed to be ok, except the front of my computer case that broke… but luckily it’s working just fine. Then I also bought an awesome desk (Aubie likes it too). But, is there anything missing in that picture? Yeah, I didn’t have a computer chair yet. So I searched for one on Craigslist and I found it on the other side of town… Well, I don’t have a car, so that would be interesting… I wish I had my camera with me.

Well, my apartment is about a couple of blocks from the metro station, then I rode it about 4 stops to St. Laurent and walked about 5 blocks… So I had to do the same thing on the way back, but I was carrying the chair… Which turned out to be very convenient, because I could just sit down while waiting for the traffic lights, or the train… And in the train, I had my own seat… “That’s right, I brought my own chair.”

It was interesting. I miss my YowTRIP-mobile

After all that walking I ended up falling asleep when I got back… I have to start planning what I’m going to be working on for the next month and get to it. I feel like I haven’t done anything for the past couple of weeks.

This weekend, I’m going to BitConference in Lake MacDonald (I don’t know where that is either - 1 1/2 hours north of here or something…) I think Aubie will be ok by himself on the first weekend here… I think he’s adjusting well. I’m going to keep an eye on him, because we don’t want another sick cat here…

So, the plan for tomorrow is to go up Mont Royal to get a picture of me and the city in the background, so I can update my location here (see picture on top left of this site), then I’m going to do some YowTRIP work, meet Heri and Christian in Old Montreal, and if I have time go to Nerd Thursday at Brutopia… Yeah, and then more YowTRIP work

At some point this week, I also need to open a bank account, sign up for a French course and see if there’s anything else I need to do for the immigration stuff…

I’ve been wanting to say that for a long time. I’m here in Montreal after a long travel day.

(Pause to go run errands…)

Well, now it’s Wednesday… but I still don’t have to go to work. I’ve been busy trying to get everything setup and get my stuff back from customs. UPS will ship everything tomorrow. I’ve also bought a computer desk… still need a chair and I’ll be back in business.

The trip went fine. I ended up getting a hotel room in Denver on the last day because I had to move out of my appartment at noon… which worked out fine, so I didn’t have to get up as early on Monday.

Then I drugged Aubie in the morning, and I think he slept most of the way. When I picked him up in Toronto he was still a little out… But by the time we got to Montreal he was the old complainer… (no, he actually behaved well) And he likes the balcony here…

So, today I had to sign the lease and then go to the airport to clear my stuff from customs. And tonight I had my first meetup… About 10 people showed up and I had a great time at Brutopia. Just the way I remembered their Honey Beer! Met some interesting people here already and I’m very excited to get started on stuff and see what else is going on here.

The apartment is ok… it could use some remodeling, but the location is awesome. Everything is just a block away… and open past 9pm for a change!

So, everything is going great here in Montreal! I’ll add more info once I have to computer setup… I hate working on a laptop! I’m going to sleep now… I have a feeling tomorrow will be a long day (Move all 10 boxes up to the room + the desk…)

A couple of days ago, TripHub- Seattle-based group travel startup - announced that they were closing down their site due to lack of funding after 3 years in business.

On the day prior to that, TravelMob, a Honululu-based startup opened with similar functionalities, which are to give people a trip homepage and to manage RSVP’s.

That would be a nice startup to work for, wouldn’t it? In Hawaii!

Ben wrote a blog post about my one-year-no-job-project, in which he admits to be jealous of me… HA! Jk. Ben and I have been good friends since College. We’ve taken many classes together, we’ve worked together, and we’ve travelled together. He’s known about my desire and plans to work on YowTRIP (and/or other projects on my own) full-time for a long time.

I know a few people who want to do the same thing and I know they will be watching my progress very closely. I’ll be the guinea-pig, so if it works out, they may try it too. Well, here’s a couple of things that motivates me, and maybe could help other decide to take a similar step.

(1) Do/work on something you like. If you’re really passionate about a project, chances are you will be able to make it. And strike rich isn’t the only sign of success. The experience you gain by trying it, the people you meet, partnerships you form… All of that adds up for your next venture, and the next one…

(2) Try it fast and don’t be afraid of “failure.” The sooner you try it, the earlier you will be on the market and the sooner you will know if your idea is that great of an idea at all… And you might then come across that great idea. You should always look at “failure” as a new opportunity.

