http://v1.boxofchocolates.ca a blog is like a box of chocolates... you never know what you're going to get... Mon, 11 May 2009 00:22:41 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Ah, to advertise or not advertise, that is the question. Snook posted about his "SideBar Ads" from the gang at SideBar Creative the other day, and it reminded me of the different things I tried here on my blog. Over time I've had two different iterations of ad support: simply running Google ... http://v1.boxofchocolates.ca/archives/2008/06/18/5-lessons Last year, just before SXSW, Jonathan Snook and I announced the formation of Refresh Ottawa. We (read: Jonathan) knocked out a quick site: Refresh Ottawa. We collected email addresses from interested parties. And now, some 10 months later, we are holding our first get-together. A great way to start the ... http://v1.boxofchocolates.ca/archives/2008/01/05/refresh-ottawa-kickoff This may seem a little odd, but within the last 15 minutes, we've seen search hits (thanks to Shaun Inman's mint) both here on the blog and on the company site for someone looking for a web standards job in Ottawa. This is a good thing, and this post might be ... http://v1.boxofchocolates.ca/archives/2007/10/31/web-standards-job-in-ottawa I've long since been fascinated with changing the style of a site to fit with my needs. Early experimentation with the Web Developer Toolbar lead to me writing Print it your way for A List Apart back in May of 2004. The capacity to restyle and customize sites to match our ... http://v1.boxofchocolates.ca/archives/2007/10/21/doing-it-with-user-style One evening in 2006 during a group iChat, Dave Shea, Maxine Sherrin, John Allsopp and I threw caution to the wind and decided that we were all on board. We were going to bring the stand-out web conference from Australia—Web Directions—across the Pacific Ocean to Vancouver. Here we are close to ... http://v1.boxofchocolates.ca/archives/2007/10/16/web-directions-north-2008 It is hard to believe that it has already been a week two weeks since An Event Apart in Chicago. I had never been to Chicago prior to AEA (assuming you don't count layovers in O'Hare as actually being in Chicago), so I have to admit I was incredibly excited ... http://v1.boxofchocolates.ca/archives/2007/09/12/deep-dish It has been quite some time since my last post (Swimming, Biking and Running Scared), but thought it appropriate to give a quick update on how the IronMan went. The bottom line? We did it! We even created an entire site dedicated to the trek: ironfeathers: swim. bike. run., the new ... http://v1.boxofchocolates.ca/archives/2007/08/14/ironfeathers I'm scared. If you know me, then you probably know that I signed up for IronMan 2007, Lake Placid, NY to take place July 22. If you don't know me, or didn't know that, now you do. IronMan triathlons are endurance events that require every athlete to challenge themselves to complete ... http://v1.boxofchocolates.ca/archives/2007/05/06/swimming-biking-and-running-scared Two of my favourite moments of SXSW this year both involved music. The first was a night that started out and ended fairly innocently, but involved a great non-6th Street event. I was very excited to see some of my Australian friends again (Lachlan, Lisa, Lisa, Cam, and Anson—who would later ... http://v1.boxofchocolates.ca/archives/2007/04/01/sxsw-the-impact-of-music At last. I was beginning to wonder if we'd ever see an end to this, but it looks like WCAG 2.0 has finally been sorted out. This is a great move forward for web accessibility—for the web as a whole—one which will leave a permanent mark. Finally getting WCAG 2.0 sorted ... http://v1.boxofchocolates.ca/archives/2007/04/01/wcag2-a-done-deal