Archive
Welcome to the beta of the new saila.com. Send in your bugs.
Dispatches from 2006
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Toronto votes
Six days after our neighbours to the south changed the make-up of their government, we in Ontario have the opportunity to the same — but on a local level. Across the province, municipal elections are being held today. -
Switch
I bought a Mac. -
Joe Clark micropatronage
The highly-esteemed Joe Clark (arguably, one of Canada’s most passionate online personalities) is initiating a new research project around a topic he’s been passionate about for decades: accessibility. The Open & Closed Project’s aim is to create standards for captioning, audio description, subtitling, and dubbing. Not surprisingly, the project requires full-time focus and that’s where we come in. -
CBC.ca’s down
Sadly, it sometimes takes an outside event to put things into perspective. So it was when I saw nothing but a server error on cbc.ca this afternoon. That error (or error message) stayed for at least a few hours, until they managed to create a simplified, yet attractive, homepage for the news. -
When to update a site
Mike Davidson’s thoughts on code promotion schedules have generated a number of interesting comments. Essentially, he began by questioning whether two weeks is too long or too short for releasing Web site improvements. There’s a lot of back-and-forth debating the meaning of “code” but most agree that it depends. (Anil Dash’s clarification of Vox’s scheduling explains in detail how good updates should be managed.) -
Gummo’s down
To make up for some overtime, I decided to take a few days off to both escape work and to continue developing the new version of this site. Late this afternoon, though, I was stunned when I heard about a co-worker’s departure. For the past four-and-half years, through boom and bust, we’d worked side-by-side — in fact, I’ve never worked with anyone else that closely for that long. This was the person who first showed me how the sites function and later became one of the few colleagues I’d share a drink with. But now, when I return to work on Monday, the chair beside me will sit empty. -
Going west, and north for Web Directions North
For the past dozen years, my professional life has revolved around two fields: one well-established, the other emerging. And in the past few years the intersection of the two — journalism and the Internet, respectively — has begun changing the business landscape of both. -
Securing identity online
Although The Globe and Mail article suggests it could end spam, the Seven Laws of Identity have little to do with unsolicited bulk email. What the framework could do — which Dr. Ann Cavoukian, Ontario’s privacy commissioner, endorsed and extended today — is reduce spam while protecting what data companies can collect about us. (For a nice summary, download the brochure — or download the full white-paper for more details.) -
The Exlusion of Garth Turner
Garth Turner and I have a history. -
Trouble at Toronto papers
Trouble has been brewing at Toronto Sun for a while, and was already apparent while working at Sun Media’s CANOE in the late 1990s. On the weekend, my current employer, The Globe and Mail wrote a surprisingly sympathetic piece on troubles at Toronto’s tabloid. -
Remembering two Canadian media greats
This weekend Antonia Zebisias broke her blogging silence to remember Sid Adilman, one of Canada’s best entertainment journalists. He died this past Saturday and the paper he spent so much time at, the Toronto Star, remembers him well. -
CBC and spam
Tomorrow night (and again on Saturday), Canada’s public broadcaster devotes itself to a topic any connected person should care about. -
Weisblott blogs again
For a variety of reasons, not the least of which being I don’t want this to be a marketing blog, I try not to focus too often on my day job. However, when something happens that would warrant an entry were it at another media outlet, I will. -
Not-so quality TV
Last night, CBC broadcast an English-langauge remake of its Quebec arm’s hit sitcom, Rumeurs. This version, produced by the one and only Moses Znaimer, was well promoted and expectations were higher than normal for a Canadian show. -
Agile advantages
The more I read about Google’s software development mentality, the more it makes sense from an organizational perspective. -
Two Toronto online events
Lately the posts here have been more idea-based than anything else, this one is not; rather it’s plugging two Toronto-area events. -
Lessons from working with Web standards
During the past five months I’ve been working on a project that’s been alluded to on this site a few times, and it will very soon be done. Once things settle down, I’ll be going into a lot more detail, but for now I’ll tease out a few things I’ve discovered: