andreasviklund.com

For more than one year now, my main computer has been a laptop. It was originally a secondary computer that would only be used for work, but when my regular miditower machine broke I realized that it was very comfortable to work with the laptop - and since then it has been the primary machine. It has worked well most of the time, but yesterday it let me down.

I was writing an e-mail when the computer suddenly hung up. The HD stopped spinning without any kind of warning or hint that something was wrong. At the following reboot, the S.M.A.R.T system warned me that I should make a backup of the content - and then run a HD self test to see how serious the damage was. The error messages looked really bad, it appeared to be some kind of physical damage on the drive. But even though I tried many different methods I couldn't access any of the files. Starting the operating system was simply impossible, the drive would only spin for a few seconds before stopping again. And the self test hung up at 10%, so I didn't get any help from it.

In any normal case, I would have tried to re-format the drive and install the OS again. I usually have the OS on one partition and all the data on another to make it easy to re-install when needed. But now I had everything on the same partition, and there were some files that I felt that I really had to keep - including photos and video clips from the birthday party a few days ago - not to mention and all the original material for several weeks of work…

Saving the files, getting my work material out of the laptop and into another work computer took up most of the day. Once I had managed to save the most important files, I managed to trick the computer into accepting a new installation of the operating system - and after a couple of failed attempts I managed to get the computer running again. It is extremely unstable, and a nightmare to use since it writes out random error messages whatever I do. But it works good enough to let me copy over the rest of the files to an external harddrive to make sure everything is properly backed up. I will need to buy a new drive and re-install everything for the laptop to become fully functional again, but that's life.

However, what I would really want is a completely new computer. A machine not just for XHTML/CSS coding, but one that could run a music studio as well! I miss the music production, and it is simply not possible to use this laptop to run the entire studio. A new computer, and the beauty mentioned a couple of weeks ago. That would be something!

Back to reality…

But today I would be extremely happy as long as this little laptop would allow me to do the work I need to do. I know that the drive can crash again at any time, but I have a backup computer ready at the ITUS office if needed. There are a lot of things to do, and it all needs to be done before Friday when my father and I go to Piteå to enjoy a very welcome mini-vacation.

We will spend a few days on Pite Havsbad, just having a good time. And on Sunday we will stay in Luleå over the day to see the local team and defending champions Plannja Basket play the third game (out of seven) against 08 Stockholm in the finals of the Swedish basketball league. I really look forward to that, since I'm a bigger fan of basketball than I would admit!

Now I'm home again, after a nice weekend in Porjus. Since I've been in a bad shape for a while, I didn't have the energy and inspiration stay very long. Instead, I went back home directly after the birthday party yesterday night. But it was still a great night with lots of laughter and a few tears as well. There were old friends of my father, as well as neighbours and of course also family members and relatives of all ages. We all had a great dinner, heard several few of dads classic stories and just had the good time I hoped to have. Thanks everyone for a great night!

Bad shape, yes…

I will write a longer post about this in a few days, but I still want to write a few paragraphs here so that people understand why I have been hard to reach for a while - and why I may be hard to reach over the next couple of days as well.

Since the end of February, one or a few members of an interest group have been contacting me regarding a blog that they were strongly offended by. The blog was not mine, and it was written by an anonymous writer in a language that I don't understand. At first, I didn't know what the site was all about, but I could see that the site was built with WordPress and a theme that was partially based on one of my website templates. It was also obvious that this group did not agree with whatever the blog wrote, and that they thought that it was my blog since my name was listed in the design credits in the site footer.

For about three weeks now, I have tried to explain that the site is not mine - and that I have no contact information for the site owner. I have also explained that I did not even create the theme, only the original website template which the theme was based on. I have repeated the words from my contact page, writing the line "I can't answer for any other site than my own" over and over again. But the group does not accept that simple fact, and their messages have grown from being angry e-mails into being ugly and detailed threats and disturbing images and video clips. They still consider me personally responsible for the content of the blog - even though it makes no sense at all. I wrill write more about this later, for now I'm focusing on the simple background.

I tried to end the communication by explaining that I did not want them to contact me again, as it was a waste of time if they couldn't accept my explanations. But I have got more and more messages - and not only in the e-mail inbox. I have got direct threats over the instant messenger as well, and when the phone started ringing and I started getting SMS messages about that blog, then it had gone too far.

The final notice

I usually don't want to go public with misunderstandings like this, since it is not a fun topic to write about. But with this explanation I am also providing one last chance for the group to stop contacting me. If I get as much as one more message from the group, or from any of its members, or from any other people that the group have asked to e-mail me only to agree with their opinion, I will write out all the details so that all my readers will find out who these people are and how they work.

