bradgrier.com

Due to a monumental FUBAR between my website host, server restrictions, and some resource-heavy wordpress plugins, Bradgrier.com is currently without a home.

All is not lost:

• I have a backup of the site, content, posts, comments etc
• I retain my domain names etc
• I have a boat-load of work ahead of me as I research and rebuild

Lessons learned:

1. Backups are essential
2. You get what you pay for
3. Sometimes you get burned

Things to do:

• point existing domain names to this wordpress-hosted blog
• Reasearch robust hosts (I prefer a hosted solution as I do use some 3rd party plugins)
• Take a deep breath

So, what have I missed. Any advice for me as I make this rather unscheduled transition? Comments are welcome!

Another Canadian election has come and gone. Programmed mainstream media coverage was again, less than inspiring. I found that to truly enjoy this national exercise, you have to watch it in the company of friends, as you would a Saturday afternoon hockey game.

I spent election night online. Using a variety of free sources, I was able to watch the results as they came in. Using Twitter, it was possible to know results in eastern Canada before the blackout lifted here in Alberta.

Here are some of the tools I used to monitor the 40th Canadian Election:

• Twitter — dedicated default communication channel. CB Radio. Fun. By using Hashtags, you can focus your discussion to others who monitor the same Hashtag (Channel). The best election Hashtag was #CanadaVotes. Oh, and yes, please do follow me on Twitter
• TweetDeck — Twitter application that allows you to group, sort, filter, slice and dice your incoming Twitter flow. In the screenshot of my election night desktop, it took up my left-hand 22″ monitor.
• Google Chrome — having multiple browser windows open at once would prove challenging to Firefox. I have 20+ plugins so I run a Fat Firefox. Chrome is lightweight and each instance runs independently; if one window crashes, the others stay running. I had four instances of Google Chrome running in my second monitor (17″) on the right.

Ok, that’s the tools, now what was I doing with them?
I’ve already mentioned that TweetDeck was my main communications medium for the evening. The back-and-forth discussion amongst people monitoring the #CanadaVotes channel was insiteful and entertaining. It was great engaging with other Canadians in a national discussion.

On my other monitor, I had Google Chrome running (in clockwise order):

• CBC Website – live results map of my ridings of interest
• CBC Website – live national results map
• CBC Website – live streaming TV coverage (sorry, it doesn’t show)
• Globe & Mail website – Live national results chart broken down by party

At one point, I did have another two windows onscreen containing Global and CTV coverage, but frankly, there wasn not enough new or insiteful commentary, so I reduced the redundancy and dumped them.

Overall, watching the various media sources and participating in the Twitter traffic was the best way to engage in, what many believe to be, a somewhat mundane national exercise.

Your turn, what did you use to monitor the results? Traditional media? New media? Comments are open!

Technorati Tags: Canada, Election, 2008, Canadian, PC, Liberal, Twitter, Social Media, Monitoring, Results, Election Results

 

photo credit: Thomas Hawk

As Twitter moves into its more mature phase, a number of Twitter utilities have emerged, some good, some not so good. I’m an early adopter and a daily Twitter user and have experimented with many Twitter tools over time. Please feel free to follow me but without further blather, here’s my top 3, must have, twitter tools:

• TwitThis.com — Though showing its age, TwitThis is a very cool tool. In a nutshell, simply browse to a web page that you want to share. Click the TwitThis bookmarklet (that you’ve previously installed). If you’re not logged in to Twitter, you’ll be prompted to do so.  A window pops up, and you can edit your Tweet and then send it to your Twitter stream. I like it because for quick Tweets, I don’t have to jump to another application, load a Twitter tab in my browser, etc.
• Twitter Twerp Scan — If you care about managing your Twitter Followers, then you need to run the Twitter Twerp Scan from time to time. Basically, Twerp Scan checks your Twitter account for people with extremely high following to follower ratios. These are most likely ‘bots or marketing drones — who could be potentially bringing down the value of your ‘Twitter Juice’ (is there such a thing? I’m thinking of Google Juice here, that mythical elixer that adds Page Rank to your website based on the power of incoming links). You can customize your Twerp ratio but if you have a high number of Twerps, the block/removal process is a bit tedious. Id’ love to see a ‘batch un-follow’.
• TweetLater.com — Ok, you’ve used Twitter for a while, are used to updating your followers, and have a good social network online that notices when you’re not there. Or you’re the Communications specialist for an organization that uses Twitter to keep your audience informed. Regardless, you also have a need to publish Tweets on a regular basis, then TweetLater is for you.  Simply, it’s a hand site that allows you to queue-up Tweets, to be published at a specific time.  One very cool and not-so-obvious feature: you can also set TweetLater up to autofollow people who follow you. Reducing your Twitter maintenance chores, though I’d remember to run TwerpScan from time to time Just to nuke the Twerps.

Online Mockups…easy!
Part of the regular web development cycle is the user interface mockup. I’ve worked with many different tools including Google Sketchup and Adobe Photoshop to build representations for clients.

But nothing has been as quick, easy, and fun as Balsamiq Mockup, and online (and desktop/offline) user interface mockup tool for PC, Mac and Linux.

Desktop version is $79, but the online version is free, with some limitations.

I’ve done a couple of small projects for personal work using the free (5 minute nag screen) online version.

Mocking up
Here’s how easy it is to use:

1. Load up the default ‘demo’ page.
2. Press Ctrl-A to select all default elements
3. Press Delete to remove all default elements
4. Start selecting and dragging in elements from the element bar at the top of the page (over 60 of them)
5. Double-click on an element to edit its properties
6. Repeat until you’ve got a mockup you’re happy with

Yes, it’s that easy.
With the free online version, you’re prompted every 5 minutes with an advertisement, but you can still save your work or print it out. Ads don’t get in the way of your workflow.

Developers have chosen a simple, look for the presentation because:

Balsamiq Mockups intentionally uses hand-drawn UI elements, so that people don’t get attached to “that pretty color gradient” or think that your mockup has actual code behind it and is “practically done”.

This lets your audience focus on the functionality of the item and is generally more open to honest critique (which is what you want at the mockup stage).

Some other features of the online version:

• Export to Human-readable text
• Import from text
• Integrated into Confluence, with other apps in the pipe
• Pre-drawn controls and icons
• Very easy to use
• Free

So, if web User Interface design, User Experience design, or website design is your thing, you need to check out Balsamiq Mockup.
Technorati Tags: mockup, user interface design, UI, User Experience, design, website, website design, mockup, Balsamiq Mockup, review

The online world was in a tizzy this afternoon as Google’s Gmail application crashed and burned.

Gmail and Google Apps for domains all seem impacted.

This is a breaking event so I’ll update this post when more is known. Gmail’s Blog has nothing on it, currently.

*** UPDATE ***
It looks like the big brains at Gmail have fixed the issue.

The issue was caused by a temporary outage in our contacts system that was preventing Gmail from loading properly. Everything should be back to normal by the time you read this.

And indeed it does seem to be back to normal. Excellent.