Tips on Building Websites

 I've been building webpages and doing computer-related work for quite a few years now and in that time I've seen people excitedly jump on the "You Simply Must Have a Webpage." bandwagon. Of those people, the ones that decide to do it themselves, usually end up frustrated within the first month because they do not understand how people use the Internet. The scenario usually goes something like this:

Even if there website hostess provided them with guidelines and templates on design, there is a tendency to override the rules and create a webpage that is laid out much like a book or a magazine and in which the placement of photos in relation to the topic of the text is important. Then they are horrified when a friend shows them their page on a smart phone or tablet because they initially of tried to over format the content, resulting in pictures and text being out of place and generally very difficult to navigate on a smart phone or tablet. So rule number 1:

Do not over format your content. Make sure that your text and photographs make sense no matter where they are. Modern webpages are designed to be very flexible and they will automatically adapt to the device they are displaying on. When creating your page think more about the message you are conveying and less about the precise formatting.

Another pitfall people find themselves in occurs when they are choosing their colour scheme. Colour varies greatly from one screen to another. Your purple on black text might look great on your set up, but be absolutely useless to someone on a tablet.

Although modern systems will automatically download a great variety of fonts which does improve the chances of the webpage text looking the way you want, don't pick something really obscure. There is a reason why most websites stick to well-known fonts like "Arial" and "Times". These are more likely to be accessible to most devices. That is also the reason why if you are actually tinkering with webpage code itself (HTML- HyperText Markup Language ) most of the font and formatting options have been removed and are now exclusively in a language which only deals with formatting. (CSS - Cascading Style Sheets)

The other issue that is common with people designing a webpage for the first time is they don't resize their photos before uploading them to the website. To be clear I'm referring to the actual file size of the photograph or image. Modern cameras can capture a huge amount of detail that is just unnecessary for images displayed on the Internet. Not only that but large file sizes contribute to bandwidth usage on the visitor device. This can also really slow down the loading of the webpage if the device has to scale down an image. Unless you have a particular need for a high resolution photo you should make sure that all your photos and graphics are no more at most in an megabyte. Preferably one third of that. There are many services online that will resize photos for you. Also as was discussed above make sure the photo looks good across a few different devices. Extremely bright or dark photos can be problematic especially if they rely on a lot of shading. 

• A good place to start working with graphics for free is  https://www.canva.com/  Although this site focuses on the actual creation of graphics, as is often the case, the best way to learn is by doing.
• If you would rather download image editing software GIMP (GNU Imaging Manipulation Program) is excellent. Be aware though, the learning curve is quite steep. The program is free and open source.

While we are on the topics of images and photos please take the time to ensure that you have the appropriate copyright clearances. Many images can be freely reused provided that you indicate who the original author was and whether you made any modifications to the image. The Creative Commons is an excellent place to get images in this regard.

Modern websites use a variety of software. While you're keeping the content of your site up-to-date make sure that software is equally up-to-date. Many website hosts provide a "Managed Site" option which simply means they take care of the software side of things allowing you to focus on your material. This is a serious option to consider if you are not technically minded. One of the ways websites get hacked is that the software is not maintained and hackers will ultimately find flaws they can utilize to getting.

Also once your masterpiece of the website is close to finished, for the first time, because there will be and should be revisions, make sure you connected with services like "Google search console". This will not only help get you on the search engine listings, Google will also notify you of any potential problems related to the visibility of the website.

Tools like the the Google Search Console will take some homework on your part if you're not technically inclined and it by no means guarantees that your website is going to be an overnight smash. Getting your website listed in a way that will appear on search engines regularly and effectively is a whole other field in itself known as "Search Engine Optimization" and involves among other things understanding the phrases people use when they search on a particular topic, titling the individual pages and posts of your website in a meaningful way, and that's just the beginning. One thing you can do though is make sure the content of your website is up-to-date and regularly add new content. Think of what keeps drawing you back to your favourite websites. It is probably the new content they put up in a timely manner.

Finally, a website won't automatically generate traffic, rather it is where you want your traffic to end up at. One of the simplest ways to generate traffic is to make your website address part of your signature on all public posts. Then if the content on your website is engaging, over time people will come back.

To summarize:

• Don't be too concerned about the layout of the images and text. The information you are conveying should make sense regardless of the formatting.
• Keep the colour scheme simple. Check the website on a number of different devices.
• Keep your photos and file sizes small. Under no circumstances upload a photo directly from a modern camera.
• If you're using someone else's picture or artwork make sure to check the copyright and give them the required credit.
• Search engines have their own requirements for getting your content listed. This can take some ongoing work on your part.
• Keep the content of your site up-to-date.
• Keep the software which runs your website up-to-date. If you do not know how to do this ask your website host about a "managed site" option.

