February « 2007 « Les Twarog Vancouver Real Estate and Condo Blog

Archive for February, 2007

Laptop security tracing company (Absolute Software) lands major deal with Dell

Wednesday, February 7th, 2007

Vancouver company’s laptop theft recovery system will pick up a million subscribers

Gillian Shaw
Sun

Absolute Software’s John Livingston turned down a tenured teaching job to join the Vancouver tech start-up. Photograph by : Ian Lindsay, Vancouver Sun

Absolute Software Corp. hit pay dirt Tuesday in a lucrative deal with computer giant Dell Inc. that will give it a million new subscribers for its laptop theft recovery software, and help the Vancouver company more than triple sales for the coming year.

News of the deal, along with the company’s report of strong second-quarter revenues, saw shares in Absolute climb 25 per cent on the Toronto Stock Exchange, closing at $11.15. The stock traded as high as $12.19 during Tuesday’s session.

“I would call it a home run,” said Absolute chief executive and board chairman John Livingston. “We’re really doing well.”

It is the latest in a series of successes for the company, and further confirms for Livingston that he made the right decision back in 1995 when he gave up his day job and the promise of a secure future at the British Columbia Institute of Technology to join the fledgling start-up.

Then an instructor in BCIT’s business department, the Vancouver native, who graduated from St. George’s school and from the University of Calgary with an MBA, Livingston had just been offered a permanent position at BCIT when Christian Cotichini, who co-founded Absolute with Fraser Cain, convinced him to join the company full time.

“I called my wife and said, ‘I have news for you — I’m turning down a tenured position to join this new company’. She said, ‘You have to hear my news, I’m pregnant.’

“She wasn’t too happy that I was going from a tenured, secure job position to take a chance in a start-up.”

While it hasn’t been totally smooth sailing, the company found itself on the leading edge of the mobile computing revolution with its tracking, management and theft-recovery systems for laptop computers in increasing demand.

“The early years were very challenging, there is no question about it,” said Livingston. “But it was a great idea, it has managed to continue to prevail, and it is taking off.”

The company’s theft-recovery software is embedded in computers offered by many major manufacturers. And like E.T., it operates by “calling home” when the computer is lost or stolen.

“We are embedded in the firmware of the computer, so when the machine is connected to the Internet, we get a call from the computer. We use that information and we can find out where it is calling from, and we work with law enforcement,” said Livingston. “We are recovering over 75 per cent of computers that are calling us.”

While Absolute already has partnerships with Dell and major computer manufacturers, the latest deal gives the company a major boost, guaranteeing one million new subscribers for its Computrace LoJack for laptops, which will be bundled with Dell’s extra warranty package.

Computrace LoJack, valued between $49 and $119 US for systems with one- to four-year warranties, will be included in Dell’s CompleteCare Accidental package, sold with new Dell Inspiron notebooks at prices ranging from $99 to $139.

It will be available for Dell’s U.S. customers. LoJack is also available for purchase on its own from Dell software and peripherals at prices ranging from $49 to $139 US.

Absolute signed up 600,000 new subscribers last year and expects to sign up double that number this year, in addition to the one million subscribers that Dell brings to the table. Its customers are both businesses and individuals, with the consumer market making up 16 to 18 per cent of its sales annually. The Dell bundle program, which began on Jan. 17, has already generated $350,000 US in consumer sales subscriptions.

Livingston said that is only a start.

“There is tons of room for Absolute to grow,” he said. “We are still only attached to two per cent of the notebooks shipped in the United States.

“We are driving the anti-theft market, and we think we can get it into the 10- to 15-per-cent attach rates to new notebooks over a several-year period.”

On Tuesday, the company also reported a loss of $1 million or five cents per share on revenue of $4.6 million for the three months ended Dec. 31, which compares with a loss of $708,000 or three cents per share on revenue of $2.7 million for the same period a year ago.

The company has grown to a staff of 135, with 100 based in the downtown Vancouver office and the rest spread across the U.S. And two of the three BCIT students Livingston persuaded to go with him when he joined Absolute remain with the company today.

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More in Canada buying GPS car systems

Wednesday, February 7th, 2007

Price of navigational device has been cut in half in last year

Peter Wilson
Sun

If you’re beginning to think “hey, I’m ready for a GPS device in my car” you’re not alone among your fellow Canadians.

