My apologies for not blogging more often this week. I’m still waiting for the rest of the crew to jump in and share some of their thoughts. Interesting people with great ideas and lots of insight surround me, but slowing them down long enough to blog is a challenge.
And speaking of challenges, here’s one for you: drop me an email (put BLOG in the subject line) and give me some ideas of what sorts of topics you’d like me to blog about.
Whether you invite me to supper; beg me to play harmless practical jokes on unsuspecting people in the park and publish the results (with photos!); send me on a crazy scavenger hunt or just to find the most interesting tourist in the local campgrounds — I’m ready.
Maybe it’s time to shake things up a bit around here, kick back and have some fun. The Suggestion Box is officially open!
It’s been a long day.
I lost two hours while I downloaded critical Windows updates from Microsoft in an effort to protect my computer from another destructive worm. I’m exaggerating just a little but it did take quite a long time, especially for the high-speed connection we have here in the Miratech Building. The speed problem was on the Microsoft side of things — there were just too many people trying to download the update at the same time.
This Internet worm is really bad because it’s not like the email viruses we’ve become used to fending off. Just surfing the web can infect you.
I’ve been hearing about a lot of local people who have been infected by this worm, so if you run Windows I suggest you make sure you’ve got all your updates.
If your computer has been shutting down all by itself when you haven’t told it to, you might already be infected. Get all the details about WORM_MSBLAST.A by visiting the Trend Antivirus website.
I spent the rest of the day preparing the Bread ‘n Molasses site for the September issue. I started on the home page or Current Issue page. First, I deleted all the story teasers, photos, buttons and headlines from the home page or cover.
Then, I went into each section (Giv’er, The Very Best, Local Interest, etc.) and added an August 2003 heading under Articles from Past Issues . . . Then I listed the headlines and links to the stories under the August 2003 heading .
I had to make room for the new September headlines and story descriptions at the top of every section page, so I deleted the ones from August. But if you look around the site you won’t see any of that — everything looks the same as yesterday. That’s because I made a copy of the website after we published the August issue. So I’m free to add and delete without worrying that there will be a website here when you come to visit.
Not everyone works from a copy but with a website as large as Bread ‘n Molasses and with all the new material that gets added every month, it’s the best way for us. When the time comes to let you see the new issue, it’s just a simple matter of taking down the current site and replacing it with the copy I’m working on now.
The other thing I did today was to make a Submissions Form for the Submit Page. That’s pretty exciting! It’s just a simple form you fill out to send us your submissions. That includes letters for Your Say, Sticky Notes, Grammie or Tech Talk; links for Hello Fer Stuff; essays; poems; short stories; jokes or anything you’d like us to consider including in an upcoming issue.
Just fill out the form and click submit — it doesn’t get much easier than that! I’m hoping that by making it easier for people to do, more people will send us things. You can’t check the form out yet because it’s in the copy site I’m working on, but you’ll be able to access it as soon as September rolls around.
One last thing before I close the blog for today and go home — I stumbled across some pictures we took a few months ago at Robbie Tucker’s CD launch party in Northumberland Square.
I had originally intended to put them with the story I wrote about him. I’m not sure what happened to that idea. More than likely I just didn’t write it down anywhere and it got lost in the shuffle.
Anyway, I found them today and thought I’d share them.
Giv’er Miramichi is about “What’s up, what’s new, what’s happening”. We are focused on building people up, supporting one another and celebrating our successes.