John Allsopp

Professionally engineered Internet solutions for humans

The Word Factory, case study: 22 June 2006: I just added another case study, The Word Factory.
B&Bs: 22 June 2006: While I'm working on getting the next big projects, I've done a couple of holiday accommodation websites. There's not much point in them spending a lot, a simple presence does the trick, it's mostly about photographs and text that people might discover when searching. Anyway both Cosy Beamed Cottage and Bramblewick Guest House said they were very happy with what I'd done and commissioned further work.; It's actually very nice to work with people who really don't go online very much at all. I've been wondering what that is. This morning I saw a client who said someone they know was saying to them "Oh, don't you know how to get a good search engine position? I can get you the software". The fact is, my client has really the very best search engine position already, achieved without buying or ripping off some magic software. We used some intelligent thought. So I think what's nice about dealing with Internet novices is they know they don't know anything so they just ask questions. Someone who thinks they know what's required for a good website can sometimes be just so incredibly, jaw droppingly far off the mark that getting them to a place of proper understanding can be like landing a big fish .. it needs a combination of cunning and pure strength. Because the Internet, as a subject, is a haven for bad advice and misunderstandings, those who know nothing are often closer to real understanding.
Tellison et al: 19 June 2006: So there I was with Dave/Bob in town on Friday and this lad came up to us and gave us a flier for a gig on Sunday. Three bands, The Siegfried Sassoon, One Little Soldier, and Tennison. 50p to get in. Dave/Bob didn't seem interested, so I took the flier and persuaded my partner to come out.; We were initially outside our comfort zone. We were probably the oldest people there barring perhaps the owner of the place, the Liquid bar, formerly Murrays. Obviously the flier dude was targeting Dave/Bob not me. But after a beer we relaxed and just watched the whole thing. Weird. That trouser thing's still around, at least in Scarborough. The one where you wear your trousers really low and show about three inches of underpants: you couldn't make it up. There were people up at the front doing air guitar to the bands. Very weird. But overall, a really nice crowd. There was a queue to wash your hands in the loo!; Anyway we liked One Toy Soldier rather a lot. The Siegfried Sassoon whetted our appetite (but I think they should change their name to The Siegfried Bassoon to avoid lots of poet nonsense coming up in search results on their name) but we kinda got bored during Tellison. One Toy Soldier just need to engage with the audience a little.; But three really excellent drummers, particularly for The Siegfried Sassoon. A few months ago I got an NME sample CD that I couldn't drum to. The problem was that, whereas most songs have a simple beat or at least something that repeats, many of these songs had drumming that really didn't repeat, or was very complex and expressive. The Siegfried Sassoon's drumming was like that. Must be a young person / modern thing. Very interesting, must do something about that. Drumming becomes, what, more jazz like, but not laid back, this is all furious stuff. It's like punctuation .. yes, that's the best way to describe it. It's there to add emphasis, to break and pause. It feels like it harks back to Keith Moon too .. all sorts of flicks and breaks to add interest as he saw fit in the moment.; A tune came over the PA which the audience really seemed to get into. I tried Shazam (2580 on your mobile and it texts you the tune) but it didn't recognise it, so when we got back I spent about 45 minutes piecing together bits of lyric. I thought it had been used in a car ad, and found this which might be well worth working through. But no. It finally turned out to be The Dandy Warhols, Bohemian Like You, which I've proposed to the band as a song to cover. Vodafone used it in 2001 on an ad.; Anyway, all good. Took us back to our youth for a moment. That time after A levels, before uni. A world full of possibilities.
ADSL speed test: 15 June 2006: This is one for my peers who read this. I've a client who's bought 4Mb ADSL and seems only to get 1Mb based on me downloading a file of known size that hasn't been downloaded to that computer/geographic area before and working it out manually (at 4,000,000 bits per second a 20,000,000 byte file should come down in (20,000,000 x 8)/4,000,000 = 40 seconds). In my office, I was getting much better speeds than my client.; Yet I just used the ADSL guide speed test here and it shows 1Mb download speed. I'm sure I'm on 2Mb.; So is the difference down to the contention ratio? I tested it at 5:30 (bad) but while the football was on (good). Or is it all bollocks?; With the client, under advice I've been playing with the MTU but, interestingly, the value they reckon it should be set at is higher than the highest the modem allows. No changes to the MTU seem to make much difference.; If I buy 4Mb ADSL, can I reasonably expect to get 4Mb download speed or not?
HTML nightmare: 14 June 2006: I've a client whose project is coming to a natural close and, co-incidentally, they've started a new business connected with a third party and they have a web designer and he's done them a website for free, which the client has snapped up.; Well, as you'd expect, the website is a backstreet abortion of moving images, childish graphics, garish colours, stolen copyrighted text and images, fixed, table-based layout, Microsoft Office branded HTML, spelling mistakes and desk banging sales nonsense. It couldn't be worse if he routed 240 volts through the keyboard. Not that I'm bitter.; But how the hell did a client of mine come away from over a year of working with me, seemingly without any inkling of what makes a half-decent website? I guess this is a client who has difficulty sending an email attachment and seems to have a mental block about IT, so perhaps I haven't really brought it home. Usability should be a godsend to him. What a missed opportunity.; Oh well. Perhaps he does appreciate what I've done. He did say there were political reasons to use the other chap for this project, and he does say some very good things about the website I did.; I dunno, you think you're changing the world and it turns out it all went in one ear and out the other.
