Future Development

Offline application, which updates the web!

Next Steps

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The first set of offline online applications I have seen out of the starting gate is Google Apps, which is making use of the Gears service. The problem with this is of course the requirement to use Firefox to make use of the service. I don’t want to open up the same old can of worms here, but I do resent it. Aside from that, it is a great suite of applications to offer offline; it’ll appeal to a wide audience, myself included. As yet I haven’t been invited onto the Beta, but I hope this will change soon.

Lately I’ve started to make more use of Google Apps. Infact, there are a few articles on the blog I have published using it. The ability to be able to use it offline will also be valuable, though I have to confess there are becoming less and less times when I am offline, without any way to connect to the Internet.

I do look forward to seeing what other applications are to be offered, not just from Google  but from the other providers as well. Where will the competitive edge come from? Will there be compatibility between the backend engines? Will there be conflict with the backend engines? Will there be an increase in demanding requirements for the client computers?

I also like the YouTube video issued to accompany the news of the release of the offline service. Do you have any thoughts? Any concerns about the service? What applications would you like to see offered in an offline/online way? Will you make use of it?

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Google have for a while had their Gears offering, which I haven’t used - being Mac bound without Firefox installed (that’s a whole different story) - for many of their offerings; extending Gears so it could work with services such as GMail or Apps would be a great play to make. For me - regularly on the move, but wanting to using my mobile time, when I have a laptop in front of me, to catch up with knowledge would be great. If I could seemlessly integrate such an offering so I can cache GR, Mail and Apps on my MBP I could gain so much more productive time, whilst travelling. So, as far as I am concerned this offering can’t come round quick enough.

I do resent the fact that at the moment to take advantage of new technology I am being bullied into adopting Firefox as my browser of choice, but am coming to realise that I have little opportunity - or voice - to do anything about it. Apart from the aforementioned applications though I’m not too sure what else I would like to see made available in an offline world that isn’t already there. Any ideas? Please let me know in the comments.

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Portwise is great at what it does. However, I am not impressed that to use it successfully on a Mac requires I install Firefox. This goes against the grain of every bit of software development I have been involved with. As a - former - developer I always built software that did not make demands on the user having specific software installed on their machine. You can never guarantee that software will be there, that it will be configured correctly or the user is in an environment where it is acceptable for that software to be installed.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great product, but it really grates that I have to install Firefox to be able to use it. Got any thoughts on this? Do you agree/disagree? Let me know in the comments.

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obviously, I spent too much

I’ve just gone to the site and wa-hay, they’ve got a great new look. I’m not kidding, this looks really good. Whilst I’ve never had any problems with the old look, this is much more contemporary and has more of the 21C era feel about it. Who knows, I might even wind up spending more money there because of it - but then, that’s the general idea.

What do you think? Like the new look? Let me know in the comments

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For me, my question is, what about my existing themes? Are they going to continue to work without modification? If they are, then I welcome the upgrade; if they don’t upgrading will have to wait until I have time to look into it. As always, I’m keen to embrace change and progress, but I’m not prepared to compromise uptime for the sake of something which users/viewers will see little benefit of.

The reality is to upgrade will require me cloning my current environment and testing the upgrade against that, before I consider going anywhere near my live environment. That’s all very straight forward and certainly doesn’t stop me going ahead, but as always it is time I need to plan in. I’ll certainly be keen to see the roadmap for when this version will be released. I’ll then be able to plan when to make the upgrade.

What do you think of the new look and the new features? Anything in there which inspires you? Let me know in the comments

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With Eluma you keep all your Web favorites in a single place - whether it’s Web sites, blogs or news feeds that you read everyday, or it’s a set of bookmarks you want to keep for further reference. You can share any or all of your favorite items or collections with anyone or discover favorites that others have shared.

It looks like this is del.icio.us meets your desktop PIM and RSS reader, with the added twist of that buzzword of the moment: Web 2.0 thrown in courtesy of the ability to share. However, I’m not sure that collaboration is in there, so does that make it kind of Web 1.5?

There’s a pretty comprehensive Demo video available on YouTube:

I can see a use for this product (remember I am speaking from the perspective of someone who hasn’t actually used it yet), but I can also see many people asking why they should move away from their current “separates” solution. However, I shall certainly give the product a trial when I am next at a Windows PC.

Have you tried it out? Any thoughts? Improvements that could be made? Will you continue to use it? Please leave any comments below

I am not associated with Eluma or any of their staff.

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Over the last few hours I’ve been challenged to run my RSS feeds via Feedburner and my response continues to be: Why? What added benefit does it give me? What do I gain from it? What does it give my subscribers? As of now I still haven’t had a de-facto answer that in any way persuades me to make the jump. As always, I’m open to change, I’m willing to give things a try, but I must understand why? I’m not willing to change just for the sake of it - besides anything else, making the move without commitment simply undermines any perceived value this blog might have as well as probably confusing any readership I have acquired

I guess there are two inter-connected perceptions at play here. Firstly, all my RSS feeds come from URL’s I own and control and are sat within the blog site URL. This gives me the sense of my infrastructure being complete and cohesive. (This is not a sense of completeness in a “need to hug my blog” kind of way, but more in a professional, consistent and controllable way.) Secondly, it really makes no difference for me to know if 10, 20 or 4000 people are informed of new entries on the blog, although I’ll admit to a certain amount of idle curiosity - but I’m sure that’s pure vanity. Knowing no-one reads this blog would not deter me from writing it, but neither would it provide cause for me to stop. What does matter is “who” is actually “reading” it.

It’s that age-old conundrum: quality versus quantity. I’ve done the quantity type blog - and closed that about 18 months ago after 3.5 years of writing - this blog is about quality. “Tipping point” science states done well quality will ultimately deliver quantity and it’s this science that makes markonthenet.com a bit experimental. I’m using SEO, personal/professional contacts and experience to try and get the right people to read this blog, so you could say it does have a bit of an agenda built into it, but it isn’t an agenda built around volume.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to know how many people are subscribing to your feed, but that gives you no indication of who is reading your content. There is a feel-good factor as the total number of subscribers gradually rises, but the reality is I have more confidence in my web server log files to tell me who is reading my content and what else they might have found to be of interest, which in turn will lead me to develop this blog in the right direction.

To put this in perspective, let me be a little more analytical of my own GR habits. I have over 500 feeds I now follow through GR. Of those, only 20 or so are guaranteed to have my eyes view every article they publish. I only commit (to myself) to view the others if something specific arises and/or I have to time to kill (which is rare). If each of the publishers to whom I subscribe used Feedburner to deliver their feeds all 500 would see a registration of me being updated on their feed - though they have no idea who I am, where I am from, what my interests are or what brought me to them in the first place. Are they each to know they’ve only got a less than (all things being equal) 4% chance I’ll read their posts? And that list of 500 continues to grow on a regular basis.

In talking this “Feedburner” proposition through on paper I am coming to the conclusion that for a piece of work which I am aiming to be built around quality Feedburner is not the means by which to measure its success. Feedburner is too high-level and whilst the numbers of subscribers is a true reflection, it doesn’t really give me a feel for what subscribers are reading. To this end Feedburner delivers the vanity tools, but my aim is to accrue an audience more focussed on four vertical sectors as opposed to a wide horizontal sweep of one or two sectors.

So to answer the questions I originally posed when asked to consider Feedburner I have to say I believe my decision to stay where I am is wholly right for this particular blog. Feedburner won’t actually offer me any benefits - it may even lead me in the wrong direction of developing this blog. As far as I can tell it also won’t help the readership I have acquired. For the time being I’ll be sticking with RSS feeds being hosted here on the blog URL.

If you agree or disagree I’d be really pleased to hear what you have to say in the comments.

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This was my life for a whole year before we started working on Google Calendar Sync, a 2-way synching application between Google Calendar and the calendar in Microsoft Outlook.

This could be great. I say “Could be“, because I have seen a similar product from Google which sync’s my Blackberry with my Google Calendar. On the face of it it seemed great, but it didn’t really work properly, so I very quickly stopped using it. Issues with not syncing stuff that had already been sync’d with Outlook and/or recurring appointments and/or appointments that had already been created.

So, with some trepadation I will give this service a go, but I will be putting it through its paces, before I fully commit to it. Right now my setup is as follows:

• In the office: Microsoft Outlook
• At Home: iMac, therefore iCal
• At Home/On the road: MacBook Pro: iMac, therefore iCal
• Mobile: Blackberry

Currently, I use Blackberry Desktop Manager to sync my Blackberry (BB) with my Outlook. I use CompanionLink to sync Outlook to Google Calendars. I have tried SpanningSync to sync my Google Calendar with the Mac’s in my life, but that all went very smelly very quickly, so I soon stopped that. Right now I don’t use iCal at all, so the Blackberry calendar is really my out of office solution, which is not my preferred choice - I’d much rather have all calendars in sync with one another

Update: The company I work for has provided me with W2K on my desktop. No guessing, but do you think Gogle Calendar Sync works with anything other than Windows XP or Vista? That’s a little frustrating!

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Formal Method

I am not advertising here, but one of the benefits of Prince2 as a method for managing projects is the ability to adapt the method to meet the needs of the project. However, I have yet to come across any project where the decision to dispense with the Issue Log or Risk Log has proven to be successful. So, even if you don’t follow a proven method for managing your project you should not dispense with either the Issue Log or the Risk Log.

Of course, if you’re a Prince2 advocate none of this should be news to you. The Issue Log is the base-tool for Capturing Project Issues (CS3). It is the tool which leads into managing Change Control and forms an integral part of Examining Project Issues. If you are not following a formal method of project management you should still - as a minimum - make use of the Issue Log and Risk Log.

What does an Issue Log look like

• The Issue Log IS
• A tool to demonstrate why people should have confidence in you
• Controlled
• Complete and accurate
• Holistic, but detailed
• Specific
• An open communication tool
• The Issue Log is NOT
• Kept in your head
• Only dealing with what’s happening now
• For Your Eyes Only
• A jumbled list of project-related problems
• Incomplete

The Look and Feel of an Issue Log may well change from project to project, but I always start out with my base template, modifying it where appropriate. A good understanding of the desired project outcomes should lead you to make the right changes to the template.

How do I manage the Issue Log?

I can pretty much guarantee whilst I am managing a project/s I will always have a copy of the latest version of the Issue Log (and Risk Log) with me. I take personal responsibility for Version Control and update it regularly - usually daily.

Where possible I make the Issue Log available as a link on a web site and raise awareness of its location and update schedule at the earliest opportunity with anyone/everyone who interacts with the project. I also make it clear how people make Add/Change/Delete (ACD) to it; I do all that I can to reiterate its importance and the route people should take to ACD it.

At Project Board meetings/briefings I lead with the Risk Log. However, I - again - make sure the Project Board have access to the Issue Log, so they can see the PM’s view of the project.

At least once a day (more on larger projects) I will guarantee to make sure I set aside time to review every item on the Issue Log, making sure the next action is identified, reponsibility is assigned and reasonable targets are set to conclude them.

Part 3 will follow in a week’s time

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