I recently received a phone call from a friend that runs an on-line newspaper. The server suffered a major outage and they were offline. Fortunately, the site owner had a healthy respect for backups and had a recent one available. Using this I was able to restore the file structure and recreate the back-end database on another hosting server, getting them back up and running after three days and some sleepless nights.

As a thank-you my grateful friend offered me free advertising for a year. His exasperated Editor wrote a 1500 word front page feature article about me, and Gyst Services, which, if you are interested, you can read here.

I also made such a lasting impression that I was invited to contribute a column on technology, to which I agreed. My column has already begun. You can look me up under Columnists on the web site of the Ontario Press Council’s most recent member, the News in Port Colborne and Wainfleet (NIPCAW), though I will be reposting each of the articles on my own site here, under Tech Talk.

Titled “Carl Talks Tech”, the at-least-weekly articles in this column will focus on practical advice, breaking news and technology trends. I have carte-blanche on subject matter. I am looking forward to writing again.