Blog > 2009
RSS has only been around for about, oh,
I don’t know, a decade or so. Being such an early adopter of new technology I thought it
was about time I added an RSS feed to my site!
So if you love RSS as much as this happy chap on the right, go ahead and click on the
RSS icon in your browser’s address bar, click on the RSS link at the bottom of the page,
or simply click on his RSS-loving smiley face :o)
We recently built a website to promote the
new Stephen King novel, "Under the Dome". The promotion includes a competition which aims
to be the "biggest game of literary hide and seek ever played". The whole novel (which
hasn't been published yet) has been split into thousands of snippets, with participants
playing either as a hider or a finder – there's a prize for finding the most
snippets, and a prize for the most imaginative hiding of a snippet.
I'm not convinced of the appeal of this competition, but I'm a software developer, not
a marketing whizkid, so what do I know? Besides, the prizes include a night in a swanky
London hotel, so must be worth a shot.
I'm not allowed to enter myself, for obvious reasons, but here's a snippet to get you started:
his hands behind his head.
'Your boss called,' he said. 'That guy Cox. Mr Rennie calls him Colonel Do-What-I-Want.'
'I'll bet he does,' Barbie said.
'Mr Rennie gave him the big **** you. And you know what? Your Army pal had to eat it and smile. What do you think of that?'
'I'm not surprised.' Barbie kept looking
Go visit the www.stephenking.co.uk website to
find out what to do...
I have a day job, and in that job I’m in charge of the development of a fairly large
CMS application. Lately our clients have been
asking us to add more "bloggy" features to the CMS, so I thought I’d invest a little time
finding out exactly how it feels to run a blog. I’ve used all sorts of blogging software
before, from a purely evaluative point of view, but I’ve never tried maintaining a blog
myself (I don’t consider this website to be a blog by the way, though on reflection it
does smell a bit bloggy).
So in the interests of research I’ve started a new blog. They say you should write about
what you know, or at least what you are passionate about – so my blog will be about:
"scale architectural models of world cities, real and imagined". Snappy, I know! It’s not
something I’m experienced or qualified to speak about, but it is something I’m passionate
about, in a geeky and faddish sort of way. Mostly I’ll just be posting links and pretty
pictures :o)
I’ll be using ubiquitous open-source blogging software Wordpress
for this endeavour, which should hopefully teach me something about how those in the "blogosphere" live
(God I hate that word). Head over to my Model-City-Zen
blog to read more...
Since I gave this website a
major spring clean late last year,
I’ve noticed that it’s started to look very much like a blog.
Eek!
This website is not a blog! It has occasional blog-like tendencies, but its
primary concern is software, all the digital goodness that can be found in the
projects section. That’s the reason the
site was created in the first place, and it’s the main reason people still visit
(oh yes, other people visit, it’s not just you).
So this month I’ve been tinkering again – not a full-force-factor-7 spring
clean like last time – just a gentle dusting around the edges with damp cloth.
The home page now gives equal importance to both my
written ramblings and my
software creations. I’ve even given myself
a bit of space to mention the various bits n’ pieces I come across on my internet
travels, but aren’t worthy of a full blown ramble.
And balance is restored to the Universe...
I'm pleased to announce the release of
Salary Timer v 4.9. This is a
minor release, updated with the 2009/10 tax codes. Download and enjoy :o)
I think this might be the final version of the Salary Timer in its current incarnation
– warning, things are about to get technical – those of a non-geeky disposition
should look away now...
Ok, programming geeks, still with me? Good.
The first version of the Salary Timer was written over 7 years ago, using C++ and
native Win32 API calls. The core code has changed very little since then, and the
project is still pure C++/Win32. The Salary Timer may not have changed that much,
but my programming expertise certainly has. I've been programming almost exclusively
in C# for many years now, and updating the Salary Timer code is an increasingly
laborious task. With every year that passes I forget more and more C++, and the
Win32 stuff looks positively archaic after working in .NET for so long.
So this will probably be the final C++/Win32 version of the Salary Timer. But don't
panic – this isn't the end, it's a new beginning! By the time of the next update
I intend porting the Salary Timer to the .NET framework. I'm still undecided as
to whether to use WinForms or WPF. WPF seems the obvious choice, but I have some
WinForms experience so that would be the easier option for me. Then again, perhaps
a good excuse to learn WPF. And there's always Silverlight...
What do you think? Feel free to leave a comment below, I'm always keen to
hear other opinions.
Last month I decided to experiment with ubiquitous internet
phenomenon Twitter. I was curious to see
if I too would get swept away with the incessant noise manufacturing tool of narcissism,
or whether I would experience an Emperor's New Clothes moment, and skulk off in
nudey embarrassment. I also ran another experiment in parallel, updating my
Facebook
status with roughly the same frequency (and roughly the same content)
as my Twitter updates.
It's been a month, and the experiment is over. Time to take stock of what I've discovered.
Twitter ye not
Like many new users it took me a while to figure out exactly how to get started
- how many people should I follow, who should I follow, how often should
I update, etc. I have enough trouble finding time to read all the blogs I enjoy,
so trying to follow the deluge of twittered nonsense spewing forth from the world
was impossible. I know Twitter is supposed to be about the "now", and you
aren't meant to try and read each and every tweet in your feed, but I can't
help it.
