I’m not going to lie to you, this is probably the most useful post thus far on my blog (if you’re a young entrepreneur, that is).

Here’s the list of all the grants and loans (aka free money) for young Canadian entrepreneurs residing in Ontario:
Ontario:

Youth Entrepreneurship Partnerships Grants for NON-PROFIT Organizations- provides funding of up to $100,000 per year for up to 3 years to non-profit organizations in Ontario that facilitate the development of an enterprising culture amongst Ontario’s youth (typically between the ages of 12 – 29) by providing them with educational, experiential, and entrepreneurial opportunities and programs.
Young Entrepreneurs Program: Summer Company - up to $3000 for students between 15 and 29 to start a summer business.

Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program - not clear on the benefits, it’s like an “after hours” co-op program for more info contact:
Ministry of Education and Training – MET Hotline Telephone: (416) 326-5656, 1-800-387-5656

For the complete list, click here

Enjoy.

- Peter Kao

Want to learn how to use Photoshop? Let Donnie guide you with his hilarious tutorial videos!

Episode 1:

Episode 2:

Episode 3:

Episode 4:

Episode 5:

- Peter Kao    

Just an update on my operating system problem, I had installed Ubuntu over Vista since I was fed up with it self-destructing (who knows when it will do it again).

Ubuntu is currently the most popular Linux distribution out there and I had always loved it. After spending countless hours (2 days straight FYI) configuring and setting up the system to get it to feel and work exactly the way I want, the system was waiting for a priority upgrade. So, this is when I was reminded why I had quit Ubuntu before. When I upgraded my system, everything went kaput. I had to re-install EVERYTHING, but since I prefer the operating system over Windows any day, I reinstalled it again. Got everything working again, then I decided to neglect the priority upgrade and upgraded my hardware drivers. Then, kaput! AGAIN. This time my sound card went dead. This was the last draw. Ironically, I installed Vista over Ubuntu and am re-doing my configurations on that.

Ubuntu is truly remarkable if you haven’t used it before. You can see an example here:

I really think that Ubuntu has a chance to go mainstream, but before that, it has to have better hardware support and a more stable upgrading process (one that doesn’t involve constant destruction to the system files), not to mention more support for 64-bit systems.

All in all,  I have wasted a lot of time on computers lately, mainly trying to get them to work the way they should. I am even starting to feel a bit annoyed with them…oh noes! My nerdy side is slowly diminishing! (the fact that I just said that proves to be on the contrary).

- Peter Kao

UPDATE: I’ve been accepted to Velocity. Woo hoo!

Sweet! I was just notified that I have been selected for the next round of admissions for the student-entrepreneur residence, Velocity.

My interview will last for about 30 minutes this Friday. We’ll see how that goes

Learn more about Velocity from my older post.

- Peter Kao

I was running a routine CHKDSK on my laptop last week and according to the Vista there were some files that required moving. So, Vista moved them around for me to “solve the problem” but instead of optimizing my laptop, it self-destructed by moving BOOT records to weird places which means that my computer can’t boot up anymore!

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