Journal: News & Comment

We've redesigned the Multiactive site

The Web Team crew (including me) at my employer, Multiactive Software, has been plugging away at a new Web site design, and the first phase went live last week. You can take a look if you like.

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Blogger takes over my news

I've just started using a new weblog service called Blogger, recommended on the Web page of my friend Alistair Calder, for news and updates. So, this first entry includes all the news up until today, which I had previously entered manually (and not very often).

Now, here is the archive:

News to September 2000

• September 2000 - My review of a Universal Serial Bus hub from the Keyspan company appears in the August issue of My Mac Magazine, and was recently posted online. As well, I've written a new "GearHead" opinion piece for the site this month. It's about backing up your files.
  
  
• August 2000 - Another couple of my photos have been posted at the MacDesktops site, where you can get all sorts of desktop pictures for your computer, at many different resolutions, for free. I've had a few photos posted there in the last year or two, some of which you may also find at photo.net.
  
  
Sometimes, people thinking of hiring me want a quick, 100-word bio. They might want it as an easy summary of my qualifications, or to show to their supervisors, or to include in a proposal -- whatever. So I've created such a bio, and you can find it on my "Derek Who?" intro page.


• July 2000 - The statistics in the report I just rediscovered by the 1992 Task Force on Appropriate Use of Information Technology at the University of B.C. -- of which I was a member -- are amusing. In '92, there were 26 (yes, twenty-six) Web sites worldwide, none with graphics. Today, there are something like 20 million Web sites. Including this one.
  
  
• June 2000 - Welcome to the redesigned penmachine.com. The content has changed little. I've simply updated the look -- the old design hadn't changed significantly since I wrote my first line of HTML here in March 1997. I also made the page compliant with the official HTML 4.0 Transitional specification, and added the new logo, above. (What is that thing? A pen machine, of course!)
  
  
• March 2000 - This site finally has its own domain -- penmachine.com. You can now reach me at dkmiller@penmachine.com, which points to the same place as my universal e-mail address, dkmiller@pobox.com.
  
  
• March 2000 - I took most of the photographs that appear in the 1999 Multiactive Software Inc. Annual Report. I also edit Multiactive's monthly e-mail newsletter. My recent freelance work has been private, and not for general publication; it includes a couple of academic theses and editing of an author's novel in progress.
  
  
• February 2000 - I've been a regular columnist for MyMac.com, an online Macintosh-focused magazine, since May 1999. Here are my first, second, third, and fourth pieces for the site, through February 2000.
  
  
• January 2000 - I am now a part-time stay-at-home dad for two daughters instead of just one.

News from 1999 and earlier

• November 1999 - Earlier in 1999, I wrote and formatted all the content for the E-Business Advisor module of Entice!, the e-business solution from Multiactive Software, my day-job employer. Entice! subsequently won a "Best of Comdex 1999" award. (At best, the connection between the two events is tenuous.)
  
  
• July 1999 - Several of my photographs appear at MacDesktops.com. You can download them for free.
  
  
• April 1999 - After more than a year as Web Coordinator at Multiactive Software Inc., my job changed in mid-1999: I'm now officially Multiactive's Writer and Editor. I like that. I work part time, spending most of the week being a stay-at-home dad.
  
  
• Winter 1998-99 - My e-commerce booklet, Doing Business Online with Maximizer, included with the Maximizer 5.0 contact manager, also appears in abridged form in the user manual for ecBuilder, an e-commerce program for Windows.
  
  
• In 1998, I edited Gibson's Landing, a novel by Michael Thoma, published by Terra Bella Publishing. I had previously edited Bruno: Love in the Kitchen for the same publisher.
  
  
• "Relief Map", from the December 1997 issue of Vancouver magazine, is available online. (My 1996 piece, "Shipping News", appeared before Van Mag -- or I -- had a Web site.)

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