I know that they don't want that to happen, they have threatened with "punishments" if I would "declare war" (as they call it). Now, no matter what they believe about me, they get this final chance: Stop contacting me, the discussion ends here. Ok? Good.

End of discussion.

Catching up

The stress and all the worrying made me sick, and I couldn't get much work done last week. That resulted in several failed deliveries and disappointed clients, and it has seriously hurt both my reputation and myself. This means a lot of extra work, explanations, apologies, reduced income and lost projects. The next couple of weeks will be rough, no doubt about that. I need to make a number of changes to the templates, to my contact page and to my site in general to make everything even more clear. And I need to deliver the projects that are delayed.

I have no idea when I'll be back by the computer and working as usual again. Hopefully, if the group would step back now, I could be back in a few days. I also hope to get a new mobile phone during the week, and as soon as I get it I will abandon my old phone number and get a new one. I hope that I will be able to keep my e-mail address and the contact form online in the future as well, but if there are still problems with those things I will probably go for an update there too…

As promised, I will write more about this in a later post. I will not write more about the people who are responsible about this situation, unless they continue to waste my time. Don't ask about them, or about the blog. But feel free to write about your own experiences from similar misunderstandings. I know I am not the first web designer who has this problem, it is common among template designers and theme coders. Feel free to post a comment if it has happened to you, and share any tips and ideas that you may have!

Edit (March 20th): Case closed!

I did get one more message from the group, but it was a good one. I did not get any kind of apology, but atleast a promise that from now on they would "make sure to contact the site owner rather than the site designer". They are obviously still believing that I am the "site designer", but the only thing I care about right now is that they leave me out of the discussion for good. I have got their word on that, so I will leave this story behind now and put my energy on better things.

Thanks to everyone who have sent feedback, advices and shared their own experiences! It was not fun to find out that many of my friends and colleagues have experienced similar situations without ever going public with it. This needs to be discussed further to find good ways to avoid similar problems in the future…

The last couple of weeks have been chaotic, especially this week which has been a complete nightmare. I have disappointed both colleagues and clients because I have not been able to deliver all projects according to the schedule - and people have not been able to reach me since I've been away and my mobile phone is broken. There are of course reasons for that, and I will write more about it all in a few days. But but this post is about something much more fun, something that will hopefully make the next couple of weeks much more happy: The single most important person in my life, my father Kjell Viklund, becomes 50 years today!

A surprise party!

To celebrate this, I will spend the weekend in Porjus. I'll bring the computer, my camera and a present that I know he will love, and I'm planning to stay until tomorrow afternoon. Uncle Kent and aunt Anna-Lena (and their families) are planning for a surprise birthday party tonight. The old man himself doesn't know anything about it, but the plan is to have a good dinner, make sure old and new friends drop by to share a few drinks and hopefully have a great time.

I have asked a number of friends to come to the party as well, but I don't know how many that will actually show up. I hope that it will be a lot of people, because he deserves something really special for this day! I have also prepared a few extra surprises for him, including the birthday card that you see to the right. The image is a few years old, but it is the only photo I have where he actually poses for the camera. The photo probably reveals that he enjoys weightlifting as well…

Plans for the next couple of weeks

But the celebrations will go on for several weeks. The local basketball team, defending champions Plannja Basket, will probably reach the finals in the top league in Sweden, and if we manage to get tickets we will probably spend a day in Luleå and see one of the finals. And at the end of this month, my grandmother is sending both dad and me to Pite Havsbad in Piteå to enjoy a relaxing hotel weekend with spa treatments and other adventures.

I am also going to convince dad to get an e-mail address of his own - and maybe a blog as well. Everyone who has met my father knows that he is a man with many amazing stories to tell. We have been talking about recording those stories and turn them into a book, and a blog could be a good way to speed up the writing and give both inspiration and feedback. We have actually come pretty far with the idea and got positive comments from people who have read the first few texts. One of my favorite writers, Mikael Niemi from Pajala, read the first storiy and said that we should definitely write the book - and his comment was a great encouragement. We'll see what happens with that as well…

Time to pack the bags!