That's it. Wow, and to think this article started as an afterthought yesterday when I was helping someone straighten out the formatting on their webpage.

• There are several other articles on the blog dealing with various aspects of website creation and upkeep. You can simply click this link to see the most current list of documents, or at any time, use the search box on the site to search for the keyword "website" or just click here to automate the search.
  

Take care Patrick

Political Correctness

 Okay today's entry is going to be very short initially because I am under the gun with so many things right now. But I did want to post something....

There is a problem with "political correctness" and its related phrases. That is to say the wording we use in relation to a person or group automatically. Very often I find now days that the phrase used is now more important than the meaning or the intent of the message. That means that the society tends to get sensitized to the words used and ignores the message. That's can't be a good situation.

Indeed, I prefer the exact opposite. I don't care what phrasing or terminology you use in describing myself or someone else. Rather my focus is on your message and intent. 

Clarity of communication is the bottom line. If people and society are going to rely on political correct statements then need to, understand their origins, and  their context. Choose for yourself based on the situation you are in what you would like to do and what message you would like to convey.

The focus of all communication should be to remove ambiguity and inequality. It is very simple to put together a politically correct statement which still trashes the person's dignity if someone is so negatively inclined.

So don't rely on political correctness to do your work or you, and hope it keeps everything comfortable. Rather understand the context and purpose of the statement. Most of all take responsibility for what you say and do. At the end of the day you are the master of your own ship and sometimes political correct statements don't help in defining that truth.

Take care Patrick

Change the world today.

Modified, text added, photo by Marco Verch
under  Creative Commons 2.0 license.

In my world there's nothing better then creating something from scratch. Whether that something physical, like an electric circuit for a project or writing some code that does something, even if it's very simplistic. The way I look at it, they are all tiny contributions to the world and reality. Something that wasn't there before now is. This is a desire to be remembered, it's more like adding content to the great universal library and it doesn't much matter how long it exists. It's just one of those things I find pure joy in.

Sometimes there's a plan involved in the project can get quite long and consuming of resources and time. While others it's the spur of the moment "idea" and I think those are the most fun. Can you imagine if most people acted on just a fraction of the ideas that went through their head every day? For the purpose of this little text let's keep those ideas positive, because there's enough negativity floating around. Let's focus on what we can do. "Change the world today." Now that I think about it it's pretty awesome that each of us is aware enough that we can affect our existence. We can make it better, or we can leave it along, but the idea is we have the option to tinker. I would just speaking with someone and we were going down memory lane and I remembered purchasing for a night course "The CMOS Cookbook" (**If it is still in print, I will provide a link). It was basically a cornucopia of datasheets on various integrated circuits using the CMOS construction technology. Even if you didn't understand what you're looking at it was marvellous to go through. This is the one of the few books I would have to get physically in this case just something about it that makes it more real. It might cost me an arm and a leg relatively but for me it embodies the whole idea of creating.

To the best of your ability if you can you should create something, whatever that something will be as long as it has importance or relevance to you. Because one of the best things about ideas is that one can lead to another, which leads to another, which leads to another etc. Many of the fundamental features of the Internet were created that way, a block at a time. The some of those blocks have now turned into a grand algorithm (s) and here we are at the beginnings of artificial intelligence.

So take a moment…
… What will you create today?

Take care Patrick

** Sorry although there are archival copies of the book available on the Internet I was unable to determine the legal validity of linking to the sources and the latest publisher Synergetics Press,  no longer lists the book on their site.The latest copy I was able to find was the fourth edition.  You can search "WorldCat" to find copies a at your local library. (Click the ISBN number below)

FOURTH EDITION
SECOND PRINTING - 2019
ISBN: 0 672-21398-2

Other used copies of this book are available on Amazon.

Learning in Manageable Chunks

 As I was doing my science course this morning, because it is online I can break it into manageable chunks. Therefore when I feel I have absorbed is much as I can I can take a pause or stop for the day.

This, as I have found out, has some major advantages. One can focus on what they've already absorbed to more fully understand it before moving on. Or if there's a problem it can be identified before getting lost in greater details. (How I wish I know and this in high school when I was drawing electronic schematics when dealing with the directions current flows.) I have already identified a section of the course I will deliberately redo in relation to a binary search algorithm. If I had learned in the more traditional sense where you must progress through the lesson linearly, and usually at a certain rate, to keep up with everyone else, it would be necessary to move on regardless of whether the information was understood. Then it becomes a point of frustration later on when you can't connect the dots and understand the outcome. This is one benefit of self-paced online learning. So I wonder if it was applied to some degree it all aspects of lifelong learning, how many people would discover they are actually "bright", for lack of a better word? That is to say if the teaching method allowed a person to work on the specific parts of confusion until they were comfortable with it. Would they then not achieve more. Basically love to learn. The lesson being that they have their own way of learning and that insight on its own is tremendously beneficial to the person as a whole.

