Twice as long as it is wide but only half as high

Update to blog

Viv Collins — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 21:08:56 +0000

Due to changes in my business and private life I am taking the opportunity to tidy up my online presence and unify it so it’s easier to maintain and update, at the moment I am spread out a bit in a few locations but the advent of G+ and its ability to share content securely has meant I can now get on and get this done.

This blog is being replaced by my main privet blog Viv Collins, I will leave A Brick here for future reference and so that you can find the link to my new blog easier

This years new theme

Viv Collins — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 21:31:37 +0000

I try to update this blog once a year with a new design theme even if I am too busy with work to write articles, this years new theme is a very different affair for me, its worth pushing your comfort zones one in a while after all.

The new theme to my mind breaks a number of readability rules and visual ques, but surprisingly manages to keep it within bounds and not come across as garish or disjointed, it is still clearly and easily readable while navigation is maintained, on that last point I have deliberate left off navigation to the archive for the moment as part of the upgrade process, I will add the archive access back later along with some new material and links to other sites.

Because of a problem I am having with some one stalking me I have also taken the opportunity to spell out clearly some aspects of the blog, copyright ownership, the blog is personal and private, and on that last point that the blog is covered by my terms and conditions, you can ask in writing for a copy and you should before attempting to use the blog, a clear warning is on all pages and has been from the first day this blog was published.

Quick links, surprisingly there is some confusion about what a link on a website implies, it does not imply that I own the target of the link or that I am affiliated with that site or that the site has a formal relationship with me, a link is an address to another web site only the same as a telephone number is a way of making a phone call, it does not mean you own the telephone or the house the telephone number links to! Google and other search engines have proven this point in court a number of times.

Developing the direction of the blog now means it will remain “design” orientated and any thing to do with my other interest of pulsed combustion and pulse jets will move over to my private blog on Google”s blogger service Monsieur le Commentaire that blog is also undergoing a redesign along the same lines as this one, new theme, new material etc.

This is a private blog

Viv Collins — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 18:30:34 +0000

You are reminded that this is a private blog and subject to the terms and conditions of the owner, this is clearly shown on each page by the following notice

“Please Note”
“The use of this Blog site and its contents for any purpose are bound by my terms and conditions and they are available by request.”

2010/2011 holiday season

Viv Collins — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 18:49:42 +0000

What a busy Christmas and new years holiday season it was this year, I had been busy with work up until the eve of Christmas its self, so I was really not in the mood for Christmas until it was on top of me and happening, lots of fun in the end with a trip to visit family in Montreal and to welcome a new baby in to the world, that was a special part of the festivities for us all, then for the new year we hosted a wonderful dinner back here in Roberval for the rest of our family that could not make it to Montreal.

Now that the new year is upon us and we all feel renewed and energized its time to crack in to new year resolutions and work plans for our family’s future, changes and developments for our company are as usual on our company website at Gauthier Collins inc. and personal and family stuff over here on A Brick.

Best wishes for a happy and prosperous new year.

Lest we forget

Viv Collins — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 13:29:40 +0000

They went with songs to the battle, they were young.
Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.

Patent, Combustor configurations

Viv Collins — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 17:12:13 +0000

Recently I have come across some confusion over my original patent (WO/2007/003031) COMBUSTOR CONFIGURATIONS and what it is intended for, I originally conceived this particular innovation as an efficient propane burner for industrial use in cold climates, the target market was for rail track switch heater use in unattended locations were its lack of moving parts and electrical requirements would have been a real advantage, the burner also functioned as its own “blower” this was a major selling point.

It is “not” as misrepresented by at least one unscrupulous promoter, a flight engine or propulsion engine suitable for use on Drones or UAV’s or “some kind of stationary ram jet”, I very deliberately designed this burner so that it could not be used for propulsion, this was a security feature that could not be removed and was designed in from the start, why? the burner was originally conceived for unattended use in remote locations with poor or none existent security, deliberately limiting its use to a burner lowered its theft risk or the risk.

At the time of its conception the world was experiencing an upheaval due to terror attacks and this weighed heavily on my mind, it was a primary goal of the design that it could not be used with out my authority in any way for military drones or subverted for illegal acts, with this as a primary goal I deliberate placed a number of constraints in to the design of the burner in the same way that Eugene Gluhareff before me secured his own design.

My third pulse jet related patent will be for propulsion, this would be independent of my first or second patents in the burner series.

