Changes

So, I'm sitting at my desk today monitoring the PSEWeb conference in Toronto... lots of good information coming from twitter (#pseweb).

What suddenly hit me was how I'm chatting and "listening" to people from all around the world on topics that are important to all of us. We're not in a vacuum, we're having a "global meeting."

I'll be honest, when I went to college, no internet - no web - no cell phones. That all changed at my first job where I got a cell phone, email and used a collegiate intranet.

So, how much more will the world change for my kids? If the past 20 years is any indication, the world will shrink further... how will we distinguish between work/family time? Will that matter? If everything is out on the web, how do we compensate people? For what tasks? Time will tell, but the only constant is change

Failed Tasks

So, I've been asked to complete a task at work... not going to go into the details of it but it involves essentially removing access from a social media platform we will no longer support. Went online, read the instructions, followed them to the letter and nothing. The final button did nothing.

OK, try it again, maybe I missed a step? Nope.

OK, maybe the browsers I updated won't play nice with this site anymore, so I go get an earlier version to try that. Nope.

Maybe the help forums have an answer, Nope.

Then it became at least a 30-minute search for the contact button. Finally found it, sent a message and waited.

It took 24 hours for a response and then I got new instructions. None of which are online in the "how to delete an account" or "help deleting your account" forums. I'm not sure why that would be, because now they have to talk to anyone who is serious about removing an account, but I'm not the manager of that group. So, I followed those instructions and am now waiting again.

This is the second time I've had issues recently with removing a profile... my other headache was with a website I created for a class on a free server. When I went to delete my profile I was told that I cannot do that, but I could delete my site and never return and eventually I'll be placed in their dead account file. I guess I understand keeping content for liability purposes, but making it hard to clean up my internet life? I'm not sure I'm happy about that. I don't like leaving accounts with emails and passwords out in the ether.

Crossing my fingers that the first group clears the account for me and I can move on... but this will make me think twice about trying new social media sites...

Blogger issues

So, last week, blogger crashed. People freaked out for a few days but it came back. I didn't lose any content and I haven't met anyone who did.

Technology is changing so much... I used to print photos, now I save on a computer... will I be able to access them in the future? I blog into the cloud...what happens when that server crashes or the company supporting it can't pay their bills...

Where are the archives of the future going to be? They say nothing is ever deleted that is published online... but I wonder how true that is. Only time (and resources) will tell.

New browsers

Updated my browser at work to firefox 4.0.1, having issues with Delicious and probably other things too. Updated internet explorer at home... not liking it either. I just want to do things quickly and while these changes may eventually make my life better, today I am just annoyed.

Had a chance to do some reading today at work about HTML5 and CSS3 and responsive design in web development. Hoping I'll be able to jump into some training this summer to get hands-on. I really want to keep improving my skills so I can keep on creating.