The above text sounds a little convoluted. If I have time in the next few days I may do a short video explaining this. For now however this is just food for thought. 

I truly do believe that the human mind is so good at learning that we do it automatically. Unfortunately this means that we can also "learn" that we are not good at learning and that bias then affects all our other exposure to learning throughout life. By the same token, it also means that you can start learning in many ways at any time.💗

Take care have a great day!
Patrick

Quantity over quality

Important disclaimer: I want to be very clear I am in no way singling out this article or commenting on its specific contents. Rather to illustrate what I see is a possible trend on the Internet.

Oh my goodness! I couldn't believe what was in my recommended reading list this morning. An article on discontinued morning cereals of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Now to be fair I understand why they're doing this, in order for a company to stay visible on the Internet they must put out material frequently and no doubt somebody is getting paid to write that material. But really... Can't we find a better way to use all this technology. I couldn't myself to click on the link. Even if it turned out to be an exquisitely written piece

Now I know my little "articles" fall into this very category, and I have no excuse but also no delusions of becoming a massive porthole. I created this website way back when as a place to put the occasional thought. This year something occurred to me, I began to wonder if I can make this little site actually pay for itself in 12 months just cover one year of domain rental. That's the reason for the increased number of posts you are seeing is I'm just curious what can be done if one is persistent. But at least I try to give my posts some substance of usefulness. And if I do come up against a technical problem that I think is widely applicable and then I'm sure I've got the answer to I will put that up here as well.

Think about it though every single item that goes online takes electrical energy and hardware which must be maintained. Not to mention the fiber-optic's and metals which must be mind and purified to a high level. A huge amount of effort… For articles on deceased cereals?…

For those braver than me I will post the link to the article itself. Maybe one day I will be brave enough to click it. Without further ado here it is:

Here

Take care Patrick

"Iconic" a language for symbols. Something whose time has come

Attribution Forsaken Fotos on Flickr
Creative Commons license 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

Have you noticed that computers and related equipment are moving away from text based interfaces in favour of the icon symbology?

It looks cute, most of the time but as someone who helps people with technology, the move toward graphic symbolism seems to be backfiring. Even myself when looking through the myriad of icons in my video editing package spend an ever-increasing amount of time just trying to find what symbol relates to what function. While I know there are standards of therefore some of the more common functions and indeed it can make it easier to produce software when you don't have to translate the entire interface to another language it can also unless you're very careful make the interface a mess.

I think we are going to end up having to create a visual script, an abridged version of the written word, to represent some of the features coming along. It could be called "Iconic". Something that would actually be taught so that by the time a child or person was faced with a multitude of images they could find their way through the maze. This would go a long way toward simplifying a lot of things will still keeping the information quality of the symbol high.

Or is there something out there like this already? Would emoji's qualifying? Not quite. From my limited experience with them they don't appear to have enough context or infer information in the defined away.

One of the most frustrating experiences now days is when I open up a new manual and it indicates an icon in the text, but doesn't give it a name, and the icon itself is too small to make out in the details.

I think the visual language of "Iconic" is something whose time has come. It would sure save me a lot of grief and time. Who knows it may even eventually replace the written word.

Take care Patrick

The Internet 20 years from now... Just where will we put all that stuff?

IBM Model 7030 Stretch Early Super Computer
Wikimedia Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

Much has been debated about where the Internet is going and what it'll be like in the future. There is a larger question: Where does all the necessary storage come from? Society will also have to figure out how to power it all.-I'm afraid your laptop charger just will not do.

Then there's the question of where it's all going to be backed up, or will society ultimately come to the conclusion that there will only be selective archiving and like the human brain Internet will forget a certain percentage. While I love my life, I do not wish to remember everything in exquisite detail. Mind you that would make going through school a snap, provided I understood what I remembered.😀

They always say that society is changing so fast nowadays, but what everyone forgets is that it's always relative to whatever part of history a person is part of. 100 years ago there was only a fraction of the change in a given amount of time compared to today, but it was still faster for them then what their grandparents knew.

Whatever way the Internet continues to evolve I'm okay with it as long as I still have the opportunity to understand the knowledge which will be accessible to me. Because it is the understanding that I personally find so enjoyable. I don't want just a collection of things in my head, I want to know how they relate to each other and other items in my memory. In other words I don't want to be a glorified search engine. But rather a knowledge foundation.

In other words, plug the me in and turn me on, but leave the manual handy. And I mean the detailed one; not be abridged user's guide. I want to understand it all, for me that's one of the big joys in life.

