DonTai.com Have lemons? Make lemonade 
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  Welcome to my personal web site. I'm from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. This site is a mix of personal and business information I think will be useful to others in the world. Maple leaf signifies CanadaWhile there is a lot of work related info here, I'll be evolving to include other content. You can send me a note.

The Power of the Internet
Of all the areas of computers that I've been involved with, it was natural for me to gravitate to the internet. In our lives there are few more powerful tools that can transform and enrich our lives. Here's how I use the internet:

  • Search for information: You don't know an acronym, or how something works? Use a search engine and find out! While it's not as straight forward as this, a simple search can go a long way in informing you so you at least know what other people are talking about. Searches are fast and efficient. By the time you get ready to go to a library, you can already have the answer on your screen.
  • Forums: Discuss with other people from around the world and come up with your own solutions
  • Communications: Reach out and connect to others. Sure there's snail mail, aka Canada Post, and there's the phone, which is good, but for daily contact there is so much offered on the internet. While there is email, there is also instant messaging in many forms. You can chat online and see the other person using webcams.
  • Buy Stuff: There are online auctions and stores that will sell you items and ship them to your door.
  • Learning tool: Many people have offered online tools to allow you to study online, or to print study aids.
  • Play a game with yourself or with someone else somwehere in the world.
  • The list is seemingly infinite.

Do you need the internet to live? Absolutely not. Mankind has existed this long without it quite happily. In fact there are many continents in the world where the internet is unavailable, and they live a happy and productive existence. The internet will not grow food for you nor provide you with clean water. On the other hand, if you can access and benefit from this tool, why not use it to your advantage?

My Favourite Work Space: Internet/Intranet
I love to work in the Internet/Intranet space. With it's global reach through search engines, you have the world's largest library at your fingertips. While these riches are there for all, finding useful info is tough. Web sites are difficult to use. Search engines are quirky. People are also not comfortable with the internet technology and get frustrated. The internet/intranet is rich, but not without a lion's share of problems for users to overcome. I assist the regular folk in making sense of the internet/intranet.

 

Web 2.0: Presto, changeo you have a web site-o. Spend less time writing and maintaining the code and more time blabbing to the world. We politely call this "content". Let the Open Source world-wide team collaborate to fix bugs and write the new versions, then once the bugs are out, upgrade. It's pretty easy. If you don't like the look of your site, change the theme, and everything changes.

  1. WordPress: This automagic blog tool is very simple to use, letting you concentrate on content first and foremost. Be careful, techie geeks, Wordpress is so slick that you won't need much tweaking to get this to work, and you'll need to concentrate on writing real content. That'd be a challenge, wouldn't it?
  2. Drupal: It'll get a web site up for you very quickly, but not without some significant learning and playing. Since it's server side dead heavy, at times going from screen to screen, in a seemingly aimless search, can take longer than you want to wait. Thin client is in. Thankfully I really do like Firefox.

    Some cool features I like in Drupal include:

    • RSS: The website and every page is RSS ready straight away
    • Search: Straight out of the box, though if you add lots of content you will have to wait for the search utility to index your goods.
    • Create static web pages: Not really a big deal, but if you couldn't do it you'd curse. Full or filtered HTML and PHP available. See, those HTML skills are still handy.
    • Create an index page and its related content pages: Dynamic magic, baby. They are called "books" in Drupal. Very little assembly required.
    • Built-in blog: It looks like news written by your website, but call it what you will. Out of the box easy.
    • Polls: Let your viewers speak their mind. Some assembly required. you can have more than one going.
    • Contact Us: Straight out of the box, and privately emailed to you.
    • Add custom fields: Some assembly required, but it seems to work. Phone number formatting is Ok. Validation of complex data seems weak, but I'll keep working on it.
    • News Aggregator: Get news feeds from many different websites, and this little tool will collect them and display them together. Some assembly required.
    • Documentation: Online manuals from the Open Source community is really great. There's lots to read, though it can feel overwhelming.
 

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 Why is my site so simple? Simply put, I prefer my site to load lightning fast, so graphics are at a minimum and usable content is top priority.