Archive for August, 2009

Posted on August 31, 2009 - by J Lane

Thinking about new projects

Maybe it’s because summer’s almost over, or maybe it’s because I haven’t started something new in a while, but I’ve been thinking about starting a new project.  I thought that I’d post about it here just to get the idea off my chest and see if there’s any neat ideas/feedback out there.

The gist of the project is to offer an local, online farmer’s market.

One of the things I enjoy most about the summer is the farmer’s markets here on Mayne.  It’s easy to find fresh, seasonal, local produce on Mayne Island.  Besides the farmer’s market every Saturday, a lot of the local farms will also do sales right at their gate.

In the winter months, it can be difficult to get fresh produce.  The stuff that the grocery store brings in is at best not so fresh, and at worst decomposing on the shelf (seriously).  I’ve heard that because we’re a small island and a small store, that we usually get the leftovers when it comes to produce distribution.

The first winter we lived here, one of the local farms offered a box program.  Weekly produce boxes full of fresh greens, kale, radishes and other tasty treats were a godsend.  Why can’t we have that year-round?  What do local growers do to sell their stuff in the off season?

Even during the summer months, I heard some local growers saying that they had huge amounts of certain things, with nowhere to sell it.  They could only move so many cucumbers every Saturday morning.

So the idea is this:

1. Local growers set up a profile page with contact info and a map showing their location on the island.
2. They select from (or add to) a list of products that they have available.  They can indicate whether they have “Lots”, “Some”, or “Little” of any particular item.
3. People can then log on and see what’s in season, where they can get it, and get in contact with growers to arrange to buy some.  I’d love to work in some type of electronic payment setup too so that cash wasn’t so important, but I’m not sure that this particular market is ready for that.

Down the line (version 1.5), I’d also like to build in a recipe tie in so that if you’ve never had (for example) kale before in your life, and you have no idea how to prepare it, you can get some ideas.  I don’t think that building yet another epicurious.com is called for, but maybe a short note/link database for recipes.

A key to this will be marketing it locally.  It’s the same story as with any online marketplace — you have to hit a critical mass of buyers and sellers before it’s useful to anyone.  It will be free to list and free to search (I haven’t figured out whether there’ll be any sort of revenue model to this site – I can’t see advertising being that big?)

Posted on August 30, 2009 - by J Lane

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-08-30

• Trying my hand at making a sourdough. It smells sour… *fingers crossed* #
• One of those time where living on an island is inconvenient: need 4GB USB stick. Only have 2GB. #
• According to #rescuetime, I'm in the top 1% of people for productivity. Srsly? Maybe I just waste my time offline… #
• Have I mentioned how much I'm digging @harvest? I'm going to plunge into the API now. #
• I just put in an Amazon order that isn't going to ship until March 9th… At least they don't bill until shipment unlike some retailers #
• Thinking about heading to the beach with the boys for a few hours. Remind me again why Mondays suck… #
• Also, anyone else interested, and @Rod_Phillips, BCREA has put up an anti-HST info/action page: http://bit.ly/2izdma (via @TimAyres) #
• Erg Internet Explorer. I thought we had an understanding… #
• IE meet absolute positioning, absolute pos., this is IE. It's going to keep referring to you as "bubba". IE is slow, don't take offense. #
• Note to self: anyone working on any version of IE, past or present should be punched. Preferably in the head. #
• Pro-HST forces step up. Consumers still say new tax structure stinks. http://tinyurl.com/lpzpnr (via @timescolonist) *love the last line* #
• Haven't been able to post a comment to Facebook from my phone for days. Anyone else having trouble? #
• Dress like a chicken day? http://twitpic.com/fgu0q #
• Properly implemented CSS just makes me happy. #
• Heading to Victoria with the kids #
• Why does the new Facebook app not handle push notifications? #
• Home time. http://twitpic.com/fmmpm #
• Finally installing Windows 7 on netbook #

