Ryan’s written an interesting post on people being builders and doers, vs being whiners and trolls…
Monthly Archive for June, 2006
Posted my first blog entry for e-Consultancy earlier today, on Web 2.0 and customer relationships.
There seems to be this disconnect between what’s happening with Web 2.0 on the social / consumer front, and what business is doign with it - they key to moving forward (IMHO) is to start small and grow as your community / stakeholders push you - if you’re feedback loop is always open and you’re willing to listen, you should be fine - happy buying customers is better than unhappy buying customers right?
Here’s the intro for you:
Web 2.0 isn’t all about rounded corners and social software – there are real benefits to leveraging the Web 2.0 philosophy and technologies in business, but the key is selecting the right entry points to start conversations with your customers, and then to grow from there, using the community you’ve developed as your sounding board.
There are many ways to look at Web 2.0, and it strikes me that within the UK business sector there is either a reticence to get started, or people simply don’t know how and where to start. It seems that for the most part, the business community is dismissive of the change that is happening on the web as we speak, why I don’t really know.
Just written two more pieces for Lemon Foundation, around content management and Web 2.0…
Content Management doesn’t have to be hard…
Content Management is a perilous thing. Often it’s the last thing thought about when starting or indeed tackling an online project, but the first thing to create problems when it comes to developing content management systems, management thereof and of course the design process.
If I had a pound for every time a client asked me to write their content for them….
I’d be the richest man in Babylon! The fact remains that as web professionals, we do develop an appreciation and knowledge of client businesses, but we certainly do not develop the deep knowledge necessary to write compelling content. Most often, copywriters, although paid to write copy for other people, don’t know enough either – it’s better to write the broad strokes for them to take and polish up into something publishable on the web.
Read more…
Kool and the Web 2.0 gang
There’s a certain feel to Web 2.0 starting to do the rounds – under the surface, the whole web 2.0 show is about technology, mashups, user generated content, syndication etc, but that’s all techie stuff under the bonnet of these shiny new cars which seem to come from the same factory, or at least from the same bodyshop. And this time ‘round (no pun intended) it’s not so much of a “pimp my ride†feel, but more of a simple, understated eye candy exuding confidence, setting it apart from the usual suspects.
Read more…
If you’ve been reading this blog you’ll know that I’ve been through an IBM T42p Thinkpad nightmare, where I pretty much ended up with a new hard drive (not out of the woods yet - another month of smooth operations and I’ll be happy), so I lost my laptop development environment, and had to go back to my Dell desktop to get client work done.
Anyhoo - I’ve just set up Apache2 on the laptop now, so I can carry on working on it as per normal, and have everything the way it was configured before, on the desktop, and for client work.
My environment is that I’m either at my office where I run a 192.168.0.x network off a Netgear router, so development machines are either local, or assigned by IP address. I don’t like fixing my IP address in Apache ‘cos I’m often at client sites and their networks are all configured differently - good old localhost is the lowest common denominator and it works for me.
So, when I start a project, I set up and configure a new virtual host in Apache’s httpd.conf file, and get started - that way I’m almost always ensured of a smoother transition to the production server. It’s the difference between http://localhost/2006/client/project-name/httpdocs/ and http://project-name/…
So here are the basic steps to follow:
Most web hosts will be running Apache version 2.x.x on their Linux servers, and since it’s generally a good idea to run the same software versions in your development environment as your production environment, install Apache2 as a service on your local Windows machine for local development.
The first step is to head over to the Apache HTTP Server Project web site and download the same version that your web host has deployed. In my case, my web host is running version 2.0.46, so we went to the distribution archive and found the Win32-x86 no src version (which uses a Windows MSI installer).
Once you’ve downloaded the file, double click to run the installer, accepting the terms in the license agreement and following the instructions. I chose to do a stock standard “Typical†installation as that is what most people need. There are however various machine port issues that may prevent the installation from going smoothly.
If you’re running Skype, you should quit Skype before running the Apache installation as it seems to watch port 80 on your machine, which prevents Apache from installing as a service correctly. You’re probably going to get an error something like:
< OS 10048 > Only one usage of each socket address
Unable to open logs.
So that’s the first thing to check. You could also open up the command prompt, and also do a “netstat –a –n†to find out what services or apps are watching which ports.
