So imagine my annoyance at being greeted this morning with a SMART warning that errors had been found on my hard drive. The machine is a Dell Optiplex and it's 2 yrs old. Nothing worth saving on it so I wasn't having fits but still...
I did actually reinstall the operating system in hopes that the registry error was all there was to it. And that worked - for about 10 minutes, when the blue screen of death I had previously seen was replaced with a black screen of oblivion stating "Hard Drive Failure at Sector 0".
Grrrr. Majorly annoying. But thankfully, oh dear god thankfully - just a testing maching with nothing critical on it. And also thankfully - it's still under warranty. A quick call to Dell service and a replacement HD is on it's way, but I'll just have to waste spend a day installing the drive and reinstalling the software (plus the many, many stupid windows updates).

You know it's worth however long it takes to do it - don't just think about it - backup your files!

...my dad passed away after struggling with cancer. Insidious disease that - just when you think it's gone it reappears suddenly with renewed vigor. This is probably the last photo I took of Dad, and it was in March of 1998. Seven years ago, but sometimes it feels like it was just yesterday.
My dad was a happy guy, full of life and full of the enjoyment of life. He liked to travel, he was a foodie who loved to try new foods, he loved his beer, his wine and the occasional glass of Glenfiddich. He was a doctor, who enjoyed his work and strived always for greater knowledge and to contribute to his field of medicine. He was a family man, a husband, father and grandfather who prized his only grandchild and he loved both his son-in-laws (whom he jokingly referred to as Son #1 and Son #2). He was greatly loved and we all feel his absence keenly.
Ihsan Ali Kapkin, MD, FRCP(C) --- R.I.P.
(April 23, 1924 - September 29, 1998)

Reporters Without Frontiers has released the Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents. Available as a downloadable PDF from their website, chapters include such topics as blogging ethics; establishing credibility; publicizing your blog; dealing with censorship; as well as the more mundane "what is a blog; choosing a blogging tool and so on".

There's been a rash of Dreamweaver bashing going on lately and frankly I am surprised and dismayed by the elitist tone of the comments. What is this demented preference to hand coding over using tools like Dreamweaver? I use DW (unapologetically) and have since version 2 when it was handed to me as part of the tool kit for my job. I used Allaire's Homesite before that and hand coded freaking everything on Notepad before that (around '95 or so is when I started).

Today DW is an integral, necessary part of my job. It's more than just an html editor it's the underpinnings of our content management strategy. As a small team of web people working for a mid-large size institution we require the use of content managers (people appointed from their units or departments) to maintain their content. These people (and we have some 150 content managers) have varying degree of web knowledge - from none to semi-pro. DW's ability to lock down templates and work with Contribute make it a godsend for those with no working knowledge of html and who've been made web content managers. Or for departments that have multiple users working on the same content - DW/Contribute's file locking mechanism works wonders for not allowing people to overwrite each others' work. And then for us, when we're called upon to change an element that needs to filter down through say 50 or 100 pages and it takes less than 5 minutes because of the templates.

Now, since we're writing our pages using css+xhtml I work in split view or code view which some would call hand coding, and then lock down design elements using the DW templating system. In our situation, I couldn't begin to think how else we could control the integrity of the sites we build or manage their administration - it certainly could never be done by hand coding it all in notepad.

Here's a little list of freeware and shareware apps that I'm finding pretty much indispensable for use on my powerbook:

1. WindowShades X - by Unsanity. ($10 US). If you were using macs previous to OS X, they had this great feature of being able to minimize windows in place. It would essentially roll up the window to the title bar, and then you could tuck the window away while working in a different one. Totally useful if you work like me (that is on a bunch of things at once) OS X did not continue this feature but thanks to Unsanity you can have it as a haxie.


