graham’s blog

Sigh of relief

When I logged into this blog this morning I noticed that upgrading to the latest version of Wordpress was called for. As usual I went into my hosting’s control panel, chose Fantastico and clicked on the upgrade Wordpress to 2.5.1 button.

Up until now this has always gone smoothly but the law of averages reminded me that from time to time it will go wrong, and it did!

I spent the rest of the morning trying to get this blog back online and it proved a lot more trickier than I thought it would.

As you can see I managed, but at one point I thought I might even have to start anew with post number 1 again.

I was going to change the template (again) because although a magazine style is interesting it calls for more and not less work than a simple chronological template.

So here we are back to the last but one iteration and true to form I will be tweaking it over the next few days until I am happy again.

Is the word “nifty” still in use?

I’ve been living in Switzerland for just over thirty years and this has a noticeable effect on my language. English, as you know, is a very volatile language and words and expressions come into and go out of fashion over the space of a few years.

My English is therefore, I hope, correct but sort of out of fashion. When I left the UK nobody talked of being “gutted” for example.

So I wonder if the word “nifty” is still in use. So I’m asking you. I’ll of course Google it but would appreciate your feedback, knowing in advance that it is probably an UK expression.

A little disheartened

I haven’t posted in a week or so, which is the first “break” since the beginning of the year.

I was caught up with the sp*m problem and in the end discovered it was trackback orientated and a new plugin seems to be helping a lot. I’ve re-enabled comments without approval and hope it works out. I really don’t want to discourage comments as I haven’t had that many for a while now. It’s a viscious circle thing. The less you get the less you feel like posting.

I’ll post anyway. You’ll see!

More thoughts on blogging

“ I think it’s entirely possible that the ego-driven, comment-driven water-cooler blog is being replaced by Facebook and Twitter. I don’t think, not for one second, that the inherently closed communities of social networks are a replacement for the idea-driven blog designed to be read by surfers, strangers and the masses.

Seth Godin

Not feeling helpless

I think one of the greatest problems facing those that are concerned about others wellbeing might be a feeling of helplessness.

It’s all too easy to say “What difference can I make?” or “what valuable contribution can I make with my limited means?”

I’m one of the guilty ones and I admit it here and now. We get almost daily requests from charity organisations and it’s only over the past few years that I’ve picked a few charities and give regularly. It’s true that it would only take very small individual contributions to make a big difference to the world’s pressing problems.

I was reading an interesting article from one of my feeds this morning comparing and contrasting the affair beginning to be known as ScobleGate with the current situation in Kenya.

This is the sort of article that makes a difference in my mind and as I have a platform here I intend to go increasingly down that route over the year to come.

Although I don’t do New Year’s resolutions it seems timely to take a stab at being more responsible and turning the pages inside out rather than outside in. Let’s see where this takes me.

New shinies

Through twitter and a Chris Pirillo broadcast I’ve “discovered” Blurb and Joe’s Goals.

This was after his clip mentioning them in relation to rewarding yourself after attaining some goals. The referral was to using Joe’s goals as a tool to survey ongoing goals and to Blurb as a reward. The person in question who maintained a photo blog over 365 days is going to write a book using Blurb.

I catch on quick and have signed up to Joe’s Goals but have started putting together a few books out of sheer pleasure. I love Blurb!

Goodbye Facebook

I might be becoming a social outcast but I’ve done something that I’ve been thinking of doing for some time now.

I logged into Facebook, restricted as much as possible who can see what, uninstalled every application I could find, erased as much as possible my profile and then deactivated my account. I didn’t have the possibility of deleting my account or I would have.

I’ve never got into it properly, and it’s too much of a distraction, as my online life is nicely disorganised elsewhere and I have no intention of turning Facebook into my social hub.

I’ll just have to get by elsewhere.

Let’s see how this pans out and whether I’ll get any fallout from it. In the meantime you are welcome to leave comments on my blog, follow me on twitter and tumblr (justgraham), or email me.

Can’t resist an extra post

Although I wrote a week ago indicating I was going into hospital and wouldn’t be updating for a while, an interesting post by Stephanie has prompted me to slip this post in before making myself rare again for a while.

From my point of view I’ve spread my self about as thin as I can get over the Web since the beginning of this year. The other day I attempted to MindMap my presence but was unable to get the big picture (or rather I gave up after a several iterations).

As each new Web 2.0 product came on line I was there with a login and enjoying the sparkliness of it. I had the impression I was spending my time filling endless profiles and likes and dislikes and when I was happy with it something else came along.

Well I’m easing off all that now. My job is in front of a computer all day long and my leisure time was pursuing this “in front of computer” doing all the unprofessional computing activities that you can’t or don’t do at work.

The end result, although stimulating for a time, was becoming increasingly frustrating and also, if I try to be honest, somewhat addictive. I think it goes with my personality and I’ve seen it before.

A few years ago I was an MMORPG gamer (Asheron’s Call, Earth and Beyond, Everquest, Guildwars etc etc.) I would play for hours on end, discuss game related matters on the forums and sleep infrequently.

That time has passed and in retrospect, and having had the time to reflect, this whole Web 2.0 phenomenon has a lot of similarities.

So how do you balance it all I wonder? Do you get the time to get out and about, to watch films, read books, watch DVDs and enjoy the company of others?

This blog has become an extension of me and I am no longer in any doubt whatsoever that I will continue to maintain it but I am at the same time integrating the essential benefits of Web 2.0 while stepping back from being an early adopter and grabbing all that is offered. I’m avoiding the sparklies and relearning that life exists outside the computer monitor.

I think, in a nutshell, that I’m aiming to integrate Web 2.0 into my life rather than integrate my life into Web 2.0.

So tomorrow morning I go into hospital. I’ll see y’all on the other side and I’m looking forward to that.

Just a brief visit

Well I had a great holiday and I haven’t told you about that yet (All the photos are on Flickr though (look to your right). In fact I was watching the date of my last post and realizing that it was almost a month since I last wrote. In the end it became a game with me waiting for that date to arrive.

Here we are then a month later and I’m only passing. I go into hospital next week for an operation and my doctor says I will be in for 10 days or so.

So if you don’t mind, I’ll get that out of the way and come back gently in a few weeks with a new programme and a new beginning.

Thanks for your patience and be assured that even if I don’t post I do visit you, my faithful readers, very regularly!

A little disappointed (just a little)

As you might have noticed I’ve been a perfect bilingual blogger these past few weeks. Every post has had a blockquote in the other language so that everyone understands something at least. This doesn’t seem to have persuaded family and french-speaking friends to contribute and I’m making a comment about that here. It probably needs more time but I can’t help being a little impatient.

Il y a quelques semaines j’ai décidé de (re)transformer ce blogue bilingue en mettant un commentaire dans l’autre langue au début de chaque article. Mon intention n’était pas d’attirer de nouvelles lectrices et lecteurs mais de faciliter le contact pour ceux qui sont plus à l’aise en Français qu’en Anglais. Force est de reconnaître que je n’ai pas eu énormément de succès car à ce jour je n’ai pas eu de commentaire en Français. Ce serait super sympa de me dire un petit coucou de temps en temps - il n’y a pas besoin d’écrire un roman.