I have a vague idea of what I want from a network, but the goalposts keep moving slightly every time I sit down to put pen to paper and write a plan or draw a schematic for it. I do know that at the very centre of it, I want a server that acts as a storage receptacle, a media server, a web server and an FTP server; and that I want to have an awesome media centre as the next most important piece that I don’t have, but what form those two devices will take I just don’t know.

In addition to that, there is the matter of the other devices on the network—my MacBook, and my Rachel’s Windows laptop, as well as the Wii, my iPhone, and the inevitable future devices designed to connect to a home network. How are they going to connect to the network, and how will they make use of the network resources? I just don’t know.

I do know that I don’t envy network engineers, or whoever it is that designs and implements networks, at all. It’s a thankless task, as I’ve found out on more than one occasion, and one that tends to create more headaches than it solves. All of that doesn’t faze me however, and I’ll keep plugging away at my plan until one day, I have exactly what I want, and a little bit of future proofing.

I have, on countless occasions, written entire posts, spent hours editing, or rewriting them, only to abandon any hope of ever actually publishing them because I wasn’t 100% happy with the way they read, or with the very premise of them existing as part of some imagined legacy that I want to keep.

On other occasions, I spend too little time editing, or rewriting, or even considering the place of a particular blog post, and hit the publish button prematurely. All this serves to do is to bring the quality of my content, and therefore the quality of how I am perceived, down. Ultimately, I am only as good as what I publish.

When I do get it right, however, and I manage to write something that I feel is both of value, and well-written enough to be sent out into the world, it often falls onto a deaf, uncaring, or, more likely, uninterested world. Praise and positive reinforcement are not the reason I publish my musings, but I would be lying if I said that receiving comments, starting a discussion, or getting an email from someone about one of my posts was not something that I cared about. I have tried once before to run this blog sans comments, but I lose the sense of audience, or even the possibility of audience, and it fundamentally changes the way I write, and definitely for the worse.

As an aspiring web designer, I am also plagued with another problem with my blog: a lack of satisfaction with the design. Whilst this current design is only the third design that has been live on the site, the version number in my web design folder is marked as 13, with another design in the works. That’s right, this blog has been live for under a year, and I have started to code 14 different designs for the site, as well as brainstorming and sketching out countless others.

The time spent on sketching, and hypothesising of possible designs for the site has often brought me to my knees creatively. Writing HTML and CSS is my one creative outlet. My vice, my escape, my hobby, my passion. When I hit that wall of creative block, I have no outlet, and my passion lay fallow, eating away at me that I should be working on something, only to sit down and try and get angry when the code doesn’t come pouring out of my fingers and into the computer.

I do have idea’s for this blog, and even other projects. The three most preferred idea’s right now all involve design and development of individual blog posts. Unfortunately that would inevitably involve more time, and more frustration.

I’m not certain of what to do, or where to go from here. As it stands, I’ll continue to play it by ear, and post with the same sporadic frequency, and with the same variable quality, and continue to wonder what the value of keeping a blog is.

There are a number of things holding me back from deciding to go ahead with this, not least among them my back catalogue of posts, most of which are not of a quality or a specific theme that would allow me to design a page around them. Also, my complete lack of ability with graphical editors would mean that I am stuck with using colour, text, and the most basic of graphics. Another is the time commitment required to take a post from idea through to completion and publishing—I just don’t have the time free to do it.

The final problem is that of content management. I don’t like the idea of using something like WordPress that would need to be hacked significantly to do what I want, and the options that provide me with what I want to do don’t offer an easy, native comments solution. Sure, I could go sans comments, but I’ve been down that road before, and it was less than enjoyable and prolific.

But still, the desire sits at the back of my mind, gnawing away at my will to ignore it. I’ve had a few ideas of how I could do something, and I’ll go over them here, but the fact is, if I did decide to go down this route, I would end up being a curator rather than a creator. Not really something I want to do.