A whopping 106,000 navigation devices for autos — worth a total of $52.4 million — were sold in Canada in 2006, according to the market-tracking NPD Group.

In units, that’s a rise of 923 per cent over 2005 and a jump of 453 per cent in dollars spent on the global positioning systems.

NPD Group account manager Mark Haar said in an interview that his company doesn’t find out why people made the purchases, but it likely had to do with the drop in price in 2006.

“The average price was cut in half, essentially,” Haar said. “About a year ago the average price was about $800 and it’s down to about $400.

“So that price probably reached a threshold where consumers felt comfortable entering the marketplace.”

Haar said that NPD recorded almost 10 times the number of units purchased in December of 2006 compared with the year before that.

NPD did not pick out a brand leader in Canada but said the market is dominated by brands like Tomtom, Garmin, Magellan, and more recently, Mio. Other brands include Pioneer, Sony and Alpine.

“We only measure what’s sold through retailers,” Haar said.

He added that there has also been a trend toward smaller monitor sizes

“Roughly 70 per cent of the units sold had four-inch screens whereas a year ago that was about 50 per cent.

“So that may have played a role in the sense of how it looks or how much space it takes up in the car, etc.”

Haar, while cautioning that NPD does not forecast the market, said he expects the trend will likely continue.

“I don’t think we’ll see 10 times the amount, but if prices continue to go the way they’re going I would expect to see more Canadians getting into the market.”

The Canadian sales somewhat mirrored those in the United States, although the market is more mature there. U.S. sales increased 128 per cent to $476 million US, NPD said in a press release.

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New U.S. dollar coins about to put a jingle in your pocket

Wednesday, February 7th, 2007

Barbara Hagenbaugh
USA Today

New presidential $1 coins gleam after coming out of the presses at the U.S. Mint iin Philadelphia

PHILADELPHIA — In most government buildings, workers and visitors have to walk through metal detectors on their way in.

While that’s also the case at the Philadelphia Mint, the biggest scrutiny comes when it’s time to leave the building. Highly sensitive metal detectors scan people and their items for any coins. The smallest amount of metal, even underwire in bras, can set off the buzzer, leading to additional searches.

It’s a long-standing practice at the Philadelphia Mint, where employees are not allowed to bring in coins and have special debit cards for vending machines.

But these days, the stakes are even higher. That’s because the Mint is currently producing the first batch in a set of presidential dollars, cranking out $2 million to $3 million of the sparkling, gold-colored coins each day. Take out a few hundred pennies, or even quarters, and not too much is lost. Walk out the door with a few hundred dollar coins, and someone could afford a nice TV.

Some of the presidential dollars are leaving the Mints in Philadelphia and Denver, where they are also being produced, for delivery to Federal Reserve banks ahead of their Feb. 15 launch. So far, Fed banks, which distribute coins to private bank branches, have ordered more than 300 million of the first coin. That compares with 1.3 billion Sacagawea dollar coins produced in 2000, the first year of that unsuccessful program.

The latest dollar-coin program will feature a former president on the heads side, starting with George Washington, and progressing in the order in which they served. Presidents must be deceased at least two years to appear on the coins. Four coins will be released each year, similar to the enormously popular state quarter program, which has turned millions of Americans into coin collectors.

A lot is at stake for the government. Previous efforts to get the public to use dollar coins have failed. About $110 million of Sacagawea dollar coins are in storage. Except for collectors’ sets, they have not been minted since March 2002, a little more than two years after they were introduced with much fanfare.

Mint officials say the new coins’ designs will be popular with both collectors and consumers.

“It’s really going to stimulate the dollar,” says John Mercanti, head of engraving at the Philadelphia Mint, which takes up a city block across the street from Ben Franklin’s burial plot. “Our designs are far more dynamic and far more spectacular than they have been at any time in the past,” says Mercanti, who has worked at the Philadelphia Mint for 34 years.

Sound of money-making

Walking through the Mint, you’d think you were in any other factory, surrounded by machinery, forklifts and signs encouraging workers to wear safety goggles.

Except for one thing: the sound, an unmistakable jingle-jangle of millions of coins being stamped out of long sheets of metal weighing as much as 10,000 pounds each, then rolling down conveyers. It’s as if every slot machine in a Las Vegas casino were paying out at the same time.