2. Himmelbar - by Softbend (free). This is a menu-bar app that lets you access all your applications and utilities. Very handy and lets you tidy up your dock as well.
3. G-mail notifier - by Google (free). OK this one rocks! I used to use a Konfabulator widget but much prefer this menu-bar app. It's tidy, small and just makes sense.
4. NewsFire - by David Watanabe ($18.99 US). My hands-down choice for a desktop RSS Reader client.
5. Backpack Dashboard Widget - by Chipt (free) - This was the app that reduced Konfabulator from a 10 to a 5 on the scale of must-have apps. It's so useful that I have it on my desktop all the time.
   (hint: to pull a widget to your desktop begin dragging the widget and then hit F12, repeat on the desktop to bring it back to the dashboard)
6. iTerm - by Fabian and Ujwal S. Setlur (free). Tabbed terminal windows baby - need i say more?


7. For a secure FTP client it's a toss up between:
   
   • Cyberduck FTP and SFTP client - by dkocher (free).
     and
   
   
   • Transmit - by Panic ($29.95 US)
   
   I've used both and am currently using Cyberduck because it suits my needs for now.
8. Menu Calendar Clock - by Object Park ($18.95US). This is another one of those really useful menu bar apps - the calendar syncs with your iCal so your schedule is easily accessible without needing iCal open.
9. Mac Janitor - by Brian Hill (free). This is a handy app for people who aren't leaving their mac on and awake day after day. Yes, my mac is on but it's set to sleep after an hour of inactivity or when I close the lid. Mac Janitor is a tool that runs the unix subsystem maintenance tasks that are set to run in the wee hours of the morning but obviously won't run if the machine is asleep.
10. Konfabulator - now owned by Yahoo. I'll toss this in here as a nod to the previous indispensibility of this application, however, it's usefulness for me has now dwindled to the weather widget (still far superier to dashboards) and wifi widget. The TV Scraper widget had once supplanted the need for a TV Guide but until they update the widget so it works properly it's off my desktop.

If anybody has any other mac apps they can't live without I'd love to hear about them.

Well, the UNB webserver has been down for the past day and half, and it's been weird not having a site to work on. I mean what's the odds that the replacement disk for the server was corrupted too? It's good that they were able to get a couple of new disks this morning as they spent the rest of the day restoring everything from the tape backup. It literally took all day. At least I got some time to get some more design and templating work done - the phones have been pretty quiet since noones been able to work on their sites ;) . It's also been a bit annoying not being able to blog - not that I've been blogging very frequently this month, but nevertheless, it seems we always want to do stuff when we can't. It looks like all's well and good now so I shall try to blog more frequently again.

I think we're all intimately familiar with the primary navigation for a website - that which is usually front and centre, some form of which is on every page of your site, commanding the attention of the user. It's the most important part of your website, the list of links your users will use to wend their way through your site. The primary navigation has to be straightforward, easy to use and consistent throughout your site.

You can also navigate a site through a secondary means - the site-search function, if the site owner has provided one. When the user can't find the link path to the information they are seeking, a site-search box can be very helpful. Type in the search term and off they go.

At UNB we've gone an extra step by providing a tertiary means of navigation - the buffer page. Which is basically a page sitting on our corporate url and pointing to complementary or parallel programs/departments on our campus-specific urls. This type of navigation is aimed at those "in the know", users who are familiar with university sites in general and know that most universities have similar departments or offer similar programs. Since UNB is a multi-campus institution, our thinking was that some users who were familiar with university systems and web savvy as well, might just type in a department name in the location bar of their browser, rather than learn the navigation system. We developed buffer pages at our corporate root url to accomodate for those departments who have counterparts on either campus because we also wanted to make sure that users to our site, on landing at a page under the corporate url, be informed that there may be parallel programs or departments on either campus and they could investigate which campus then best suits their needs.

