Ripples
Thankful
I don't do it nearly often enough, but it's so important to stop and count blessings every once in a while. I have been incredibly blessed this past year.
I've been loved, supported, encouraged and asked to marry the most amazing man I've ever met.
I've been welcomed with open arms by his entire family and grown closer to my own.
I visited a place I'd wanted to visit for 20 odd years.
I've worked with some amazingly talented, dedicated, inspirational people, and learned a huge amount in the process.
I've been given the gifts of friendship and advice many times over.
I've been inspired and energised when I thought my well had run dry.
Tomorrow brings the first step down a new path for me and I am incredibly excited. This has been quite a rollercoaster of a year, but I wouldn't change a minute of it, because it's brought me to this moment, in this place.
Life is good.
I am blessed.
Thank you.
Disappointed
The best laid plans… We were supposed to be celebrating our anniversary last night.
We didn't.
We were supposed to be going to a party tomorrow night.
We won't be.
We were supposed to have a group of friends round on Sunday.
They won't be coming.
The pigdeathflu is making its second visit to our house.
It's fair to say I'm disappointed that our plans have had to change, but I'm glad that this means both of us have had it, so hopefully when it gets worse we'll have the necessary immunity.
The 5th of November (2006)
Three years ago, at about this time of night, I was eating dinner in the Banana Leaf restaurant in Clapham Junction. I'd been awake for more than 36 hours, and it's fair to say that I was a little delirious, but it wasn't just from lack of sleep.
22 hours earlier, on the platform at Poplar DLR station, I met someone, and that meeting would change my life.
When I left my house on Saturday morning (the 4th of November) I did so smelling slightly of hair-dye and with no idea what was ahead of me. I knew I was going to a blogmeet in the centre of London and afterwards, I was heading to Poplar to meet up with a friend, to celebrate her birthday. She was spending the day at Earl's Court, at the Top Gear exhibition and show, and the only reason I wasn't there with her was that I wanted to catch up with various friends who would be at the blogmeet.
I took my knitting with me, as I (pretty much) always do, along with a change of clothes for the evening ahead and set off into town.
The blogmeet was great fun, and despite being a little crowded and overwhelming, I was quite energised as I squeezed through the crowds and headed out the door of the pub towards the tube station.
I called my friend to let her know I was on my way and we agreed to meet at Poplar DLR because I didn't know the way to her house. In the event, they were later than expected, because of overcrowding and generalised weekend tube carnage, and so when they turned up, I had parked myself on a bench and was knitting away quite happily (I was knitting a pair of wristwarmers. I still have them).
I looked as the crowd spilled out of the crowded carriage, and once it had cleared a little stood up to find my friend. I spotted (and greeted) her first, followed by her boyfriend (who I'd met previously) and then my attention was caught by a third person.
Something lit up in my brain in that first look and a few seconds later I was introduced to her friend and the "Oh, Hello…!" in my head was far more Grace Brothers than the greeting I verbalised.
A little flustered, I put away my knitting and we ambled back to her house where a few more people were due to arrive, to partake of pizza before a night out on the town.
The conversation flowed, the pizza was good and the night out lasted longer than I expected, and so I accepted an invitation to stay over, rather than have to make my way back to the wilds of North London alone.
Back in Poplar, the four of us: me, my friend, her friend and her boyfriend talked, laughed, reminisced, ate cold leftover pizza and slowly wound down from a great evening out, and eventually, she and her boyfriend made their way upstairs to bed (after lending me a t-shirt and some shorts to sleep in) leaving her friend and I alone downstairs.
I knew by this point that I was attracted to him, but didn't think he was interested in me so I'd pretty much written off the idea of anything happening between us and was just enjoying the conversation. As it goes, I was wrong and I will never forget our first kiss.
We didn't sleep at all that night.
We talked, and kissed, and talked a lot more, and at some point in the wee small hours of the morning, I took an enormous leap of faith and told him some deeply personal stuff. The sort of stuff you wouldn't normally tell someone you met less than 12 hours previously, but it felt important and it felt right.
I don't think I've ever been as scared in my entire life, nor as elated when he didn't run screaming, and in that moment, the course of my life changed in ways I couldn't begin to imagine or appreciate.
We spent the day together, not really wanting that first flush of togetherness to end, even though we'd already made plans to meet up again the next night.
When I eventually got back home to north London I was exhausted and delirious, overwhelmingly happy and at the same time, feeling like a part of me was now missing. I knew then that I'd met the person that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.
I was desperate to tell my flatmate, but when my flatmate opened his door as he heard me come up the stairs and told me that my shower had leaked and dye-filled water and showed me the red streaks down his wall I collapsed on the stairs leading up to my room and cried my eyes out for a full ten minutes as he looked on in confusion and that mixture of panic and discomfort that men get when they're around a crying woman and don't know what to do. It wasn't that it was a disaster, but I was just so emotionally jangled that it was too much and I couldn't cope with it.
I had no idea then that I'd be where I am now.
It hasn't been easy. We've had our ups and downs like any couple, but even though he's currently lying in bed having contracted Swine Flu and we're not out celebrating like we planned, it doesn't matter.