Take care Patrick

Forcing People back to onsite work

 

 This topic has been in the news for at least several months starting when the Canadian government announced (article from the CBC) that workers must return to on-site work starting March 31, 2023 at a rate of 40 to 60% of their total work time.

I find this ridiculous if the job entails something which can be done off site. One of the side effects of the pandemic was it tested just how well some jobs adapted to remote working conditions and the results were quite, dare I say spectacular. For some it meant a reduction in childcare costs as well as less money spent on transportation etc.

Rather than write a lengthy post, I thought it might be more appropriate on this Sunday to do a quick video blog. Feel free to watch and comment if you like.

Take care Patrick

Owning responsibility

Holy cow! I had a phone conversation yesterday with someone who, in a nutshell, absolutely did not want to take responsibility for any of the technical issues they were calling about.

I couldn't even get the model number of their equipment beyond the brand. There was a lot of "You're supposed to know that…". When I looked up the information we did have on file, I saw that there was a previous email from them where they were asking three very vague questions. I instantly thought to myself "Okay, now I can get somewhere with this caller. I can break down each question and ask the things I need to know." The caller's response was "How am I supposed to know that?" (I felt like saying, "You bought the device, surely you know something about it." But I didn't. With these kinds of calls becoming combative in the least just causes things to spiral.) Eventually after what felt like a very long 30 minutes I mailed them some documentation and am praying that on Monday we won't hear back from them. I know that sounds rather callous but really people do have to own their own actions and decisions.

Deflecting responsibility for issues in one's life is a guaranteed way to not grow and is a roadmap to frustration for everyone concerned. The above was just an extreme example. I have worked with several individuals like this over the years and there does seem to be a few attributes they share:

1. Where there should be ownership of responsibility there is anger.
2. This can escalate into aggression and accusation.
3. They are the victim inevitably of whatever the particular situation is and that is the rationale for sidestepping responsibility.
   

It boggles my mind, because these behaviours get them nowhere and indeed cause them a great deal of grief. I'm going to guess that the only thing that keeps them reusing the above tactics are the fact that if they can keep you mashed in the situation long enough. Most people will finally give in and take over and fix everything for them. Or they will just walk away. In either case they get short term victory, but in the long term it's just a spiral downward.

But it appears the human brain was never good at looking into the future. Evolution has geared us toward only solving short-term issues in a very rudimentary way. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with whether it's good in the long term. It's as though evolution said "If you're alive at the end of the day, that's all that matters. We don't do quality of life."

For people to grow or evolve I think it will be necessary for all of society to recognize that we all have our own ivory towers. Our own perceptions which we tried to force on reality and or people. The above story is just a example of what it is like when these perceptions become extreme. Wherever your reality ends there is always something just beyond. Maybe the best way to deal with this kind of thing is for all individuals to realize that they must always go a little bit outside of their comfort zone regardless of what that zone is so that you are always in an ever-expanding bubble. That I think would go a long way toward growth and achieving goals. And lastly eliminating full calls like this one.

Have a great day Patrick

Is creativity a mindset?

Photo by Milogrodskiy.
Wooden palette with paints and brushes 
At depositphotos.com

 For ages it seems, people of said "Some are born creative, while others are not. " But I think creativity is taught.. A person may be born with certain attributes that make them better at some things than others, or perhaps a better way to put it is, that they are more attuned to certain aspects of their environment. For example a musician is sensitive to sound and melody and if they are lucky enough to recognize it they encourage that aspect of their lives. However, I am sure at the very beginning of their existence the environment created around them encourage them to explore and how to relate things to one another.

All this exploring takes energy and effort. In order to consider the possibility of being creative one must first get used to challenge, to work at a goal and perhaps improve the goal. Therefore I'm a little concerned about the present day where everyone expects solutions very quickly. Indeed you can see this in documentation for new products. Very small and short statements telling you how to do something, rather than explaining why that particular way is best or going into side avenues.

Manuals for almost any product used to be rather large and with computers even included schematics. Now with many electronics you get nothing. Of course that doesn't stop curious people from digging around. Thank goodness for iFixit :-).

I find myself thinking "Maybe, if we are fortunate enough to have all this Freedom and automation, maybe you should make it a little more challenging". Because I think effort and challenge are at the core of many aspects of growth.

At this stage in my life I'm very glad to have had the challenges and opportunities afforded to me. Sometimes it's good to be different… No, let me rephrase that: "It Is Good to Be Different, If You Have Learned How to Grow from Challenge". That statement still is imperfect but I think you get what I mean.

If you consider yourself different, don't despair, and whatever you do don't try to be normal, I have a feeling normal doesn't really exist, and that is probably a good thing.

Patrick