Designer Mixtapes

This is an idea that I quite like actually. A common interest amongst most of the designers that I admire seems to be music, and where theres music, theres mixtapes, or at least playlists. I had the idea to approach some of my favourite designers and ask them if they would be interested in putting together a mixtape, complete with cover art, and designing a page for it. They could choose whatever theme they liked (if any at all), and go hell for leather at it.

The problem with this, however, is one of copyright. I don’t want to be putting collections of MP3′s up on my website for download, and violating artists copyright. But I wouldn’t want to be curating a collection of mixtapes, without having them available for download either. Links to iTunes, with Magic Mixes or whatever they are called seems like an obvious solution, but one I’m not sure I’m comfortable with.

The List Post

Exactly the same as the above, but rather than asking designers to create a mixtape and have them design a page around it, I would ask them to come up with a Top 5 list. Once again, theme or topic would be left open to the designer in question, and they can go crazy with whatever they want to.

Do you think either of these would be a good idea? Have any other ideas that you want to share? Feel free to let me know.

It all started with this.

I started blogging again, and signed up to participate in Project52 because I thought I had something to say. But you and I both know, with the benefit of hindsight, and an exploration of my archives, that that’s bullshit. Sure, occasionally I might have something that I really just can’t help but write. But most of that is about 5 sentences of meat, and 15 sentences of gristle. And that’s a waste. A waste of your time, and mine.

No more.

Project52 was supposed to be about creating new content. Content that had worth. Content that had meaning. It was a stand against the shitty content that people have been creating. List posts, showcases, entire blogs devoted to pointing you towards other people’s blogs, which in turn were just point you somewhere else.

But for me, Project52 became, quite quickly, a chore. Instead of having something worth writing about, I was writing anything I could to try and satisfy the requirements of the project. I wrote about useless shit, like how I can’t sleep, or smoking cigarettes. I know, fucking pointless right?

It wasn’t just the Project52 stuff that sucked either. It was everything I wrote. Like a list of people I admire. I know, a list post right? Exactly what I was supposed to be a part of stopping. Sure, it had value, to me, and hopefully to the people in the list, but did I need to write it? No, and that’s precisely my point. I was blogging for the sake of blogging.

Which brings me back to Merlin’s essay. Which I have read before, but never let it hit me like it did tonight. I’m part of the problem. I create the shit that nobody wants to read, and as a result nobody really read it. Well, I’m done. For the time being, I’m walking away, unless I have something worth writing.

And you know what the cruelest irony of the whole thing is? I’ll probably have something to write now.

I read a very interesting post tonight by Darren Hoyt about how opening up Dribbble would lead to the inevitable degradation of the service. Random users would be signing up just to sign up, and others would be posting a lot of crap in the hopes of having someone “famous” take a look at their work. I can completely understand and empathise with the point Darren is making. I even agree that perhaps it should be kept private to protect the integrity of the service.

What I would personally like to see, if only to try to satisfy my insatiable curiosity for looking at beautiful design, is viewing opened up a little bit more. One of the commenters took the basketball analogy that Dribbble is known for and applied it exactly to my frustration at not being involved—I can’t watch “the game”. In a second comment he went on to suggest the introduction of a “Developmental League” similar to what the NBA apparently has (I have no idea, basketball is about as interesting as synchronised swimming and ice dancing in my opinion), where anybody can join, but you have to be “drafted into the big leagues”.

I like the idea that this guy had, and it certainly solves some of my frustrations with it, as I would be able to see whats going on in the “big leagues,” but I can’t help but feel that perhaps that won’t solve the problem Darren writes about. I thought about it for about 20 seconds and came up with my own idea’s.

