Hmmm, just noticed that Adobe has releasedContribute 4. We use Contribute as part of our Content Management Strategy here at UNB so I downloaded the (windows) upgrade it to see what's new. At first glance it doesn't seem to be any different that version 3 other than they've rebranded the welcome screen to Adobe, but wait, I see they've added the ability to configure blog setting in so that you can administer your blog with Contribute now. That's kind of neat. And I just noticed that it's integrated a toolbar into IE7 so that IE7 now has buttons to allow you to call Contribute to edit the page you're on or to select something on the page and call Contribute to blog it. Well, I'll have to play with it a bit more to see if I can get one of our system blogs configured. This could be quite handy I think.

Well, I took the plunge and set up IE7 on my testing machine. As a precaution I made sure to run the usual system tools (Adaware, Spybot) and clean up the system a bit and then created a Restore Point before initializing the install. I've been using it for the past week or so and it seems to be a pretty decent browser (so far). Can I just say bravo regarding the print preview function and draggable margins! This is a beyond useful addition. Subscribing to feeds is super simple and I like that there's explanatory text for the new-to-feeds user. My big regret is that I'm not too thrilled about it's hysteria about phishing - stuff like this could create a whole new neuroses amongst the joe/jane users of the internet. But I guess it's not MS if it's not helpfully in your face all the time.

At any rate, testing on IE7 alone won't cut it as I expect there will be a long transition from IE6 over to IE7 so I came across this handy tool to install multiple standalone versions of IE as a bundle. Cool. (Not that anything pre IE6 has been a concern to us but it's kind of fun to see how broken things are for those users who haven't upgraded for the last 7 years or so...). By adding the quicklaunch icons to the taskbar you now get a whole suite of IE's to test from.

Well finally - here it is. I've yet to download it to my testing machine but once I've upgraded I'm sure I'll have to download a standalone version of IE6. Yes, IE6 won't be leaving us anytime soon so be resigned to the fact that we'll still be accommodating it with hacks and fixes.

over at (where else?) UX Magazine. Tom Guariello explores the concept of user experience in his article Experiencing Experience. Touching on using personas when designing the experience this article is essential reading for gaining clarity of the design process.

Back from Halifax, somewhat battered and sore from the competition, but feeling very very good about my performance there. After the first round of pools I was ranked 5th/31 which meant I had to win one direct elimination bout to get into the Super 8 pool. With that behind me the Super 8 was an amazing round (even though I lost every match). The top eight is always my goal at any fencing competition (well in Foil anyway) and I'm slowly clawing my way up in points against the guys. There was at least 1 that I could have won (lost that one 5-4) and a second against a tough competitor that I came very close to winning (lost that one 5-4 as well). The final results for me were Gold in the Women's Foil event and 8th out of 31 in the Open Mixed Foil event. Now that's a much better placing than at the AQV tournament. This time, the big difference was that I let go of any niggling doubts or uncertainties; let go of second-guessing my actions and did not hold back at all. I just got into each match letting the action flow as it would. This helped enormously in terms of letting your body perform the reflex actions you've trained it to do as well as setting up the opponent to position yourself for the opportunity to perform those reflex actions. Letting go of all the mind chatter also helped in focusing on reading the opponent more clearly, doing some on-strip analysis and setting the direction of the bout.
Over all I learned a lot this weekend and am eager now to put it to use at the training hall tomorrow night.