I am currently working as an IT recruiter, a difficult and low paying job, where success is few and far between. Still, I get to help some people some of the time. Oddly, I find this one of the benefits of the job. I can also shed light on some of the quirkiness of the job search that others might not tell a candidate.

Hiring Freezes Are A Reality: The reality is that Canada’s economy, and I can only personally talk about Toronto, is not robust. I believe we are still in a recession. In this economic slump companies are simply not hiring. A company will hire when current infrastructure cannot keep up with demand. In this case the demand is not there. Millennial, you might have done everything in your power, but you live in the larger society, and can only prosper when society prospers. Timing and luck play a large role in everyone’s future, and you, like myself are unlucky. This is no lecture, Millennial, there are many other people such as myself that are also suffering with unemployment or underemployment. Still, Millennial, this is not your fault.

Job Description not Accurate: Jobs that are posted on job boards rarely contain the necessary information about the position. I am unsure about why this is, but from experience dealing with actual hiring managers, their needs and wants are above and beyond the written description. Talking to the hiring manager is so critical that to submit candidates with the EXACT requirements for the job is an educated gamble. While you might think you have all the requirements, in reality you may be way off the mark. This is also true for recruiters. A second way we get information about a position is to submit candidates for a job and see if they stick. This trial and error methodology is more prevalent than you think. Even better if the candidate gets a phone interview. We can then pick his brain for information that will help us further focus our search. The bottom line is that candidates really are not at fault when their resume does not line up with the job description, because the job description is not reflective of the job. Millennial, this is not your fault.

Job Not Really AvailableVery often a job will be posted but there is really no job available. There are many reasons for this. A consulting companies will bid on a job, and then will start a job search in expectation that they will land the contract. Usually there is a lot of negotiation and waiting between the consulting company and their customer. In the end if the consulting company does not land the contract, their posted jobs simply vanish. Other companies might post a job position in expectation of getting funding. The long wait you might experience is the wait, often times futile, for funding to arrive. Millennial, you do not have control over these processes, but they do occur and are not to your benefit. Millennial, this is not your fault.

The Futility of Job Boards and working with Recruiters: I too, have applied to so many job on Workopolis and Monster, and have experienced the futility of this effort. Yes, I am sure there are some people that find work by applying for positions, but I am not one of them. Still, it is important for you to post up your resume. As a recruiter I use these job boards to find candidates and help them navigate the rough waters to find work. Unfortunately, Millennial, recruiters need to be paid for their efforts. This money is paid not by the candidate but by the hiring company. Only jobs that are difficult to fill are handed to recruiters like myself. Without exception the jobs require at least 4 years of experience. Sorry, Millennial, recruiters will not help you. Good recruiters, ones that care about people, can give you advice about your resume, interviewing tips and the overall job search. Your typical recruiter will not give a crap. I have had most of my experience with the bad ones. The reality, Millennial, is that a recruiter will not help you. Millennial, this is not your fault.

Phone Interviews are the Norm: Critical, are today’s phone interviews. Phone interviews saves the company time and effort as a screening process. To do well you need ensure you do a couple of important things. Firstly, ensure that you have a reliable and static-free phone. I have had numerous candidates get cut simply because they refused to use a better phone. Employers that cannot hear you clearly have no choice but to think badly of your communications skills.

Stuck in Life: Without gainful employment, you are treading water. This is true and not just for Millennials but also for myself. We have house repairs and expenses that need to be paid, kids to feed, educate and entertain. Our lives that we thought were going fine now it a large block of concrete and top us cold. Like you, we can only tread water and try to cope. Some of us, Millennial, do understand because we are in the same position as you, and when this economic situation turns around we will be there to support you. Right now, we are down and out. Millennial, you are not alone, and this is not your fault.

Really, What is the secret to Getting a Good Job: There is no secret elixer to this problem. We as a society in Canada, specifically in Toronto, are in a tight bind, and while you feel its direct sting and wrath, so do many other people, including myself. Personally I have become more philosophical. Firstly, even though times are tough, there is no need to do anything illegal or that you are uncomfortable. Keep your integrity intact, because it is better to hold your head high and be poor than to have a little cash in your pocket but be ashamed to tell your Mom how you earned it. Secondly, lower your financial expectations. I am sure you have done this already, out of necessity, as I have. Become low maintenance and ensure you can live on as little as possible. This is a tough pill to swallow, and an even tougher pill for me to tell my kids. They are too young to fully understand this. Thirdly, find ways to enjoy yourself and to enjoy life. This is very tough for me because I support my family. Recessions such as these can rip families apart. Find ways to be happy. Finding out what makes you happy is difficult but a very worthwhile endeavour.

