Archives for December 2008
December 31, 2004 at 09:12 AM
Update: I’ve added Google AdSense to the sidebar in hopes of generating a bit of revenue in order to donate to the relief effort.
Andy Budd has kick started BlogAid, a drive to get blog owners to donate the revenue from their blogs throughout the month of January to the tsunami relief effort.
Even though I do not have advertising on this site, I definitely support this effort, and as soon as I get my first paycheck at the new job, a portion of it will definitely be donated to this effort. I’m also going to look into Google adsense for this site so I can try to do my part. I urge you all to make any donation you can to the relief effort, whether it be through BlogAid or another charity. We all need to do our part to help out those that have been stricken by this terrible disaster.
Tags: personal
December 28, 2004 at 11:12 AM
After spending this morning watching various news channel’s coverage of the devastation of the tsunami in Asia, I have a new found consideration of how lucky I am for everything that I have. My thoughts go out to those that have lost family members, their homes, as well as those that cannot contact family members in the area. If any of you have a little extra money left over from the holidays, please consider making a donation to a charity that will help those in need.
That being said, I thought I’d give a little bit of a wrap up of our Christmas holiday, since it is pretty much over. Krista is back to work today, and I’ll be heading to the new job a week from today. Christmas this year was quite different. It was the first year, for both Krista and I, that we didn’t spend the holiday with our families. It has been tough at times being a country away from everyone, but lots of telephone calls, well wishes, and good new friends here in St. Albert have made for a great Christmas.
Our Christmas eve was spent here at home, we did a little celebrating of my new found employment, and turned in pretty early. We spent the majority of Christmas morning on the telephone with both of our families and opening a ton of gifts that were sent to us from the east coast. We honestly didn’t expect many, if any, gifts form our families because they have all helped us out so much with our move to Alberta in the past few months. Later on in the afternoon we went over to our friend’s (Bill and Annie) home and spent the evening with Annie and their children. Bill is a firefighter/paramedic, so he ended up have to work the night shift. They also gave us some lovely gifts, among them was some delicious Jack Daniel’s flavored coffee. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a huge Jack Daniel’s fan.
Boxing day was even busier than Christmas day. Krista decided that she wanted to get up super early and go shopping, so at 5:50 AM we arose from our slumber so that we could be at The Brick when they opened their doors at 7 AM. We ended up only getting a set of lamps from there, but being up that early allowed us to be at Ikea when they opened at 9 AM on the other side of the city. Because of our families’ generosity, we were able to purchase a ton of furniture to make our apartment feel a little more like home, finally. We picked up a coffee table, 2 end tables, and a dining room set. We then went to Kingsway Garden so that I could pick up some new clothes for work. Needless to say, the mall was absolutely crazy. I needed a new pair of sneakers, so we headed to West 49, and found out that they had a huge shoe sale on. After waiting for 20 minutes to get into the store, I was able to get a $130 pair of Vans XL2’s for $58 which was pretty sweet. The rest of my day was spent putting together our mass of Ikea furniture.
Then to wrap up the holiday, I cooked a turkey dinner last evening. It turned out really well, and my stuffing ended up being a bit hit. So the next week, a lot of meals will be consisting of left over turkey. Time to get creative with my recipes. I wonder if turkey tastes good in an omelet?
So that was our holiday. I took a few pictures, one of which you can see above this post, but being that my digital camera is about 3 years old, the pictures are not very good quality. I may post some more later if I get a chance to run them through Photoshop to touch them up a bit. I’d be interested to hear what everyone else did for their holidays?
Tags: personal
December 28, 2004 at 12:12 AM
I’m in the process of upgrading to the latest nightly build of Wordpress, so if things seem a little out of whack here for a while, please bear with me. It will be fixed soon.
Update: I’ve upgraded to the latest nightly build of Wordpress (1.5-alpha-6 2004-12-28). Everything seems to be working fine. I realize that the search form at the top of the page is still a little skewed, I’ll try to work that out tomorrow. If anything seems out of sorts, please post in the comments. Thanks.
Tags: sitenews
December 27, 2004 at 05:12 PM
I currently have 3 more invites to give away. I’ve also added a counter to the sidebar that shows how many invites I have remaining. Clicking on the number of invites will take you to the contact page.I’ve just got another lot of GMail invites dumped into my account and still have 9 left. If anyone still wants one, just send me a message from the contact page being sure to include your email address.
Tags: sitenews
December 25, 2004 at 02:12 PM
My search for employment is now finally over. Yesterday morning I accepted a web design position with a company in Edmonton. I’ll be designing web layouts for their clients as well as helping to develop web application interfaces, and doing a bit of work with Macromedia RoboHelp to develop tutorial and help file solutions.
I feel extremely fortunate to have been able to find a job at this time of year because I realize that a lot of people are still out of work. I could not have asked for a better Christmas gift this year. My first day on the job will be January 4th. Wish me luck!
Tags: personal
December 23, 2004 at 02:12 PM
I wanted to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. I hope that it is an enjoyable and restful break for everyone.
