Colophon
Hello and welcome to JonathanGrenier.ca where I post my thought on current technology news. My name is Jonathan Grenier and I’ve spent the last 13 years as a software and Web developer here in Montreal, Canada. I’m currently the president of Techniconseils and the Vice-President of the the Montreal Mac User Group (Club Macintosh de Montréal).
As a developer, I currently specialize in iOS and Android development for mobile applications as well as PHP and Ruby on Rails for Web sites and Web applications. Over the years I’ve worked with just about every Web technology out there, from early HTML 1 and ASP 1.0 all the way to HTML5 and Java, Rails and PHP.
Because spending 16 hours a day programming and geeking out just wasn’t enough, I’m lucky enough to be a part of the administration team for the local Mac User Group. As the VP of that company, I manage all web activities and also do a 1h to 2h presentation every month to demo cool software and show off my geekness. Be sure to stop by if you want to meet me.
It’s those duties as host of the user group, my various contacts at tech companies and resellers and my never ended thirst for tech news and opinions that has led me to become somewhat of a reference when it comes to Apple tech and gadgets among friends and the local Mac scene. Many have asked me to share some of my research and my opinions on technology, so that’s what you’ll find here.
About This Blog
You’ll notice this blog has very few distractions and is kept simple. There is no comment system, no publicity, no flashing images anyhere. I’ve tried to design this site to be as readable as possible, although some will no doubt complain about the non-white background. If you’ve read Daring Fireball by the excellent John Gruber, you’ll no doubt notice a similarity. I have a lot of respect for what John does and when it was time to design this site, I felt his approach to minimalism and readability was a very good one.
This site is run on my company’s dedicated server currently hosted by GoDaddy. The site is running WordPress and a custom HTML5 theme I created myself. The database for the site is MySQL. I write most of the posts on this blog using the web interface, but I do use the official WordPress client for iPad from time to time and the excellent MarsEdit on the Mac to edit some posts.
Impartiality, Conflicts of Interest and Journalism
This is a personal blog and as such it features my opinion on different technology topics. I don’t own any stocks in Apple or any other tech company I cover, although I do have a package of stock managed by my banks, some of which may be in the tech field.
I sometime get comments about my impartiality or lack there-of when it comes to Apple. While my first love is and always will be technology in general, those who know me in real life all know that I love Apple products. I teach Mac seminars, I host a weekly french-language podcast on Apple news and all my computers, routers, phones & tablets are Apple-branded.
So yeah, expect to read a lot of positive on Apple here. Not because they pay me or because I benefit from it, but because I enjoy using their products and I very often agree with their philosophy. Notice that I don’t claim to be a journalist anywhere. I’m a tech enthusiast, nothing else.
Finally, I often talk about 3rd party software. Again, I don’t benefit from those posts except when noted. I love well-done and well-designed software and I buy a lot of it. Because of that, I will often talk about them. The iTunes and Mac App Stores have been a blessing for me and a curse on my credit card.