Millennial, your life is on hold, your self-confidence is shot and you have been screwed by society, all not your fault. But this is how life unfolds, and you are not alone. Work hard, find opportunities, be open minded, take chances and be thankful for what you have. When you have more money, maybe in the near future, you will be more grateful for the accomplishments you have in your life. We, all, shall overcome.

Hi Rob,

I thought I’d thank you for digging into the issues facing Millennials (a term I abhor, but anyhow) as they finish school and enter the workforce. Perhaps that should read “enter the ranks of the unemployed,” but for some incomprehensible reason, I’m still hopeful. Don’t worry though, it’s fading fast!

My story’s about the same as most, but I’m hoping that it might shed some light on some other issues that we face in working with what we’ve been dealt. I finished up at university at about the same time that Lehman Bros. went under, after having seen the very obvious warning signs at Bear Stearns et al. Admittedly, this wasn’t great timing, but I thought that with a lot of hard work, sacrifice, and a bit of luck, things would work out alright. What I got instead was this:

- Short-term contract position after short-term contract position.

- Wages that weren’t at all related to the realities of short-term contract positions, ie: way too low to make up for the short-term, no-benefits nature of the work.

- Experience that was almost completely unrelated to anything I was interested in, career-wise.

- Hiring freezes at a ludicrous number of places.

- A complete inability to “grow up,” so to speak

At the age of 29, I’ve likely forever lost the following opportunities due to cost and probable inability to make up for lost wages and career potential:

- Getting married.

- Having children.

- Owning a home that’s bigger than 500 square feet. (hint: that’s not big.)

- Studying any more, whether that means grad school, law school, or even just night classes at a random community college.

- Retirement. Sure, I’d love to be investing for it. But with what money?

Am I bitter about all of this? Not entirely, because it all just sort of works itself out. If I can’t get married (dating is tough when you’re broke) and have kids, I don’t need a home bigger than 500 square feet, nor is more study to obtain employment that I’m not only happier with and better at than what I already do but also more lucrative really necessary, since I’ll only be supporting myself. As for the issues revolving around savings, investments, and retirement, you may be surprised to find out how much happier one can be if you simply accept that you’ll be working until very close to your death. Why? Assuming I do end up doing this, I’ll have a consistent income coming in until death, which should make up for lack of retirement funds.

What makes me extremely bitter is how poorly people of my age and younger have been treated by potential employers. You specialize in economics, personal finance, and business, but not what some call “Human Resources.” Yes, the economy, inflation, etc etc etc, all make up part of the problem, but one of the biggest and most overlooked reasons for the issues surrounding people my age is the HR department. How so? Let me walk you through the steps involved in applying to an “entry-level” position these days.

- Troll career websites, Craigslist, university career centres, and professional associations for potential job opportunities, networking events, or possibilities to reach out for an informational interview.

- Line up 100+ legitimate job opportunities that you are actually interested in and qualified for (that’s important), complete with job descriptions and a contact person if you can find one, which you usually can’t no matter how much research you do. Why 100+? You’ll see…

- Perform in-depth research on the 100 or so different companies you’re applying to, including history, financials if they’re publicly traded, growth plan, and what you can tell of their corporate strategy from public sources. Then scour the web for any press coverage of said 100+ companies, because the more you know the better off you are.

- While you’re at it, be sure to reach out for 12 or so informational interviews. They’re a great way to get more info on your potential career paths and gain contacts.

- Also, attend a few networking events, which will inevitably end up costing you a significant amount of money. Console yourself with the knowledge that your $45 event ticket (you scammed the student rate, after all) “entitles” you to a “free” drink. You’ll have plenty of time to sip on it too because pretty much no one will be interested in talking to you, possible exception being other newly finished students doing exactly what you’re doing.

- Prepare your cover letters. This means 100+ completely custom, tailored, impeccably written letters that will likely end up being addressed to something along the lines of “Dear Hiring Manager.”

- Email, mail, courrier, or otherwise deliver your 100+ application packages.

- Wait. While waiting, do whatever you can to find 100+ more job opportunities that fit your skills, education, experience, and interests.

- Repeat steps 3, 4, 5, and 6.