Essentially, what I’d like to see is the site be opened into 4 levels of visibility, in the following order:

1. Open viewing—Allow anyone and everyone to see whats put up there. This may not be a realistic possibility, but I personally think its better than keeping everything behind closed walls
2. Allow me to sign up for a “Couch Potato” or “Supporter” (or some other such name) account—I can view it all, and even favourite things, but I still can’t comment on anything, or upload anything.
3. Enter the “Development League”—I can join up, or be invited, and be able to post images, and leave comments in the development league, and favourite anything that has been uploaded.
4. Join the “Big Leagues”—After I’ve been a member of the “Development League” for long enough, preferably a predetermined minimum amount of time, and I have done enough impressive work that I get to join in with the big boys. Also now give me the option of filtering the content I see, depending on the current set up of it.

I don’t know if any of this would help or hinder what Dan and Rich are trying to do with Dribbble, its just my two cents worth. What are your thoughts?

Patrick mentions that whenever someone asks him what they should use to start a blog he points them towards Tumblr and Facebook. Leaving Facebook aside, because I personally don’t understand how you can blog with it, I personally don’t feel comfortable recommending Tumblr to someone who wants to start blogging. My reasons for not feeling comfortable recommending Tumblr, are pretty much the same reasons that Patrick does recommend it.

Tumblr is certainly an easy to use platform, with little to no barrier to entry, but that belies its shortcomings in my opinion. Patrick mentions that geeks like us will complain about things such as data portability, and control over the software we use, but I personally believe that this is a concern for anyone who wants to blog.

Everytime we write a blog post, we are making an investment into our blog—an investment of time, energy, and commitment. Given my background in banking and finance, I liken this to making a deposit into a savings account. Would you deposit money into a savings account that you can’t withdraw from if you need to? This is the way I see Tumblr—a blogging platform that provides no way of withdrawing your investment.

Patrick also argues that he tries his hardest not to force frustration upon people he cares about, but my personal opinion is that by avoiding a mild level of frustration at the start of someone’s blogging “career”, he may be setting them up for even more frustration if and when that person outgrows the recommended solution.

I started blogging about 6 years ago, using Google’s Blogger service, which, much the same as Tumblr¹, has next to no barrier to entry, but after time I outgrew the capabilities of the system, and the limitations became too much to bear, so I moved to a self hosted WordPress blog. I was able to import my entries from Blogger into that blog, with little to no effort. The frustrations caused by doing this from Tumblr are much higher than the initial frustrations of setting up a WordPress blog from the word go. Ask my friend Ian Hines about moving from Tumblr to WordPress, and I’m almost certain he would say the same thing.

Patrick also mentions that if Tumblr were to come out with an awesome iPad app, he would recommend the purchase of an iPad and the downloading of the Tumblr software, stating

How could you go wrong with two of the most beginner-friendly products on the market today?

Oh, right — they aren’t “open.” Well, I’m sorry, but “open” is not synonymous with “awesome.”

Its probably the long-haired, open source loving, linux hippie that is deep inside of me, but locking someone into a proprietary system because its “beginner-friendly” and “awesome” despite its lack of openness is shortsighted in my opinion. I do agree that “open” isn’t synonymous with “awesome”, but I’ll personally take an open, if slightly awkward and initially frustrating, option over an awesome, but short-sighted, and locked down option.

In closing, I respectfully disagree with Patrick, although I can see where he is coming from, and why he is coming from there; and I hope I haven’t offended him. If you have an opinion on the matter, have your say in the comments.

Footnotes

1. Although not as cool, or as pretty, or with as much mindshare amongst geeks. ↩

You see, I have to fight myself to go to bed at night, let alone to get to sleep, then once I finally do get to sleep, I never want to get out of bed. After waking, I can easily lie in bed for another few hours, dozing on and off, or falling back into a deep sleep.

It’s an incredibly frustrating position to be in, during the working week for obvious reasons, and on weekends, because I spend half of each day in bed, and lose more half of my weekend to the bedroom. It has to be frustrating for my partner as well, never having me come to bed at the same time, and always waking up hours before I do.

