Blogademia
Thursday, June 26, 2003
so of the four emails, I've had one back so far, with useful comments. i'll wait till i have a few more, and then rearrange stuff, add stuff, change stuff, and hopefully i'll be ready to go live, properly, fully, real soon.
In other news...I have somewhere to live. Which means i'm going to spend the next few days packing, and cleaning, and moving, and lots of heavy lifting. JOY! But anyway, if you don't hear from me...that's where I am. Or will be. Or not.
Wednesday, June 25, 2003
So, yesterday I sent off emails to several people. This morning i had a number of replies, all in the affirmative. They all get a Scott cool point for that. Thanks guys. Follow up emails are on the way.
In other news...actually I lied....there is no other news...sorry.
Tuesday, June 24, 2003
So probably stuff has happened, and I haven't bothered to write it here, but there's probably no one here so what the what. Anyway I currently have five unsuspecting bloggers who I shall be writing to to ask for opinions on stuff. well actually I am first asking them if they are willing to be asked for help. I have an assortment of people at the moment, but it's probably not wise to say who. If they want me to link to them at some point or something, fair enough, but for now it's probably rude to say who they are.
I also think that i should put a link to my webpage more frequently on this thing, because as yet i haven't really played around with getting a permanent thing. So to find out more about me and my work, and get me contact details, go right here.
Wednesday, June 18, 2003
Whoopty woo, i made a button. Paint shop pro was being a pain. Transparent to me means see-thru. To PSP -> Linux -> Mozilla it seems to mean white. But after making 12 images it works, and I have a button which let's you jump straight to the experiment. I think there are still more navigation issues I can work on so I shall do that now. I've made all the correctional changes recommended by my supervisor...
oh, and the questionnaire works. It takes in all the answer, it mails them to me, correctly, in the format I want. And it takes less time than I though. 5-10 minutes. Piece of p...easiness.
i'm so close to going live i can almost smell it!!
Tuesday, June 17, 2003
Of course, the questionnaire isn't actually working! I am going to check over the code to make it darn well work, and then I'll get someone to fill it in so that i know how long it will take. Easy peasy.
This is not a personal blog, but it's hard not to make it personal. I have a very rambling writing style, so it's hard for me not to waffle away endlessly about anything. What i'm trying to say, is that work isn't progressing at a great rate at the moment, but there is a reason for this. But I didn't want this to get too personla, but i guess since it is related to work it's ok. I am soon to be made homeless, and have been spending quite a lot of time of late on the seemingly never ending quest to find somewhere to live. And someone i want to live with. And who wants to live with me and all my stuff. So now you know. Be gentle with me.
Friday, June 13, 2003
What a time. not entirely project related, but the other day Mozilla, by lovely new browser, decided to delete all my bookmarks. 3 years of research, contacts, obscure papers (not to mention games) gone.
You'll be pleased to hear everything is pretty much ok now, and I have most of my bookmarks back. Lost a couple, but i'll survive. Then the computer was being silly. But now it's fine. fine. we're all fine here, thank you.
finished my questionnaire yesterday. Just in time for my supervision meeting. Asides from a few spelling mistakes, and the need for a big shiny button with which to jump straight to my experiment from any page, my webpages are fine. The questionnaire is looking good also. Shame about the CGI script behind it.
With lots of help from support, I have got it up and running finally. At least superficially. It needs a proper test, but it's looking good. Should be ready to go live next week.
In my meeting we came up with a plan for getting subjects:
Stage 1 - email a few (5-10) bloggers with details of the experiment, and ask for their comments. Would they do it? Would they tell fellow bloggers about? From this we can alter anything they have objections to, see if there are any questions that need to be addressed...that sort of thing.
Stage 2 - email more bloggers. Looking for at least 20, including the original testers...although maybe not, because that's probably bad experimental practise...and get them to do the experiment. Hopefully once they do it they'll post a link in their blog, and maybe tell their friends, and they'll tell their friends, and they'll tell their friends, and the world and his blog will come knocking at my experimental door.
ah...to dream per chance to not walk into a lamp post.
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
you know, I would know that it worked if I appearred on the most recently published blogs thing. is that too much to ask?!
do you know what...I have no idea if that worked...or in fact what happened.
i'll tell you one thing...this interface keeps changing.
What a disaster. I mean really, meant to update this more often but...problems abound.
Beyond my time simply being taken up with other things, there have been a number of technical issues. The transition to Linux has not been as smooth as one would have hoped. For a while I couldn't access some of my files from my own machine due to access issues. Then the servers spents a lot of time down because the cooler in the machine room froze up. The servers have just all been playing silly buggers of late.
My pages are still a little odd on mozilla, but are better so I can deal. Oh yeah and I am trying to find out how I can upgrade to the service that allows bstats or whatever they call them...I saw a page all about it the other weeks...there are amounts you can pay per year, or per month or something for different levels of service. I would quite like some stats on this hear bad boy, but I can't find it anywhere. Maybe it is me, maybe it is my browser, or maybe it is blogger but I just can't find the info anywhere.
AND I've had no reply from Dave Winer. Which was kind of expected I guess, but saddening none the less.
On the experiment front, I'm still making the questionnaire up. It's taking an age, trying to think of all the questions I want to ask. I want it finished by Thursday for my meeting so my supervisors can approve. Or not.
And I think it's time i went public...
Wednesday, June 04, 2003
umm...ok.
so I came to have a rant about all the changes and how things are messed up and I can't find anything...and it's all changed!!!
So, to the beginning...yesterday I got my Linux account right? Well not long after I posted, I got my Linux machine. I apologise for ever doubting the technical team. So here I am on my new, much faster Linux box, and i'm just...well...you know how it is with any new system...there will always be a period of acclimitisation, familiarisation and personalisation.
there are plenty of positives with this new system indeed, but i am now surfing the web with Mozilla. I am in no way saying this is bad, but a funny thing has happened to my webpage: When you move the mouse over seemingly static text, it suddenly goes bold and leaps out at you. Wierd. If I could get to the new files and sort this out then that would be cool, but it's not going to happen for now.
And then I came here, and because I was using an old version of netscape (version 4.something I think), and now i'm not, the blogger interface is cooler.
so anyway...how is the project going you probably aren't asking. Well, yesterday I was ready to go public with all the files in the right place, so I did it. I emailed the man generally considered to be the grand daddy of blogging Dave Winer. I wanted to know what he thought of the idea of work my work, and if he had any suggestions for how best to publicise my work. Of course i should be careful what I say because he may well read this page... Of course, I don't imagine he'll have much to say, because as he says himself, he is a very busy man, but imagine getting a seal of approval from the man behind scripting.com.
Do you see what i did there? Nice.
err...what happened there...why is this still here...minus the rest of my text??? Let's try that again shall we...
Tuesday, June 03, 2003
It took a while, but I have my new account. Apparently, the machine *should* be with me sometime this week. "It doesn't take long to set up" apparently. For now I am remotely connecting to one of the other Linux machines, and am sorting out my pages. I have updated the link in my first post here at Blogademia, and will hopefully soon be able to go public. Watch this space...
