Author: Alasdair

Quick Link Roundup

Posted on by Alasdair

PHP streams – a few things I didn’t know about working with files in PHP.

5 mistakes band/label websites make – I think we’re slowly educating people away from them, but still, a handy reference for when I’m dealing with particularly stupid artists/managers.

Google blog search may balkanise the web. I don’t think it will, but it’s two topics I want to come back to at some point – balkanisation/taste-tribes and the value of blog-searching.

Web 2.0, from Abstracted Dynamics. A lengthy and well thought out piece on what this Web 2.0 business that everyone’s talking about actually is.

This entry was originally published at my workblog.

Communication and Conviction

Posted on by Alasdair

I’ve been thinking a lot about soap boxes, and getting one’s message across, and basically how people can tell others the things they care about and generally get heard. And then I read Desolation Jones #3, and it got me to thinking. This essay is very much only a start, but I wanted to just set down where my head is at with regard to what I do all day right now, in the hope of building on it. It’s a bit scattershot, but it’s there to clarify a few things for me. Next time, I’ll try and get stuck into techniques for on-line discourse, or something…

This entry was originally published at my workblog.

Offshore Life

Posted on by Alasdair

Ben Hammersley writes in the Guardianabout the idea of personal offshoring. On the one hand, this fills me with dread – it’s taking the skillset that I have developed over the years, and making it available for much, much cheaper that I can afford to be.

On the other hand, I could really, really use some design work doing on the cheap. Of course, I want it to be fully XHTML/CSS and standards-compliant and all that jazz, and I’m not confident that a third-world designer will be (or indeed, that they’ll be modern looking designs – all the ones I’ve seen on template sites look about three years out of date, to me.

Don’t suppose anyone reading this is a design professional with XHTML/CSS skills willing to work for the price of a few pints per site?

This entry was originally published at my workblog.

Digitalia.

Posted on by Alasdair

Further to yesterday’s question, and the comments: You can now get an LJ feed of my workblog at als_workblog (I’m feeling original tonight…), and I’m going to start enabling commenting on selected entries. The basic linkbloggery that makes up about 50% of the thing is not for commenting on, but if I think there’s something worthing thinking a bit more about, then I’ll leave comments on.

Tools and Design

Posted on by Alasdair

So I stumbled across Garrett Dimmon’s point making prank the other day, and it’s got me thinking about the way I present myself on the web.

The two sites I’ve put on-line most recently are this one, and my photography portfolio, and for both, I’ve just grabbed an out-of-the-box tool, and stuck with minor modifications to the default template. I do intend to make them into something fully custom at some point, but it’s not high on my priority list.

Given that I’m a professional web developer one might suggest that this doesn’t present the best image of my technical skills.

Or, of course, one might say that I see no need to spend weeks re-inventing the wheel, and that I know I’m not a professional designer, so if I can get something that looks good for now, that’s enough. Surely, if there’s an art to what I do, it’s in knowing how to communicate well for the minimum time investment. Just a thought…

This entry was originally published at my workblog.

Idle curiosity

Posted on by Alasdair

How many of you, if any, read my workblog? How many of you would if someone bothered to syndicate it on LJ? This isn’t an ego thing (well, OK, maybe a little) it’s just that I started it because I didn’t want to clog people’s friends lists with dull techy/photography blogging, and I’m slowly becoming aware that a thing I more or less started as a memory dump for myself (because I thought it wouldn’t be of interest to anyone else) is picking up an audience, and I’m just curious to see if it has much, if anything, in common with my LJ friends list.

How I Know I’m A Geek.

Posted on by Alasdair

Tonight I got home at a bit after seven. Since I have no food in the house, I planned to go to the gym about half eight, and then pick up a sandwich or something on the way home. So I thought I’d use the hour or so I had in hand to get a bit of work done. Specifically, some data modelling for the Programming Project That Will Not Die. This will teach me to try and build a web app of LJ-level complexity on my own, in my spare time. If anyone fancies learning Ruby/Rails along with me, and wants to pitch in, speak up. (And if anyone’s got any experience of building calendar/scheduling type apps, please speak up, because I need to pick your brains.)

Anyway: It is now a bit three hours later, and I have just looked at the time and realised that I have forgotten both to go to the gym and indeed, to eat. So I’m going for a walk around the block to blow the cobwebs out, and then, in the absence of dinner, I shall drink a beer. Beer is still food, right?

Work planning

Posted on by Alasdair

So, having thought about Mr Coates definition of social software a bit, and had it clatter about in my head with another project, I spent some of the weekend getting started on the resultant idea. Which would be fine, but I seem to be setting myself up for a staggering amount of work.

So, naturally, this seems like a good time to get stuck into a new language. I’m going to build the thing in Ruby, and specifically with this Rails framework all the cool kids are talking about, so I’m just making a note of a few good tutorials for when I get stuck in – Rolling with Rails part 1 and part 2 look like a good place to start. I’ll add the Rails/Ajax tutorial, too.

Oh, and Really Getting Started With Rails, as well. That should give me enough to be going on with…

This entry was originally published at my workblog.