It is very difficult to QA a website, even in the sketchy fashion currently required, when the network has been iffy all day and every page takes approximately forever to load. Not counting the images, which take even longer. (Also, our CMS is on our staging server, so when the one went down, they both went down. THAT WAS NOT ANNOYING AT ALL.)

I'm just sayin'.

Annals of bad timing:

Spent about an hour just now working on a somewhat overdue copy edit in our content management system. Tried to save. No response. Tried to save. No response. Developer comes in and says "Are you working in Rhythmyx?"

Me: "Yes..." *hits Cancel"

Him: "Is it really slow?"

Rhythmyx: *presents dialog box informing me about unsaved changes and would I like to save before closing?*

Me: "Yes..." *hits Yes*

Him: "Because I'm doing a full publish and I'm getting an out of memory error. I wondered if anyone else was having problems."

Rhythmyx: *presents 500 Internal Server Error*

Me: *sobs*

Him: "Oh, did you just lose something?"

Me: "I really wish you'd come in about a minute earlier."

Fortunately everything I did was pretty mechanical, but that's the thing, it's so bloody BORING I don't like having to do it more than once.

I'm going home now.

Having just transferred my To-Do list into Lotus Notes, I am remembering why I was keeping it on paper all these years. IT'S BECAUSE LOTUS NOTES SUCKS.

I know we all love to bash Microsoft, but OMG Outlook is a miracle of intuitive usability compared to this BLOODY STUPID PROGRAM. AAAAAARGH.

*ahem*

Sorry, just needed to get that out.

I am so very nearly done. 12 pages to go! (Web pages, so longer than actual pages, but still.) And they're on feeding babies, so they're unlikely to be stressful. (Icky, yes. Stressful, no.)

Haven't got anything else done this week, mind you, but yay!

So, um, hi. It's me. Still here. Thanksgiving weekend was great once it got started (which would be 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, as I had a class all day). Went up to the cottage, sat in the sun and read a lot, went for a gorgeous walk in the woods by myself. Did not contribute to Thanksgiving dinner beyond buying the turkey (it was a monster and, come to think of it, I didn't get any leftovers -- hmph). Although I did pick up some autumn leaves for the centrepiece.

I was sort of vaguely thinking that life would be calmer in the fall. It's not -- it's just a bit more regimented. As I explained to stilldeepwater yesterday, I currently have Veronica Mars on Tuesdays, Information Architecture course on Wednesdays, and choir on Thursdays. I also try to work, sleep, feed myself, buy groceries, exercise occasionally, and keep myself and my surroundings reasonably clean. In a really good week I manage to get one or two things done on the House. I'm having a little trouble staying motivated at work, but I'm doing OK -- better than I'm doing getting up in the morning, which is a challenge when it's overcast. A touch of SAD may be creeping in. At least I'm still managing to make myself coffee every day. (And I'm still sort of on top of my to-do list some of the time. All hail the power of the tiny notebook!)

At some point I also have to make those 10 Christmas ornaments. I got some books out of the library for inspiration, but haven't cracked them yet. Instead, I've managed to inundate myself with fiction (not that that's a BAD thing). My book policy changed, so anything I think will be a reasonably quick read I just ask to have sent to me right away. Which is cool but results in, um, 26 books out at last count. (Including Song of Unmaking, which I read in one sitting on Saturday -- well, not exactly, because I was outside and had to keep getting up to follow the sun around, but you know what I mean. I keep worrying about those covers though. I can't see her feet, and her clothes are so diaphanous that I worry her shoes match it and she'll get her toes stepped on. I'm having a hard time picturing Valeria in flowing white garments.) (Also Brave New World, which I may not finish -- I started skipping like mad, always a bad sign, and I think I've read enough to get the gist. I am bad, but life is short.)

I've also been going through a YA phase -- Maureen Johnson, Chris Crutcher, Meg Cabot. I don't think I read enough YA when I actually was a YA.

Work: slightly crazy, but I need the pressure, so it's all good.