(3) Be realistic and have a backup plan. That being some extra money saved up to start over, family support to fall back to, or be sure that you can easily get a job if you need (plan somewhat ahead for that)

(4) It’s never too late to start over. There’s no such a thing as “wasted time.” Everything you try to do - if you believe in it, if you enjoy it, but doesn’t work out as expected - you learn from it and you can always try again and start over.

So anyway, I’m very excited about this. And I’m going to have to work hard and very fast (time is money) and at the same time enjoy my favorite city in the world: Montreal! It’s going to take me a few days to get settled… I shipped my stuff yesterday, so I should get it on Tuesday or Wednesday… Then I have to buy a new computer desk/chair and I should be back in business soon.

I’m probably going to be blogging often and you should be getting emails from me every now and then asking for your opinion about something So help me out!

Funny thing happened yesterday. This woman from the Brazilian Embassy in Washington DC emailed me (she found my email address via Orkut) saying that she had some documents she believed belonged to me… Remember I mentioned that I had no idea where my old passport (which isn’t valid anymore) was? Well, that passport still has my US tourist visa, so that would come handy for me to be able to come back here in the future (and in a couple of weeks for Web 2.0 NY)

Anyway, I called her back and she said “I have your passport, your H1B approval notice, 2 credit cards, your Brazilian driver license, a Safeway card, and a National Park Annual Pass.” So the next thing I said was “I was looking for that National Park Pass!” She just laughed… “You were not looking for your passport or your credit cards?”

So, anyway, long story short, she will mail that stuff to me in Canada. I have no idea how all of that desapeared and made its way to DC… and it’s been a long time… Because I believed I needed my old passport for the Canadian immigration paperwork (over a year ago) and I couldn’t find it to save my life… I just thought it was in one of the boxes I had in the closet… and since I had scanned copies of everything, I just printed one.

Last night I went to my last event here in Boulder: TECH Cocktail Boulder 2. I tried to demo YowTRIP there but they already had enough startups when I contacted the organizers of the event: Frank and Eric.

TechStars was one of the sponsors, so only their startups got to demo last night (and at last month’s Boulder NewTech, and at next month’s Boulder NewTech)… Talk about free press, uh?

TECH Cocktail is an event that happens in other US tech centers (besides the SF Bay Area) every four-six months: Chicago, Boston, DC and Boulder.

Its setup is similar to SF Beta (in San Francisco, where I demoed YowTRIP in December 2007): Each demoing startup has a table with their laptop and people come to see a quick demo and ask questions about it. It’s a nice casual setup where you get to interact with the other startups and network with other tech enthusiasts (also a good opportunity to talk about your own startup, even if you’re not demo )

Check out some more photos here.

I just registered to the Web 2.0 Expo in New York on September 16-19. I couldn’t go to the one in San Francisco in the beginning of the year because I had just moved to Colorado, so…

Maybe I should have waited until I got to Canada to register… Just to make sure I’ll have all the paperwork in order and be able to come to the US without a visa. (I lost my old passport that had my US visa.)

So, I’m looking for somebody who could host me for a couple of day in Manhattan or people who would like to share a hotel room. If you know anybody, let me know.

Luca Filigheddu wrote a nice blog post about me and my One year NO JOB Project. I met Luca in the Bay Area for the week I demoed YowTRIP at the Silicon Valley NewTech Meetup. Luca runs a couple of VoIP companies and has founded Hictu, the first video  micro blogging service in 2007.

Thanks a lot, Luca. I really appreciate the support.

He mentioned YowTRIP on this blog, and actually YowTRIP will turn one on the day of my move to Montreal. I’m very happy about what I have been able to accomplish (on a part-time basis) with it. I have demoed it in some big events in the Bay Area, next to Tripit (whose founder also founded Hotwire and they have received over $7M in funding), all the other news coverage I have gotten and every time you look around YowTRIP is being compared to some of the big names, as Luca mentioned, Dopplr, TripSay, Driftr, etc.

There’s still a lot of work ahead for YowTRIP and now that I’ll have all the time in the world, we should see a lot of changes in the next few months. Stay tuned!

Even though our official moving date is September 1st (YowTRIP’s one year aniversary), YowTRIP has already been added to the Montreal Startup Index list from TechVibes, a Canadian Media company that features Canadian based startups.

We’re currently ranked at 22. Take a moment to check out some of the other startups from Montreal! Hopefully I’ll be able to meet some of them through Montreal NewTech.