- Give yourself a break. You’ve earned a beer, though you can’t actually afford one. Call home, maybe mom and dad will sense that desperation in your voice that stems from only having had one meal per day for a week, take pity on you, and send you a bit of cash. Then go buy that $3 tall can of cheap beer from the liquor store. Oh, you thought I meant a bar? Silly you, that’s far too expensive! Be sure to feel so guilty about that beer that you end up not drinking it and leaving it hidden at the back of your fridge. This will help you cope with the feelings of shame that come with having dared spend $3 on a beer when tap water is so much cheaper.

- After a minimum of a week, but more likely a month, you’ll have anywhere between one to eight responses from HR departments, depending on whether you sent 100+ or 200+ application packages. These responses will excite you. That’s a mistake, because a half to two-thirds of them will be generic, computer generated “thank you for applying” emails that will be utterly meaningless and contain no usable, actionable information. Out of whatever’s left, consider yourself lucky if you get a single interview, which will likely be done over the phone. In person?!? Lucky. Very, very lucky.

- Have your interview. You’ll be one of 12 or so being interviewed, so good luck.

- Send thank-you emails to interviewers.

- Find 100 more job opportunities, repeat steps 3 through 6 with them while waiting for word from and following up with HR at the company you interviewed with.

- After about 3 weeks, get an email response from the HR people at the company you interviewed with. Wait an hour or two to open it, because you’re nervous, excited, and generally hopeful. Open it and feel the crushing disappointment of being told you won’t be making the second round of interviews.

- Repeat steps 1 through 14. Ad nauseam.

Those 14 steps assume everything goes well and roughly according to plan. They don’t, and I’ve got a couple of recent examples for you. I’ve recently interviewed with 2 companies, for jobs I’m very much qualified for. I’ve made it through 2 rounds of phone interviews for one job (it’s a province away, otherwise I’d have interviewed in person the second time), and 1 phone interview, an in-person interview, and a reference check for the other job. The interview processes for both positions started at roughly the same time, about a month ago. I last talked to each company about 2 weeks ago. Despite diligent but not annoying follow-up, I’ve gotten exactly zero information as to the state of my application with both companies. Until today. One emailed me a meaningless “We’re in the final stages of the process” email, which I should have expected. The other I managed to get on the phone. The conversation on her end consisted of random combinations of the words “um, yeah, see, like, I don’t have, any info, but, if, when, there, you, will be contacted.” What do I expect to come of all of this? About a month from now, I’ll likely randomly get an email from an HR person at one of the two (but not from both) companies, telling me that while they really liked me, I wasn’t the right person for the role and they hired someone else. That’s it. The kicker? They likely didn’t hire anyone at all and wasted everyone’s time.

At this point, you’re probably wondering why I’m not looking at retail, restaurant, or coffee shop jobs. The truth is that I am, but due to my resume, experience, and other such things, these places assume I’ll leave as soon as something “corporate” pops up. Fair enough, and if I’m honest I probably would, but this all leaves me rather short of options. Also, due to job-hunt and financial issues, my age group finds it extremely hard to go out and be in social settings, so the usual networking and schmoozing that previous generations indulged in isn’t nearly as possible for us, nor can we be as good at it when we have the chance to. Lack of practice has that effect. I should also tell you that not everyone I know has suffered the same fate as I have. A select few of my friends made it out of school and got decent jobs. Most still aren’t making enough to save, invest, or buy a place. Many barely get by, doing low-level work they don’t really believe in with little job security. Exactly one of my friends has “made it,” so to speak. He’s on partner-track at one of the big accounting firms. Sounds good, right? It is, except for a few minor issues. First, the likelihood of ever reaching partner is so slim that it’s essentially non-existent. Second, the hours have nearly killed him. His average workweek is 65-70 hours. Average. It’s higher some weeks, topping off at nearly 90 hours/week. Yes you did read that right. He and his wife did at one point own a rather nice place. His wife still does, but with the guy she’s with now that her lawyers are finally done raping my friend through the divorce process. Happily, his firm offered him legal assistance. Why? Doing so made it a lot easier for him to continue working an average of 65-70 hours/week. How kind of them…

There’s a glimmer of hope in all of this, and it’s the one I’m still reaching for. Seeing as how a job that provides a decent income, some job stability, home ownership, savings, investing, and retirement are all but out of reach for me, I’ve discovered a way to make life bearable. I call it the “lifestyle job,” and it consists of working at companies that are involved in non-work things, say sports or hobbies, that you absolutely love. In my case these include skiing, cycling, the outdoors in general. Yes, the salaries and benefits are generally terrible, but these companies make it bearable. They provide access to activities you love at a significantly discounted rate, cheap or free gear, and time to play. Making $36 000/ year is a lot more bearable when you start with 3 weeks/year, the office has a bouldering room and a bar, you can bring your dog to work (just kidding! You can’t afford a dog), you get gear you need to do what you love for next to nothing, and you’ve got time to go out and enjoy the sports you love. I’ll never own a condo in a ski town, but at least I’ll be able to make day trips, right?