House: continues, I need to spend some quality time with it. Jen's fridge is arriving tomorrow, finally. Shower continues temperamental. Overhead fan is installed. Washing machine still seems to be working. Updates have been fitful but I'll post them at some point. Housewarming II is November 18, for those of you in the neighbourhood.

Graaagh.

So I wrote an email and pasted some text into it from a Word document. Hit
Send. Got a dialog box that informed me the message used a character set
that wasn't found in the font I was using (or something like that) and
would I like to send it in ISO-something or the best native character set?
I realized that the curly quotes from the Word document were probably what
was causing the problem, hit Cancel on the dialog box, fixed the curly
quotes, and hit Send again.

Then I got a dialog box that said "Are you sure? This message has already
been sent to one or more recipients."

Uh.

I told it yes, I was sure (because you can't trust it). Officemate, who
was one of the recipients, did indeed get two copies of the message. So in
other words, Lotus Notes gave me a dialog box that implied it wasn't going
to send the message until I made a decision WHILE SENDING THE MESSAGE
ANYWAY.

It is a minor irritation, but one of so very many. Last week I discovered
a number of websites devoted to explaining how, exactly, Lotus Notes
sucks. I am not surprised.

Am seriously freaked out by this article. (Which may even be free access for the rest of you as it's BMJ -- go on, give it a try! Er, unless you think you might find it disturbing too, in which case, don't.)

PSA You Probably Don't Need But I'm Writing About This So You Get It Anyway:

• NEVER LEAVE CHILDREN OR PETS ALONE IN A CAR. EVER EVER. EVER. Even if it's not that hot out and the windows are cracked. Terrible things happen!


• And check your car every time you get out of it, in case a child or a pet got in!


• Especially during times of family upheaval!


• And check the car first if a child goes missing!


• Including the trunk!


• And if you see a child or a pet left alone in someone else's car, I don't CARE if it's embarrassing, call 911 NOW!

Thank you. This concludes your freakout of the day. I'm leaving now...

Just discovered I have primer on my jeans. I don't prime in these jeans! Must have been from cleaning.

My parents went over to the House yesterday and found William so omnipresent and intimidating that they didn't actually do anything but tidy and clean. I said "Welcome to my world."

Jen and I are going to Do Stuff on the House this evening. This will involve moving furniture. Then we're going to eat.

This morning I blathered gave a presentation for an hour and a half about how to enter stuff in our content management system. You wouldn't think such a thing could be spun out for that long, but I'm special that way. Mind you, part of that time was fire alarm and figuring out how to get the projector to play nice with the laptop and then persuading the laptop keyboard to play nice with us mere mortals who don't use the Dvorak system. The last part was met with only qualified success, I'm afraid. Anyway, my boss said it was a good presentation, so go me.

Now I am writing about heat-related illness.

My life: a thrill a minute. Aren't you lucky you get to listen in?

Also *phew*

My references say that I am right!

Which, you know, I wasn't really doubting, but there is always the
ever-present danger of gremlins creeping in and disrupting the
proceedings.

25,465 / 30,626 (82.0%)

Mostly copying and pasting from elsewhere today, but still.

I am slightly weirded out to note that my average word count per Web page for this track is 473. Average for the previous 3 tracks: 471. I swear I wasn't even going for anything in particular (other than "not too long").

Tomorrow we edit! And then, on to the last track!

Q: How do you get 50 international child neurologists into a room?
A: World Cup soccer.

Today was slowish. I'm in a long, long room with poster presentations at one end and a TV tuned to the World Cup at the other. While a session is going on, it's dead quiet; when one lets out, there's a bit of a flood, but it's not as busy as it was yesterday. I'm surrounded by pharmaceutical companies big and little, equipment manufacturers, disease associations, and medical publishers. Am sad to report that I just missed out on getting a plush alligator from the monitoring equipment guys down the hall. :(

So far, though, I'm doing OK. When there's a rush, I stand and hand out postcards to anyone who slows down, makes eye contact, or looks vaguely interested in our booth. Once in a blue moon, someone expresses more interest and I talk them through the site. All I really want to do is get as many copies of our URL out there and circulating as possible, so I'm cautiously pleased, and everyone who's taken an interest has said nice things about the site. I've even had people spontaneously come up to me and say how much they like it and that they tell their patients about it. So, yay!

