Technology

Clikbrix, an award-winning QR Code and mobile website solution for real estate professionals is changing the way you buy or rent your next home.

Usually, when it comes to looking for a new home, house hunters spend hours poring through one-dimensional data found on the Multiple Listing Service. And, with the vast number of properties and the vast number of agents to help move them, the sea of sameness can create a stressful situation for a potential homebuyer.

In today's time-crunched world, this isn't good enough. The world has gone mobile and consumer expectations have changed.

There's hardly been any job growth in Canada in the last little while -- in fact, a recent Statistics Canada report shows that employment growth has stagnated. Meanwhile, nobody seems quite sure where the economy's heading. As a parent of two young boys I find myself worrying about what opportunities will exist for them when they're ready to embark on their own career paths.

What I'm realizing is that when it comes to kids and their future, there's no time like the present to start teaching them skills that could eventually turn into employment. There are many classes and camps for kids offered as after school programs or on weekends that could be fun ways to learn skills or spark an interest that will help them find their way to a career later in life.

Your computer is being frozen because you're a child pornography suspect. Signed: Your friendly neighbourhood Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

This message pops up on your screen and you gasp. What? Me? A child pornographer?

Within seconds the first part becomes reality: your computer is frozen. The second part of the message was a perfect lie, of course. The RCMP had nothing to do with it. And neither had the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (a.k.a. CSIS). Or any other law enforcement agency, for that matter.

Marc Springer used to sell Harley Davidson motorcycles, but then the economy took a dive and people didn't buy as many man toys as they used to. Springer's income was dwindling rapidly, so it was time for him to move on -- now what?

"I was a teamster truck driver back in my early 20s and I always had this burning desire to drive the big trucks. It was something I always wanted to do and it just never happened. So, when I began to strike out on my own I thought, 'Well, I've got zero income and zero working capital, how do I start a company?"

His wife reminded him that he had a leaf blower sitting in the garage and suggested he go clear the lawns in the neighbourhood. But Springer thinks big, so he began extrapolating how many employees he'd need to do all the surrounding neighbourhoods and quickly realized he'd need a trailer. But when he went on Craigslist looking for a trailer, he found a 1999 frieghtliner truck with a 20 foot flat-bed.

"They wanted $20,000 for the [trailer] and I thought, 'You know, I think I'm just going to buy a truck.'"

He booked a load the day he bought the truck and was just going to use his contacts in the scrap metal business to haul scrap metal in Seattle and the surrounding area, until he hit the internet and found a veritable trucker's Shangri-La.

"I was looking to fill the truck with scrap and I was doing pretty well at that, making decent money and one day, I was on the computer wondering, 'How do you find loads? There's got to be a better way to do this. How do these guys find the freight to get on their trucks?'"

That's when he stumbled onto uShip.com. It opened all the doors to all of the business opportunities he enjoys today, including becoming a reality TV star as the handlebar mustache sporting, big-rig driving, cast member of A&E's Shipping Wars.

Related Links:

• Free Shipping Day Comes to Canada
• Moving Day Scam - Busted!
• Gilt.com Now Ships to Canada

They're the products you use everyday - and never think twice about. But you'd be surprised to learn how these 10 products came to be. Some were by accident, some were by necessity, but all share an element of random genius and the spirit of entrepreneurship that brought them to market. From the little blue pill that's enlivened many a sex life to the magical money dispensers we hope to find on every corner, these 10 everyday items all had curious beginnings.

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Do you still trust social media? Are you still using them?

If you have no problem with others knowing intimate details of your life, and not only those facts that you have chosen to put on your pages, fine. But what if you are of the opinion that your credit card number, plus details of access to your bank accounts should be exclusively yours and nobody else's? Real-life stories confirm what many have suspected all along: social media networks are sieves. Some more than others, but all of them are.

Here's a real-life story that should scare the heck out of all Facebook users.

Thousands of college and university students across Canada are gearing up to muscle their way into the tight Canadian job market.

Clarke Sciamanna isn't one of them.

Armed with the knowledge that some people have earned their living from posting content on YouTube, he turned his hobby of creating videos targeted at high school students into a well oiled-cash machine. Since 2009, his InformalMantis self-help videos have gradually built a steady, loyal following.

"I could live my dream of helping people on YouTube by posting how-to tutorials," he says. "Right now it's putting a big dent in my tuition and I'm not even a full-time YouTuber, but it helps as a university student."

This is called bargain hunting at its finest: price-conscious consumers enter a store, look at the wares it offers, take out their smartphone and proceed to check out prices for the same goods elsewhere, looking for better deals. And if they find better deals, they proceed to buy them online, without even leaving the store where they had been checking them out in the first place.

Retailers are shocked: how could they throw such shameless people (in their view) out without hurting their own reputation? And how could they check on what better prices the would-be shoppers see online so they could adjust?

Retailers fear that the only footfall they may see in future will be from people checking out products in person before buying online from rivals.

Imagine, if you will: you're sitting at home, minding your own business, whatever it is. The phone rings. You answer.

And you hear that you've taken part in a phone survey some time ago (a long time ago, conveniently, such as six months, so you could have forgotten all about it). The company's been so ecstatic about your answers that it wants to reward you with a gift.

HUH?

Yes, you're about to receive a, say, shower head, so, when can we deliver it? And, by the way, your spouse's got to be present for the presentation, too.