The Philadelphia Mint has stepped up production to meet demand. Its 160 factory workers are rotating on eight-hour shifts — 24 hours a day, often seven days a week.

When Congress ordered the new dollar-coin program, it created several challenges. Perhaps the biggest was that the legislation required the phrases “E Pluribus Unum” and “In God We Trust,” along with the year and the mint location, to appear in recessed letters on the edges, rather than the faces, of the coins. Such lettering allows for a larger portrait, draws attention to the wording and provides something different for coin collectors.

That created a headache for the engineers and others trying to figure out how to mass-produce the coins, says Richard Robidoux, plant manager at the Philadelphia Mint. Edge lettering hasn’t been used on a coin since 1932, so Mint officials didn’t have experience manufacturing coins with that feature and didn’t own machinery that inscribes on the edges of coins.

A real challenge was coming up with a process to produce the coins quickly. “It’s one thing to make it work, it’s another thing to make it work 3 million times a day,” Robidoux says.

A circular solution

The Mint figured out how to make it work, with an interesting twist. Because the coins are fed through an edge-lettering machine a thousand coins a minute at the end of the minting process, the lettering’s placement on the edges will be different from coin to coin.

Not all the inscriptions are off the faces of the coins. “United States of America” and “$1” appears on the tails side, while the president’s name and years of service are on the heads side. Artists say removing some of the writing gave them more space for design.

From their small cubicles tucked in a corner of the Philadelphia Mint, artists Don Everhart and Joe Menna say they are excited to see their designs stamped onto millions of coins. Everhart designed the back of the coins, featuring the Statue of Liberty, which will be constant throughout the life of the program. Menna designed the front of the George Washington coin.

Everhart, 57, and Menna, 36, have backgrounds in sculpting. Menna studied in St. Petersburg, Russia, under teachers who studied with the French sculptor Auguste Rodin. Both say they’re proud to see their work mass-produced into something people will use daily.

“That’s the most rewarding part of the job,” says Everhart, who also designed the state quarters for Nevada, California and Montana.

“I could end my career here tomorrow and have something that would stick me in the history books,” Menna says.

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B.C., Alberta lead building boom

Wednesday, February 7th, 2007

But rest of Canada seeing slower economic growth

Derrick Penner and Eric Beauchesne
Sun

B.C. builders took out a record $11.5 billion worth of permits in 2006, which, along with Alberta’s $13.9 billion, helped propel Canada to its 11th consecutive year of rising construction values.

Statistics Canada, in its preliminary year-end building-permits report released Tuesday, said Canadians took out a record $66.2 billion in building permits, which was nine per cent ahead of the $60.8-billion mark reached in 2005.

However, Statistics Canada said that if B.C. and Alberta were excluded, “the overall picture would have been less robust,” with the nation’s construction sector only showing one per cent growth from 2005.

The Statistics Canada report adds to evidence that, nationally speaking, the economy is slowing and the building boom has passed its peak. However, building plans remained at relatively high levels, it noted.

And while residential building hit a record $41 billion in 2006 — the first time homebuilding topped $40 billion — that was based on pricier products since the number of permits shrank for the second consecutive year.

In B.C., the picture is different. While Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. reported Monday that slower-than-expected economic growth will slow housing starts, the non-residential building boom is expected to go on.

“That’s to be expected … and nothing to be too concerned about given that we’ve had three or four years of a pretty torrid [residential construction] pace,” Keith Sashaw, CEO of the Vancouver Regional Construction Association said.

And it gives the non-residential contractors a bit of “breathing room [on] the skilled labour issues,” allowing carpenters, electricians and other tradespeople to switch gears from residential to institutional, industrial and commercial construction.

B.C. saw non-residential permits shoot up 22 per cent to $3.9 billion last year compared to 2005. Sashaw said that with demand for commercial an industrial buildings still rising, that trend won’t change soon.

“I expect this [pace] to continue through 2007 and well into 2008 if not later,” Sashaw said. “Once you get a couple of years out, the crystal ball gets really hazy, but some of the figures are encouraging.”

In the Lower Mainland, the value of non-residential building-permits climbed almost 37 per cent to $2.7 billion in 2006. Even if construction-cost increases of about 12 per cent are stripped out, it’s still a healthy gain, he said.

