I'm usually one to ignore any passing bandwagon preferring, instead, to walk, I've not done anything about FaceBook. Up until now.

Facebook evangelist ffdoc has convinced me that I should take the plunge. To that end, I've started posting on my facebook page (wall?) and have provided a shiny new link at the top right of the website. Take a look around.

My other various social media links are here:

Facebook
Twitter
Youtube

I noticed yesterday that I has missed when my YouTube channel passed 200000 views. Cool!

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This website is created using the open source Drupal platform. Drupal works as a content management system. (CMS) All the posts on the website are simply entries in a database. This gives me all sorts of flexibility as to how I display things on the site. I can use the same post to display the teasers on the front page, the items in the shop, even the pdf print-outs of pages, all from a single version of the page.

I've been learning how to best use this power as I've been going along so every so often the data structure that makes a blog post needs a clean up. No more so than now. All this is a way of telling you that my papery output will be slower for a few more days while go through the 700+ posts and prune and trim.

The picture below is a screen grab of a blog post entry screen showing you all the data fields and what they do. And this is after I've removed lots of the dead wood. I guess if I was to start over, I wouldn't start from here. 20/20 hindsght.

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I'd like to add my support to those protesting against the SOPA bill. I have been negatively effected by piracy in the past but this bill is not the way to go. The bill won't stop piracy and will effect people who use the webs on a daily basis.
I've kept the site live as I know that is is used in many schools and colleges. To keep you going though, and as a sign of my support, here is a picture of Jimmy Wales.
ht MikeEye

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Carrying on from my tidying up of the blog post headers, I've turned my attention to the rest of the website. I'm planning on tidying up the look and feel as well as the underlying code.

My plan is to remove the notebook on the front of the website and make the website itself into a notebook. I've placed the open notebook on a cutting mat with pencil and scalpel nearby. The buttons have been tidied up a bit and I'll be calming the colour scheme down a bit.

This is the first draft - what do you think? Any requests?

++++++

If you are a member you can download a full size high quality jpeg of the proposed website layout.

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Meta-post alert! I thoughts I'd do a quick post about what I'm working on on the site, on the site.

Sample Headers

Almost everything I add to the website starts as a blog post. I've added a field to the database so that I can specify what overall theme the post is and the website displays it accordingly, projects go in the shop, mechanisms join the growing mechanism pages, tool are displayed together on the tool page. 

I thought I'd expand a little on this idea firstly, by colour coding themes so you can see what is what and secondly by opening it up a bit so that you can, for example, quickly select all the tutorials by clicking a button in a tutorial post.

Here's the new blog header I've come up with so far. The posts are divided into seven colour coded themes, Blog Post, Project, Tutorial, Tools, Techniques, Mechanisms and Inspiration. (I might merge Tools and Techniques into one.) Each post will have a button to link to a page about that theme. On the right hand side are the comment button and the 5-star rating button.

I've written the html and css (web programming side). I'm now finishing off the button graphics and then putting it all into place.

I'll make a start on that as soon as I've made dinner :-) Oh, and this page is filed under 'Blog Post'

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In a move obviously designed as some sort of ironic gesture, my website has been off line for the last two hours.

"Come on, where are you, I'm not waiting any longer."

I'm delighted to say that I'm back on line. To make up for the gap in service, check out the new headline picture and animations at the top of the Surly Jack page.

Sorry folks.

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I'm doing a little work behind the scenes to make the website more accessible to people from outside the UK. Currently I only accept UKP£ in the shop and UKP£ and USD$ for membership. Now that website traffic from the US has overtaken the UK based traffic I thought I should add the ability to buy from the shop in Dollars.

This might take a while to complete but today I've taken the first step. You can now choose which currency you'd prefer. If you are signing up for a new account it'll be part of the signup process, if you already have a username, here's what you need to do to choose.

Click on 'Your Account' at the top right of any page. 

Select the 'Edit' tab

Click on 'Currency'

Click on the drop down and choose your currency - currently either $ or £

Don't forget to click 'Save'

Thanks!

It won't do anything for the moment but will prepare you for the future. I may add other currencies at a future date, the Euro perhaps, or the Greek Drachma.

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Here's a quick and hopefully easy guide on how to add pictures and links to the comments in the blog. The precess is a little longer than on some blogs so I have broken it down into simple steps. The first thing that you'll need to do in order to be able to add pictures, is register for a username.

Click on 'Register' to sign up for a free user name. If you alreadt have one, click Login and sign into your account.

To add a comment either click on the 'Add comment' button or 'Reply' to reply to an existing comment.

Type in the text of your comment in the comment window. Have your picture at the ready on your computer. Try to keep the picture size to below approx. 600 pixels and save it as a jpeg file.

To add a picture, click on the 'Add Image' button, circled above, to open the 'Image Properties' window. Click on the 'Browse Server' button to open the 'File Browser'. 

Click 'Upload'  then 'Browse' to open the 'File Upload' window. Choose your file and click 'Open'

Click Upload.

Click 'Insert file'

Before you add the picture to your comment you can make a few changes to the image properties. I tend to add a HSpace of 10 - this gives a space of 10 pixels on each side of the picture so that it is not butted right up against the text. (HSpace = Horizontal Space) Choose 'Align Left' to line the picture up to the left of the text.

Click OK. The picture should now appear in the text editing window.

If you want to add a link to your text, select the text that you want to become a link then click on the Link icon (circled). Paste or type the web address you wish to link to into the URL box then click OK.

That's basically it. If you select the picture by clicking on it, eight small boxes will appear around the picture. Grab onto these by clicking and holding with your mouse and you can resize your picture. Once you are done, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click 'Save' to complete your comment. As long as you are logged in you can always come back and edit your comment.

And here's what it looks like with link and picture.

I hope you found that useful. Feel free to try out the tutorial by posting pictures of your paper projects!

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A quick repost from today's newsletter FYI...

Summer Projects For Members Presented here, are a selection of projects for members to download for free! What better way to spend the summer evenings !? Click on the pictures for more details on each project. More info...

Free Summer Projects for Everyone Not a member yet? There is still plenty for you to do on robives.com. Try out these projects that are free for anyone to download. Have fun! More info...

Membership. Member of robives.com have free access to all sorts of interesting downloadable projects. All members can download all the models from the show case on the home page as well as all the members only projects in the shop. On top of all these amazing downloads, members have free access to many of the paid projects in the shop. The longer you remain a member, the more shop models you can download for free. All the remaining models in the shop are half price for members. Of course, if you can't wait to get your hands on all the models, projects and downloads or robives.com you can buy a membership+ and have full access to everything! robives.com is run entirely by the support of members and shoppers on the website. Thanks to everybody who has signed up for a membership! Don't forget that if you are retired or a student you can receive a 33% discount on the annual membership rates! Drop me an email for details. rob@robives.com membership in US dollars. Membership page

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I've been working on a mix of research (I'm investigating clock escapements) and background website maintainence. In my spare moments I've uploaded a newsletter highlighting the Oz bookmark. You know that you can view all the old news letters by clicking on the 'Email Newsletter' link right? 

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