Colin Calnan.com

Let’s get Drupaling

Colin — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:13:37 +0000

Drupallers, start your engines.

At last, it’s finally here, Drupal Camp Vancouver, May 9 & 10, 2008 in beautiful Vancouver.

I’ve been waiting patiently for this since I started my amazing new job, was introduced to Drupal, hung out with the Druapllers at Raincity once a month. I know, I could have attended DrupalCon in Boston but the timing wasn’t right and the funds weren’t there.

I’m also a little biased having taken some time to design the logo.

Usability in public transport (transit)

Colin — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 16:14:35 +0000

Call-center’s can be source of frustration for all of us. Its seems like every call center in the Western World has taken the path of replacing people with voice automation or have outsourced to a warehouse of university students somewhere in India. If you live in anywhere in Canada, outside Quebec, you know the golden rule when calling any system that has an automated response; Press 1 for English. This can be the start of a long process of listening to all the options available before making a choice. If it’s a service you call often, you can learn the steps and bypass the long list of options. However, almost as if they’re trying to keep you on the phone, every once in a while you hear the lovely little message “We’ve recently changed how our service works”. (more…)

PDF’s Now Used in Spam - Creating Trust Issues

Colin — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 21:29:00 +0000

It seems that spam in the form of PDF attachments has increased significanlty in the last month. I’ve certainly noticed it and opened it just that one time before realizing what it was and praying that I hadn’t released something nasty. There’s something about a PDF that we trust. PDF’s have the association of being a locked file that can’t be edited and that generally won’t contain viruses. They however harbor links to web pages that are riddled with all type of nasty things.

Spam filters are also having a hard time with it. Microsoft files like Word Documents or Powerpoint Presentations are the usual suspects when it comes to infected attachments, so the PDF’s are bypassing the filters and landing in your inbox.

Is there a solution - of course - but it’s just common sense

“…organizations need a layered defense to better arm themselves against such threats — with security software deployed at the gateway, at the client and at the server.”

Firefox Text Sizing, using a mouse?

Colin — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 21:16:21 +0000

Today I discovered, completely by surprise, that if you hold down the “Ctrl” button and flick the mouse wheel you’ll get instant text-resizing. (This is on version 2.0.0.5 on PC, haven’t tested on Mac).

Smarty Extension for Dreamweaver

Colin — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 22:54:39 +0000

Having been developing in Smarty for a few years now I was really excited to hear about a Smarty extension for Dreamweaver. I thought all my worries were over, I had a vision of a Smarty item toolbar, with options to insert Sections, If/Else conditions and other niceties. This was not to be and the extension that I downloaded was for visual purposes only.

Don’t get me wrong, this is still a wonderful addition to Dreamweaver and really helps put the pages you are working on in context of the surrounding includes. It can be a little frustrating however when you click in the Design pane of Dreamweaver to change something only to find it’s in a different template to the one you’re working on.

If anyone out there has experience with other Smarty extensions, please let me know.

Africa Hot!

Colin — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 07:25:03 +0000

Last summer a DJ on a local radio station cleverly coined the phrase “Africa Hot”. Every 10 minutes or so he’d shout out to his colleagues, “How hot is it?” and they’d reply, “Africa Hot”. Honestly, that day wasn’t that hot, it was in the mid twenties and there was a nice sea breeze.

Today however was hot, damn hot. No one can seem to agree on how hot it was either, some reports have it over 37 degrees! Having never been to Africa I can’t really comment on the comparison the DJ made, but I can imagine the Africans would certainly dispute it. The wind stung when it blew and left a red rash where it had tormented the skin. Water was definitely the golden resource today, and I’ve drank so much of it that I feel I now must be at least 95% water.

As the day rolled to a close and I sat down again to renovate, gulping the liquid gold from my trusty pint glass I noticed the sky.

I remember the saying as a kid - “The sky is red, the devil is dead and there’s no school tomorrow”.

I won’t argue with the first two, but the last, well unfortunately for me there’s always school tomorrow.

Fresh face

Colin — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 03:04:29 +0000

For over 2 years now I’ve been sitting on the old site, waiting and waiting to do something with it. Finally I deleted it and started with a semi-blank canvas, I wanted to get something up and running and then change it as I go along.

Something unique happens when you tackle a long overdue renovation in the real or virtual world

1. It cost’s you much more than you budgeted for

2. It takes far longer than your initial feeble estimate

3. You lose sleep

4. You gain 10 pounds

A renovation can also leave you with an empty feeling. As the old is stripped away in preparation for the new, a vacuum is created, and in that space it seems that creativity and inspiration can be found. The simplest yet most complex of things can propel you.

This photo was taken as I sat pondering what to do next. The shadows from various household items presented themselves in a way that was for a moment breathtaking.