All municipalities in Atlantic Canada and western Canada, as well as Sherbrooke, Que., Kingston, Ont. and London, Ont., set record highs in 2006. Except for Quebec City, all those showing a decline were in Ontario, with Toronto and Ottawa posting the largest retreats.

New housing prices toward year-end were up more than 11 per cent from a year earlier, led by a near 50 per cent jump in Calgary and 42.8 per cent surge in Edmonton.

“Factors contributing to the strong housing market included a dynamic economy in western Canada, the strong level of employment, the growth in disposable income, the tight apartment vacancy rates in several centres and advantageous mortgage rates,” Statistics Canada said.

However, in December the value of residential permits fell for the third time in four months, while non-residential permits joined in the slide following four straight monthly increases.

Still, the total value of permits issued in December was 3.9 per cent higher than the average monthly level in 2006.

WEST FUELS RISE

Hot building sectors in B.C. and Alberta lifted Canada to its 11th consecutive year of growth in construction values in 2006, Statistics Canada’s preliminary report on building permit activity shows.

Canada $66.2 billion +9%

B.C. $11.5 billion +13 %

Residential $7.6 billion +9%

Non-residential $3.9 billion +22%

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Housing starts for ’07 in B.C. forecast to fall 4.8%

Tuesday, February 6th, 2007

Derrick Penner
Sun

British Columbia housing starts will fall 4.8 per cent this year as slower-than-anticipated economic growth translates into less demand for new homes, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. reported Monday.

Provincial housing starts will fall to 34,700 in 2007 from 36,443 new units in 2006, CMHC forecasts in its housing market outlook for the first quarter. They will then slip another 6.3 per cent to 32,300 in 2008.

“The level of activity is still high,” Carol Frketich, regional economist for Canada Mortgage and Housing said in an interview, “but [with] a little bit of moderation,” which she characterized as a soft landing.

Frketich said the current forecast predicts slightly lower economic growth for B.C. in 2007 — 3.2 per cent compared with 3.5 per cent in 2006.

She added that while immigration is expected to increase B.C.’s population by about 80,000 people over the next two years, the province will also lose workers to Alberta. That will hold back housing demand.

Although mortgage rates are expected to remain stable, “the combination of higher prices and interest rates. . . will still have a bit of an impact.

“[Unaffordability] is going to dampen demand a little bit in 2007 and 2008.”

However, Canada Mortgage and Housing expects that will only slow, not halt price growth. Frketich said the forecast is for a seven per cent increase in 2007 and 3.5 per cent in 2008.

On a national level, housing starts are forecast to fall to 209,500 units in 2007 after hitting 227,395 units last year, again due to high prices and slightly higher mortgage rates, Bob Dugan, CMHC’s chief economist, said in a news release.

“Most of the pent-up demand that built up during the 1990s has been absorbed,” Dugan said, “and higher mortgage carrying costs due to continued strong price growth and modest increases in mortgage rates will contribute to the slower pace of new home construction this year and next.”

Derek Burleton, associate vice-president and senior economist with TD Economics, said B.C.’s markets show signs of a necessary cooling-off period.

“I’m on the same page as CMHC [about a soft landing],” Burleton said.

While B.C. faces some economic challenges from the slowing of United States housing markets, Burleton added that TD Economics estimates B.C.’s growth will still remain at “a healthy” three per cent for 2007.

And the housing market should remain relatively strong for the next few years.

“To the extent that the market remains strong obviously raises the risk of a nastier correction down the road, or a bigger retrenchment of [house] prices,” Burleton said.

“But I think [we’re seeing] a bit of cooling this year and 2008, and I think that mitigates the risk of [a correction] significantly.”

He added that TD Economics has “always talked about the risks for the [B.C.] economy being post-2010.”

In rental markets, Canada Mortgage and Housing forecast that Vancouver’s rental vacancy rate will inch up from 0.7 per cent in 2006 to one per cent in 2007 and 1.3 per cent in 2008.

Frketich said that will be because many first-time condominium buyers are expected to move into their new homes, freeing up rental stock.

However, she added that there will still be strong rental demand because high prices have created “a widening gap between the cost of home ownership and the cost of renting.”

TEPID TIMES

Slower economic growth and more unaffordable prices will cool housing markets, CMHC is forecasting.

Not enough, however, to bring down B.C. prices any time soon.