It’s far from what I wanted. I wanted 65 hour weeks in a high pressure corporate environment. I wanted the tailored suits, the chance at a high income, the BMW, the prestige, the respect, and the power. I wanted to be someone. I wanted to be able to afford to donate to charities that are important to me. I was considering children, marriage, the house, all of it. It’s not happening.

Rob, we’re not no-future losers. You know those high-school kids who study hard, get great grades, have part-time jobs, and manage to excel at athletics all at the same time? That was us. The university students who go to class, make the dean’s list, run extra-curricular clubs, and still make it out to the bar once in a while? We were those guys. We’ve got nothing against hard work and earning our way. I’d argue that we’re even rather good at it. You know who gets jobs today? The CEO’s kid. The CFO’s niece. The VP of Marketing’s next door neighbour’s kid. Nepotism and cronyism are what it takes, and even that isn’t always enough.

Being willing to work is absolutely USELESS if you can’t get a foot in the door. The economy is only part of the problem.

All the best, and thank you again for writing what you wrote. It’s about time someone said it.

It is never easy to admit fault, but only through acknowledgment of an error can said error be corrected. In Toronto’s G20 summit in 2010 Toronto and other police and RCMP beat up and violated the rights of over 1,500 Canadian citizens. The police became the criminal element. It is only the passing of almost 2 years of time that this wrong is beginning to turn. Maybe.

There is no question that police beat up and arrested innocent Canadian civilians at Toronto’s G20 summit in 2010. Over 1,100 people were arrested, only 30 or so were ever charged, and only a handful were ever convicted of anything. All the rest, were just used as punching bags for the police and politicians. I know not if this was malicious or just benign neglect, but I do know that it was unequivocally illegal and should not have happened in the first place. Blame systemic problems with the chain of command within the political and police system,

More time will need to pass before the acknowledgment of illegality occurs. This one by the Office of the Independent Police Review (OIPRD), as well as the numerous Ontario Ombudsman’s reports is a good first step in the right direction, but Canada has a much farther path to follow. No government, Federal, Provincial nor municipal, has acknowledged that mistakes were made at the Toronto G20 Summit 2010. I hope this acknowledgment will occur in the future, in order to shore up the confidence of the Canadian legal system.

“What occurred over the course of the weekend resulted in the largest mass arrests in Canadian history. These disturbances had a profound impact not only on the citizens of Toronto and Canada generally, but on public confidence in the police as well,” writes Gerry McNeilly, head of the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD), a citizen agency that today tabled the 300- page systemic review report.

source

More significantly, very few people have been charged with beating up Toronto citizens. I believe that only two officers have been charged to date. All the rest, as well as their superiors that gave them orders, and the politicians that gave the police superiors their orders, have not been charged, and may never be charged. The bigger the crime, the increased prevalence that no one will be held accountable. This seems to be how life rolls, and what I believe will eventually happen.

The wheels of justice may move ever so slowly, but does not touch all Canadian citizens the same. Some are immune to prosecution, and this includes the politicians and the police. Please prove me wrong.

The Walkability project is interesting to me in that I would rather walk or ride a bike to shop or go places yet I live in the suburbs, a statistically less walkable area of Toronto. While we do have better air and a far greater supply of Chinese groceries, I hope that my neighbourhood’s walkability will increase.

The study reveals an overwhelming preference for walkable and transit-supportive neighbourhoods across the GTA, with that preference being strongest in the City of Toronto. It demonstrated that that there are specific neighbourhood features, such as having shops and services within walking distance of homes, and having a variety of small and medium sized food stores within walking distance of homes, that are strongly desired by Toronto residents. It also found that there is a strong latent demand for more walkable neighbourhood features among residents in the City who currently live in less walkable areas.

The study found that people living in walkable neighbourhoods across the GTA, and in Toronto, do more utilitarian walking, take transit more often, drive less often and less far, and have lower body weights, than those who live in less walkable neighbourhoods. These results suggest that people living in more walkable neighbourhoods in the GTA are more physically active with less chance of developing a chronic disease, than those who live in less walkable neighbourhoods. They also suggest that there may be significant air quality, climate change, and traffic reduction benefits associated with walkable and transit-supportive neighbourhoods.