This Christmas will be a very different one for me. This will be the first time in my 23 years that I will not be spending Christmas on Prince Edward Island with my family and friends. Krista and I will be staying in St. Albert and spending some time with some new friends here. I’m going to be cooking a turkey dinner as well (yes, I’m the cook of the house), with all the fixin’s. The only thing that will be missing will be some good PEI potatoes, I’ll have to settle for ones from BC.
So, everyone enjoy this time away from work and take the opportunity to spend lots of time with family and friends. Make sure to eat and drink lots so you’ll be recharged with you return to work. All the best in 2005 to everyone as well. Cheers!
Tags: sitenews
December 20, 2004 at 08:12 PM
I’ve sat down today and did a bit of analyzing of where I want to see my career headed in the next year. I didn’t see any point in waiting until the new year to get things started, so I’m going to dive in headfirst right away.
First off, I’ve decided to tackle the design of my portfolio website. I haven’t been satisfied with the design of the site even with the redesign that I completed back in November. I don’t feel that the site really exemplifies the skills that I have, not only as a web designer, but as a graphic designer as well. Things are just a little to plain for my liking. Also, I want to incorporate some of the PHP skills that I’ve furnished myself with in the past month.
Secondly, when I have the redesign complete, I plan to pursue my freelance work even more than I have been in the past few months. I really believe that I have the skills to gain a steady, loyal clientele that will keep me busy and allow me to make a living. Although, I’d really like to be a part of a design team, I just can’t seem to find the opportunities within Edmonton, or at least not any opportunities that will allow me to get my foot in the door of the industry to make a name for myself. Part of the problem is the fact that I’m living in St. Albert, which is on the North-West side of Edmonton, and I don’t have a car, which means that my transportation is somewhat hobbled by the bus system that runs between St. Albert and Edmonton.
As a corollary to #2, I want to start networking within the community more. I want to make more, regular appearances to development firms in the area to try to develop some more professional relationships which will hopefully lead to more contract work. Also, I want to start getting to know some of the other designers whose sites I frequent (well, as much as you can get to know people over the internet).
I’m also still looking to collaborate with another designer, or even another web developer on a project. I’m pretty much open to any suggestions. Basically, I’m looking for something new and different to work on that doesn’t deal with my normal, small business clientele.
I’m more than likely going to add to this list as 2004 draws further to a close, but at least this is a start. I want 2005 to be a lot better year for me because the last half of 2004 was somewhat bleak.
Tags: personal
December 18, 2004 at 10:12 AM
Now that “Prairie Skies” is pretty much tweaked to my liking, I’m trying to come up with some new projects to work on, but seem to be drawing a blank. I like to keep myself constantly working away on web design projects in order to keep my skills honed and sharp.
So if anyone has any ideas for me, or possibly has an idea for a collaborative project, please leave a note in the comments or drop me a line from the contact page.
Tags: sitenews
December 18, 2004 at 12:12 AM
After seeing Jeremy’s post regarding posting to del.icio.us from NetNewsWire I decided to ditch my Recent Links plugin in favor of a combination of del.icio.us and the del.icio.us cached Wordpress plugin.
So for those of you that subscribe to my Diversions RSS feed, make sure to update the links in your news aggregator to: http://del.icio.us/rss/fromaway.
I’ve also added my Amazon Wishlist to the sidebar of the contact and about pages. So if any of you are feeling overly generous this holiday season, or have some extra money that’s burning a hole in your pocket, now you have something to spend it on.
Tags: sitenews
December 15, 2004 at 05:12 PM
I’ve seen the year end lists popping up around many of the blogs I visit on a regular basis, so I thought that I’d throw my hat in the ring as well.
Music
Inferno by Motörhead
![With The Lights Out [3CD Box Set + DVD]](http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00065XJ4S.01._SCTHUMBZZZ_.jpg)
Honorable Mention: Archetype by Fear Factory
Movies
Kill Bill Vol. 2
Anchorman
The Village
Dodgeball
The Butterfly Effect
Blogs
Dooce - Heather Armstrong
Dooce is probably one of my favorite daily reads because Heather is one of the few blog authors out there that writes exactly what she thinks. She does not fear any of the negative feedback that she may receive from her readers because of the language she uses are the ideas she presents. I commend her for being so true to life, not to mention for giving me so many great laughs over the past year.
Dan’s insights on web design and web standards are always welcome pieces of information. I always look forward to seeing new posts listed under SimpleBits when I open NetNewsWire.
Airbag - Greg Storey
Greg is another blog auther that expresses exactly what’s on his mind. That added to his “Airbag Longboard” always makes for an interesting read, and even more interesting discussion that seems to always follow his posts.
Although this blog is a relatively new find for me, I really enjoy what I’ve read so far, not to mention that Jared is an excellent designer as well as artist (check out some of his sketches in his portfolio). Jared’s “Plugged In” section also offers some excellent web siting’s, quite a few of which I wouldn’t have seen if it wasn’t for him pointing them out.
I couldn’t have a list like this and not include Jon’s blog. Always great for an interesting read. I first stumbled upon Jon’s blog late last year while looking for a way to use Movable Type to organize my portfolio.