On a typical work day, I wake between 7:00 and 7:30 in the morning, and contemplate the pros and cons of calling in sick, then rolling back over to sleep some more¹. Then I drag myself into work, feeling like I probably should have stayed at home to sleep some more, and promise myself “I’ll have an early night tonight”. Of course, I never do have that mythical “early” night.

I could postulate any number of reasons for why I have this problem, but the reality is, any of the reasons I put forth are likely excuses, not reasons. I need to simply take the necessary steps to ensure that I get a good nights sleep, and end the cycle.

With that in mind, I’m off to toss and turn in bed for a while before finally falling asleep.

Footnotes

1. I have never actually done this, and don’t ever plan to, its just part of my morning routine. ↩

It seems like writing a complaint about the lack of content has caused all the things in my head to dry up. Except, not. I still have a heck of a lot of things to write about, its just that life, stress, and a whole bunch of other stuff got in the way of me actually getting those things out of my head and into this box.

I’m not too sure if this constitutes failure, and I must admit that I have contemplated pulling out of Project52 over the last week and a half. The things going on in my life haven’t resolved themselves, and probably won’t for another month or so at least, and without the time to sit and write, there really is no point in considering myself a part of a writing project.

Who knows, maybe now that I have admitted my failings, I’ll magically find the time to write again. That would just be another stroke of irony and hypocrisy to really take any credibility out of my blogging, wouldn’t it?

It’s a crying shame really. All I wanted from Project52 was the chance to both create, and to consume some new, and hopefully substantial, content. Of course, the content that I have been creating hasn’t been terribly substantial. I have ideas, but then I start to write, and they lose their lustre, or I think twice about finishing them because they could be seen as confrontational, or patronising¹.

At a time when the entire internet seems to consist of pro or anti-iPad opinion pieces², I am really hanging for some serious content to enrich my life, or at the very least my day. Some of my favouriteblogs—those that really make me think, or react, or just enthralled—have quietened to a trickle, or ceased entirely. I am yearning for a well thought out diatribe, or something that will encourage repeat readings.

Of course, there are exceptions to this. Sam Brown³ wrote a very timely, and interesting article called Allowing visitors to leave comments has many benefits. The post came at a time when I had just reintroduced comments here, and struck enough of a chord with me that I weighed in with the longest comment I have ever written.

Aside from that singular post though, I feel like that Ancient Mariner “water, water, every where, nor any drop to drink”. I am surrounded by content, but I can’t consume it. Not because it will make me ill, physically anyway, but rather because it won’t slake my thirst for something more substantial.

I’m sure the content is there, but I can’t seem to find it—feel free to point me in the right direction in the comments.

So, compadres in this challenge of ours, this Project52, even if you think you have failed so far, please don’t give in. Stand up and create content that is enjoyable to create, and substantial to consume. After all, wasn’t that the point?

Footnotes

1. For a perfect example, please see yesterday’s post on life philosophy, where I cut myself short about halfway through. ↩
2. And, of course, I am most definitely not without blame here. ↩
3. The very man who inspired my own name based domain. ↩

I become so involved in working on a design that I think of little else, and I am constantly living and breathing that design. With this design, although the actual work only took a matter of a week, I’ve been working on a redesign for about the last 2 or 3 months. Almost immediately since I sent the last design live, knowing that it was never going to last, I have been sketching, and thinking, and gathering inspiration for what I was hoping would be my best work.

In the end, there are probably little details that need adjustment — in fact, I’m already aware of one, on the archive, the comment count is inaccurate — but by and large, I am done with blog design for a while.

There isn’t really a whole lot to say about the design. It’s a blog, there aren’t a whole bunch of images, and its a pretty subdued colour palette. The only interesting decision that I made to to use a fixed header, at the bottom of the screen. There is no real reasoning behind this, other than I though it looked kind of cool at Line Break.

In a way, I’m glad that I have finally gotten a design that I am happy with. It will hopefully give me time to step away from the computer for a while, and focus on actually living.