Of course, some people do go past refusing to make eye contact, but such is life. (Particularly liked the guys who walked past my booth, one of them showing the other an OC box set he'd evidently just picked up at HMV. There are so many reasons to come to Montreal.) Also, I keep seeing people go past with cake, but I haven't yet managed to arrive at the refreshment tables in time.

In the intervals, which are many, I should be writing, but I'm clearing out my Hotmail backlog instead -- over 3 months worth. Today I did LiveJournal comments, so if you got a long-delayed reply from me, well, that's why. And when I'm not doing that, I bond with my fellow booth denizens. Not that that got me an alligator, but it is interesting.

Tomorrow is the last day for the booth, woohoo! (Then I get to tear it down and possibly attend a session or two.)

(Edited to fix the time -- this computer's clock is wildly off, and I don't have privileges to change it.)

Actually I'm too fried to write at the moment, which means you'll all have to wait to hear my thrilling tales of adventure on the conference floor. Which probably means, given my record of updates, that you'll never get to hear about my wild and crazy life the last few days.

Short version: I'm alive, I'm in Montreal, everything's going well so far. And they're about to kick me out of here. High time too.

22,900 / 30,626 (74.0%)

That could've gone better. Oh well, I've been distracted, what with this and that.

In which the wisdom of attending to my to-do list is shown, again, in bright red letters two feet high.

Called the hotel to make sure they'd received my request for technical services (power and Internet hookup) at the booth. Nope. I sent it three weeks ago, so really I should've found this out before now. Oops.

Still, it may be a good thing really. I subscribe to the principle that if things seem to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something, and I'd been wondering what it was.

Cautious optimism prevails...

The poster for the conference just arrived!

8' x 4'. It's big. Artist Jen is stressing out slightly on the grounds that her brains were never meant to be blown up to that size. Let me rephrase that -- the brains she drew were never meant to be blown up to that size. I assured her that if any neurologists come along and say "Hey, that convolution's wrong!" I will smack them.

Also, the two laptops and all the brochure stands and postcards and bookmarks and things fit nicely into my new wheelie suitcase (Air Canada carry-on size). Now I just have to figure out what to pack my clothes in.

Officemate, in ironic tones: "Huh. Surprisingly, the dictionary doesn't recognize 'thesaurification' as a real word."

Me: "You amaze me!" *hyena-like laughter*

...followed by some discussion of verbification which is actually nounification of a non-existent verb that had to be verbified from something else. Officemate allows as how maybe he shouldn't be too surprised at the dictionary's intransigence. It's always nice when I get to quote Much Ado About Nothing.

Think I shall start using these guys:

20,639 / 30,626 (66.0%)

(Note on the math: The three tracks I've (almost) completed to date consist of 42 web pages and total 19,789 words, averaging 471 words per page (they vary wildly). The site is supposed to have 65 pages in total. I make that 30,626 words. I may need to recalculate after this track is done. 850 words today, not a full day.)

Went out at lunch and got some clear plastic display stands and brochure holders for the conference. Am ridiculously pleased at how great they look (well, it's really how great our materials look, because our artists rock the house, but the stands add that extra professional veneer). Poster has gone to the printer. We're set.

Who needs a $10,000 booth? With a poster, some postcards and bookmarks, $35 worth of brochure holders from Staples, and a laptop, we are set to take on the world! (Or at least that part of it that will be in the booths either side of us.)

Uh, if that was too cryptic, I'm booth bunnying at a medical conference in Montreal next week, right next to all the pharma heavy hitters. I'm quite looking forward to it.

I have to do an analysis of our competition. So I'm trying to figure out who our competition is. Please help me out! Tell your friends!

Poll #742551 Totally unscientific health information poll
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Do you have children? If yes, how old is/are he/she/they?

Do you look for health information on the Internet?

Do you have a preferred health site or sites?

My favourite health sites are: