It came as a surprise to me to be honest..

I’ve been running this business for over 3 years now, and for those of you who also own a business, you know that means countless days that were longer than 8 hours. It’s just a fact of doing what we do. Long days, little pay and sometimes wondering what the heck we’re doing. The funny thing is that we get up each day, and we keep at it. We smile, we dream and we know that we’re doing what we love. Family and friends have looked at us in concern, and the brave ones have even suggested we work too hard and that we should take a break. Little do they know that for most of us, we work like this because it’s a passion, a need to do something for ourselves and to make a difference; either for us, our families or the people we serve.

So when I took my first real vacation just a couple of weeks ago, it was a complete surprise to me how quickly I forgot what day it was, what jobs we were working on and who was most in need of some attention. I can’t remember the last time that I didn’t have a fairly accurate inventory in my head of what needed to be done when, how much time was left, and who owed me money.

I found myself walking the streets of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and I was confident in knowing that when I came back, my office would still be there, things would still be getting done, and that life would move on. Of course I knew that when I got back, there would be some catch up, but I allowed to moment to overcome me and to just experience what was happening around me.

This is where I learned a secret about life. I’ve always tried to get that work/life balance thing under control and I haven’t been THAT bad at it either, but there’s a difference between taking a bit of time off for your body and taking a bit of time for your mind. I’m not saying you need to travel halfway around the world, but I highly recommend that you find a place, a way, a something or other that lets your mind drift away to a place that isn’t work, no matter how much you love what you do. Even if you don’t come back relaxed or refreshed, you will come back with a change in perspective and that will lead to good things.

Find time for yourself, it’s the best way to help others.

I sometimes wonder why different browsers see HTML, CSS and JavaScript in different ways. It frequently makes my life that much more interesting as a web developer. What works in one browser, won’t work, or won’t even exist in another one. Luckily, these aren’t usually large issues.

One of those peculiar discrepancies is the margin and padding of the paragraph and header tags. In IE there is no difference between using margin and padding for the spacing between paragraphs (and in Firefox, for the most part, there isn’t a difference there either). However, the interesting thing happens when the div containing the paragraph or header has a background. Firefox makes margins tear large holes in the background, forming unsightly gaps in the website layout that shouldn’t otherwise be there. That was the most interesting bug so far, since Firefox doesn’t usually have such issues. The only fix for this problem was to set margins to nothing, and use padding instead.

Also, you might know about the infamous line break bug in IE… Where IE reads the file’s line feed and carriage returns and uses them to make gaps in certain places on web pages (which is quite odd since all browsers are supposed to ignore whitespace altogether – the only thing they’re supposed to do with it is make single space between words in the content of the page). If you’ve used tables with cells that contain images, you’ll know what I mean (actually, you’ll only see this happen if the closing table data tag is on another line than its content).

I find it quite interesting to have found a bug in Firefox, as I’m sure most geeks know that Firefox is supposed to be standards compliant. And I’m calling it a bug because a margin isn’t supposed to mess up the background of its container div. Because if that was part of the standard, I would say it’s really weird.

I’m finished my rant (many of you may be exhaling in relief at this very moment). Thank you for your time. You may continue your regularly scheduled day.

I’ll be turning 32 in a few weeks, and sometimes I still suffer from the teen age ‘know it all syndrome’. I’ve gotten past the point of being defensive if someone tries to teach me something and I’ve long since learnt the value of listening to those that have skills beyond my own or in different areas of specialization, but every once in a while I still get blind sided by someone telling me something that seems SO simple right after I’ve heard it.

This of course leaving me wondering “well, why didn’t I think of that??” The answer is simple enough really. Nobody really has the same perspective on things as someone else. Everyone has had a life that’s a little different and hence different people can think different things about the same topic. So where’s the real lesson in this? Is it in knowing that some people are just smarter? or is it in realizing that though you can be smart yourself, the smartest thing you can do is be willing to listen to someone elses words? It’s really not that tough, though as small business owners we often find ourselves thinking we can always do it easier and cheaper ourselves.

Why is this the case? We’ve all done it.. and at the very beginning it’s simply because we don’t have the money or the contacts to have someone else do it. What we need to watch for is when we reach the point where our time is worth more doing what we are good at than floundering away at something we aren’t. When was the last time you took a bit of a look at the different things that make your business run and see if maybe you could actually SAVE money by having someone else do something you either don’t do very well or something you realy don’t like. Maybe it’s time you should.

I believe the time of the PNG has finally come to the IE user base. We recently checked our site usage statistics, and found that a little over 75% of users now view the internet through IE7. The reason these two facts are connected, as you may already know, is that IE6 ignored the PNG’s transparency. The only workaround offered was impractical, required JavaScript to be enabled, IE-specific conditional CSS, and the use of Microsoft’s filter library in order to make IE behave properly. Thankfully, that is all behind us now. I have also made it all official (at least to myself) by using my first PNGs’ in one of our new client sites.