Here are some examples:

• http://www.unb.ca/arts/


• http://www.unb.ca/engineering/


• http://www.unb.ca/nursing/

I still can't quite understand why it is that the short weeks seem to be so frenzied. It's like payback for the extra holiday day of a long weekend. It's gotten to the point where by Monday evening I'm just dreading what's to come in the rest of the week ahead. Of course, last week was no exception. Two trips to Fredericton (Wed & Thurs) for meetings kind of shortens the week even further, add the first week of classes to the mix and it was just insane. On the positive side, on Friday I managed to get a huge chunk of work done on a website enhancement request (which actually ended up being more than 5 hours of work and I'm anticipating at least another couple of hours before it's completed). But I'm still left with some major projects plus another new site redesign which needs to be completed by mid-November at the latest. I'm pretty backed up right now and with one coworker on vacation and the other on extended leave - well lets just say it's a tad busy 'round here.

So how does one handle this kind of workload? Well, in terms of priorities I work it out in a complex bit of triage. Our usual procedure is enterprise projects, then campus wide, faculties and departments, plus I add in to the mix the hard deadlines vs softer ones. Right now I'm focused on trying to clear off my project list as best I can so the ones on my list that are quick hits and have been waiting for a while might get bumped ahead of more complex projects that are currently being worked on. Or, as in the case of the project last week, a hard deadline forces my hand and moves the project to the head of the line. It's a constant juggling act and while it's not perfect it seems to be working (at least I've heard no complaints so far).

Well, we'll see how next week shapes up. Hopefully, some of the first week confusion will have been resolved and hopefully I'll be spending less time on the phone fielding assistance calls and more time working on projects.

Finally - we're back in business. The phone guy came to the house yesterday and got our service hooked up again. To be honest, we were getting used to not having a land line - but not having DSL was the real killer. It's like having a lifeline severed. But all is well now, no more waiting for the service techs and that's a relief. Lesson learned: we found out that first thing in the morning actually means sometime between 8am and 4pm...maybe.

So communications aside, it's Labour Day here in Canada which is observed as a statutory holiday. Now how surprised was I to open my email this morning to find co-workers emailing me with work-related requests. Suddenly I was thinking omg what day is it today??? I was like "this is a stat holiday right? or did that change and I not get the memo?" I was honestly worried for a second. One even opened with "hope you enjoyed the long weekend". This at 10:00 am. I had to laugh - hell it's not over yet. Geez - it kind of makes me feel like a slacker but I hope they don't mind that I won't be working today - well on work stuff anyway.

...somewhat. We've been without phone service at home since last Thursday and it's driving me absolutely mad. No actually, what's driving me mad is that our DSL is out too. Thankfully we have cell service and have been blistering the airwaves to the phone company who just managed to restore DSL service (hence my rant), but still no phone service. This after speaking with about 9 different individuals and a manager. We're patient people but this seems a little excessive. To be fair, of course it's not the call-centre workers' fault; nor the technicians (i think), nor the linesmen but there seems to be a breakdown in internal communications (how ironic) and coordination. This company, the fourth largest telecommunications company in Canada, is pushing hard at being a leader in innovation, but service seems to be falling by the wayside, judging from other complaints that I've heard. And because this is a long weekend I'm now left wondering if we'll even get phone service back before Tuesday - I kind of doubt it. This exercise has been a little more frustrating that it needs to be but at least the phone company threw us a bone and offered us 4 months off our phone bill and a month of mobility. We'll take it thank you very much, but I'd rather have my phone working in a reasonable amount of time and not have to go through an endless runanround to get some service.

Hurricane Katrina has left hundreds of thousands of people without homes, possessions and jobs. The situation in the Gulf States is desperate. The plight of those left in the city of New Orleans is unimaginable - an entire city of 500,000 forced to evacuate. In this time of crisis the Red Cross and other aid agencies will be providing disaster relief, basic humanitarian aid (food, shelter, clothing/blankets, counselling) and all on a volunteer basis. If you're in a position to help by donating some funds, please do.

• Canadian Red Cross


• American Red Cross