Posted on August 23, 2009 - by J Lane

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-08-23

• Lazy day with the kids. Tomorrow, I think I'll be working in Victoria at some random coffee shop #
• Think I'm finally going to check out @cabin12victoria tomorrow… #
• Designing for yourself is hard, but when it turns out well, it's really, really awesome. #yourowncoolstuff (via @orderedlist) #
• Wonder if the new Facebook app will jump the queue in the app store review process. #
• Office for the afternoon http://twitpic.com/e9k1o #
• Hey #bcndp your HST web site is broken #
• Mailmanagr has some days where I just think "holy cow, people love e-mail don't they?" #
• Think I should give Windows 7 a try on my EEE PC #
• Are the #BCLiberals serious? After all the BS with the #HST they're still telling us to "brace for a tough budget"? http://bit.ly/MMZk3 #
• Designing a *print* ad for my *wife*. You might as well just go ahead and shoot me now. #
• Thinking about switching my time tracking/invoicing to Harvest from Blinksale/API mashup I currently use #
• So, do I write something to move invoices from @Blinksale to @Harvest, or do I do it by hand? Hmmm… #
• #rogers is the stupidest company in Canada. Every day for the past week they've called my cell phone asking for my wife. #
• …every day I tell them that they have the wrong number. #
• I can haz non-corrupt provincial politics plz? #
• Someday I'll be able to report #rogersatt to the #crtc. Someday… #

Posted on August 16, 2009 - by J Lane

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-08-16

• Haven't been able to log in via web to @twitter for 4 days now. Tweetie on iPhone returns error on first attempt and then logs in on 2nd. #
• Amazing how a new fridge makes such a huge difference in preventing food spoilage #
• OMG, that was excruciating. #
• I'm officially not speaking with a certain 5 year old #
• Used to need glasses to work at computer. Now that I have an office without fluorescent lighting, I don't anymore. Go figure. #
• Welcome to RE/MAX Gulf Islands as my latest client. Looking forward to this, we're going to do great things! #
• I really wish that other Jonathan Lane on Gmail would get his act together and stop using my e-mail address. #
• BC Liberals' Hidden Agenda Exposed: Province was urged last December to quickly impose #HST http://bit.ly/HuPRa (via @stoptaxhikes) #
• Article in @theprovince yesterday about how the #HST would shed 400 government jobs in BC. …but I thought it was going to create jobs? #
• Breakfast with a cutie http://twitpic.com/dqk1h #
• Digging that #weLoveTheNHS is trending now. I'm sort of baffled as to how anyone in the States opposes basic health care… #
• Qik for iPhone now in the App Store! http://bit.ly/3CynTP (via @vectorfunk) #
• Off to bed for the night. Early to work in the morning. #
• #winMBP @taptaptap is giving away a $5999 ColorWare STEALTH MacBook Pro to celebrate launching Convert for iPhone! http://taptaptap.com/+F73 #
• …and now that I've whored myself out, I'm going to go buy Convert #
• I'm getting horrible about my SVN commits. #
• <Grumble> the form code generated by this SEO company's lead tracker is nasty. <Grumble> #

Posted on August 15, 2009 - by J Lane

Say no to the HST!

I received an e-mail from Chris Delaney today about the Citizen Initiative to oppose the HST.  Here’s the contents:

SAY NO TO THE HST!

Former B.C. Premier, Bill Vander Zalm,
together with leaders from business, labour and politics,
will speak at a rally to oppose the HST:

Saturday, September 19th

12:00 noon

Vancouver Art Gallery

Mr. Vander Zalm is calling on all British Columbians
to help organize a “Citizen’s Initiative” to rescind the HST.

Details on how you can help will be given out at the rally.

Come and show Gordon Campbell
and the BC Liberals what you think
about their HST!

Please pass this message on to all your friends,
relatives, contacts and associates.

If you’re available to help hand out information and sign up volunteers, please contact chris@chrisdelaney.com with your name, address and phone number.

Posted on August 9, 2009 - by J Lane

Apple Mail’s Handling of Attachments

When Apple said “Think Different”, they weren’t kidding.  Especially as it relates to their handling of certain types of attachments in Apple Mail.

The Background:

My company, Industry Interactive, produces Mailmanagr.  Mailmanagr lets people post messages, todos, milestones and files directly to Basecamp from their e-mail.  Among other uses, if you’ve got a client that just can’t get used to logging into Basecamp and posting stuff there, you can just forward the messages they send you through Mailmanagr.  Works great, unless you’re using Apple Mail.

