Author: Joe

Categories
Development

Trashing a Draft on the Server with Adobe Contribute

I was dealing with a very bizarre draft issue with Adobe Contribute CS5, that we finally solved after much head scratching.

A Draft was showing up for only 1 user that a Draft that she had sent to me to publish was still being reviewed by me. This wasn’t the case, however no matter how many times we tried to remove the .LCK file or edit the page again etc. it was still telling her that I was still reviewing it. So she could no longer edit that page, yet any other user could.

We deleted traces of the draft on the server then her local machine. However, her Contribute would recreate the draft status. So after much work, we finally went to her Draft Console and right mouse clicked on the Draft and viewed properties.

Up opened a wonderful little video stating the drafts filename (it’s a pretty crazy random string) as well as the URL path to where this phantom Draft existed on the server.

Once we had this path, we were able to delete the remnants of this Draft from the server and all is well again. Damn you Contribute, damn you to hell.

Categories
Development

Theme Fields in Drupal 7

This is so easy now that I know how to do it, but I didn’t realize that fields could be themed similar to nodes.

Just create a template file titled:

field–[field_name].tpl.php

Drupal 7 Content types

and save it in your theme’s directory:

/sites/all/themes/[your_theme]/

You can get the field name on the Content Type screen, Structure > Content types > [your_content_type]

Then you just enter your markup in the field–[field_name].tpl.php file that you’ve created.

You can use the field.tpl.php file located in /modules/field/theme/field.tpl.php as a starting point.

 

Categories
Uncategorized

My Triple AAA Approach to Social Media Customer Service

AAA Emblem
I assist at work with handling our social media presences. Of which we do get the occasional upset and or nasty comment. Today I do believe I just coined the Triple AAA Approach to handling negative social media postings.

So here are my 3 steps:

  1. Acknowledge – this that you the person’s comment has been heard. This is very important and the sooner it can be done the better! Simply acknowledging the problem/complaint can on it’s own solve many problems.
  2. Apologize – I don’t care how right you may feel you or your organization is, apologize for what occurred. Again, this can and should be done in a very timely manner. Often somebody just want’s to hear an apology and isn’t necessarily looking for a resolution.
  3. Answer/Assist – this is the last step. Get them help or answer what their problem or issue was. Sometimes this can take time, and in that case the first two steps can be taken in the meantime to hold them over and let them know that you are actively working to assist them.
That’s it for my Triple AAA Approach to social media customer service.
Categories
Sports

Kickball: Championship Game

kickball logoLast night was the big game, the SJSL kickball championship game. I was truly honored to be participating in the inaugural event with my Express Pizza teammates.

There was a little bit of rain right before kickoff, but it quickly moved out for our game. I huddled up the team and gave a little thanks speech for all their hard work this season. We really did have a great bunch on this team.

We just made some minor adjustments to our kicking order. I really wanted to move Geoff up a spot, to help him get an extra at bat and increase his chances of kicking in more base runners. The change did work very well for us, we got 5 runs in the first inning to start off the game.

It was a tremendous start to the game. We had some great kicks, knocking in a few runs with 2 outs as well. Bait and Tackle however did answer back with 5 runs of their own in the bottom of the first to even things back up.

As good as our kicking was that night, theirs was just more precise and effective than ours. I really must tip my hat to them for finding holes in our defense and consistently kicking to those holes. They did an almost surgical job of adjusting to our fielding changes as they were made too.

I hardly got a chance to field any plays at short. They were dropping in many to the short infield and blasting some very deep kicks as well.

It also got very dark very fast as the game went on. Surprisingly there were a number of bats swooping down while be played in the dark. None close enough to interfere with play, but still very strange to hear something flying overhead.

Bait and Tackle with their tremendous play won the game and took the SJSL championship. We kicked very well, but they just out fielded us and out kicked us in the end.

After the game, I handed out certificates to our teammates. It was funny and again, I’m very glad that I got a chance to play a season with each and everyone of them. This season was some of the most fun I’ve had in a long time.

Categories
Video Games

Link’s Awakening

Link's AwakeningBeing a big fan of the Zelda games since 4th grade, I knew I had to pickup a copy of Link’s Awakening when I picked up a 3DS (which by the way is an amazing device). Link’s Awakening originally came out in 1993 for the GameBoy. I remember hearing great things about it at the time, but never did get around to playing it at the time, nor when it was re-released in 1998 for the GameBoy Color.

So I downloaded it right away, and was instantly hooked. It was just like the old school Zelda that I remembered, but a little bit better. Considering when this came out and the hardware that it came out out I must again salute the folks over at Nintendo, this was very impressive.

There was just so much to do in this little game, but not so much that it got overwhelming at times. Some of the newer games out are great, but also a bit too complex at times. This struck the perfect balance, and wonder why more games made today can’t be as balanced.

This little game kept me entertained into the late hours of Hurricane Irene. Though I did hit some tough parts, it did remind me how much more difficult games were compared to the majority of recent releases.

Very close if not a perfect game.

Categories
Books

Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi Vortex & Conviction

Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi VortexRead two more books in the Fate of the Jedi Series, Vortex and Conviction. After reading the first 5 books, much to my sadness my local library didn’t happen to carry the 6th book, Vortex. However, due to magical library ways, they were able to get the book in just a few days on interlibrary loan. They were super nice to help me acquire this book.

Vortex turned out to be my least favorite of the books thus far, but it wasn’t necessarily bad. Being the 6th book our of 9, I guess some of the plot is just getting a bit stale to me. It seems like a similar recipe to the previous installments.

The Sith working alonside Luke was cool. But I have to say that I didn’t agree with how the Jedi conducted themselves, ousting Hamner. They’re actions seemed as guilty as they were accused of being at the start of this series.

Conviction was better to me. I was genuinely excited when I found out who busted Daala out of prison. Boba Fett himself, infamous bounty hunter and my favorite character and action figure growing up. He was worked into the story very well, good stuff.

Only two more books left in the series, with the last not printed yet.