Bakker Bugle Blog Say it three times fast. In Luxembourgish.

15 October 2007

Help with Bugle Flickr

Filed under: administrative — Will @ 6:30

I noticed that the photo featured on the sidebar of this blog gets dozens of visits, but the rest of the photos in the same set get about a quarter as many visits. Now, I hardly expect y’all to pore over our vacation photos — but some people might have misconceptions about how those photos are posted.

I post photos to flickr in sets, which are groups of photos arranged in a particular order (usually to tell a story). When you’re looking at a photo in Flickr, you can see the rest of its set by looking to the right, where you’ll find a control box entitled “This photo also belongs to:” and the name of the set. For example, the current new photo belongs to a set called “Dave the Quality Commenter Lead Mines Chimney of Carrickgollogan Ireland (Set)”.

The best way to see what sets are available is to click on the link below the featured photo — the words, “Bugle Photos”. (There’s a duplicate link a little further down the sidebar — the words “Bakker Flickr photos” under “Blogroll”.)

When you click on either of those links, you see a list of sets, with the newest sets first. This is the best starting place for looking at photos from the Bakker Bugle collection. If you’d like to explore the photos in other ways, read our longer guide to the photo collections from the Bugle website.

14 October 2007

Commenter of the Fortnight

Filed under: administrative,award — Will @ 21:28

In order to keep our levels of service at the excellent levels that our customers expect, it has been decided that commenters to the Bakker Bugle Blog will be honored on a fortnightly basis. This decision is not related to the health of the Bugle brand, and it is not a reflection of the quality of comments provided by our comment-vendors. Our customers, investors, and stake-holders can continue to expect the quality that the Bugle name implies.

The Commenter of this Fortnight is Dave! In addition to his consistent series of comments, Dave applied knowledge from this blog in the world. Given the level of frivolity here, we are quite impressed. Dave also played a shadowy role in elevating the ranking of this blog, which befits the winner of a spy-themed trophy.

To celebrate Dave’s third win, the Bakker Bugle secured naming rights to one of the most prominent ruins in the Dublin area:Dave Chimney the Lead Mines Chimney in Carrickgollogan. The Chimney is near Stepaside and Enniskerry, two lovely towns just outside Dublin.

The Chimney is not as old as it appears, but it is extraordinary in ways that do not depend on age. The Chimney capped the longest brick-built flue in the world. The flue runs down the hill to the lead works in the Carrickgollogan valley. The flue looks like a low stone wall running west from the chimney. The Chimney is just one of the highlights of the B.B. B&B’s premium Walk in the Mountains.

As soon as the legal niceties are complete, this monument will be known as the Dave the Quality Commenter Ballycorus Lead Mines Chimney of Carrickgollogan Ireland, and any American corporations referring to the monument will use its full name. In the meantime, the authorities have kindly begun the brand-badging of the monument itself, as you can see here. (You can see more photos in the Flickr set devoted to Dave’s Chimney.)

We didn’t spray-paint “Dave” on that rock, of course. We found it that way when we explored the Chimney with Cindy, and we’ve been looking for an occasion to post it ever since.

17 September 2007

Happy Constitution Day!

Filed under: administrative — Will @ 18:13

Today is Constitution Day in the USA. How will you celebrate the 220th anniversary of the signing of the US Constitution by the delegates of the (First) Constitutional Convention? The US president wishes to:

encourage Federal, State, and local officials, as well as leaders of civic, social, and educational organizations, to conduct ceremonies and programs that celebrate our Constitution and reaffirm our rights and responsibilities as citizens of our great Nation.

What’s your favorite part of the Constitution? Mine is the 14th Amendment. I especially like Section 1.
(more…)

Playing with Technorati

Filed under: administrative — Will @ 8:00

Don’t mind me, I’m just the maintenance guy. I’m keeping the blog in line, checking the connection with its Technorati Profile. Have a good one.

5 September 2007

On hiatus for a week

Filed under: administrative,award — Will @ 7:15

Due to unexpected travel for the staff, there probably won’t be any posts until September 11. We won’t award a commenter of the week for this week. So we’ll have an extra-super Commenter of the Two Weeks ending September 16, and we’ll consider this week’s comments towards that prize.