(WO/2007/003031) COMBUSTOR CONFIGURATIONS

Canadian Patent CA 2583466

Conception GLC inc Bankrupt.

Viv Collins — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 14:52:36 +0000

The closure of Conception GLC comes as no surprise to any one that knows the history of the company and those involved in it.

Pulse-jets.com has a public post made by Luc Laforest, notably the share holders have not been sent an official notification of the closure! as they invested over $500,000 in the company I would have thought it at least polite to have informed them privately and officially by post first before posting it as a fact on a hobby forum.

Currently the company is in voluntary administration, one of the former directors is trying to find a solution to its fundamental problems, Luc Laforest is not involved in that recovery, I was told they are looking for a new technical expert to advise the company on its technology, and are looking for a professional management team.

I wish them the best of luck with that and hope they manage to recover the share holders investment.

Updated:

Conception GLC inc passed fully in to bankruptcy and was dissolved, sadly with no salable assets of any note the recovery rate for creditors was minimal and zero for shareholders.

Internet Explorer banned!

Viv Collins — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 16:07:47 +0000

For the last month or so I have conducted an experiment on my commercial web site to see what would happen if I banned old versions of Microsoft internet explorer, I have to say its been a complete success!

The problems we had with spam bots were just getting out of hand, it looked as if we had huge traffic and consequently some server slow downs, but when we looked our real traffic was only 20% of the total, why should our real visitors suffer while the server is having to deal with spam bots people’s compromised home PCs?

So we implemented a simple policy and banned any version of Internet explorer less than the current version level 8, the result was an astounding drop in log entries from the security software and a huge improvement in overall site traffic.

Analyzing our traffic now, we do see some real visitors getting caught by this policy, but we also see that they respond positively to the upgrade message and later return to the site using a more up to date browser, that I have to consider a bonus result.

Well that was a surprise!

Viv Collins — Sun, 23 May 2010 16:54:11 +0000

Well that was a surprise to see, while doing an unrelated search for some thing else this little nugget of fun popped up

“”By Faads45 on mar 12, 2009 | Reply

Très belle video vertegenwoordiger de ce site de rencontre Ainsi que le site lui-même qui est de très haute qualite. Aller voir.”"

You can see the rest in context at clubderencontres

Not at all sure whats going on with that story but I should add that faads45 seems an awful lot like :————To see this private comment please log in—————–:

Time! I now have some,

Viv Collins — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:25:43 +0000

I started this blog about three years back with the intention of using it to blog about design and related stuff but I actually ended up way too busy designing to have any time to keep it updated.
Things have improved steadily for me and my family since then so now I can take a little spare time to pop in the odd post, what I want to do is use it more for personal stuff that does not have a place in my main intellectual property development company or its growing portfolio of project companies.
One of the things that took a lot of my spare time for a year or so was a legal case we had to bring against an ex business partner Luc Laforest, he turned out not to be an honest or truthful person as we found out, and he was even less honest or truthful about were he got the assets from that he used to pay his way in to the old project company, we found some extremely serious financial irregularities due to software that he copied from his ex employer’s with out their authorization and then added to the inventory of the project company at its full market value of $38500 cad.
As you can imagine this came as a blow to us at the time and effectively he ended up destroying a very promising company through his dishonest actions, we won that case and the attorney recovered what he could financially from it, not a lot but enough to make it worthwhile and we moved on, emotionally we had already moved on but to put it behind us we had to wait until the end played out in court, by that time of course it was just boring the hell out of us.
The real point in that win was it allowed us to put a full stop on a particular time in our life and move on to a new one, the fact that the ex partner only got to keep a prototype that would never work and he would never be able to get it to work is just one of life’s funny moments, the real intellectual property was never asked for as part of the settlement so I still own it outright.
I had spent my time from when we stopped working on the failed project to come up with a new game plan for us and what we would do in the future, effectively I sat down with a blank sheet of paper and spent six months to write down 10 new possible inventions that might be worth developing.
We also decided we would start a new family owned company to administer the projects and act as our portfolio company, hence Gauthier Collins inc was born at around the same time as we launched the law suit against the scum bag and his cronies.
What actually happened in that six month research time was that I ended up writing down 12 possible projects, this made the next step easier as we then chose three projects to develop over the following two-year period, we now have two projects in play with a third about to take off.
From now on I will try to add a little as time goes by and things catch my eye and write a bit more about the projects.