Family guy and web developer
The thing is, that even with all the successful projects behind us, we’re typically bad at selling ourselves to ourselves. Like my friend above, who for years had been the lead developer at an agency yet he underestimated the actual value he brought to the table.
— Your First Sale is to Yourself by Curtis McHale
Warning, this contains a lot of ass kicking, but it's well worth the read.
I can't say that I've read a book over 100 times, perhaps the closest to that count is A Christmas Carol which I've read over 20 times.
Centireading reveals a pleasure peculiar to text lurking underneath story and language and even understanding. Part of the attraction of centireading is that it provides the physical activity of reading without the mental acuity usually required.
— Centireading force: why reading a book 100 times is a great idea by The Guardian (Stephen Marche)
Doing a number of spikes with the Ionic framework this morning. Like what I’ve seen so far just by getting up and running.
Never thought I would be proficient with Vim on a day to day basis. It’s taken a number of attempts but I finally got there.
Last weekend our son came home with the school quarterly bulletin. As always we familiarised ourselves with everything that was coming up in the next few months, asked him what events he would like to go to and made sure there was nothing else that needed our attention. One last thing caught me wife's eye though as she read through the bulletin. The school are looking for volunteers to help re-vamp their school website.
The next day I phoned the school to let them know I would be willing to help out. I got a call back a few minutes later with a date and time to speak to the assistant head teacher at the school who will be handling the website. All good so far.
The school's website is okay as an information portal but it definitely falls short in terms of how it looks. Well, when the site says that the school kids contribute to the look and content of the site, you're not exactly going to be expecting something that wins web design awards. Looking at other web sites in the area, and it's clear that the school web site isn't a primary concern for some schools. There is more an emphasis on getting the school children involved and that's not a bad thing.
Today's school children though are far different in terms of technology exposure than school children have been in the past. In the last ten years, mobile technology has become so engrained in day to day life that homes often have two or more mobile devices with kids often having their own tablet or even smartphone.
It got me wondering about the approach to take in getting the school children involved in the new school website. Is it better for them to know how to edit and update web pages by hand or will the kids be more interested in maintaining the school website through something like Wordpress?
I might be jumping the gun here a bit, but I've been keeping a list of questions like this to ask at my meeting with the school this week.
The main good thing to come out of this though is the chance to do something for an organisation in my local community. Yes, I'll be doing the work for the school for free but with our oldest already a pupil there and our youngest due to start there in a few years, the chance to contribute something to their school can't be a bad thing.
Decided to give this Twitter thing a try again. We’ll see how it goes.
I'm back on Twitter.
After weighing up the options, I'm probably better being an active member of at least one social network rather than none at all. Working for yourself is great, but the lack of office banter can make for very quiet days.
Fancy following me? I'm @matthewlang.
The entire kingdom of Westeros created in Minecraft. Amazing.
via kottke.org
Curtis McHale knows how to be effective during his work day. No further proof is needed than the man himself. Curtis manages to fit so much into a single week.