Viking: 13 June 2006: I once wrote to Viking Direct praising them for their service (yep, they wanted a photograph of me too so I could appear all smiley in the catalogue), but now I think I'll point out some failings.; They send catalogues. Loads of them .. and I've never bought from them at this address or as this business. I need some printer paper, and they have it on offer, so off I went to the address they give on their catalogue: www.vikingwelcome.co.uk, which is obviously where they want to catch people from the catalogue.; The first thing it wants is an offer code from the front of the catalogue. "It's in a blue flash, bottom left", it says, helpfully showing a catalogue front from Christmas.; My, I've just noticed my code. It's not in a blue flash at all. Anyway, it wouldn't let me past without a code, so I'm stuffed. Then it did .. was that a 'two tries and let them through anyway' policy?; This is all about tracking. The Welcome page is where I'd go having read the catalogue. The code matches me up with the catalogue I've received so they know what's worked and what hasn't. Direct mail is very much led by the numbers, they will have people at work calculating and testing every action to maximise their return ("is it better for the catalogues to land on a Monday or a Wednesday?", "48 pages or 36?").; Even the catalogue itself will be governed by financial rules. Nothing will be in there that doesn't sell. Each entry will be compared to a benchmark, a profit per square inch or similar. More profitable products get bigger slots.; So anyway I looked under 'paper' to find the stuff I wanted from the catalogue. Nope, not there. More expensive paper is there, but not what I'm looking for, so I had to enter the code to reach it.; Found it. Great. OK, I'll have ten of those. Sorry, said Viking. We haven't got any in stock. But, splutter, you just sent me a catalogue, it landed on my mat less than an hour ago.; Viking did offer an alternative, similar product to my printer paper. Instead, it said, I could have a box of staples.; Forget it.; So what's going on here? They go to all the trouble of printing and sending catalogues, doing all their calculations and then a) there are stock issues (but that seems to be how many companies operate nowadays), b) they have a system that possibly allows a data entry person to show a box of staples as a legitimate alternative to a box of paper (either that or their automatic system's completed jiggered), and c) the catalogue campaign is not co-ordinated with the website (the blue flash thing). The net result is negative, rather than positive, so they are putting customers off by appearing to be in a mess.
Diet: 12 June 2006: I've found a diet that works for me. I call it the running and drumming diet. You can eat what you want and the diet consists of two parts. Running involves training for a 10k run the first year, then a half marathon the next, with not a huge lot over winter but perhaps 8 hours of training over a training week on average. Drumming involves doing something else physical for maybe an hour a day that you really enjoy, over and above what you are currently doing.; I started out on the 24 February 2005 weighing 213lbs and I peaked (because muscle weighs more than fat, apparently) at 215lbs at the start of May last year. Over Christmas/January I was about 209lbs. Now, despite last years increases in weights at the gym (and consequent muscle growth) I'm my lowest weight yet (although between you and me, I had a bit of a tummy bug on Friday which knocked me out (and off my food) for 24 hours or so) at 204lbs. Boy that winds my g/f up.; The weird thing is, it's easy (for me, with my body type, metabolism and so on). I mean, the exercise is easy. I hardly ever have to get out of breath, that's the point of long distance running training, you're training for stamina and that means running within the rate at which your body can convert energy from your reserves. So, you lose weight. Fabulous.
Whitby ArtNet: 12 June 2006: I appear to have opened an art gallery and I'm rather excited. A friend of a friend approached me "you're a web guy aren't you?". She's a member of Whitby ArtNet, a group of amateur artists who wanted a website.; I pondered for a while and thought, well, artists don't tend to have a lot of money so I'll do a deal. I'll create something really simple to allow their members to upload their work online, charge something for administration if they are not online, but then take a commission on sales.; That got me thinking about possibilities. About making that global and how that would allow me to undulge in the things clients don't seem to want .. internationalisation, deep functionality, people who like this also like this. So that's the plan.; The site, for what it's worth atm (as I write, no artist has uploaded their work), is at whitbyartnet.org.
Open Studios: 11 June 2006: We spent the day going around artists' open studios in, well, North and West of Malton. The landscape is just amazing, particularly on such a full English summer's day.; The obvious struck me, while talking to a particularly happy and outgoing artist whose landscapes were vivid colours and almost childlike, how much peoples' art reflected themselves. Obvious, as I say, but not really something I'd actively considered before.; There's the Manchester artist and Oasis fan who shudders over anything that might dilute his work. Aiming high, taking no detour, like a bonfire night rocket ready to blow in global recognition but needs to do it on his terms, needs critical acclaim, would rather die than paint a pretty picture.; And the surfer who used to live in Australia who paints the energy of a landscape, the turn of the sea, the .. not the weather, but the imminence of the weather.; And just extremely interesting people. The woman who gets herself lost on the moors on purpose, at dusk in order to spend the night there and feel at one with the earth.; Yes, I could be at one with these people. Maybe I should build a body of web art.; It strikes me too how close art is to open source programming. Both groups shun any control and live for their work, following their whims to develop new and interesting products. Neither group is motivated by money.
