Jonathan's Vox Blog

After a couple of slightly mad weeks, I'm wandering from website to website this evening, at a loose end, wondering how I might occupy myself.

If you're online feel free to give me a shout. There's a bazillion means of communication listed in the margin of my Vox profile, so take advantage of them.

What would you like to do more of?

I would love to have the time to do more pure research - to build things (on the web). To play with the new Google App Engine, and Google Sites. To read blogs, write blog posts, and take part in things.

I would love to have more time to take part in online communities like Vox.

Our adoption of several children has pretty much slashed the amount of "free" time we have, and often I am so tired at the end of a day that I vegitate for a couple of hours and then often go to bed early and flake out. Last night I took the Nintendo DS up with me, and fell asleep before I even opened it.

If you have a Google Apps account, you may have noticed the sudden appearance of "Google Sites" within your applications homepage. It looks very much like Google's first stab at a SharePoint style collaboration workspace - and it isn't too bad at all.

Those with a long memory will remember the Google acquisition of "JotSpot" a few years ago, and the rumours that they were about to release their own Wiki tools - I have a feeling some of the elements of "Google Sites" are the end result - only Google have done a lot more than many might have thought.

Here's the official tour...

Google Sites provides many of the same features as a generic Windows SharePoint Services site - except of course you have no hosting fees, no server(s) to administer and no administration learning curve. Of course you can't modify what you get "out of the box", but I sometimes wonder just how many companies use SharePoint beyond the basic document libraries and discussion workspaces anyway.

I can't help wondering - if Google add workflow to this in the next version, it's going to be a realistic alternative to SharePoint...

What was the last great epiphany you had?
Submitted by Ross.

I used to be something of an open source software evagelist - I learned all about Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP back when they were the hot new things to learn. I was a well known developer on the internet - my blog used to get over 1000 hits a day purely because of the stuff I wrote and gave away to the community.

Then (not long ago, actually) I realised that while I wasn't wasting my time learning open source platforms and technologies, the rest of the world was going to buy Microsoft software wether I liked it or not.

It brought to mind an analogy that I heard some time ago - "it's better to be on the train, pissing off, than on the platform, trying to piss in".

I realised it was easier to learn what people want to use rather than try to educate them to use what you think they should be using. A little part of me died when I made the transition, but I don't regret it at all. It will keep my family clothed, and food on our table.

I have somehow found myself writing another blog. Alongside my personal blog, I have begun writing a technical blog, covering software and web development issues and code snippets. It's basically a chance for me to empty my head while learning about C#, ASP.NET, SharePoint, WCM, Python, and various other products and technologies - and hopefully share something useful along the way.

What have you lost that you wish you still had?
Submitted by gunderson bee.

An old friend. I worked with her for a couple of years, and inbetween relationships we were the best and most fun friends either of us had ever had.

We had many drunken adventures, we fought with each other, but mostly we were there for each other and thought the world of each other.

I lost touch a few years ago now, and have looked out for her - but never found her.

Just a short note to anybody who might read it - I am logged in to Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger (aka Windows Live Messenger), ICQ and AIM all day most days, so feel free to add me via the links that appear in the margin of my profile - here's a reminder of the various usernames...

Google Talk - jonathan.beckett@gmail.com
Yahoo Messenger - jonbeckett73
Windows Live Messenger - jonbeckett73@hotmail.com
AIM - jonbeckett73
ICQ - 15824386
Skype - jonbeckett73
Twitter - jonbeckett73
Pownce - jonbeckett73

I've also found myself using Twitter a fair amount recently. I'm trying to holdback the temptation to sign up with LoudTwitter and post the updates into blogs.

For the "all around feed", I also use FriendFeed - friendfeed.com/jonbeckett73

While browsing around on the internet earlier, I came across a collection of pulp fiction book covers - and become completely engrossed in them.

Even More Pulp Fiction

I'm not quite sure what happened to the apparently politically incorrect book publishing world, that seemed to exist outside the normal rules of decorum and censorship. I can't help wondering that if books still had covers like the one accompanying this post today, they would sell a lot more.

It's a bit like movies really, isn't it - sometimes you want the deep, thought provoking book, but sometimes you want a shallow, easy to read page turner.

Perhaps I am being unfair. Perhaps a book with a painting of a half clothed woman on the front might be thought provoking and have depth.

Stop laughing.

Anyway - do you have any books on your shelves with dodgy covers? They must be worth an upload if you...

It's been a busy week, and a slightly mental weekend.

On Friday last week I turned out a design for the company website - click here to get a sneaky peek...

I am still aiming towards taking an exam next Friday on .NET Web Development, will be travelling the length of the country on Tuesday and Wednesday (to a client site), and may well be going to a Web Accessibility conference on Thursday.

At the moment I am running on empty - I have been sick all weekend, propped up by Nurofen, chocolate, and various fizzy sport drinks. It didn't really help that we woke up at 7am to a huge thunderclap, and the kids wanted to go play in the snow.

I found myself out in the freezing cold at 8:15 wrapped up like an eskimo.