I guess this is a lesson to people who make long-form ads with only music and no voice-over: someone’s going to take your ad and add their own, just like the YouTube user known as “Raboneable”, who did just that with the ad for Asus Eee Pad Transformer. Watch the video above and enjoy the lulz.
In case you never saw the original, here it is:
The Urban Dictionary definition of "wat" is "the only proper response to something that makes absolutely no sense". The concept of wat is covered a little more completely on its page in Know Your Meme.
"Wat" is also the title of a funny demo of Ruby and JavaScript oddities presented by Gary Bernhardt at CodeMash 2012, a rather unlikely tech conference — it takes place in Sandusky, Ohio, in Ohio’s largest indoor waterpark. (If you just said "wat" right now, you’ve used the word correctly.)
In the video, you see this classic wat bit about undefined variables and assignment in Ruby:
You’ll also marvel at the way JavaScript treats (array + array) vs. (array + object) vs. (object + array) vs. (object + object):
Watch the video, and wait for that final slide, which is pure, hilarious wat!
Creative Commons photo by paul (dex). Click to see the original.
HackDays — the gatherings that bring together Canada’s brightest geeks to build projects in a single day — kicks off 2012 with a session in Toronto on Saturday, February 12th. This one’s an interesting one, as it’s a part of the extended Social Media Week, the global multi-city conference taking place from February 13th through 17th. Here’s a quick explanation of what Social Media Week, and this year’s theme, Empowering Change Through Collaboration, are all about:
In keeping with the idea behind Social Media Week and HackDays’ spirit of building stuff with readily-available APIs, the theme of this Toronto HackDay is “Apps for Good”. Take the APIs — including Shopify’s ecommerce API — to build applications that can change the world around us for the better. You’ll have a day to do it, and the best apps, as determined by a panel of judges, will be awarded prizes (the prizes are usually pretty sweet: we’ve handed out MacBook Airs and iPads to the winners).
Shopify will be there! More specifically, I’ll be there, representing Shopify, along with some other Shopifolks, to help run the event, help participants with the Shopify API and generally provide moral support to everyone there. We’ll also be sponsoring the event and providing a prize for the best use of our API.
If you’re looking to take on a hacking challenge and put your skills to the test, meet your fellow geeks and build an app for the greater good, HackDays Toronto is for you! Sign up here (registration is free for hackers building apps), and do it soon — space is limited!
Click the image to see it at full size.
Let’s see what we can do to make sure this never happens, okay?
There’s a lot of work involved with running a shop. Inventory comes and goes as products come in from suppliers and go out to customers, orders come and go as customers make them and they get fulfilled, and there’s also the matter of picking, packing, labelling and shipping.
Bizelo eRetail Centralized Inventory Management (or CIM for short) is an app that helps you get on top of all this work. With it, it’s a lot simpler to stay informed about your inventory, know when you’re low on stock and what your packing costs are and pack, label and ship orders. It’s available in the Shopify App Store right now.
We chatted with the people at Bizelo about their eRetail CIM app and asked them some questions. Read on to find out more about their app, in their own words.
One of the constant struggles for online retailers is managing their inventory, keeping track of orders, and handling the various steps between the time an order is received and it goes out the door. This is made especially more complicated when you are dealing with inventory that appears in many places and is constantly going in and out of stock.
The Bizelo Centralized Inventory Management (CIM) app is specially built for online retailers (we call them "etailers") sellers to manage their inventory. It pulls all Shopify items and inventory into a central inventory dashboard as well as all recent orders. New orders are automatically pushed to the Bizelo eRetail CIM app, and we sync quantities of items in both directions with Shopify and other Shopify or non-Shopify stores. The system keeps track of both what’s available in your online store(s) as well as what you have in your warehouse. The system also allows you to create kits and bundles of items as well as import and replenish your stock in one go.
In addition, we also simplify the pick and pack process. Bizelo CIM provides a quick and easy way to create optimized packing lists to make sure you include the right items from the right shelves in your packages. The app also provides deep insight into the movement history of your inventory, telling you which items are selling the quickest, and providing insight into your profitability. The app also integrates with a number of other online services including Magento, Etsy, and Cartkeeper, with other platforms being announced soon!
Pictured above: Bizelo eRetail CIM’s dashboard.
Bizelo eRetail CIM is packed with features that make it easy to…
If you sell lots of things online, get a lot of orders, and/or have multiple shops, keeping accurate track of inventory is a difficult task! Our customers frequently tell us that our app saves them hours, if not days, across their month’s worth of orders and inventory. If you’re spending time adjusting inventory quantities in your stores or tearing your hair out when items sell out when you least expect it, our Bizelo eRetail CIM app is for you!
Pictured above: Ron and James from Bizelo.
Bizelo, the creators of the eRetail CIM app is a growing startup company focused on filling the gaps that small businesses need with online apps that are cost-effective (most just $25 a month), work simply, and simply work. Our company was started in 2010 by experienced Internet entrepreneurs that have started and sold a number of successful online business. In the midst of all that, one of the founders tried (unsuccessfully) to start a new apparel brand. That’s when he realized that a) he’s better at software than retail and b) the retail industry still has a ton of gaps that make being a small business in the industry tough. For this reason, he partnered up with his colleagues and started Bizelo. We’ve been growing quickly ever since! We’re so far a handful of employees with hundreds of customers, soon growing to thousands of subscribers!
You can find us at http://www.bizelo.com, where you’ll see a growing array of web-based apps built for small businesses. We’re very active on Twitter (@bizelo), and you can also find us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/bizelo.
The company grew out of Ron’s frustration with existing small business apps, especially stemming from his experience trying to grow an apparel company. After identifying no credible solutions for dealing with multiple-storefront inventory management and syncing, Ron developed the first app in conjunction with James that launched the Bizelo company. Since then, the company has been growing leaps and bounds and is about to release a whole slew of new apps for Shopify customers including a new Accounting Sync app, Pack and Ship, Returns Management, and Supply Management apps.
As with all Shopify apps, you can find Bizelo eRetail CIM on its page at the Shopify App Store. It’s price is $19.95 – $29.95 per month, and it comes with a 30-day free trial.
This article also appears in the Shopify Blog.
Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson delivered his “State of the City” address yesterday, during which he honoured some of the capital city’s remarkable citizens. Among them were Shopify’s CEO Tobias “Tobi” Lütke and CPO (Chief Platform Officer) Harley Finkelstein for their work in building Shopify. Ottawa Business Journal calls Shopify Ottawa’s fastest-growing company, and it’s one of Canada’s most successful high-tech startups. We often like to say that Shopify is a Silicon Valley company that just happens to be located in Ottawa, and they make my job easy: it’s a damned easy company to evangelize.
Congrats, Tobi and Harley – and thanks for the job!
This article also appears in The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century.
After a wave of “Shit $SOME_SUBCULTURE Says” videos comes one whose lines you might find hauntingly familiar if you work in tech: Shit Silicon Valley Says.
Created by husband-and-wife team Tom Conrad and Kate Imbach, it’s bang-on – I’m guilty of having uttered most of the statements made in the video, including:
$SOME_CONFERENCE …or was it Burning Man?” Watch, enjoy, and cringe slightly if you need to.
This article also appears in the Shopify Technology Blog and The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century.