All that matters is that I love this man with every fibre of my being, and he loves me too, and there is nothing better in all the world than that.
Three years is just the beginning, and now I have something that's really worth remembering on the 5th of November.
Knitting for Lori
There are generally considered to be two kinds of knitter: those who are process knitters and those who are product knitters. I used to consider myself firmly in the product camp, choosing small projects for that instant gratification, look I made a thing feeling. That said, quite often recently I've found myself not completing a project, ripping it back (at more than 75% complete) and not feeling particularly bothered by it, which would seem to lump me in the process category, where I knit because I want to knit, but I'm not particularly fussed by producing anything of particular worth. Journey, not destination.
Of course, there are more than two kinds of knitter. In fact, there are as many kinds of knitter as there are actual knitters - no two are exactly alike, but they can be sorted into broad categories. The next great schism is probably monogamous/non-monogamous.
I'm distinctly non-monogamous with my knitting. I've got *cough* projects in various stages of completion, and I don't feel any need to finish one before starting another. In fact, you could even term it start-itis. I start lots of things, but after a while, the enthusiasm wanes and I move onto something shiny and new.
It's easy to be whatever kind of knitter you are when you're knitting for yourself, but when you knit for a friend (or family), things necessarily have to change. All the usual distractions and mid-project lulls will still kick in, but now you have somebody waiting for something, which is why it's really important to only ever offer to knit something for someone who will appreciate the time and effort you're putting in, and treat the finished item with the love, care and attention that it deserves.
Four years ago (excuse me for a moment while I boggle about how time has flown. Ok. I'm done.), I was in the midst of a very serious knitting addiction. My drug of choice was the Clapotis, a large scarf/wrap which captured my attention. I think by the time I was done, I'd knitted five and a half Clapotis(es?) in various sizes. The final, full-size Clapotis went to the lovely Lori Smith, who'd admired one of mine (I only have one still in my possession) and asked if I'd knit her one.
By the time I started knitting hers, in truth, the attraction began to wane, but although it took me far longer than I anticipated, I kept going through the miles of middle section, and finally, to the end, and I was so pleased that I had, because it really suited her.
Recently, Lori mentioned on twitter that she would like a snood knitted, and I offered my knitting services once more (there is no drug greater than the sincere appreciation of a handknitted item). She had very specific ideas in mind (which is a good thing) and a couple of weeks ago we met up at John Lewis in Oxford Street go do some yarn shopping.
It was originally supposed to be red and woolly, but after wandering round, our attention was grabbed by a 50/50 wool/silk blend in a pink so bright it was almost offensive. Pink is not the colour either of us would go for by choice, but it just refused to be put down, so not long after, we left John Lewis with a bag full of pink yarn and a pattern.
I'm about 75% of the way through the snood, and while the yarn is wonderful to work with and I've enjoyed the feel of it running through my fingers as I knit, I'm reaching the knitting equivalent of the point of maximum dread. You know the end is near but it isn't near enough to give you that second wind to push to the end and the pattern has leveled out to being knit, knit, knit all the way. With each day, the urge to start something new grows. It's a sickness, I know.
The point of this post is not to have a moan about knitting for someone else. I love knitting for people who appreciate it. It really is a wonderful feeling when you've put time and effort into something and that effort is appreciated. It's just an acknowledgment that my inclination is to start something knew, even though I know the satisfaction will be less than that which will be felt by finishing this and handing it over. After all, the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.
Hi, my name is Ann and I have chronic startitis.
(Hello Ann)
etc.
It's also an excuse to show off some pictures of yarn and stuff, because there's not nearly been enough knitting on this blog so far.
Ridiculous Spam Prevention
A week or so ago I agreed to help the lovely Natalie of The Yarn Yard move her blog from Typepad to Wordpress. We talked through what she wanted, and she identified a theme that she liked. I'm not going to identify it, because I think it'd be counter productive, but it has a killer feature that she really likes.
Unfortunately, the documentation is a bit lacking, and in looking to make a specific change to this killer feature, I found that I needed to consult the support forums.
So far, so good.
Except, all the support I can find tells me to find line 40 of header.php (which I did) and look for specific code and change it.
Easy.
Except that line 40 doesn't look like the specific code any more, and I can't find any bit in any of the files that does (and believe me when I say that I've tried, and I've searched).
So I decide to bite the bullet, risk the revocation of my geek card, and ask for help in the forum.
Except, to do that, I have to register, and that's where the fun starts.
Before I begin, I want to make this clear. The forum is a support forum for two themes. One for Wordpress, one for another CMS.
So I start to fill in the registration form, not really reading the help text with the labels, because I've filled out a million registration forms before.
Username: the usual Email address: the usual Confirm email address: *yawn* Password: blah Confirm password: blah again
Ignore language and timezone
Then the wheels fall off the wagon.
Antispam: (no, I'm not a spammer)
Secret code: You what now?
There's a big pile of help text under that label, telling me to send an email to an email address to get a code, to prevent spambots. I'm thinking to myself that this is a bit of overkill, but I do it anyway.
