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What’s Doing

Okay. I’m very trashed. Going to just list a random order of things happening lately.

– played a bit of WoW again, finally. Missed the crack-e-ness.

– played a very tiny bit of the Witcher with the new patch that lessens load times. Made it much more enjoyable. Will have to continue with that.

– movement on the Tech Evangelist role for SV (Clarion).

– decided on a revamp for Pimp My Clarion, as of now going to create it in NetTalk, host it myself.

– got the web server and basic web system functionality into the Freight system.

– almost got the Tafres (Freight System) web site finished and ready to launch. Just need to fill in some of the content.

– working on a new patch for Jaymoe. Still trying to do too much though. Changing the UI. It’s not going to happen easily or quickly. Going to have to work out which way to go.

– a new beta of Dr. Explain came out. Looking forward to getting stuck into the added features.

– actual work is getting pretty convoluted. I took some initiative and started assuming the role of Team Leader for my project. Noone has corrected my assumption yet, although had to deal with some wierdness.

– read some interesting stuff about Ruby on Rails .. 1. here and 2. here. Well, the second link has a more global topic. Warning .. Extreme Language, specially in the Zed rant. But very interesting. It sounds like a complicated mess, with massive egos and guys who don’t know much about programming, and guys who do, all fighting together over important and not-so-important stuff. Which is of course a global and lame statement. Ha ha. If you want to find out about what’s going on in the Rails community .. read Zed’s rant.

– Sword of Shadows (JVJ’s site) came out! Read it asap and loved it. This series is one of my all time favourites. Got one of the most awesome fantasy quotes ever. "Kill an army for me Raif Sevrance. Any less and I might just call you back."

– almost finished watching Heroes Series 1 through again. Just finished "Five Years Gone" last night while exercising.

– Exercising like a maniac on the bike we got as a combined christmas pressie. 30 mins to 1 hour a night, 5-7 nights a week. It’s crazy. But awesome because you can do it in front of the telly. Ahhhh. However, really cuts into .. well .. time.

That’s enough for now. Regular updates will hopefully be more .. regular.

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Changes (PimpMyClarion)

The time has come .. Pimp My Clarion is going under the surgeon’s knife. And this time .. it’s not just a change of WordPress template .. { cries of joy are heard across the lands }.

It’s been a while coming. I’ve been lax in posting. I’ve been lax in the generation of enthusiasm on this blog.

Here’s to the new year! Watch this street corner .. soon my Fur Coat, Cane and Bling will be replaced with Starbucks .. or something like that. Ha.

—

I almost forgot to add .. At this stage the new Pimp My Clarion will be written, appropriately, in Clarion, using NetTalk for the WebServer.

{ Pumps fists in the air, rocky style } Bring it ON!!!

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News From The Middle-Line

Yes. This is another "final" post. Ha ha.

The new site will be launched soon. It’s a joint effort, not off my own back, because I wanted something special.

I hope to have it done within the next couple of weeks, as previously said.

Have been spending more time with Clarion .Net. Pretty excited about it, I’ve always liked how the C++ IDE (Visual Studio – ish) worked, and it’s nice to have a similar look’n’feel in Clarion. Looking forward to the next update.

The two halves of my role as Tech Evangelist are seeing different results.

The mediation between SV and Community began immediately. And has continued since then (a colossal, heh, 10 days). I’m having good conversations, talking to people, saying hello.

Taking Clarion to the wider development community is far more dependant on certain objectives. Like a pre-requisite at university. To get people to listen, there has to be (in my belief) a "Web Presence".

This Web Presence is obviously the new site. It’s going to be more than a blog. Still simple and clean, but providing more than opinion.

What the Web Presence should do is allow for new comers to immediately discover what they are missing in not having Clarion. It should tell newcomers that there is a strong and vibrant community as the backbone to Clarion. It should trumpet forth that .. We are Clarion. Hear us roar!

Okay, so that may be a little over the top. It’s possible.

Part of establishing a Web Presence is not just the building of a site. Once you have a site, and relevant content, you need to make people aware of it. Every time you leave a comment on a blog/site, every time you email someone, asking them to visit, every time you make the front page of Digg or Slashdot (ha ha, well, if anyone reading this has had that happen, Kudos!) .. it builds your Web Presence.

The way blogs especially work is that the more intelligent you are about commenting and getting your name out, the more virally it will spread. Larger sites will take notice. You might catch a big blogger who mentions you, resulting in a fair amount of Buzz traffic. You slowly build up a long term readership via RSS feeds, or just plain dedicated visiting.

It’s a cool and exciting time. With some cool and exciting possibilities for Clarion.

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God Rest Ye Merry, In This New Year

We welcomed the New Year in consummate style. Wife + Kids asleep because we’d been up at 5.30 am to drive back from holidays in the country. Me hopped up on goofballs after exercising on the bike for an hour, eating a chicken and playing Sith Lords (can’t find an official site, here’s the devs Obsidian, and what might be an official-ish site StarWarsKnights).

May joy and peace be yours in the new year. If you make resolutions, I hope they stick. For me, I’m going to continue doing what I always do. Dreaming up crazy schemes and hoping one of them sticks.

God Rest Ye Merry. Comma. Ladies and Gentlemen.