While most mail clients (like Gmail, or Outlook) will handle files as attachments, Apple has decided to include them inline in the message.  This is true for any type of file that Apple things is an image — so JPGs, GIFs, PNGs, PDFs — anything that displays within Apple Mail and doesn’t require a third party application to view.  There are ways to get around it, and to force Apple Mail to deal with them as attachments, but that’s messy.  As far as I can figure, it all comes down to this:

–Apple-Mail-14-963253153
Content-Disposition: inline;
filename=image004.jpg
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Type: image/jpeg;
x-unix-mode=0644;
name=”image004.jpg”

Instead of the standard:

Content-Type: image/jpeg; name=”image001.jpg”
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
X-Attachment-Id: 0.0.1

The problem here is that certain types of clients can’t figure out that there is an attachment on the message.  Mailmanagr suffers this problem and so “image” attachments forwarded from Apple Mail don’t get sent through to Basecamp.

The Solution:

There is a workaround, but it’s extremely messy.  In Mailmanagr’s case, I have to write a completely different way of dealing with file attachments for Apple Mail than for any other e-mail client.  It’s a pain – I’ll have to sniff the “X-Mailer” and then handle accordingly.  So far, only one customer has had this problem so I’ve been putting off developing the fix.

Posted on August 9, 2009 - by J Lane

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-08-09

• Waiting for my wife to make me late to work (again) #
• Just completed a 2.49 km hike with @runkeeper, check it out http://bit.ly/3J9w9P #RunKeeper #
• I know I married the right woman because she just came home with GI Joe the animated series on DVD for me. *swoon* #
• Oh yeah, I stopped using Apple Mail because random messages go missing. Almost forgot… #
• OMG. My wife is a total MILF http://twitpic.com/d3ljz #
• Wow, the "No BC HST" group is up to 43,000 members. #
• 8 out of 10 BC residents oppose the #HST. That's enough to lose an election… http://bit.ly/IJm2S #
• Lazy morning http://twitpic.com/d61b5 #
• GigE sure comes in handy sometimes #

Posted on August 7, 2009 - by J Lane

What BC needs for leadership

There’s been some great discussion going on here and elsewhere about the HST.  I’ve seen some pretty good traffic on my posts about the HST, and getting involved to oppose the HST with excellent comments left by readers.  As many have pointed out, however, there is a greater issue at play here — trust and credibility.  Gordon Campbell and his party have lost it.

The BC Liberals, in no uncertain terms, stated during the election campaign that they would not be pursuing an HST.  Even their budget did not forecast any increase in taxes.  I understand that things can change in a year, or even six months later, but the HST was very clearly in the works during the election campaign.  I am not aware of some event that can account for the complete reversal of campaign promises in this case.

I have to admit that I didn’t vote for the Campbell government in the first place.  I am one of the 49% of eligible voters that did find their way to the polls on election day, and I cast my vote for the NDP.  It’s not that I actually support the NDP and what they stand for; in fact, during the campaign I was sick of their constant negativity and attack ads doing nothing but talking about how bad things are and everything that the Liberals were doing was leading to the destruction of British Columbia.  They didn’t appear to offer any new ideas, or solutions to many of the issues they were dragging into the spotlight.

It’s one thing to say (from the NDP web site):

“…since the election the premier has backed away from his commitments to protect vital public services like health care and education and is hiding the true state of B.C.’s finances.”

It’s another to offer a plan to actually protect or improve health care and/or education in the face of a recession.  Money is in short supply.  Revenues are down.  What can you do?  You can make cuts, but that could make the situation worse.  Ultimately, you look for the inefficiencies in the system, and fix them.  I realize that this is an extremely simplistic solution for the problem.  I’m not an economist, or an expert in this area.  There are a lot of people who are experts though, why not get them involved?

Others would argue that making cuts to eduction is the worst thing you can do.  Funding education is an investment in the future.  Funding health care is essential (read up on the current debate in the States if you doubt this statement).  What can we do to ensure the long-term viability of these (and other) essential services?

What is the answer?

Ideally, I think we need another alternative here.  I know that BC has more than just two political parties, but in reality, the only real players in the game are the Liberals and the NDP.  The green party is really just the NDP part 2 — great at splitting the vote on the left, but ultimately they’re not bringing much of anything new to the table.  There are a lot of single issue parties out there as well — they drive me nuts.  We the electorate are not going to put you in office so that you can legalize marijuana, or create a constitution for the province.  While the latter may be a long-term solution to some of our problems, we have a number of short term problems that need addressing.  Trying to cram everything into your narrow view of the world isn’t a viable option.