B.C. HOUSING STARTS

2006 36,443

2007 34,700 -4.8%

2008 32,300 -6.3%

GREATER VANCOUVER

2006 18,705

2007 19,500 +4.3%

2008 18,500 -5.1%

Source: Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.

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Construction pace to slow soon

Tuesday, February 6th, 2007

Because of all the baby boomers, renovations are coming up the middle

Jim Jamieson
Province

Townhome construction continued yesterday on Yukon Street at 11th Avenue near Vancouver City Hall. Photograph by : Arlen Redekop, The Province

New-home construction in B.C. is headed for a soft landing, says a forecast released yesterday by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.

But you’d never know it from the current building climate, said Surrey-based contractor Gary Friend.

“The stats are saying that the market will return to balance, but my sales are still strong and I don’t see any sign the market is dramatically changing,” said Friend, whose South Ridge Developments builds primarily in the Port Coquitlam-Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows area.

“I’m very confident in the market. We had to level off at some point, but with the shortage of trades people and the shortage of land we don’t see a change in the market.”

CMHC is predicting that Canadian housing starts will moderate in 2007 to 209,500 from 227,395 units in 2006. In B.C., housing starts are forecast to drop to 34,700 this year from 36,443 in 2006, while softening further to 32,300 in 2008.

Peter Simpson of the Greater Vancouver Home Builders Association said the the residential construction industry will also continue to be busy due to an ever-increasing demand by homeowners for renovations. Simpson said the renovation market in B.C is expected to be worth $6 billion this year.

“Coming up the middle with all the baby boomers are renovations,” he said. “When we start talking about the competition for trades, don’t forget renovators need plumbers, electricians and carpenters, too.”

Bob Dugan, chief economist at CMHC, said most of the demand that built up during the 1990s has been absorbed, and higher mortgage-carrying costs due to continued strong price growth, and modest increases in mortgage rates, will contribute to the slower pace of new-home construction.

“During most of the 1990s across Canada there were about 150,000 housing starts. At the same time, there were about 185,000 new households springing up in Canada,” he said. “As economic conditions aligned to favour housing demand, these conditions really set the stage for a strong housing market.

“Because of the erosion of pent-up demand, low mortgage rates aren’t going to be able to generate as much new demand as in the past.” Dugan said higher home prices haven’t discouraged buyers as much as they have changed purchasing habits.

“The high prices we’ve seen in recent years is changing the composition of housing demand,” he said. “A couple of years ago, most of the strength was on the single [family detached] side, whereas now more and more we see multiple-family homes gaining market share in total starts.”

Existing home sales were near record levels in 2006 but will ease to 464,550 units in 2007 and to 449,200 units in 2008, CMHC said.

Growth in house prices is also likely to fall in B.C., the report said. It forecasts a 6.8-per-cent increase in average house price in 2007, down from 15.5 per cent last year, and predicts a quarter-point increase in mortgage rates between now and the second quarter of 2008.

– – –

HOUSING STARTS OUTLOOK

National B.C.

2006 227,395 36,443

2007* 209,500 34,700

2008* 195,500 32,300

* Forecast

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New wireless router by AlphaShield offers connectivity up to 370 meters indoors

Monday, February 5th, 2007

Peter Wilson
Sun

Internet security company AlphaShield is about to diversify by launching a new series of high-speed, wide-range routers. At right is CEO Vikash Sami, with senior vice-president Nizam Dean. Photograph by : Ian Lindsay, Vancouver Sun

After having the consumer-level hardware-based PC security market almost to themselves, Vancouver’s AlphaShield is about to enter the already crowded field of routers.

Anyone who ventures into a computer store or tech department these days will be greeted by shelf after shelf loaded with routers from Linksys (a division of Cisco Systems), D-Link, Belkin, Hawking and even Apple, with its Airport Extreme base station.

It would seem the market is already overloaded with players offering the essential computer networking element.

But the CEO of privately held AlphaShield, Vikash Sami, believes that his company’s new AS-8000 line of routers — ready to hit the market this spring — will offer more of everything that both individuals and even corporations want in a router.

To begin with, said Sami in an interview, its wireless AS-8800 model, just demonstrated at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, has the power to offer connectivity of about 370 metres (1,200 feet) indoors and 1,200 metres (3,900 feet) outdoors for a price of $300.

“Most routers put out 150 to 200 feet of coverage,” said Sami. “If it goes through one wall the signal dies 50 per cent. Another wall and its completely dead. We decided to make something that goes through concrete walls.”