28 August 2007

I hate IE more than the British

Filed under: administrative,mental state — Will @ 17:19

Permit me a rant. For more than two hours this morning, I worked on a “Recent Comments” section for the BB Blog’s sidebar. I tweaked settings and code and got it looking very nice. Furthermore, the additions are compliant with all the relevant standards for HTML, CSS, and all those web-oriented languages.

So the blog looks great in Firefox, the best web browser, and Safari, Apple’s browser. I made the layout a little different in the comments area, so that it’s easy to tell who commented most recently.

Then, Anita calls at 5 pm (our time) to say that the blog is broken. She sends screenshots. Indeed, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer cannot understand the minor changes I made.

First:

The blog is not broken, Internet Explorer is broken.

When I tried to add a linkroll in June and Internet Explorer didn’t like it, I sighed and used an alternate, inferior service. A few weeks later, I fought an all-day, pitched battle with Internet Explorer in order to display our latest Flickr photos in the sidebar. I lost that battle, and so you get no pictures. In all cases, every other browser worked on the first try.

But the majority of our friends read our blog on Internet Explorer. So for today, no cool recent comments thingie for you!

And tomorrow morning, I’ll try to trick Microsoft’s demon-spawn into displaying simple text … instead of writing real content, or reading about Irish politics, or exploring the Northside.

20 August 2007

Policy regarding award acceptance comments

Filed under: administrative,award — Will @ 21:46

The Management would like to clarify the policy regarding the acceptance of Commenter of the Week award in the comments for the succeeding week.

A comment written by the winner of the Commenter of the Week award, in the week preceding the comment’s posting — that is, the week succeeding the notice given of the Commenter of the Week award, except where such award is given late due to secret retreat — shall not be considered as part of the contributions of the previous week’s Commenter of the Week, when such comment pertains to the award given in the preceding week. Thus, such a comment, as described above, may not secure for the Commenter of the Week for the previous week an award for Commenter of the Week where such week is the week succeeding the week of the previous award, that is, the week of such comment’s posting itself.

In haiku:
Winner of last week
Comments to accept award;
Other words, win twice.

19 August 2007

Rookie wins Commenter of the Week

Filed under: administrative,award — Will @ 21:25

Some people are recognized as leaders just as soon as they enter the fray. This week, we recognize one of these natural talents. Jaime’s comment on Will’s new knife combined her personal experience with wise advice. We hope that her talents continue to develop over the next several weeks.

In addition, the Bugle staff would like to take a moment to recognize the contributions of all our commenters, both on the blog and for photos on Flickr. jaime18aug.jpgAt our retreat, we resolved to recognize the contributions of our stakeholders using effective processes. In the coming months, a committee will review our current processes to discover unrealized potentials. We expect things from this initiative.

Tomorrow, this blog will review some other results of our retreat. Today, the staff will implement innovative suggestions from our “Work-Life Balance” session. Unfortunately, that session was scheduled at the same time as the “Q&A with Our CEO” meeting. So the only person there was the administrative assistant who organized it. Fortunately, the CEO text’d one suggestion regarding Work-Life Balance to the All-Staff Distribution list during the Q&A. So the staff are allowed to take the rest of Sunday off, once they finish Sunday’s assigned tasks.

15 August 2007

Hiatus: BB Staff Retreat

Filed under: administrative,award,travel — Will @ 7:09

The Bakker Bugle staff will attend an offsite for the next few days. On this retreat, the staff will work on ways of re-focusing on our core values. The staff will also develop plans for innovative content to satisfy our clients’ expectations of excellence.

Although we value openness, the Bakker Bugle cannot divulge the location of the retreat for liability reasons. In addition, the Commenter of the Week award will be announced one day later than usual. Rather than compromising our unstinting standards of effectiveness, we will give the award on Sunday.

11 August 2007

Commenter of the Second Week

Filed under: administrative,award — Anita @ 22:05

Faster than you can say “it’s time already?” the B.B. Blog is recognizing the latest commenter of the week. This week’s winner is Sharon (not to be confused with sharon),sharon11aug2007.jpg who wins the prize for her excellent response when realizing she placed second in the prior week’s contest. It’s that kind of positive attitude the B.B. Blog likes to recognize.

As winner, Sharon will be expected to talk up the B.B. Blog, encourage others to post comments, use canvas bags when she gets groceries and generally be a positive influence in the world. We are confident she is up to the task.

Congratulations Sharon!

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