perpetual change

I am perpetually in a state of getting into some sort of routine, and then changing it. I will continue with the habit of putting a list of topics at the head of my blog, and then writing them up.

I have however stopped updating my desktop pictures weekly. My home computer is stuck on one of the photos of some japanese bowls, as is my home screen saver. At work I simply pull a fresh image off my website.

1 developments at work - moving around versus staying, and end to acting up
2 developments at home - more jam making
3 working on my website
4 comments on rapidweaver and forum based support
5 anything else that comes to mind, while typing up the above stuff

1 developments at work - moving around versus staying, and end to acting up - chatting to my current line manager about the benefits of staying in post for a while as opposed to moving around. Traditionally high flyers tended to move a lot, and this meant that other people tended to copy them, if they were ambitious. However people outwith the organisation hate this. It is difficult enough to network anyway, without all your contacts moving every five minutes, and then needing to get the new people upto speed on everything, all over again. In addition, if you only expect to be in post for a year or two at most, you approach it in a much different way, from if you expect to still be there to sort out any corner cutting or burnt bridges at the end of the day. You also realise that the contact you have are essential, and whatever you think of them personally, you need to make the relationships work, rather than just cherry picking the ones you think are most productive.

I have been in the same post for three years, but it has been subject to a lot of change, and although I have been working with the same people, largely, the processes involved have changed a lot. So I have probably had the best of both worlds, the benefits of staying in post, and getting a deeper and better understanding, as well as better links to key people, combined with continuing to learn new skills. I think that this is actually a much better model for development, than simply encouraging frenetic movement all over the place.

It also looks like my short period of running the section might be coming to an end, mixed feelings on that. However, my effective line management is so senior at the moment, that it is difficult to get them to sign off on stuff, so getting someone in who is only slightly more senior than me, and more focussed, should help move things along more briskly, which is the thing that keeps me awake at night (metaphorically speaking). As ever, I'll need to see how things pan out.


2 developments at home - more jam making - the house has been a little jam factory again this week. My wife has been working on jams and preserves, including red onion marmalade! Unfortunately I did not plant any red onions this year, so my wife had to buy them, but she has been able to make use of various fruits from my garden in small quantities, rhubarb and loganberry are relatively plentiful, as as gooseberries. For a garden, the best things to grow, are those that are

very forgiving with when you pick them
redcurrents, rhubarb, gooseberries, blackcurrents
or keep incredibly well
potatoes, apples, onions
or are just so damn nice
strawberries

However with time, it is easy enough to just fill your garden with a bit of everything, giving yourself a big always fresh outdoor larder.

3 Working on my website - I have really been enjoying getting back into working on my website, so although there was doubtless lots else to do yesterday, I spent a fair bit of time working on the website, in so far as I spent time doing anything much. Working on the website could easily become a full time activity, not that it is all that time consuming, but the principle of shearing layers applies, you can easily tackle the work in layers, as you add more, fresh issues and complexities present themselves. I was keen to add a search facility to the website, as it is easy enough for me to search material on my own computer, it would be useful to ensure that there was similar functionality on the website itself. Thinking about it, it was clear that adding the code for google to do a site search, was technically straightforward, albeit beyond my ken. Sure enough google supplies the appropriate tools to generate some snippets of code for insertion on your website, which I duly did. I did need to do a couple of amendments
- to shorten the length of the search box, now at 22 - if you want to check the code for the relevant amendment
- to ensure that the search results opened in a new window - basically "target" - check the code for the relevant amendment too

After a bit of trawling about, I found answers on the support forums to both these questions.

Of course at present, google is working off an out of date index of my site, so the search will not actually turn up anything useful, but that will fix itself soon enough. Things like this make you realise that despite appearances, google is not actually omniscient.

I also took some photos of the coatstand I made a while back, and added some details about it to my website.

As I mentioned above, the work comes in layers, my research yesterday on the support forums, also suggests that I should ensure that all my pages are actually given meaningful names, and I really do need to update names and alt tags everywhere, I have been pretty lazy with them.