Sami said the router essentially has 1.5 million square feet of coverage.

“We could have powered up the whole CES floor,” he said. “And you could hook up to about 256 computers or laptops.”

As well, said Sami, the AS-8800 is bidirectional. That means if the signal is being sent to a laptop across the street — which normally wouldn’t have the power to send back over that distance — the router would grab the laptop’s signal, amplify it and send it back.

Besides homeowners and businesses, AlphaShield is hoping to get a chunk of the gaming market, with built-in support for more than 200 different games.

According to Sami, other features of the routers are:

– Built-in AlphaShield hardware firewall.

– Gigabit-wired speeds via five autosensing Ethernet ports.

– Dual processors, one for the network and a co-processor for the Ethernet ports.

– Four USB ports allowing for network print sharing (327 printers supported) and file sharing through a USB hard drive.

Future plans are to support webcams as well.

Prices range from $150 for a wired model up to $800 to $900 for a router designed for the business market, which would put AlphaShield head to head with the likes of Cisco.

The routers will initially be available at London Drugs, which also carries the AlphaShield firewall device.

“With the firewall we’re in all the major retailers — Future Shop, London Drugs, Best Buy, Office Depot and Staples,” said AlphaShield senior vice-president Nizam Dean. “And most of our retailers have expressed a lot of interest in the product but they want to see a sample.

“We should be able to ship out the samples by mid-March and try to secure a deal with them.”

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Athletes at the Olympic Village will have A royal stay

Monday, February 5th, 2007

Nothing will be spared for competitors at seven-hectare competitors’ village

Kent Spencer
Province

Exactly three years from today the Vancouver Athletes Village will open and according to 300 pages of just-released information under the Freedom of Information Act, Olympic performers are in for the royal treatment.

Nothing will be spared at the seven-hectare site to make the athletes’ playpen a splendid experience, according to the documents made available to The Province by the 2010 Games Watchdog Committee.

The village on the southeast corner of False Creek features clusters of eight-storey apartments and luxurious amenities, from five-star hotel service to a hall to dance away the midnight hours.

There are pool tables, X-Boxes and a massage centre. A stage for entertainment, a religious centre and a ticket office. A bank and postal and courier services.

An area as big as a big house, 300 square metres, has been set aside for gift-bag storage. The material will be donated by sponsors.

The village’s 15-odd buildings have been designed according to the latest green standards.

Glass and non-glare finishes are featured. Decks are guaranteed at least three hours of sun a day and are protected by windshields.

Poisonous plants such as burning bush and deadly nightshade have been banned. They are on a list of 100 common types that are not permitted in the rooftop gardens.

There will be a library, an Internet cafe and phone lounge and a 500-square-metre fitness centre.

The latest headlines from Europe will be easy to keep track of at a news agent.

Athletes will be housed two to a room measuring 12 square metres. Men and women won’t share living quarters.

The washers and dryers are free of charge, but do-it-yourself.

The level of hospitality is equivalent to a four- or five-star hotel. Meals for the 2,800 hungry competitors will feature Vancouver’s famous multicultural cuisine.

Top-flight Canadian snowboarder Crispin Lipscomb said he hopes Vancouver’s food is tastier than the meat and veg served up at last year’s Italian Olympics.

“The pasta was repetitious,” he said. “It was a pretty static menu.”

If Turin was any indication, Lipscomb said the guys will leave the beauty salon and florist for the girls.

The idea behind the main athletes’ village is to provide a secure base where international guests can relax under protective eyes.

“We were encouraged to spend our whole time in the Turin village,” Lipscomb said. “It was quite a feeling of decompression after years of preparation. Canadians have a reputation of being good hosts. I hope everybody takes that seriously.”

The site will be enclosed by a secure perimeter fence with overhang to prevent climbing.

Extensive security measures were introduced following the 1972 Munich Games, where 11 Israeli athletes were killed in a terrorist attack. Vancouver will pay $1.47 million in terrorism insurance for the publicly owned buildings.

Vancouver project manager Jody Andrews said standards of comfort are set by the International Olympic Committee.

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Archive for February, 2007

New U.S. dollar coins about to put a jingle in your pocket

Athletes at the Olympic Village will have A royal stay

Nothing will be spared for competitors at seven-hectare competitors’ village

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