We’re having trouble with voter apathy because there is no party/candidate that captures the heart and the imagination of the voting public.  I almost didn’t vote because I didn’t want any of the alternatives (but that’s shortsighted).  We need somebody who is willing to stand up in this province and acknowledge that there are problems, but to offer actual solutions.  Driving the province deeply in debt to fund massive social programs isn’t the solution. Offloading costs to working people, isn’t a solution either.  It’s easy to show a profit if you’re offloading all of your operating expenses to your customers.  I’ve never understood the draw toward governments having surplus budgets — you’re not trying to make shareholders happy.

Ultimately, however, we need to stop being lied to.  If a political party promises that they are or aren’t going to do something, they need to actually do it (or not).  It’s a massive cop-out to get elected on a platform of lies.  Give us hope, but don’t give us false hope.

Posted on August 2, 2009 - by J Lane

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-08-02

• Writing up a proposal for a client. Really excited about this one, something I've been jonesing to do for a while. #
• It's going to be freaking hot today. I can tell already. http://twitpic.com/bphtf #
• What is up with the power today? Two outages, and it's sunny and hot! #
• And why do my smoke detectors feel the need to send pings when the power is out? #
• Power's still out. Current theory is that the grow ops on Saturna caused a brown-out #
• Sigh, was hoping to do some #mailmanagr work tonight. Not in the cards though. #
• Okay, maybe a couple of #mailmanagr bugs… just so I can sleep better. #
• I used to think web browsers were bad. The differences between mail client support makes me want to cry #mailmanagr #
• Thanks again for not valuing my time. You know who you are. #
• Just wrote to my MLA re. the #HST. Not sure why, just getting tired of being shat on by the #bc #government #
• Going to pick up my sister at the airport in Victoria. #
• Just completed a 0.05 km hike with @runkeeper, check it out http://bit.ly/dhjot #RunKeeper #
• Hate the way Apps just randomly steal focus. I'm updating my iPhone, fine… iTunes doesn't need focus for that. #
• Hmmm… my iPhone is just randomly vibrating. <insert sick joke here> #
• Awesome. My blog post about the HST is ranking higher than the BC government's HST web site… I love Google. #
• Join the Facebook group (if you haven't already) http://tr.im/v196 #hst #bc #
• Was about to blame #Panic for several hard crashes on my machine lately (#Coda). Then I realized that it was #svn being bad. #
• Erg. Bidding on a 1TB Time capsule on eBay, and Apple just lowered their prices. Outbid me please!! #
• Just got an e-mail from a former BC Premier #HST #
• All those opposed to the #hst in #BC send an e-mail to chris@chrisdelaney.com (on behalf of Bill Vander Zalm) #

Posted on August 1, 2009 - by J Lane

Proposed HST in BC – reprise

The BC Government’s proposed HST will, no doubt, devastate a number of businesses and industries in BC.  The most telling indicator I read was an interview with a restaurant in Kelowna, BC saying that after the introduction of the GST, their business dropped 10%.  That was a 7% tax, this is a 12% tax (or if you will, an increase of 7%).  Best case scenario is that they can expect the same thing, another 10% drop in business during a recession when sales are already off in tourism and hospitality.

After my last post went over pretty well, I thought I’d write a quick follow up post on what you actually can do in opposition to the HST.  While it’s probably a complete waste of time writing to your MLA, send them an e-mail anyhow because if they start getting flooded with messages, they might put two and two together and realize that the HST may be impacting their chances of re-election.

That aside, there’s a couple of other routes you can go to make your voice heard:

1. Facebook is providing a home to a number of groups opposing the HST.  The largest has over 10,000 members.  Go join.  The first group I got involved with has over 400 members (don’t know how many overlap).  Personally, I’m going to try to stay active in both.
2. Former Premier Bill Vander Zalm is coming out of retirement to lead the charge in opposition to this issue.  I’ve only lived in BC for a couple of years now, but honestly, Vander Zalm seems to have his head on straight and knows what he’s talking about.  He’s building a list of people interested in the cause.  To join, drop an e-mail to chris@chrisdelaney.com (I think this is our best bet so far)
3. The BC NDP has started a petition to stop the HST.  Sign it, even if you don’t support/didn’t vote for the NDP.  This is an issue that affects us all, forget your party loyalties for a moment.

British Columbians should feel betrayed by the Campbell Government.  They are on the record as having said “there will be no HST” prior to the election.  This tax will affect us all.  It is not a matter of just combining the PST and the GST and nothing else will change.  There is more to it than that, get informed and make your voice heard.