I did a quick search on the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and found 6 trademarks JUST for the word Platinum. There might be more, the search tools at CIPO are not the greatest. The trademarks were such things as vodka, electric lamps, portable walls, and pet shampoo. I had no idea trademarks worked this way, I have to do some reading tonight.

It is interesting how Google has a very all or nothing approach to the trademarks. This isn’t the first one we’ve had problems with, but all the others are what I thought as valid trademarks (brand name, product name). Now you know why you’ll never see Platinum in a Google Adword.

And then, just for the hell of it, I checked Wikipedia’s article on Postal Codes…then the problem just became easier. According to the Wikipedia article, the first number in the postal code represents if the postal region is rural or urban. If the number is 0 (N0G2J3), the postal region is a rural area. If the number is anything else, 1-9, the postal region is an urban area. With this I wrote up a quick regular expression (^[a-zA-Z]{1}[0]{1}[a-zA-Z 0-9]+) and used the power of MySQLs regular expressions (have to remember MySQL can search w/ regular expressions) to write up a query to determine the top 50 rural customers. Easy!

Random fact: Wikipedia has all possible postal region codes (first 3 digits of the postal code) and their corresponding city/region. I wonder who took the time…The article is here.

Random fact II: The only provinces to have more then one letter as the first letter in a postal code is Quebec and Ontario. All the others have a specific letter to determine the province/territory. The map is here.

Some of the rules written by one person are in conflict with some written by another person, kind of leads me to believe that these rules are not what makes a successful startup. Still, I find the points and reasoning interesting, there is also some interesting conversation in the comments.

• The one that started it all, written by Jason McCabe Calacanis (CEO of Mahalo.com) — How to save money running a startup (17 really good tips)
• A reply by Pat Phelan (President of Cubic Telecom) — Jason Calacanis tell us how to save money
• 37Signals made a post about Firing the Workaholics, they also made a post earlier this month about Workplace Experiments (go 4 day work weeks!)
  
• Mark Cuban (owner of the Dallas Mavericks and has paid over 1.5 million in fines to the NBA) posted a few of his rules for startups (he doesn’t like the espresso machine idea, darn!)

At Well.ca, we’re trying some stuff to make our office the best it can be. Examples are:

• Open space — We have a huge open space as our office. At times this doesn’t work the greatest, I might be in the middle of a problem and be interrupted only to lose my train of thought. However everyone can keep in touch with the pulse of the company and knows what is happening as it happens, a huge benefit with a company so small.
• French toast breakfasts — Ali, our CEO & founder, is starting to become famous for his french toast. We might not talk work during these breakfasts, but we can discuss everything else and grow as a team with a common goal.
• Everything on the table — Ali is awesome about keeping everyone up to date and informed on what’s happening with Well.ca. There isn’t once that I’ve felt in the dark, and I know for me that means that I feel even more a part of Well.ca

That’s just a few of my observations about Well.ca. Hopefully I’ll get Ali to comment on some of these and maybe come up with some of his own.

I’m really looking forward to moving into our new office, it’s a really awesome space. Since I’m a foodie, I love the fact that we have a full kitchen (a gas stove, BBQ, oven, fridge, and about 4 dozen huge drawers and other various storage). Time to bake instead of work.

I had a lot of people comment on the brownies and pecans I made for the party last night. Because of the amount of compliments I received I decided to post the two recipes. Unfortunately, I can’t say that I created these on my own, I found them both on the internet on some great food sites. For the brownies, I do like to add some variations: different kinds of nuts, Kahlua, Bailey’s, and coffee.

Dark Chocolate Brownies (warning: may cause incredible sugar highs)

Source: http://www.scharffenberger.com/re0102.asp

• 6 oz bittersweet chocolate
• 3/4 cup butter
• 1 1/2 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup flour
• Optional: nuts, Bailey’s, Kahlua, coffee/espresso powder

1. Preheat oven to 325`F
2. Melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler (a bowl placed over a simmering pot of water). Or microwave the chocolate and butter for 45 seconds then stir and, if needed, microwave it again in 15 second increments.
3. Stir in the sugar until mixed.
4. In a separate dish, lightly beat the eggs and vanilla together.
5. Add the vanilla and eggs to the chocolate mixture. You may need to use a folding action to get the eggs to mix in.
6. At this point, you can add the optional ingredients if you desire.
7. Mix in the flour.
8. Pour into a greased pan and cook in the oven for approximately 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes up with crumbs (not batter).

Candied Pecans

Source: http://www.slashfood.com/2006/10/24/candied-pecans-easy-and-addictive/

• 2 1/2 cup raw pecans
• 1 egg white, lightly beaten
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp allspice
• 1/2 tsp salt (I generally skip this, up to you)

1. Preheat oven to 300`F.
2. Stir the pecans and egg white together.
3. In a small bowl or dish, stir the sugar, cinnamon, salt(optional), and allspice.
4. Pour the sugar mixture over the nuts and stir until well coated.
5. Spread nuts over a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
6. Bake for 30 minutes.
7. When the nuts are cool, break them apart and serve. They can be stored at room temperature in a airtight container.

Good luck!