For Once I Like The App

Just in case there is anyone reading, you may have noticed a recent “flurry” of activity here. This is almost entirely due to the installation of the WordPress app on my android-based phone. It’s a model of simplicity that makes it easy to create blog entries spontaneously.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, and I’m absolutely sure I’m not the first to notice. In general I’m not a fan of the plethora of single purpose apps which simply replicate function from a Web site. Naturally some websites are better than others when it comes to interaction with the smaller form factor, so a dedicated app can be the answer.

In this case, kudos to the WordPress team. The only bad news is more of this stuff…

A Good Week (with some software too)

Slightly unusually in recent history I find myself nearly at the end of a week of almost non-stop learning. I’ve been attending a “Technical University” dedicated to the particular area of IT I work in, where I’m delighted to say the general standard of lectures has been very high. It’s been a bit claustrophobic, but I think that comes with the territory, and the relatively narrow subject area  does mean that a lot of friends both old and new have been here.

Favourite session of the week? A concentrated hands-on workshop where I was completely lost for two hours re-acquainting myself with skills from more than two decades ago. Of course it’s not exactly as before, there’s a Windows app involved in part of the workshop, but it was great to shut the world out and concentrate properly.

Having to take 8 attempts to download a file took away some of the gloss. Fingers faster than brain on this occasion, along with confirmation that I HATE track pads on laptops….

Not so much playing

I’ve sometimes wondered how it must be for a player of a less frequently used instrument when it comes to playing a concert where you’re either only in one or two pieces or you play very few notes on the ones you’re in. Well tonight it’s been both. Playing 2nd bassoon in a concert that featured solely strings in three out of the six pieces was always going to be one of those quieter evenings. As it turned out, there weren’t that many notes in one of of those three pieces either.

So I did get the opportunity to listen for a change, and very lovely the pieces were. (for the record, they included Elgar’s Sospiri and an arrangement of the slow movement of his String Quartet).

Spare a thought for the triangle player, though. About 10 “strikes” in one piece. At least he got to go home early 🙂

Not so soft any more

When I first started trying this blog out I really was working for the software division of a large IT company, but for the last 5 years I’ve actually been back in the hardware division. Which of course contains software stuff too. Such is the way of the Dilbertian corporation these days.

There are of course a number of differences in the approach. You don’t have to worry about the power supply or air conditioning for the software. Nor do you need to pass the security vetting to deliver the 1s and 0s. Just try turning up unannounced at a bank’s data centre with a pile of boxes and see what sort of reception you get 🙂

Bootstrapping the div

The last week has been deeply occupied with my latest Web obsession, Bootstrap. In simple terms it’s a lightweight stylesheet framework which, for me at least, makes hand-building a responsive* website a lot easier. It is chiefly built by a couple of guys who work for Twitter, and so far seems to meet the needs of my main site, amateurorchestras.org.uk, admirably.

I’ve only really scratched the surface of what it is capable of, mainly because I’m still taking a cautious approach to the amount of javascript I use. A side effect has been a big improvement (IMHO, naturally) of the look of the site, without having to drastically change the original design or the slightly dodgy Rexx code I use to generate the main data pages. 

Apart from all the <divs>…

*means a lot of things to a lot of people. For me it means the pages look good on most sizes of screen without having to change the local source.