Tjuvlyssnat.se, a Swedish version of Overheard in New York and the single most popular blog in Sweden today, is preparing for an exciting 2007 with several new projects. The year starts off with the party I mentioned in an earlier post, and as I wrote I will fly down to Stockholm tomorrow. What I didn't mention was that I have joined the Tjuvlyssnat team as their new webmaster and designer, so I will actually represent both myself and Tjuvlyssnat on the party. This was made official yesterday, and it is of course very exciting! But it will still take a few more weeks until my work can be seen on the site…

I will leave Jokkmokk early tomorrow morning to get to LuleÃ¥ by bus, and then fly from Kallax to Arlanda. I will hopefully arrive in Stockholm by lunchtime where I will have several hours to spend on preparations for the party. I will bring my laptop, so I will do my best to write a few posts during the day. After the party night I will stay one day extra to get a chance to meet some friends, colleagues and clients. I have three meetings scheduled for thursday…

On friday afternoon I will fly back home again, where my father and Johanna will meet me in Luleå. It will be a nice adventure, and it will be fun to meet all the people that I only know by name - or in some cases only by their blog names. If some of you who follow my blog will be around Stockholm these days, feel free to write a message. I'd be happy to go out for a cup of afternoon tea.

But the worst part remains: Packing the bags! Or, actually just "the bag" since I will only bring the laptop bag. I don't want to carry around too much stuff. It will be a challenge to get everything into one bag…

I have a long tradition of not writing about christmas on any of my websites. Whenever I have written something about the christmas season, I have usually combined christmas with new years eve and written about both holidays as one single thing. The reason for this is that I don't really like christmas. I used to love christmas when I was younger, but since I lost my mother six years ago, a lot of the things I enjoyed with christmas are lost. Instead, christmas has been one of the times when I was repeatedly being reminded about sad things.

It isn't until now, six years later, that I feel ok about christmas again. Today the most important thing is to spend some quality time with the family, and to have atleast one traditional christmas dinner. I'm skipping most of the other traditions, and aim at the single holiday that I love most of all…

New Years Eve!

New years means a lot to me. The symbolic value of finishing one year and starting another is something that many people use in different ways, but I use it a whole lot. It may perhaps be because I need to compensate for the lost christmas, but even when I was a kid there was something special about the arrival of a new year…

Looking back at 2006 I can say that it was a really good year, probably the best one in a long time. I could write an entire book about things that have happened during the year (and what I have learned from it), and I could probably also write a whole lot about my plans for the next year. But I know by experience that things usually don't go as planned, so this time I am not setting up any traditional targets. Instead, I will allow myself to be a bit visionary towards a very exciting future!

Same material - but more extras

The first thing to do will be to improve myself and my work in as many ways as possible, and in order to do that I will make a number of changes and updates. Lots of things will be re-organized and even changed in the beginning of 2007, including many things on this website. You will of course find all the things you can expect, like my (music, the templates and [WordPress themes-wordpress-themes], and of course also my blog. And it will still be served in the same simple, free and useful way. But the way i work will change, as I will spend much more time on blogging, releasing templates and updating themes. And each part of the material will have additional material added to it, like image source files for the templates or sample packs for the songs, just to give a few examples!

As promised, I will start blogging for real and write a lot more often. Probably every day. Maybe even twice per day, if I have something good to write about. The reason for that is simple: it would be really fun to do! I love writing, and I love reading my old diaries and archives. More posts may not make the blog any better or any more interesting to read, but those of you who are currently reading my blog to follow my life and my work will get a lot more material to read every day…

The blog direction

The main topics for my blog will basically be the same as today, following the material that I release on my site. However, the category structure needs to be refreshed. I may possibly replace the categories with a tagging system later on, I haven't decided on that yet. But the current categories system is not very good so something will need to be done. These are the main topics that I will write about:

• The diary. My everyday life and adventures - and history.
• XHTML/CSS design. Templates, themes, reviews, tutorials, news, extras…
• Web standards, accessibility, optimization, code quality…
• My local area (Jokkmokk and northern Sweden in general) and places I visit.
• Production, performance and distribution of electronic music. Artist life.
• Graphics design and digital art, photo editing and manipulation.

This is of course not a complete list, only a couple of topics that i believe will get many posts. I will also write about other things, whenever I find something interesting to write about. But I will not jump into the echo chamber and start repeating other bloggers posts about the latest cool video or "web 2.0" tool, there are way too many blogs that do that already. I will do my best to make sure that each post actually says something, and I will of course listen to all feedback that I get and try to keep as many readers as possible happy. If you have any comments, suggestions, ideas, worries or questions, feel free to contact me share your opinion!

The next step

The next thing to do will be to launch the new design. The updated templates (and the new ones) will appear on my template page on OpenDesigns.org first, and then be added to my own template page once the new design is online. Any day now, I'm working on it right now. Expect some live testing soon!

And finally, I would like to thank each and everyone of you who have visited this site and read this blog during 2006! The site has had almost 600.000 unique visitors this year (1.2 million visits and 8.6 million pageviews in total!), and it is of course much more than I could possibly have imagined. I hope that you will hang on for the new adventures in 2007 as well!