Once you’ve completed that, you should be able to open up your browser and either type in http://127.0.0.1/ or http://localhost/ to get the default Apache welcome page. From there onwards, you can either use the default directory structure found in Apache on Windows, or you can point Apache to another directory on your machine so that you can better manage your files. I don’t like doing the default structure thing, so I have a folder on my C drive called, surprisingly, “www”…
Once you’ve got Apache pointing to your web files, you’re probably going to want to separate different projects from each other, so that instead of http://localhost/client-name/project-name/httpdocs/ you can set up something like http://project-name/ as a virtual server, and do that for each project. When you set up the virtual server, make sure that NameVirtualHost is set to “*†and that in each Virtual Server config, the VirtualHost is set to “*â€. The only other thing to do is make sure that your HOSTS file has an entry for the above virtual host as well, otherwise try as you might, it just won’t work.
And that’s about it 
I’ve taken my Apache httpd.conf file and stripped it down so that it’s easier to edit - you can download for your perusal here.
Thought provoking and interesting he’s being so candid about his position, although I don’t think mainstream media has woken up to this proverbial sleeping giant yet ‘cos they’ve been ignoring the “young and restless” for too long. Certainly not in the UK nor Africa…
Any thoughts?
I remember going on a hockey tour to Durban when I was a youngster in school - I was used to the 35 degree celcius heat in Bloemfontein, but it was a hot dry heat, whereas Durban was this hot humid heat that just made you sweat throughout the day… Anyways, the heat here in London reminds me of that tour - we got out the bus, and we were in full school uniform so it was unbearable. I’ve got one set of doors in the office open, and there just doesn’t seem to be any fresh air around! Never thought I’d say this in London, but it’s too hot!!
I’m looking for good, reliable XHTML/CSS freelancers/contractors in the South-West London area, who are looking for freelance/contracting gigs. I’m not going to go into the specifics here, save to say that I’m looking for people worth their salt and who know their stuff.
If you’re it, then please do get in touch with me so we can chat about what you’ve done, what you can do, and what you want to do in the next 6 to 12 months. If you know anyone looking for work, then please do forward this post on to them.
I haven’t yet had the time to look through the evidence and posts yet, but since I’ve been to France, two things have happened that make me think that MSFT is about to start a very long battle to keep it’s dominance of the desktop office software market…
Google release Google mail for domains, and then they release Google Spreadsheets… They already have Word like functionality working in GMail so that has to be coming soon, they have Notebook (not seen that either yet), they’re offering an RSS reader, their Calendar is compelling… what else is already offered?
Anyways, much more on this soon, but you have to wonder in the meantime - does MSFT have this one covered? With their long desktop app release cycles, they’re really, really behind and can they play catch up / compete / differentiate enough?
I’m in Luxembourg today ’till friday doing client work, and I have to say that Luxembourg is definitely not what I expected! I’ve not yet been into the city yet, so can’t really comment on that, but from what I’ve seen it’s absolutely beautiful and very modern - albeit a bit sparse Also got a bit scared doing 180km/h on the freeway in the taxi!!
This last weekend I was lucky enough to be able to go on a field hockey tour to France, at Le Touqet, with a really cool bunch of 11 guys… This was my third tour to the same tournament, so it was really cool to hook up again with all the people that I’ve met and made friends with over the years - French, German, Dutch, Belgian, English… and we had an awesome time.
Now, I’ve been playing hockey since my dad first put his sawn off hockey stick into my hands (about 3 years old), and since then I’ve basically played every year apart from two seasons where my ankle was too bad to play on (had a car accident where I pretty much did the ligaments in the left ankle) and when I was working too hard, so I’ve been on loads of tours and met loads of people, and I still find that the people I meet on every tour I make friends with, and to a man we have a great time. It’s just as if there’s this common understanding amongst hockey players that it is both a social and competitive sport, and that the sport on the field is just as important off the field.
Anyways, the long and short of it, is that I saw a bit too much sun (got the ever blister to prove it), drank just a little too much, didn’t sleep enough, certainly didn’t eat enough and came away with stiff sore muscles (due to 6 weeks of sitting at a desk - I think my fingers are fitter than my legs), but I loved it - absolutely loved it and I’m definitely going back next year.
Here’s some dodgy photo’s to laugh at
Dodge in a dress (and yes, I did get to wear the dress!!
Dodge in Action (note the ball!)
Some of the boys watching another game
Fines meeting on the Saturday, for the freshers
Fines meeting with the Ze Germans…
Full photo sets taken by pro photographers over the weekend
The Boys The Boys - Bafana Bafana
Daniel’s photo’s are interesting.. I really liked the Chernobyl set, because it’s the last place one would think to take photo’s of…
Could do with a thumbnail gallery though
