Category: Just Saying …

Now that the last web site has been completed (see previous post, or just go visit Faces of Suicide at www.facesofsuicide.com ), it is time to work on the next project. (There always seems to be another one, doesn’t there?).

This next project requires a bit of redesign around this site, along with a bit of reorganization. It’s probably time, since DigitalChoke got its start back in 2002. (If you are really bored, you can start at the very beginning here http://digitalchoke.com/daynotes/2003/2002-12-29.htm ). The ‘blog’ part has had a few changes over the years, but the site’s home page is basically the same.

This place was my first domain name; there have been many others over the years. A few of them are still around; some domains never got off the ground, and others were launched to minuscule fanfare (and visitors). Still others sort of faded away.

So it’s time to do a bit of revamping of this place in preparation for the launch of the next project.

In the meantime, I seem to have caught the ‘shingles’, which is a re-occurance of the chicken pox virus. Not too bad, got some anti-viral medicine to help control it, and am just a bit sore around the infection. But not serious enough to keep me away from work — or people.

The latest web site project is completed, and has been active for a couple of weeks. The project was another rewrite for the Friends and Families of Suicide Internet support group, as I lucked into getting their sites moved to a new web host, and rebuilt their sites because the old host wouldn’t give access to content or data.

This new site is called “Faces of Suicide”, and is a visual memorial wall of family and friends that have taken thier lives. It has quite a visual imact, I think. It shows a random selection of 100 faces from all those submitted, and when you click on a face, you are taken to a memorial page. All of the faces are submitted by friends and family members.

As you regular two readers of this place know, our son Jason took his life several years ago after a long struggle with bipolar disorder. So we (especially Pam) have been involved with the Friends and Families of Suicide Internet support group, which maintain several web sites of memorials. They also have an active discussion and support group. Each of the web sites has a ‘Outreach’ page of resources available to those affected by suicide.

So, the new Faces of Suicide (www.facesofsuicide.com ) web site is done. And it has gotten quite a few visitors. The site gets about 1200-1500 ‘page views’ every day, with almost 50,000 page views since the site was made public just about two weeks ago. Even if you haven’t been affected by this issue, I think that you might find the sites interesting. And perhaps you know someone that has been affected — there are some excellent resources and support links on that site.

Now that that site is done, it’s on to some other projects. A rewrite of a couple of existing sites of mine. Plus the continuing support of the FoodieFeeds (www.foodiefeeds.com ) and BBQ Grail (www.thebbqgrail.com ) sites.

Still working on that one web site; turns out the web site owner wanted a different way to verify and edit submissions. Thought that the site was ready to go, but that one requested change required changes to a bunch of other routines. So, still working on it.

At the other office, working on some new web application servers; getting ready for updating of various systems. Not terribly difficult to do, just time-consuming as I add (and tweak) the applications to the new systems.

And surviving the weather here. Not as much snow as back east, but quite cold for a while, with temps not getting above freezing. But the house is warm, so I just stay inside.

A three day weekend, courtesy of Martin Luther King. No big plans, other than some work on some web sites.

I finally got the RSS feeds working for my daughters “StickyFingerprints” site.  It had been bugging me for more than a month. Tried all sorts of tricks; turns out it was a misbehaving plug-in. I banished that plug-in from the site, and all is well. Check out her site: good writing and giveaways there.

Also been working on a new site. Making real good progress. I am very close to some final testing of all the functions of the site. That part takes a little while to do properly. But I am pleased with the design and functionality of that site.

Have also done some minor work on thePragmatica site.  The search engines are starting to notice the new pages, so have done a bit of search tweaking. It’s a great place to get some thought-provoking advice.

Other plans? Some changes to the network here at home. Need to fine-tune the server, and get the remote connection working to the server drives. That works fine on my computer, but Pam’s computer doesn’t want to see the server, even though her computer is a member of the proper workgroup/domain. Google and I will fix it, though.

And congrats to my youngest daughter Stacy – anniversary #1 with her great husband Justin. They are both such a cute couple. They are expecting their first child in April. Stacy is on modified bed rest, but she is doing well (other than being bored).

There’s some great wisdom out there. On the Twitter accounts I follow, I’ve enjoyed reading some great thoughts from several people. In less than 140 characters, they provide some interesting thoughts and ideas on improving your life or your business. But once they have been tweeted, these thoughts are often lost in the Interwebs, probably never to be found again. Yes, they can be re-tweeted, but these thoughts are like ripples on a pond. They spread out to others, but the longer the time from the initial splash, the weaker and less-noticed they get.

So I thought there should be a place to gather all of these thoughts into one place. And, since I needed a quick project as a break from the other sites that I have been rebuildng, I decided a new web site might be interesting to create.

And the result is “The Pragmatica” at www.thePragmatica.com. What’s a “Pragmatica” ? It is “a place where you can deal with the problems that exist in a specific situation in a reasonable and logical way instead of depending on ideas and theories.” It’s practical advice, not high-faluting ideas.

And it’s a simple site: a form to enter a Pragmatica, and then a display of a bunch of Pragmaticas. And a way to ‘vote’ up-or-down on each Pragmatica. A simple place for thoughtful and even goofy ideas that make you think. (Although that statement could be redundant and repetitive.)

Each Pragmatica is reviewed by our crack staff of reviewers (that’s me) before being visible, so that I can make sure that the Pragmatica is appropriate for the site.  I find the thoughts there quite interesting.

Today is our son’s Jason’s birthday. He would have been 29.

Gone too soon. We all miss him.

I have finished the “We Remember Them” site for the POS-FFOS (Parents of Suicide – Friends and Family of Suicide) group. (They are a great support group for those that are affected by suicide.) This is another site that had to be totally rebuilt due to the One-Man-Hosting-Company that refused to provide any customer service, had availability problems, and would not give the group access to their web site files and databases. So I have had to rebuild every site on a new host (Bluehost, which is excellent, BTW).

The new We Remember Them (www.we-remember-them.com)  “was created to provide a place for people all over the world to place the names of deceased loved ones so that their names will not be forgotten. I think it is quite nice-looking, and easy to view the names that were submitted. There is an “Outreach” page that contains links to other support sites (many of which I have re-built). The sites are highly recommended for those that need support and comfort.

Now it’s on to the next project for the group. There will be some programming challenges, but I think the result will be worth it.

In other news, we had a bit of snow last night, ending up with about 2 inches on the ground. So I got a bit of exercise this morning clearing off the 50-foot-wide driveway with my snow shovel. It wasn’t too bad; consider what my old friend John Dominik (he lives in Minnesota) has had to deal with:

“It took me about two hours to get the mail box shoveled out. You don’t want to know Driveway time.”

I’ve now gone to full-time status at the new job. Keeping busy there; the latest project is a series of vbScripts that will combine their web site log files into one location for visitor reporting. That’s been sort of fun; I enjoy doing programming (although I am certainly not an expert). It’s nice to have those “Aha!” moments when something works correctly.