April/May 2015 AFIB Report published

Dear AFIB Report Subscribers,

You each should receive an email shortly in which you will find a PDF file version of the latest April-May 2015 issue of our newsletter - The AFIB Report.

This being my first attempt to post the new issue on the website on my own after having taken over the full ownership and management duties of the website and newsletter earlier this year, and the first such time without having the very capable and experienced hands of Hans and Judi Larsen, doing these newsletter website uploads and mail out honors using the format they are intimately familiar with on my behalf.

Not so surprisingly, I’ve run into a small glitch in navigating the numerous steps required now to post the newsletter within the appropriate website folders via the original method that Hans used from 16 years ago using very different software and work flow than is required to make this work using my more familiar website editor Adobe Dreamweaver.

No doubt, most of this blind alley I currently find myself in is due to my own very modest understanding of Dreamweaver as well. And yet, the Larsen's are in no position to even reach out to for advice on this issue, as they are not familiar with Dreamweaver at all . Thus, it will just take a little more research to understand how to translate the rather circuitous original uploading and posting process successfully into Dreamweaver format.

Hence, the reason everyone is getting a PDF copy attached above this issue, in addition to those subscribers who already receive PDF versions by preference. In the meantime, I will use the coming few days before I have to leave for a two week trip to Europe to figure all this out and solve this current computer puzzle. And I’ll let you all know as soon as it all becomes clear and settled and you can then successfully log on to and access the same issue online, should you also wish to do so. But for now, I wanted to make sure those of you who might wish to read the new issue this weekend can do so.

Many thanks for your subscriptions and support for the website and our efforts to keep our unique forum and online AFIB resource available to all. This summer we will begin embarking on the new website redesign effort, and I will keep you all posted periodically as to the progress. Hopefully, the end result will be an attractive and very easy to access portal that supports the wealth of wonderful resources the Larsen’s so tirelessly worked to make available for us all the past 16 years.

Sincerely,
Shannon

Shannon Dickson
Editor: The AFIB Report – www.afibbers.org
Email: editor@afibbers.org

I just subscribed. Thank You Shannon.

JohnB

If any of you subscribers have not received the same notice above at the start of this thread by email along with the attached copy of the PDF version of the April/May 2015 AFIB Report issue, please let me know by a Private message you can access by clicking the 'PM' link beside my name above.

Most subscribers it seems have received it, but some have not as yet. I had to create 6 new separate blind carbon copy Group email lists, one for each two month publication period, in which subscribers for each two month time frame are listed.

It has been quite a challenge porting these 6 separate lists from the original PC format version of an XCEL spreadsheet of all names and email addresses used for the last 16 years, and that was sent to me this past January, and convert those addresses into these new contact lists within my Macbook Pro laptop using Microsoft Outlook for Mac as my email client.

There were just enough technical 'gotchas' between the PC and Mac versions of Xcel and Outlook that prevented an easier and more direct and immediate import of all the names and addresses from one format into the other.

As such, after exhaustive exploring of all the options with both Mac and Microsoft tech experts, the consensus was that I would still have to manually retype, or copy and paste, all names and addresses into each new group contact list, which I did over a two week period.

A week ago last Sunday, just as I was preparing to send out the report the first time, Microsoft sent notice of an urgent update for the whole MS Office 365 online program of which Outlook is apart. So I saved everything and turned off the programs and ran the Office 365 update only to discover afterward, to my horror and dismay, that ALL 6 full contact lists had DISAPPEARED from within the newly updated Outlook email program!! Needless to say, that did not make my day.

It took two days with my computer at the Mac clinic here in Sedona, during which the entire OS and all data had to be restored from a backup I did just before the update ( thank heavens for that backup) just to restore the 6 group contact list data.

However, this latest glitch that has effected some of you temporarily is due to a strange issue in which, if any email addresses in each of the 6 contact groups is now no longer in service and is defunct, that fact then prevents any other good one's listed below the bad ones from receiving the group email and attachment. Makes no sense to me, but that appears to be the problem.

There have been about just 8 such defunct email address out of a large combined list, but they have been spread over all 6 groups lists such that there are some people from each group that have not yet received the newsletter, while it appears many have received it, with no way for me to know who did and who did not at this time ... and much apologies for that.

I am currently waiting for an upper level Microsoft tech support to call me back and who will then take control of my machine remotely and, I trust, sort this all out soon enough, but the whole experience has given me even more incentive to get the entire website and layout utterly revamped such that we wont have to deal with such transitional 'surprises' any longer.

Hang in there a few more days and hopefully everyone will have their copies of the newsletter soon. Again, though please let me know if any of you reading this have not yet received your AFIB Report issue in the last couple of days.

Thank you all.
Shannon

Moral of the story: switch to OpenSource software and get rid of those monopolistic proprietry code operating systems that give rise to such time consuming problems!
I feel for you Shannon, as I see it all the time. Apple wont speak to Microsoft and vice versa, they are like two naughty children. Unfortunately such behaviour is reinforced with massive rewards, as guess who is top of the Oxfam report titled Wealth: Having it all and wanting more?
Oxfam 2015

Hi JohnBM ,

Yes I do hear you on this. One would have hoped the at least three way feud between Steve Jobs, Microsoft and Adobe would have defused into better cooperation and compatibility after Jobs death and Bill Gates moving to philanthropy, but I guess the 'not invented here' and 'protect our turf' mentality still reigns supreme despite the nightmares it can cause the rest of us from time to time.

I'm working on a partial solution via a third party service right now for sending out newsletters and emails to you all going forward in a dramatically easier and more flexible method that has nothing to do with Microsoft or Apple 'gotchas' and that should help make it easier all around and offer more options for including mutual media-like video clips or can color photos/charts as part of a newsletter/blog format and that hopefully will be up and running shortly. Maybe I'll have a few less gray hairs afterward.

Cheers!
Shannon



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2015 11:35AM by Shannon.