Past Aprille did me the hugest favor.

I got a call on the phone today from this woman at Guided Independent Study. Last month, I made 150 websites for her on WebCT. They are all regular websites like I would do for any university course, complete with U of I course numbers. As I was doing it, I thought to myself, “You know, rather than integrate these with all the other course numbers, perhaps I should put some kind of differentiating ID on them. I don’t know why I would ever use that, but something tells me it may prove useful one day.”

So today when she called and asked me to make two people co-designers in all 150 sites, I looked upon Past Aprille’s actions with gratitude. Under normal circumstances, I would have had to refer to my old list of courses she gave me, figure out which ones were hers and which ones were regular university courses, then manually add all 150 sites to each person’s account.

But! Thanks to that industrious young go-getter Past Aprille, I was able to simply search on the person’s name, then search on the differentiating ID I gave to the 150 sites, and assign them in one fell swoop.

That Past Aprille sure rocks. You know what else she did? She made me dinner. It will be ready when I get home. Past Aprille + crockpot = delicious.

I don’t know if I really have any readership outside the U.S., but just in case I do, I have a proposition for you. My friend Ken showed me this:

http://guardian.assets.digivault.co.uk/clark_county/

What it is: people all over the world will be affected by the upcoming election, and the great majority of them can’t vote in U.S. elections. But here’s your chance to have some say. Just go to the website above, fill in your email address (they promise they won’t spam you), and you will be given the address of someone in Clark County, Ohio. This county is very divided, and only 324 votes separated Democrats from Republicans in the last election. So, you can write a letter to a voter there and explain your position and try to influence him or her to vote in a way that you think is right.

This site is non-partisan; you can try to sway people however you like. Having spoken to people in Ireland, though, it’s my understanding that much of Europe is pretty horrified by the prospect of 4 more years of George W. Bush. I can’t blame them. I’m horrified too.