Armed with my obsessive-compulsive handicap need to not miss a tweet,
I set about following people. Obvious first step - everyone I know who Twitters.
Turns out that's not many people, and almost entirely restricted to colleagues.
So Twitter quickly became a public chat forum for the office (albeit one with no
security, 140 character limit on messages, no native multimedia support, etc). I
also followed a few "celebrities" - I found that though I might enjoy watching them
/ reading them / listening to them, I'm not that interested in what they're having
for dinner on a Thursday evening. Besides which, people in the media seem to have
more time to spend on this kind of thing (not having proper jobs n' all), so end
up posting far more tweets than everyone else, badly unbalancing my Twitter feed.
I quickly settled into following the users I found manageable, and started posting
tweets of my own. I posted at the rate of roughly one tweet a day. I think
my colleagues were reading, plus a few friends, plus a few random visitors to this
website. But mostly it was like whispering to myself in a dark, vacuous, empty
room. I can't deny it wasn't occasionally fun; but for me it wasn't the great
social revolution they promised. I'm not that interested in having conversations
with people I don't know, and very few people I already know
use Twitter (the digital Philistines!).
Facebook ye may
I assumed that my experience with Facebook updates would be similar to Twitter.
I had rarely posted updates in the past, and was quite apprehensive about getting
involved. I find most other people's updates to be embarrassing,
self-indulgent, irrelevant and downright boring, and had no reason to believe my
own updates would be any better! But I have friends and family spread all over the
country (and indeed the globe), and since we've gotten a lot more slack at keeping
in touch I figured it might help keep those bonds intact.
The first and obvious difference between using Twitter and Facebook was that I already
had a pre-built network in Facebook, built up over many months - so like it not,
they'd have to listen! The other major difference is that it's a closed network
(to a degree), so even though I'm not about to post my credit card PIN, I can at
least be sure the reader knows me already, automatically giving context to my updates.
The other difference, and this one took me by surprise, was that people quite often
replied to my Facebook updates. I'm not sure why it should have come as a surprise,
but I didn't think I'd enjoy the community aspect as much as I did (being so anti-social n' all). I found I was
having little "micro chats" on Facebook with people I probably wouldn't call or
email, while at the same time reinforcing communication with those people I'm in
close contact with. You can do this with Twitter, but the interface isn't so well
suited (unless you're using a 3rd party app). It's also more likely your
Luddite friends/family are using Facebook - less likely they're using Twitter.
Data
I do like the "openness" of Twitter. Both Facebook and Twitter are proprietary systems,
but Facebook makes it a lot harder to get your data out, should you want to. Twitter
on the other hand makes the process trivial via its simple API - this has been a
major factor in its success, resulting in the huge number of 3rd party
apps that have sprung up to scratch the "Twitter itch".
On the subject of data access (yawn…), I'm uneasy about investing lots of time and
content in a system that I don't own, and which could disappear tomorrow. Granted,
no one's writing the next Ulysses using Twitter (see for yourself),
but a user's Tweets (or Facebook updates) may have a certain
nostalgic value. Isn't this phenomenon often referred to as "micro-blogging"? How
would a blogger feel if their blog, and all of its content, suddenly got flushed
down the great digital toilet?
Conclusions
I think Twitter has its place - I can see the appeal for organisations/individuals
who want to broadcast information to a large amount of people, with a degree (or
at least the illusion) of two-way communication. And want to appear "hip to the
groove" and what not. Though I still think a blog better serves this purpose. It
will be interesting to see how many users maintain their Twitter presence once the
hype dies down.
What I don't think Twitter does so well is serve as a framework for a group of friends
to stay in touch (which ironically is what it was invented for in the first place).
A richer social networking tool like Facebook is much better suited. Though I appreciate
my experience was largely tainted by the fact I already have a large network of
friends using Facebook, and hardly anybody using Twitter.
I guess you get out of it what you put in. But personally, I'm getting off the Twitter
train - so long, and thanks for all the fish!
I've known about Twitter for a long time (you'd have to have been
living under an internet rock not to), but I never really got the point.
OK, I get the point, I just couldn't see any point in me using it. But you can't fight
change forever...
So this month I finally succumbed to the imagined peer pressure of everyone else on the internet,
and signed myself up. I don't know if I'll stick with it, but I'll give it a month or so - I'll either
end up loving it, or I'll throw it out the window and never speak its name again.
You'll see there's now a little box hiding underneath me on the left, which shows my latest "Tweets"
(I hate all the Twitter lingo, but I may as well get used to it). I'll use it to post updates about this
site, work, play, and life in general. Welcome to the bloody internet.
I'd thought about adding a 'donate' button to the site for some time, but never got around to it.
To be perfectly honest I wasn't sure that anyone would indeed donate, and I'd be left staring at my
empty PayPal account with the tear-filled eyes of a jilted lover (or something similar, but more manly.
Maybe something to do with war or sports).
But last month one of my kind visitors specifically asked how he could donate to the site -
suddenly my faith in humanity is restored :o)
So this month I've added a donate option to the menu on the left. It's all handled by PayPal, and
is very safe and secure. You don't even need a PayPal account to donate. If you feel like chucking
a few coins my way to help pay for the up-keep of the site, well thanks very much!
Oh, and as for that 'Credit Crunch' you've been reading about, don't worry about it,
it's all a conspiracy designed to stop you donating money to entertaining websites ;o)