Well, the highly anticipated Vancouver EE Roadshow was on Friday.  It was attended by (among many others) Rick Ellis, and a very secret guest… me! ;)

Before I even discuss the actual show, the community, or the wonderful city, I’d like to send out a few words of thanks to Kevin Shoesmith, Travis Smith, and Monique Trottier for putting on a killer event.  It was very well organized, run, and attracted the type of folks who I love spending time with.  Thanks all!

As to the show itself, it was an afternoon of connecting with a bunch of really smart people, who are passionate about what they do, and how they do it.  All the sessions were worthwhile, and well done.  First was Susannah Gardner, whose talk “Templates and Buckets” was well thought out, and a fantastic demonstration of the over-arching ideas behind any EE site.  I wish I could have packed the room with EE-newbies for this one, as in 45 minutes she clearly laid out the flexibility, power, and utility of EE, as well as a few handy tricks and tips!  Rick and I gave a talk following Susannah (more on that in a sec), and then after us was ExpressionEngine SEO (they’ve given me much to think about on my own site) and Justin Crawford and Travis Smith wrapped up the day by teaching me and Rick how to build extensions for EE ;) - truly, they did a great job, and while extension building is a bit on the “high-end” for most EE users, I spoke to several people during the (ample) beer drinking afterwards who told me they were inspired to start in on a few of their own extensions.

For our talk, Rick and I weren’t sure what we were going to do, since the conference attendees ranged from people who were only investigating EE, and haven’t even used it, to grizzled EE-veterans who have seen it all and done it all.  We opted to give a glimpse into the future of ExpressionEngine, highlighting some of the new features of EE 2 that will allow administrators to customize the control-panel experience for their clients.  After I clean up a few loose ends in the actual code, we’ll release another video showing some of this to the world.

The most fruitful part of the day came after the conference, as these things usually do.  I was surprised at how engaged and passionate people really were.  They view ExpressionEngine as “the home team”, and root for it, support it, and help to shape it into what it is today.  I met people from Ottawa, Alaska, Cranbrook, and of course several Vancouver-ites.  Each of them, people I’m happy to have gotten to know.  Ray and Alli were 2 users who have been with ExpressionEngine since the 1.0 days!  Wow!

Seriously, I want to take a moment to thank everyone.  The community gives back to us as much as we try to give back to them.  After the talk, and over beer, I had this conversation that I think sums up how we stand with respect to EE users:

So wait a minute.  For this small conference, you sent Rick (President and bigcheese), and you, and you came thousands of kilometers, and gave up days of your time, and you brought all this (referring to t-shirts and swag) and gave away the EE licenses?  I can’t think of any other company on the planet who’d do that.

And the truth is yeah, we did, and we loved it.  I can’t wait for the next conference either.  Selfishly, I really hope its in Canada also.  Go Canada!  Way to reprEEsent (oh, clever, clever play on words there - cheap shots at my lack of a humour bone are welcome in the comments).

Late last week I flipped open my macbook, and was surprised that the battery was totally dead.  I thought I had charged it, but there was no power. Turns out, even plugging it in didn’t help, the battery simply wouldn’t accept a charge, and the macbook (when plugged in) was telling me it couldn’t even detect the battery.  I’ve had this particular laptop since March ‘07.  D’oh!

A quick google search indicated that a few others had reported similar issues, and were nearly always resolved by getting a new battery, many people even mentioned that Apple had taken care of it for them.  So I decided today to drop into the Apple Store at Yorkdale Mall and see if they can help me.  What an absolutely fabulous experience. 

Here’s how it went down: I walked into the (packed) store and made my way to the genius bar.  I was hoping to schedule an appointment, but the digital sign said that all appointments were booked for the day.  As I was deciding how I’d handle it a cute and energetic representative approached me and asked if I needed a hand.  I relayed the battery story to her, and she politely asked if I had an appointment with the genius bar.  I told her I didn’t, and before I could get another word out she said “one sec, I’ll get someone to help you”.

About 15 seconds later another cute rep in a different coloured shirt comes over and listens to the story.  She asked how old it was, and I said “a year and a bunch of months” (I couldn’t exactly remember).  She types my name into the computer, tells me with a smile that she’ll be right back, and walks into the back.  A minute later she emerges with a brand new battery and a receipt for me.

“Here you go.”
“Wow, anything I need to sign?”
“Nope, you should be all set.”

A quick test to verify it actually did solve my problem and I walked out in under 5 minutes, very happy, with a new battery, and a renewed appreciation for service.  The experience was inspiring, and I hope each person who deals with me, and with EllisLab feels the same way.

One oft-requested feature of Bamboo is the ability to have multiple usernames and passwords for administration.  Perhaps you’ve got 2 people in your company, who both issue invoices… perhaps you just want 2 separate accounts.  To that end, I’ve started working on a new feature of BambooInvoice, called “Accounts”.

In the early stages, having multiple accounts will simply mean having multiple admins.  Bamboo will not track who did what activity, there will be no different permissions, etc.  Basically, it just allows for a separate login.  Down the road, I’d like to implement a few different privilege levels for accounts.  Right now I’m thinking they might be “admin” (everything), “executive” (can do anything relating to invoices, but not change system preferences), “viewer” can see but not change invoice information, and “client” (individual clients will be able to see their company’s invoice history, including viewing past invoices).

The main thing with a permissions system like this is that Bamboo was not set up from the beginning to allow for granular permissions, so there is a lot of going back over to make sure I’m not accidentally letting an unprivileged account see something that only a privileged one should.  I can imagine what a mess it would be if a client logged in to see their invoices but also had access to all your billing information.  Yikes!  So it will be a slow process as I make sure I don’t mess it up.

For now though, I need some different icons.  C’mon you graphic savants out there… what can I use to represent “clients” that makes it distinct from “accounts” visually on the root system dashboard?  I’d love to hear your input.