The City of Toronto report has a lovely graphic outlining the walkability of the whole city. Unfortunately the city is so large and my area of Toronto looks so small on the map that I cannot easily identify my house, neighbourhood and its walkability. Therefore it was important to me to map this walkability graphic to a map of Toronto specifically targetting North-East Scarborough. The Walkability graphic is then superimposed over top of the map of Toronto, thereby showing you roads and other landmarks. Find your house, and the related colours will show you the walkabilty information. The walkabilty information is very blurry because the original graphic is quite small and superimposed over the huge map of Toronto. Zooming onto only a small area of Toronto can only result in a blurry image.

Larger image

I followed documentation from a couple of very key people, which helped a lot. Still, there are certain issues that threw me off. I have added my experiences where I had issues. The Arduino IDE is the standard method to connect to and program the Arduino. It is simple to use. If you want a more rich programming environment you can also use Eclipse, with the Arduino plugin. Either method can be used to program and run the Arduino. Here are the steps:

1. Download the Arduino IDE, install and test
2. Download and install Eclipse, configure
3. While in Eclipse, download the Arduino plugin, configure and test.

My little Arduino is so cute, as cute as a microprocessor can be. To install the Arduino IDE go here. Scroll down to the “All Ubuntu versions (old and new) can get the newest packages from Debian Sid”. This is the section for Xubuntu 10.04 LTS. You cannot install the Arduino IDE through the Ubuntu Software Centre, though some prerequisites are there. There are two packages to install, but the second package, only called “Arduino” has prerequisites that need to be installed before. The Arduino Core installed without issue. The Arduino only package has prerequisites, so install these first. The java6-runtime is available through the Software Centre. The librxtx-java is also available through the Software Centre, but is backlevel at v1.01. You must override this and install the one at Debian, even though it says the one at the Software Centre is more stable. Install libjna-java. After these prerequisites are installed, then install Arduino. This completes the Arduino IDE installation.

The Arduino IDE will be located at /usr/share/arduino. An icon will be added to your Xubuntu menu, under “Development”. Put an LED into port 13 (long leg of the LED) and ground (beside port 13, the short leg and flat side of the LED). Plug a USB cable into your PC and into your Arduino. From your Xubuntu screen, go “Applications”, “Development”, “Arduino”, which start up the Arduino IDE. Within the Arduino program go “Tools”, “Serial Port”, and select “/dev/ttyACM0″, which is the USB port. Then go “File” “Open” “Examples” “1. Basics” “Blink/” “Blink.ino”. Click the “check mark in a circle” on the top left side of the screen to verify. Then click the “right arrow in a circle”, right beside the “check mark in a circle”, which will send the program to the Arduino unit. The Arduino should start blinking. You are done verifying the Arduino IDE and its connection to the Arduino. If the Arduino IDE is good enough for you, you can stop here and play with your Arduino.

The next step, if you wish, is to install Eclipse and the Arduino plugin. The instructions are here and are very well written. I will add some comments for my Xubuntu 10.04 LTS experience. Specifically here are the instructions for installing Eclipse. Download the “Eclipse IDE for C/C++ Developers (includes Incubating components)” here, Linux 32 bit version (My computer is 32 bit). The download is pretty easy. Once downloaded, find it in your system. I found mine under /tmp. Double ckick it and it will install under your Xubuntu login name. It will create a folder called “Eclipse”. Using Terminal, move this folder to the /opt directory. For me a Xubuntu novice, this move to the /opt directory was the most difficult. Find the Eclipse icon in the /opt/eclipse directory, right click and make a desktop icon.

You now have Eclipse installed. Follow the Arduino Eclipse instructions. Where the instructions say “give a name to the workspace”, within Eclipse go “Window” “Preferences” “General” “Workspace” to get to the screen in the picture.

To Install the Arduino plugin follow the instructions and use: “http://www.baeyens.it/eclipse/update site”. Yes, there is a space between “update” and “site”. Ensure the URL is correct. I added the http:// in front and inadvertently duplicated this. Select the most current version under Arduino, which for me was 1.2.

In configuring the Arduino, go “Windows” “preferences” “Arduino” “Arduino”. My system put the Arduino IDE into “/usr/share/arduino”.