I also need to update my iPhoto stuff, as some pages, are simply taking images from my main iPhoto library, so anything new, automatically gets uploaded, whether I want it to or not. Simply a case of putting stuff in folders, and amending a couple of links.

4 comments on rapidweaver and forum based support - I really like rapidweaver. My previous website work has been based on text editors, or simply something like mozilla to do the basic coding. I have always been open to getting web software, and have on occasion reviewed the various options. However Dreamweaver is vastly to expensive for what I could actually justify. This is basically a hobby site, it is not a business. I did get Freeway some time ago, and did one page using it, but I just hated the results. I found that notwithstanding the time it took, basically I preferred the results from coding a page by hand.

However, I just love rapidweaver. It is pretty intuitive, and comes out of the box, with some pretty amazing default themes, and set ups. Basically it is easy and pleasant to use, and the finished results are very impressive.

Having said all this, is rapidweaver for everyone? For someone like myself, who is used to doing pretty basic web coding by hand, it is a delight to use. Since getting broadband, I have also taken an interest in recent developments on the web, so that I can find my way round pod-casts, technorati, support forums, and look up html tags when I need to. The other week, when I could not get rapidweaver to upload, I checked out the support forums, and tried out some stuff, before using an ftp application - cyberduck - and finding out that I have filled up my file allocation with my webprovider, and as soon as I deleted some files, everything worked okay again.

If you really don't want to get your hands dirty with code, then rapidweaver is not the magic answer. It is not as simple as just posting onto livejournal etc, you do need to understand the basics.

After all I was not born knowing the basics of web publishing, I did an hnc option years ago, and I have been dabbling ever since. If someone is keen, then I would thoroughly recommend doing some proper training, it was some of the most enjoyable and creative training I have ever done. In tandem with some training, rapidweaver is excellent.

Initially my thinking was that support forums were probably better than a manual. Certainly manuals, are forever getting printed out, then languishing unloved and unread somewhere. However while a support forum is a fine place to hang out, and is pretty good at gradually expanding your knowledge base, often in unexpected ways, they are not a particularly quick way to find an answer to a question. Doubtless the answer is out there, or in there, but finding it is not easy. Often doing a search is impossible, because your key words, are so common, they do not narrow down the possible responses, and the titles of entries seldom indicate what they contain. The titles are written before any answers are posted.

Like many things, the answer is probably better meta data, either by way of tagging, or by bringing together stuff into a wiki, so that like stuff sits together better. In terms of usability, I find that something with a degree of thoughtful editing, often suits the user best, while something with enthusiasm will contain the answer, it will be buried deep, and something unduly constrained by editing, will inevitably be very hit or miss, and less fun to browse.

Of these rough categories,
thoughtful editing - wikipedia, and various commercial, semi commercial sites
enthusiasm - rapidweaver
unduly constrained - apple support forums

There is also a slight element of fanatical zeal on the rapidweaver forums. While I love the software, I do not hang out on the support forums for hours every week, like some people do. If rapidweaver is to appeal to those with less web experience, then it needs to be presented as an easy learning curve, and that really does require a good manual, a tightly edited wiki style support, and additional technical support. Intrinsically there is no reason why the software could not support this market.

Also worth adding that the vodcasts really are excellent, and should be an essential component of technical support.

5 anything else that comes to mind, while typing up the above stuff

I really fancy getting more computer geek tee shirts, well because, basically, I guess, sort of, that is who I am. Jamfactory tee shirts (rapidweaver) links, and O'Reilly currently appeal, but all very silly and frivolous, lets be honest

I am swithering setting up additional blogs, but really not sure whether it is best to have one blog, with everything in, or separate ones, with relevant stuff in them. The functionality of a blog is pretty appealing, but there is no point in creating something too unwieldy. To be honest, this blog is vastly bigger and more rambling, than any other blog that I have read, which makes me think, that making it even bigger and more rambling, is probably a bad idea.