It's all because of Jesus I'm alive

Got to hold Olympic torch at lunch

The 2010 Olympic spirit is alive in Coquitlam. I went fo lunch woth my wife today, and met a couple of torch relay runners. The young guy on my left is Derek from Port Alberni, who ran a 300 metre stretch. It all happened so fast. Derek's wife came to collect their toddler and him, [...]

When Trend Micro blocks Internet access

This post is a little old, since I gave up on Windows PCs in general and switched to a MacBook Pro last October. Essentially, I grew tired of combating hassles with my laptop hardware, uncooperative Windows updates, and—the piece de la resistance—Trend Micro Internet Security randomly deciding to cut off one Internet service or another, even when the firewall program wasn't enabled. I figured that I should still complete this post for the benefit of those who may still be suffering through the Windows XP/Trend Micro Internet Security hassles. I still run a similar setup in a Virtual Box on my Mac, so the solution on the next page is still valid to me.

Drupal 7, Panels and Hitler?

Just a quick update today. I was browsing for Drupal resources to help me with a project, and stumbled onto this funny video. The sensitive among you will have to close your eyes at the well-placed swear words. Sorry. It was too funny for me to worry about censorship. Many thanks to Nick Lewis' tell-it-like-it-is blog Just in case you're wondering, I'm not jumping onto the Drupal 7 bandwagon while it's still in Alpha.

Just renewed STC Membership for 2010 — here’s why

Happy New Year, everyone!

Several technical communicators have had a hard time reconciling the value-add proposition for renewing their membership with the Society for Technical Communication. Some have been very vocal about the society’s lack of support, lack of expertise, lack of understanding, and lack of relevance for the communications field. In blunt terms, the STC is a dinosaur, with a business and operations model that doesn’t fit the current trends. Some of the outspoken include volunteers like myself who thought we could help initiate and support change from the inside. Fortunately I am involved in the very active Society for Technical Communication – Canada West Coast Chapter, which is experiencing a new wave of volunteers who thrive on connecting within this community. As well, I participate in a couple of really experienced special interest groups, the Single Sourcing (officially), and Contractors and Independent Consulting (locally).

After the 2006 summit a fellow chapter member observed that technical communicators are expanding from the traditional plan/interview/write model into the facilitation and editing of user authored content. This exciting trend from writer to enabler has always appealed to me, because I’ve always been on the periphery of traditional technical writing. While I am technical and I love to write, I also have a passion for music and multimedia, web design and programming, graphic design and illustration, and performing. It’s been difficult finding jobs that match my level of interest in technology and my love to write. That said, I’ve found lots of work in the web development arena, and am excited at being able to harness these skills and abilities in my current job, along with writing and editing.

In this post I describe at length why the STC has me for at least another year.

Friday Fun: Just released book I co-authored!

The secret’s out. Donald Miller’s new book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, has just been released, and I am credited as a co-author. Click the ad to see the write-up.

Restoring SDHC and Compact Flash memory

I meant to write about tools to restore the data from FUBARed SDHC memory cards last year. This week at least a couple of co-workers told me about their SD and micro-SD cards becoming unreadable, possibly due to their computer's lack of support for the SDHC format. While this could be true, even though my computer's built-in SD card reader claimed to support the SDHC format, I encountered similar problems. In this post I talk about a couple of free and commercial tools that helped me recover lost space when my card reader mysteriously stopped supporting my SDHC card, and recover lost photos from corrupt Compact Flash cards.

On running water

I should be thankful that we live in an age with running water, and proper waste removal. While on our tour of Fort Erie, the guide told us one of the reasons the Fort smelled so bad back in the day, was because they shared a communal chamber pot between the 200-plus soldiers and other residents. My mistake. I thought it was the laundry tub.

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Great weather, great God

All this great weather gives me reason to sing, and so I recorded a quick worship set that lasts about 10 minutes. Of course, it took several hours to edit on Roxio VideoWave, because the program kept crashing at the most inopportune moments (also, it does strange things with moving video titles.) Lift your hands and worship with me, to the video below.

I left some musical space at the end for you to respond to the Holy Spirit in prayer and thanksgiving from your own heart. After all, He wants to hear what's on your mind. I'm just here to help provide some "atmosphere".

People need to be TOLD?

This society scares me. Just the other day I went to my friendly neighbourhood Save-On Foods to pick up some milk, eggs, cheese, lunch meat, and several bags of chips: potato, taco, and sun. For a change of pace, I went through the Changes Recycling Centre in the middle of the store. My eye caught a sign plastered to the middle of the door, at the level of my nose, advising customers that they would not accept any bags with ants in them. I was at first shocked, because in B.C. the correct protocol when returning recyclables is to be sure to rinse them first. Did customers really need to be told to look out for ants?

Travel planning for family fun and finanace

From August 4 to the 20 I’ll be taking the family to visit my wife’s parents in Ontario. In addition to all the fun family stuff, I plan to meet up with other web developers, technical communicators, musicians, worship leaders, and social media afficionados while I’m there.
View Larger Map Pretty exciting stuff. Send me a private message if you have time to meet for coffee.