I never thought I’d see the day but shy old me is on YouTube.  What’s hard to appreciate from the video is how packed the little gym is and how nervous I am.  Well, maybe it’s not hard to appreciate how nervous I am.

Thanks again to Dan Taylor, Jean Anne Carroll and the rest of the Creative Minds crew for having me out.  I look forward to many more gatherings, from the comfort of the audience.

A big thanks to Dan Taylor and Jean Anne Carroll for inviting me to speak tonight at Creative Minds.  My theme was [cough cough] keeping your website up to date.  Like the title says, do as I say, not as I do.

I’ve been busy, OK?  Keeping the site up to date was put on the backburner in order to focus on finishing websites for my clients, but it’s no excuse.  Keeping your site up to date with periodic posts is my number one tip to small businesses for generating a bond with your prospective clients or customers.  People want to see that you visit your own site and that you care about what image your business is projecting.  To that end I’ll be redesigning my own site in the near future.

I like the image of me beside the books because it’s a hint at the wide range of knowledge required to do my job.  What I don’t like is how heavy I am in the picture.  Anyone who was at Creative Minds tonight will wonder who the guy is in the picture.

The other thing that I don’t like is the confusing set of names.  I was introduced tonight as Kennedy Data Solutions, the website says Quinte Web Design, and neither are memorable or particularly meaningful.

The name I’ve chosen to move forward with is Jacob Kennedy Solutions.  And I’m getting business cards.  Soon.

Thanks again everyone for laughing when they were supposed to and to anyone from Trenton, sorry, I didn’t mean it.

Jacob

Another website goes gold.  This one, investincheese.ca, is a website dedicated to the promotion of cheese-making and enjoying in the Frontenac, Hastings, Lennox and Addington, and Prince Edward County regions.

The site features dynamic pulls from Twitter, Flickr and YouTube as well as some unique things like a news ticker, the Digg Digg plugin which enables easy sharing on Twitter, Facebook and Google Buzz as well as the Share This plugin.  It is, of course, a Wordpress-driven site and is best of breed for March 2010.

Coming later this week is a news aggregator.  Very cool stuff.

I say, LET THEM EAT CHEESE!

This is a general call for help.  An APB if you wish.  I’ve got a client who has requested Google Maps.  No problem.  They want a CMS.  No problem.  They want to be able to get directions between the articles, which are points of interest, in the order in which the user defines.  No problem.  Now they want to bundle the whole thing in a single zip file, including the articles which should be pdfs.  No, er, what’s that?

I can put the attachments in a single zip file.  I can make the articles into pdfs.  What I can’t seem to do, for the life of me, is get the Google Map into a dynamically created pdf.  I’m sure there’s a way, I just haven’t come across it yet.  Anyone?

Anyone?

I’ll post the answer here and give credit where it’s due. promise.

Anyone?

I have to say that, being raised in a small town I was nervous about living and working in the city.  The general notion is that people in a small town are warm and generous and people in the city are cold and terse.  I’m proud to report that at least one city, Belleville, Ontario, is as kind and as warm as any small town I’ve ever been in.

This weekend was a highlight for me as I got to watch my daughter ‘perform’ in her first figure skating gala.  Since this is her first year her performance was little more than some shuffling of a hula and some circle skating but it was clear to see that she has a knack for the spotlight.  We were also treated to some fantastic displays of showmanship from Peter O’Brien, Shawn Sawyer, and Joannie Rochette.  Suffice it to say that I was impressed with the production quality of the show.  I did feel bad for Joannie and Shawn being put on the spot to comment about the Olympic torch coming to Prince Edward County (they both handled the task admirably).  Oh yeah, and the attendance?  Packed house for both shows.  Great job everyone.

On Sunday I took my Ella to the Sears family Christmas party.  It’s an annual event that Sears puts on for its employees and it reaffirms the reason why I stay here.  While the pay could be better (who doesn’t complain about their pay?) the effort to please the employees is stellar.  My Ella received a gift, was entertained for the morning, watched a movie and played her heart out.  She is already looking forward to next year’s events (there’s a summer party, too).

To top it all off, this morning in the drive-through at Tim Horton’s I was attacked with a random act of kindness.  The woman in front of me must have liked my singing along to the radio because she anonymously paid for my breakfast.  This is the second or third time I’ve received this kind of RAoK and I’ve given it twice and it amazes me each time the rush and the joy it brings to both parties.  If you get a chance, and are feeling adventurous, give it a try.  You’ll spend the rest of the day wondering about the person behind you and how you’ve surprised them.  It puts a smile on your face the whole day through.

Oh yeah, and I saw the Dark Knight on the weekend.  One word – wow.  I’ll never forget the image of Heath Ledger in the nurse’s outfit walking away from the hospital.  Scary.  And the lip-smacking.  Agh!  Ultra creepy.

PS – The happy faces?  Those are the results from the Acid Test 2 in IE 7 (the first image) and Chrome (the second).  What are the good people at Microsoft doing?