Once configured, Eclipse would not recognize the ttyACM0 USB port, the same one we used in the Arduino IDE. On the left side of Eclipse, right click on My_Sketch, then “Properties” at the very bottom. In port type “dev/ttyACM0″ over top “dev/ttyS0″. Copy an Arduino program, compile it and send it to the Arduino. This will give you an error like “port ttyACM0 not found”, but will successfully upload and run on your Arduino unit. To remove this error message follow these instructions at the very bottom, which says to edit your eclipse.ini file and add the following line: “-Dgnu.io.rxtx.SerialPorts=/dev/ttyACM0″ at the right spot. The error message will disappear and you can now easily develop in Eclipse with your little Arduino. When you unplug the Arduino, Eclipse will put in the ttyS0 port. Reattach the Arduino and the ttyACM0 port will return.

That is it for my experience. The most frustrating issues for this install were how to untar the Eclipse program into a folder /opt/Eclipse, but these are Xubuntu issues and not Eclipse nor Arduino issues.

Good Luck

There is absolutely nothing wrong with old PCs and they should last decades, not 4 years. When the Windows OS as well as other software cannot be upgraded, this reduces the usability of your PC. Often times the system as taken on so much bloated software baggage that it can hardly run. This software baggage can be from the OS or from downloaded programs. While there are programs that can help reduce this garbage, a slimmer and more efficient operating system may be your answer. Great care is needed when deleting software from an Old Windows PC because the delete of an important file could disable the computer.

Ubuntu, a variant of the Linux operating system, is by far much smaller than Windows. You can download the base of Ubuntu onto one CD, or 700MB. From this single CD you can actually run the OS on your Windows PC in order to test it, or you can install it. Installation can be a pure Ubuntu or a dual boot, where you have a choice to boot up with Ubuntu or Windows. This all comes on one single CD. I call that efficient.

Granted when you boot up with the Ubuntu CD, your PC will run slow. You really cannot run an operating system efficiently from a CD player, so expect this. When you install Ubuntu on your system everything will be faster than running from the CD.

Xubuntu is the slimmer version of Ubuntu, slimmer meaning there is less software and therefore works better on old PCs. Like its larger sibling Ubuntu, Xubuntu fits on one single CD. I chose to install Xubuntu on my old Intel P3 boxes. I noticed that with my original 256k of memory, Windows XP actually ran a little better than Xubuntu. Once I upgraded to 512k of RAM Xubuntu was much superior. It is really important to check how much memory and disk space you have before trying an install. Note that installing Xubuntu on 256m of RAM takes a long time, like 1.5 hrs.

Once Xubuntu 10.04 LTS was installed there were quite a few updates that were needed. This was easily done from Uubuntu’s Software Centre. Here there are trusted software upgrades that are pretty much guaranteed to work. This is quite different in the Windows world, where you hope that an upgrade will not impale your beloved PC. The Software Centre is quite impressive, not only efficiently upgrading your PC, but keeps track of all your installed packages. More importantly, the installs all worked. This was impressive, coming from the Windows world.

Xubuntu’s Software Centre also has many other downloads such as games. The Little Weed was happy to download and test these games, which he was easily able, and the games worked. What he did not like, he deleted, all without impacting the PC.

Firefox was very easy to upgrade and ran straight out of the box, as did hooking up to the internet. I also downloaded and upgraded Google Chrome as well as Skype, all without issue.

After the initial install, I had a PC running Xubuntu, with a functioning browser that can get to the internet. There were a few more games on the PC, I noticed. I have yet to install Open Office, but I know I can do this from the Software Centre. Impressive.

Networking was a big issue with Xubuntu. I found it very easy to find my Windows-based network printer, and attach to it and print a test sheet. The issue I struggled with is that Xubuntu could not view files on other Windows PCs on my network. After a lot of internet searching I found the answer: Xubuntu, which uses Thor as its file manager, has no such capability as yet. Ubuntu, the larger sibling, can do this. The solution is to download and install Ubuntu’s file manager, called Nautilus. Seriously? An OS that does not allow you to browse other PCs on your network? This issue should be included in the new version of Xubuntu.

Once I installed Nautilus, again through the Software Centre, I had a PC that I can use to browse the internet, using Firefox or Chrome, instant messaging through Skype, print to my network printer, browse files on my other networked Windows PCs, and is quite fast to run. There is also an easy way to find new software that is safe to download, run and if you do not like it, to delete, all without impacting your PC. All this, without having to pay royalties to any company to use the software. This, I think is the advantage of Xubuntu.

The next step in my Xubuntu experience was to install Eclipse and set up the PC to interface with an Arduino microprocessor. While I found numerous instructions on the internet, most were outdated. Downloading Eclipse was easy. What was difficult, much to my surprise, was to find a logical location on the disk to put installed programs and to install them there. This is similar to the “Program Files” directory on Windows.

This is where I ran into issues with Xubuntu. From internet advice, best practice was to install all programs in the /opt directory. In fact, this is where Google Chrome automagically installed. I am good with this. I will simply create another directory in /opt called /Eclipse, unzip/untar and install Eclipse in this new subdirectory. Much to my surprise from Thor or Nautilus I did not have authorization to create a new directory, even as an administrator. I was a little surprised at the high requirements to create a directory, but then again, this would prevent users from messing their PC up with unnecessary directories.

To create a directory the administrator has to go into Terminal mode, a command line interface, and do a sudo command. Not only does the admin have to be more technically savvy, they need know a lot more about Xubuntu. Similar to DOS from the 1980s, Terminal has some online help. Switching back and forth from Terminal (ctrl alt 1) and Xubuntu (ctrl alt 7) was easy, thankfully. Making the Eclipse directory was not so difficult after I was in Terminal and did a sudo. Ditto for deleting a directory. Moving from one directory to another was similar to DOS. Extracting Eclipse into a directory did not work. What I eventually did was extract Eclipse to a directory under my user name, and then using Terminal and sudo to move this directory to /opt. In the end it all worked.

There is a lot to Xubuntu. For the average user Xubuntu offers a safe and efficient operating system which runs very well on low powered PCs with 512m of RAM or more. With 256m of RAM Xubuntu will be a little laggy, but will still work.

For administrators, installing software and getting around the file system in Xubuntu can be more difficult. Overall I am really impressed with Xubuntu and so are my Little Weeds.

For those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad (Euripides).

Toronto is a relatively safe city in comparison to other Canadian cities, and much safer than comparably large American cities. Still, there is crime in every area. Criminals have cars and can drive to wherever they want. Low crime areas may even provide an opportunity for criminal acts. There is no place that is safe from all crime. It also stands to reason that the more dense an area’s population, the more crime should be expected.

I have chosen to research Chinese areas in Toronto because I am Chinese, live in Toronto and have an interest in this topic. It is not because I believe Chinese people have more or less a propensity to commit crime. Of course I hope they have less propensity, but realistically, I know this is difficult to prove.

The Toronto Star had published a series of articles on Toronto’s most populous ethnic enclaves. Note that these ethnic enclaves are usually not predominantly one race, but are mixed race. I believe it is natural for a newly landed immigrant to seek out people who share a similar language and culture, because this makes the immigrant more comfortable and eases integration into Canadian life. Actually it preserves their home land culture and diffuses the effect of moving to Canada somewhat.

That being said, in my area of Toronto, with its predominance of Chinese culture, you can live very happily speaking only Mandarin or Cantonese. One can shop for groceries and other products and not speak a word of English. Large big box grocers are slowly converting more signage over to Chinese, as well as hiring more Chinese speaking staff. There is one big box grocer near my house that is predominantly Chinese and is even designed to look like an independent Chinese grocer. A local store from a Canada-wide home renovation chain near my house hires predominantly Chinese speaking staff, though you can also speak to them in English. No matter that these stores and their staff are biased to Chinese speakers, there is no exclusion of other races displayed. I often see Indian, white and black shoppers rubbing elbows with Mainland Chinese shoppers, all without issue. In turn I also visit Indian and Sri Lankan shops where I am the only non-Indian shopper, where all the signs are in Indian, and the staff speak very little English. This is common here in my area of Toronto. Body language and racial tolerance goes a long way for inter-racial communications and social harmony.

Toronto Ethnic Enclaves: TorStar

Focusing on the predominantly Chinese areas of Toronto, by far the largest block is located in Toronto’s north east, in the suburbs of Scarborough and North York (east). This area is generally bordered by Yonge Street to Markham Road, Steeles Avenue to Highway 401. The more east you go in this area, the heavier the concentration of Chinese culture. Often such a concentration of Chinese culture is a shock to people new to the area, but it should not be. I do understand shock from people who have lived in their houses for 30 years and have seen their neighbourhoods become more Chinese with time. Sometimes I do hear the occasional resentment, but this should be expected, as this area 10 years ago was predominantly white. The map below uses the Toronto Star ethnic enclaves map, with a Google map underneath. Note that there is an even larger concentration of Chinese in Markham/Richmond Hill, just north of Scarborough.

Toronto Largest Chinese Community: North York and Scarborough

If you live in this area you should expect a high predominance of Chinese stores, Chinese literature at local public libraries, Chinese kids in elementary and high schools, and generally more Chinese neighbours. If you love Chinese and Asian food, there is plenty to choose and quality and competition is very high. Go to local parks and you will see and hear from Chinese kids talking Chinese to their Chinese parents, though they most often speak English between themselves. Negatively at local schools you should see a generally lower level of English language skill. This area has a large predominance of new immigrants who’s first language is Chinese and not English. English as a Second Language (ESL) classes are very common in almost all schools. I often meet Grandparents who know not a word of English, speak their local dialect of Chinese and struggle to understand my Mandarin, just like if I had met them while in China.

The next important question I asked myself is, how safe are Toronto’s Chinese enclaves, when compared to Toronto? I have taken the Toronto Star’s Ethnic Enclave map and overlayed a Violent Crimes map from the Toronto Police. The Violent crimes map tracks violent crime calls (lighter green means less violent crime calls), shootings (hollow circles) and homicides (circles with dot), Toronto police carding (Field Information Report, or FIRs), all overlayed on a Google map.

Toronto Violent Calls map: Toronto Police Services

Toronto Chinese Neighbourhoods and Violent Crime Rates

From Yonge Street to Brimley falls into the lowest and second lowest violent crime categories. From Brimley to Markham Road falls into the highest of the five violent crime categories, and one of the areas of Toronto where police stop and question citizens the most.

So is living in a predominantly Chinese area safer than other areas? While it is difficult to say, I would guess that yes, it is safer, but not necessarily because Chinese people are less violent than other races. This large Chinese enclave has less population density, being a suburb of Toronto, and therefore should have fewer violent crime, shootings and homicide rates. This is especially true from Yonge Street to Brimley Avenue. Troubling is the area east of Brimley to Markham Road, which has similar densities but some of the highest rates of violence calls, shootings and homicides in Toronto, though from the map most of the shootings and homicides are outside of the Chinese predominant areas. What this means I do not know and will not speculate.

I do not want to necessarily prove that living in Toronto’s largest Chinese enclave is safer than elsewhere in Toronto, but to bring some facts and statistics to light about the area. Where you buy or rent your home is your decision. Ethnic diversity and crime are but two deciding factors to consider. However if you want to live in a predominantly Chinese neighbourhood in Toronto, you now know where to look.

Map of Toronto by Violent Crime, shootings and Homicides. Layered with details from Google Maps.

The original map had very little detail in terms of street names, which made it difficult to find your exact house location. I have added a layer of Google map underneath so you have more landmarks to guide you. Landmarks such as the TTC subway, major streets such as Yonge Street and highways such as the 404 and the Gardner, parks and waterways were all missing, making the map more difficult to use than it should have been. Because the map is so large already I could not clearly include street names. Toronto is quite large.

Field Information Report (FIR) cards are filled out by police on people they randomly stop. Police use this as intelligence gathering.

Officers stop and question people and document who they are with on Field Information Report cards. Personal details, including physical descriptions, are then entered into a huge database, which officers can search later in the aftermath of crimes. More than a million individuals have been documented in the past three years; the number of cards filled out jumped 18 per cent between 2008 and 2011.

Large map, 2.8MB, is large but the detail is required.

>Map of Toronto by Violent Crime, shootings and Homicides. Layered with details from Google Maps.

The Toronto Star also published an interesting map of Total Criminal Charges mapped by patrol zone, but put no street names or landmarks on the map. It was difficult for me to find my neighbourhood without street names. This map displayed criminal charges from 2009 and 2010.

Again I have superimosed a Google map of Toronto on top of the Toronto Star map, making it much easier to find your neighbourhood.

Toronto, Canada, Criminal Charges by area made by police, 2009-2010, TorStar

Large Map, Criminal Charges by Toronto Police, 2009-2010, 2MB. Map is hard to read because it is large and Toronto is large in population.

>Toronto, Canada, Criminal Charges by area made by police, 2009-2010, TorStar

The Criminal Charges map should, in general, correlate with the violent crime map. Where there is higher crime there should be higher criminal charges. A lower violent crime area with higher criminal charges might mean police are overzealous in their efforts, but who can definitively say.