Website Designs
Definitely my favorite web design of the year. An excellent combination of web standards, design, and information.
The newest incarnation of the Bonsai is extremely easy to read and makes use of a very daring color scheme. Which worked out very well I might add.
Airbag - Greg Storey
Beautiful in its simplicity. Probably the first design I’ve seen this year that was effective and took the use of white space to the next level which seems to have become a trend somewhat in its own right.
By far the most original design I’ve seen for a site this year.
His own site in addition to the work he’s done on the Lemony Snickets “A Series Of Unfortunate Events movie website are excellent.
Other
- I moved across the country from New Brunswick to St. Albert, Alberta; definitely the biggest event in my world this year.
- Canada wins the World Cup of Hockey.
- “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott murdered on-stage in a Columbus, Ohio nightclub.
- NHL locks out players.
- Somehow, Dubya squeaks out another four years. Still shaking my head over that one.
- The war in Iraq rages on…
- Firefox 1.0 was released amongst a great amount of excitement amongst many in the internet world.
- The Web Standards movement gains a lot more steam, and a lot more recognization.
So that’s 2004 as I saw it. I’ll probably add to the “Other” list as the year draws to a close as I’m sure that there have been a few things that I’ve missed.
Tags: personal
December 14, 2004 at 12:12 PM
Welcome to Version 2 of From Away titled “Prairie Skies”. I’m quite proud of this design, I was getting kind of tired of the old layout, “Antique”. The structure of the site has remained pretty much the same but there are many major improvements, even besides the new graphics.
One of the major issues I wanted to address this time around was the archival system of the site. I didn’t feel that “Antique” had an adequate method of finding old posts other than the search feature. This time around there should be no problem finding archived entries as you can browse through them by year, month, as well as category. I’ve also added archiving to my “Diversions” so that you may poke around in them since there is a lot of interesting little tidbits of information included there as well. I’ve also made use of a lot of the excellent WordPress plugins that are available. You can see a listing of the plugins I’ve used as well as links to their respective homepages in the sidebar on the “About” page.
Since I’ve began working on this layout, my knowledge of PHP has grown a significant amount due to a lot of reading I’ve been doing. As such, I’ve made use of quite a bit of PHP throughout the site, mostly with the sidebar, as well as the site header which changes according to the time of day it is here in St. Albert, Alberta, or anywhere else in the Mountain time zone for that matter.
I’ve tried to make this design very usable and stable in many browsers. One that I have not checked yet for compatibility is Opera, but that will come in time. I have a lot more improvements I intend to make. There are a number of usability issues that I still have not dealt with. Anyway, I hope that you all enjoy the new look, I know it’s a fresh change for me. Cheers.
Tags: sitenews
December 10, 2004 at 02:12 PM
This site has been inundated with spam for the past 3 hours, so I’ve had to turn on comment moderation. If you happen to post a comment on any of the articles, it may be a few hours before it appears as I’ll have to approve it before it actually gets posted.
I’m holding off installing any spam filters until Version 2 is ready to go out the door, as I have a number of plugins that I plan to install at that time.
Also, regarding Version 2. I’m slowly making progress. I’ve added a few trick little features to it that have been slowing down the progress a bit. So it’s on the way, but no definitely launch day just yet.
Update: I was forced to install a spam plugin seeing as there have been over 500 comments end up in moderation since yesterday. Hopefully this will solve my problems.
Tags: sitenews
December 09, 2004 at 10:12 AM
As I awoke to The Bear this morning, I heard the report that last night at an Ohio nightclub, a crazed fan shot and killed “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott.
Any of you who are remotely into heavy metal music no doubt know who Dimebag Darrell is. But, for those who don’t, Dimebag was the lead guitarist for the now parted Pantera, a pioneer in the hardcore metal scene. Since the breakup of Pantera, Dimebag and his brother Vinnie Paul (also formerly of Pantera) had been playing in a band called Damageplan.
Last night in front of a crowd of 200, a man climbed onstage during Damageplan’s first song of the night, made a comment about the breakup of Pantera and proceeded to pump round after round into Dimebag’s body. Dimebag was among the 5 deceased at as a result of the incident.
MTV News - Dimebag Darrell, Four Others Killed in Ohio Concert Shooting
Tags: crazy, damageplan, metal, murder, music, pantera, worldnews
December 03, 2004 at 01:12 AM
My prospects for employment are still a bit on the slim side, so in order to take my mind off that and financial matters, I’ve been working very diligently on the new design for this site. It will still be most likely a week or so before I have the new design completed, although I don’t want to hint at any target dates, because who knows what the next few days will bring. Things regarding this site could get pushed to the back burner at a moment’s notice if some work should happen upon my desk.
The reason this re-design is taking somewhat longer is the fact that I’m concentrating much more this time on information organization and structure. The number of posts here at the site have been starting to pile up, and I’ve realized that my current archival system is suitable for minimal amounts of data, but is utterly useless for larger amounts. So I’ve been concentrating on that as well as making use of a lot of the great plugins that are available out there for Wordpress.
So here’s to great things coming in the near future, stay tuned!
Tags: sitenews