World Cup: 11 June 2006: And while I'm at it, by virtue of Wikipedia I might actually get to understand (and even follow) the world cup this year. Whoopeedo.
More badder: 11 June 2006: Right, this has gone far enough. I'm starting to hear middle aged people, even people with respectable professions involving English (did I really hear a journalist do it the other night?). This 'more smellier' thing. Something is either 'more smelly', or it's 'smellier'. Nothing's ever 'more smellier', or 'more longer', or 'even more hotter'. While you're all running about in the George cross getting more patrioticker, can we spare a thought for the language we're supposed to speak? Get your shit together people.; And yes, I know language moves, but really! This makes you look uneducated.
Moon: 11 June 2006: Some nights we get the most stunning view of the moon from our window .. we can even lay in bed and watch it. Sadly I wasn't able to capture it properly as I couldn't stabilise the camera for that long, so it's blurred, sorry. I got the tripod out, but I think I tried so hard not to move the camera when pressing the shutter that I didn't actually press the shutter, just enough to get autofocus. Damn!
Running: 11 June 2006: As you probably know I'm back in training, this time for a half marathon in the middle of October. Over winter I ran just 30 minutes a week, and not even that sometimes, so I knew when I started training (week 1, 30 minutes x 2 per week), I wouldn't feel as sprightly as I did when I was training before.; When I measured my speed at my middle training heart rate of 142, it was 5.2 mph. That's actually not that much faster than a fast walk, and a marathon would take me over five hours which is still acceptable but is cutting it fine if you still want the finishing line to be there when you arrive. I'm also wondering whether five hours of running at that speed is actually worse than just three hours running a bit faster.; Anyway, as I ran a little more each week, nothing happened to that speed. Until the first long run, even though it was only 45 minutes (they get longer as training progresses). After that, I felt different, and my speed at 142bpm is now 6 mph. So I crossed a threshold, but I don't know what it is. Was it the long run itself, or was it the total miles in the week?
Foghorn: 8 June 2006: A sea fret came in yesterday evening and we woke up this morning to two foghorns. The normal one, and another. They went on for long enough that I decided when it comes to foghorns, you can have too much of a good thing.; My partner pondered further. She worked out that after every blast of our foghorn, the other foghorn answered. With a dot dash dot.; Dot dash dot is r in morse code. Looking more deeply into it, it turns out R on its own is used for 'Roger', as in, acknowledgement.; So, she reckons, there must have been a big boat negotiating around the harbour, signalling to our harbourmaster that it had heard our foghorn.; I was so genuinely impressed I said "well done" in a really emphatic and patronising way. Then regretted it.
Radio Ryedale: 7 June 2006: I picked up a brochure for Radio Ryedale and at first glance I'm half impressed. Well, for a start, it works using Linux.; After multiple lookups over the years, I still don't really have a good mental model of where Ryedale is.
Arms: 7 June 2006: The gasman came round just now and upon attempting to exit, faced with two door handles and my drawbridge contraption that stops the cat weeing, said "I'll let you do this. Occupational hazard, not enough arms".; The problem is, 'not enough arms' sounds like it should apply to a continuous thing such as not enough milk, or not enough money, but I can't think what the phrase would be for a discrete thing like arms while staying colloquial.; Maybe "I need more arms". "I've only got two arms", although that could easily be taken the wrong way, it's usually said as a rebuke. "Too few arms"? Ideas anyone?
Accessibility: 4 June 2006: I was surprised when a friend said that another friend had said I am obsessed with accessibility because it simply wasn't true. But we got that sorted out, the first friend has a windup blabbermouth (but I love her very much) and the second never said anything of the sort. But, as it turns out, they may have been more prescient than factual.; I do want, at some point, to apply for British Computer Society (BCS) Chartered status, to have my professionalism recognised. One problem with that is I've been doing lots of learning and study, but in bits and pieces. Although I've kept records and can justify all of it, I'm starting to think the BCS won't think much of that. I think they'll want to see blocks of study. So that's what I'm going to do from here on in.; I'm going to keep a record of learning requirements that pop up during the working day so that I can address the most common needs first, and I'm going to put aside four weeks a year for study. I just did the first, and it was about accessibility.; When I study, I do it actively, so I didn't just sit and read a book. Actually I worked with two books, I found more materials online, I created a prompt card system to help me learn the facts, and I wrote an article.; I didn't complete the study though. I'll have to come back for more. But it was very heartening to find that I'm already doing most of what is required. This may be a case where I am building accessible websites, I just haven't fully realised how far along the accessibility path I already am.