While I'm waiting I go back to the form to answer the next couple of questions.
Human: Yes.
Are you going to do bad things to my forum?: (I wasn't before, but now I'm considering it. Only kidding. No.)
By this point the email with the code shows up. I enter it, and move on.
To find that, after having completed FOUR different CAPTCHA type devices, including sending an email for a secret code, I now have to fill out an actual CAPTCHA.
By this point, I'm wondering if this guy is serious, and whether he's protecting the treasure of the Sierra Madre, or whether I'm on some kind of eyetracking version of Candid Camera, but I complete it anyway, and hit submit.
To be thrown back with an error that my username is too long. It has to be between 3 and 8 characters, which means my usual username is out.
Okay.
Change that, redo CAPTCHA, hit submit.
Another error. Password too short. Of course, because it deleted the password I entered the first time (but not the copy of it in the second confirmation, curiously). Change that, redo CAPTCHA again, hit submit.
Okay.
Then I get a message telling me I have to wait for an email to activate my account before being able to ask my question.
In fairness, he does acknowledge the hoops and there's a message saying thanks for jumping through them, but that's doing little to soothe my irritation.
So I have a whinge on twitter about it, while I wait for the confirmation email to show up, which it does, a couple of minutes later.
With the username and password provided in clear text.
Now, I've seen a lot of crappy websites in my time. I've registered for a lot of forums in my time. I've been annoyed by user experiences in my time, but rarely have I felt so motivated to send a very strongly worded email to the owner of a forum (I think the last time was when someone suggested that my colleagues and I should be horsewhipped, for something which we had no control over, but that's a whole other story).
I am quite flabbergasted that someone who sees fit to implement stringent (and seemingly arbitrary) limits on usernames, plus five different CAPTCHA security devices (including an inaccessible actual CAPTCHA) doesn't give the users he's forced to jump through hoops to join his support forums the same kind of respect for their security.
I've now changed my password on that forum (which in itself was a UX nightmare), but I'm still quite astonished.
I understand that spam is a problem on online forums (and everywhere else), and I understand that CAPTCHAs go some way to slowing down (if not entirely stopping) the deluge of spam, but I just don't believe that putting the user through so many hoops is acceptable under any circumstances, let alone for something so basic as a support forum.
Rather than make me feel safer, it's irritated me to the point that I've just written over 800 words about how irritated I am with this, rather than writing about how much I love the TV series Chuck, which is what I was going to write.
More to the point, it makes me seriously reconsider using the Theme, because if he's that lax with security on something as basic as a forum signup email, I can't even begin to trust his code, which is a shame, because that killer feature in the theme was pretty nice.
Please review ATAG2.0
I'm part of the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Authoring Tools Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) working group (phew, that's a mouthful) and during the week, we published a new working draft of the new guidlines (ATAG2.0) along with a new "Implementing ATAG 2.0" guide. The official call for comments sent to the WAI Interest Group (IG) went like so:
Dear WAI Interest Group Participants,
The Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group invites you to comment on the updated Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) 2.0 Working Draft published 29 October 2009 at: http://www.w3.org/TR/ATAG20/
The draft integrates revisions in response to the comments of the 21 May draft as well as a substantially revised document, Implementing ATAG 2.0 that replaces Techniques for ATAG 2.0. In this draft, the Working Group made the following substantial changes: * Revised how authoring tools should support authors in making choices that improve accessibility. * Revised the former Techniques document to better serve developers, and changed the title to: Implementing ATAG 2.0.
Specific changes and questions for feedback are listed in the Status section: http://www.w3.org/TR/ATAG20/#status
ATAG defines how authoring tools should help Web developers produce Web content that is accessible and conforms to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. It also defines how to make authoring tools accessible so that people with disabilities can use the tools. ATAG is introduced in the ATAG Overview at: http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/atag.php ATAG is part of a series of accessibility guidelines/standards developed by WAI, which are listed in WAI Guidelines and Techniques at: http://www.w3.org/WAI/guid-tech.html
WAI encourages you to review the update ATAG 2.0 documents and submit comments on any issues that you think could present a barrier to future adoption and implementation of ATAG 2.0. Please send comments to the publicly-archived list: public-atag2-comments@w3.org by 30 November 2009
For more information, see: * How WAI Develops Accessibility Guidelines through the W3C Process http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/w3c-process * Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AUWG) http://www.w3.org/WAI/AU/
Please let us know if you have any questions. Thank you in advance for your comments.
Feel free to circulate this message to other lists; please avoid cross-postings where possible.
Regards, ~Shawn Henry and Judy Brewer, W3C WAI On behalf of: Jutta Treviranus, Chair of AUWG, and Director of the Assistive Technology Research Center, University of Toronto Jeanne Spellman, W3C Staff Contact for AUWG
If you're at all interested in accessibility (or even if you're not) and you build any kind of tool or application that can be used to create content, you really need to be having a read of these and making comments if there's anything you have an issue with. These guidelines are an important part of the process of ensuring that web content, applications and software are accessible, and present an incredible opportunity to really lead the field in best practice, especially for CMS vendors.