The Art of the Possible : blogging

The Neglected Blog

dsumner — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 02:45:52 GMT

Well I have to admit to some failure in my ability to update and maintain this blog. The biggest sin in blogging appears to be failing to blog regularly. Really , I have tried! But I don't have a job with any real regular pattern to it, and I can easily find myself in different part of the country every day of the week.

I am also conscious about what I write. It just seems too easy to cut and paste a few links and say 'what do you think about that?' I don't think that adds value at all and devalues the purpose. surely one should be adding some thought or commentary.

I am also being more fastidious as I have been reading

What I talk about when I talk about running- Haruki Murakami

Murakami is one of my favourite authors.His style is very hard to explain. It always a first person narrative, and its deceptively simple. Its like sliding on very polished marble. Its beautifully smooth, it feels effortless but you know an awful lot of effort went into producing it.

His latest book, is even more humbling for me, as he writes about his running. He s very modest about his running, but the man can run! a marathon every year! 62 miles in day ! triathlons! It really is a demonstration of will. As he did with writing where he simply just started writing one day, the same is with running, he simply started running one day.

What impresses me the most is how he finds time to do this, plus all is other works. How he is so self disciplined and meticulous in what he does. Apart from the obvious benefits of exercise it also does help focus the mind , particularly as you grow older. The challenge of simply having the same drive you has when you were younger needs a degree of discipline and focus and somehow that can be be archived through physical effort.

Somehow i need to create a pattern in my own life that allows this physical effort and drive the production of better more steady work.

So how does this make me a better blogger? I am not really sure, I will have to work on it, you will be my judge.

Why “the art of the possible?”

dsumner — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 18:10:37 GMT

Just to clarify the name of this blog. In my day to day work I find myself presenting or discussing what is possible on a very regular basis. But my discussions with customers are very rarely about the technology itself. Rather about how that technology is creatively deployed to create either an end consumer experience or to generate commercial value to the customer.

The purpose of this blog is to try and keep a record of all the technology I come across and more importantly how it can be applied in business, particularly for Retail, Manufacturing and Services customers.

How this Blog was built

dsumner — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:56:11 GMT

There is a terrible trend in technology, where by everyone automatically assumes that your fully familiar with every technological acronym ever conceived. You were somehow born with the knowledge of what a compiler is, how to debug or deep link. All over this blog you will find all kinds of links and buttons, and at the very least I thought I should explain what they are doing, and how you may want to use this blog.

Where this blog lives

Well as you may be able to tell this site form part of MSDN – The Microsoft Developer Network, which is a forum that Microsoft has created to communicate with its developer network. A Blog contains articles that I write and post. However one of the abilities of the Internet is to separate content from how content is displayed. Its better explained in this video here. In essence its very easy for me to change the style of the content your reading.

How is the blog written

I write this blog on my laptop using a free piece of software called Windows Liver Writer. Which can post blog entries into many different kinds of blogs ( not just ones by Microsoft) . When I submit my latest entry to appear on the site – I also tag it with key words – which appear in the top right of the blog, this allows you to click a word in that list and view articles pertaining only to the key word you have clicked.

On the right side

On the right side of the screen you can also see the “blog roll” (no, really!) where I can insert other references & links. So for example you can see a link to del.icio.us – this is where I keep all my bookmarks from my browser that I choose to share. Similarly you may also bookmark my content to your del.icio.us collection.