The reason this issue is one of those in contention within the greater scope of the great internet browser debacle is the fact that IE, being the most popular browser by far, was the last browser to adopt the PNG standard. The geeks knew that this was unacceptable, and the general user demographic simply shrugged and continued to wonder why certain funky websites didn’t quite look right. I have no reason to offer for this apparent blunder, but someone at Microsoft might know.

This is just a sign that Microsoft has spent the last few years attempting to re-envigorate their look and get themselves into the 21^st century market. Just excuse them the error of Vista, and you might just finally have an operating system that makes sense (but this is being optimistic). I am not going to bash any one developer, as that has never gotten anyone anywhere. Also, there is enough bashing in progress across the myriad websites devoted to the subject that I don’t need to add my 2 cents to it. To indicate my solidarity, the only browser I’ve used consistently is IE.

I’m the web developer at Creative Unity, and have been for little over a year now. In that short space of time, I’ve learned more about website creation and maintenance than I have during the previous  4 years of college I subjected myself to (imagine that). It makes me fairly new to the workforce, and a budding guru in the field of web development (yes, I still have a lot to learn).

So it’s once again been almost two weeks but I can still hear wind rushing around me and still feel the moment of panic as I let myself fall out of an airplane that was 9000 feet above the ground.

For many years I’ve wanted to do this and on a fine, sunny Saturday I was strapped into a harness and climbed into a plane big enough for the pilot and perhaps 5 others, if we were sitting on top of one another. The plane had a roll top door in the side, something like a garage door and was noisy as we sped along the runway, finally leaving the ground. There was a moment of rush as we did that, as I thought to myself ‘crap, no getting back out now’… of course, getting out of the plane was exactly what I was there to do! through a 25 minute flight we circled higher and higher, the views of the Gananoque region stunning below us. I saw the Rideau lakes, the St. Lawrence and the airport below in tiny little detail. The ride itself was really quite beautiful and then the question came “Are you ready to skydive??!!” what else was there to do but scream “YEAH!”…

The roll top door opens easily and myself and the instructor I’m attached to shuffle across the small floorspace to the door. I look out and down. Clouds surround us, above and below. As I swing my legs out the door I’m told to grab my harness and a moment of panic sets in. Here I am, 9000 feet in the air, holding on to nothing, feet dangling in the air, no parachute on myself and leaning out the door of an airplane! what the heck am I doing??!!

And then we were out. Falling through the clouds and I lost track of everything. It was the most free I’d ever felt. The screams I had joked about coming out of my mouth before leaving the ground came out as “WOOOHOOO”. 30 seconds of freefall, hurtling toward the ground with arms and legs fluttering wildly. We traveled over a mile in 30 seconds. That’s about 200 km/h… Then suddenly the chute popped and we were floating, everything safe, still so high up I could see the curvature of the earth. My instructor said behind me “ok good, the chute worked”… Isn’t that nice? . I saw the airport as it grew and my family’s camping trailer, over 40 feet long, looking about the size of a pencil eraser on the ground far below. As we floated down, we did a few stunts, wild turns and circles, each one an amazing rush. We floated down the rest of the way, as people become the right size again and I took pictures of the scenery around us. We landed right on target, safe and sound (and laughing like an idiot).

Sometimes, when you want something, scary as it might sometimes seem.. you’ve just gotta jump.

P.S. My great thanks to everyone at Skydive Gananoque (http://www.skydivegan.com), and to Will, the guy I knew for little more than an hour before I trusted him with my life. I appreciate getting back to the ground alive and can’t wait to try it again!

A couple of weeks ago now (I’ve been busy) I had the opportunity to go sailing with a good friend and client of mine and another gentleman who owns a beautiful 44 foot Beneteau sailboat. Though I may have gotten some ribbing from staff and friends about ‘how hard I was working’, I have long since learned how valuable new contacts can be.

Whether you’re taking the opportunity to meet people at a business event such as a Chamber of Commerce mixer, a trade show or even through electronic methods, these contacts help build your business in many ways. I’ve met a number of people that say networking doesn’t help them or that it’s too time consuming but the reality is, for each person you can give a good impression to, you’ve just added another person to your sales force! and they’re FREE!

When you own your own business, it’s just a reality that you’re selling it pretty much all the time. I’ve made some of my best contacts when I’m on vacation! (Considering I’ve only really had one since starting this company, that’s not bad!). Take a chance to look up some of the networking possibilities that are available to you (or ask me), and remember to exercise them. It’s easy and cheap, and when you’ve got others selling your company for you, there’s no guilt at all about a good day on the lake!

So the decision to create a blog actually came from a few places. We’ve had clients ask us to keep them a bit more up to date on some of the new things we’ve been doing and had some new people ask if there was a way they could learn about some tips and ideas… We also thought having our blog would finally make us cool so we said why not? You’ll be able to come in here and see posts from different members of our team, and we invite you to browse through them and hopefully you’ll be entertained or maybe even learn something!

Welcome aboard! Come on in! please keep your arms and legs in the vehicle at all times as it’s gonna be a fun ride!

~ Tony