Projects

As you know if you look at other parts of this blog going all the way back to 2005, I have several projects on the go.

Some of the projects have been a success in that I have completed them and that I have been happy in they way they turned out.

Others have for one or more reason failed in some way, which when I read about failure of such things is not surprising as there are always failures of projects whether it's for work or for pleasure.

As all the projects that I talk about here are done because I want to it has also been a bit sad for me that a few of my projects have failed.

As I have just moved hosting sites it has been the cause of a delay now in all my website projects and has pushed the Dirk Maggs book project so far back that I really don't want to even think about it.

Actually that's not true as I did have a good idea the other day about it, and that was to change the name of the book from chronology to yearbook, I think that I will let that one similar for a while just to see if in a few weeks it is a good idea or not.

So I suppose I will like others have to get used to the idea that project failures are just a part of life and that the best thing to do is to just accept that and to move on and learn why so that it does not happen again or is less likely to happen.

Stuff

Progress on the Dirk Maggs Book project have been put on hold while I try to find the USB stick with the files on!

Yeah I know.....

Stuff

Well stuff has been getting in the way again of my Dirk Maggs book. Have just been away on a hard course that has lots of night work and exams.

I am very happy that I have passed the course and now don't have to do that one for another 4 years.

But being on the course has meant that the Dirk Maggs book is now halted for at least the next few weeks as I have catch up to do at work, and then I am holiday for a week, and yes I really do need a break.

So all being well and all that sort of stuff the book project should then start back up.

I have been told that Dirk has been in the studio again and that there is some new stuff to be broadcast very soon, so that means even more work for the book project.

Edition 4+1

Just had a slight snag on this edition of the book. How do I easily make sure each production for each year in the book is up todate?

I have a very nasty feeling that I will have to compare the paper page with the digital page, if that's true then it's going to take ages

Edition 4

Edition 4 work has been going well in that it has been spell checked and lots of corrections made. Which in one way is good and in another bad( as it means there must have been lots of mistakes) personally I think the previous spell checker was as good as the new one, well that's how I am kidding myself!

The book stands at 330 A4 pages and 80 thousand words!

I know! even I was surprised and I have yet to add all the Dirk Maggs productions from 2008 and those so far produced up to this time for 2009.

So at this time I don't know what size the book will end up at.

So at this time I am happy with the Dirk Maggs book

Updates and all that

It's been a while since I reported on the various projects that I do here and there on the Internet so as I have some free time, I thought that I would do an update on what's been going on or not as the case may be.

The sad fact is that having started a new job with a new company the process of learning new systems and new ways of doing the same tasks has been a bit, well actually, very traumatic and at this time I still don't know when things will settle down, I am assured by those in the know and also those that have gone through this sort of thing that yes indeed it will get better, I just want to know when!

Anyway enough of my troubles and struggles

The main Dirk Maggs Production website has been updated with his last audio production, which was on 1 st April 2009, I did not get chance to hear this live or on playback, which is a bit sad.

I have also done lots of small corrections all over the website that only I can see the results of, but I know that the website is better for them, honest!

On the pod cast front nothing has happened apart from the hosting site loosing everything!

which was a bit of a worry, the good news is that the backups worked, well they did for me and my pod casts are back up, but due the the stuff that I said earlier, I have not had the time to do any more, and to be a bit honest I don't know if I want to do any more at this time, as I have found that talking to a microphone is a very intimidating experaince, maybe I will have to find a book or a website that could help with getting over this problem?

The DMP wiki's both 1 and 2 are still no further forward at this time, but are still working well with what they have, so that's good.

The James Follett website has had a few internal changes that make the site a bit smaller without cutting down on the content, talking of content there has been no new content now for several years as James appears to have stopped any work on novels, radio shows or whatever, but you can see him on the Internet newsgroups winding up lots of very gullible folks, and it's always fun to see some of them walk right into it!

So that's how the projects stand apart for the last project and that is the Dirk Maggs website book.

This book is still stuck in edit hell and I have not got any further forward with it, and as so much time has gone by it is now very much out of date.

So I have decided that the best thing to do is to freeze it where it is and archive it and start on a new version or edition, which at this time without looking it up could be edition 4 or 5.

So my plan for later this year is to get on with the new edition and not have an index or two in it until the main work is complete, as you can always add an index later can't you?

Edit Hell part more than one

As you know I have been writing a book on all of Dirk Maggs audio productions, in fact I have been doing the Dirk Maggs web site for a few years now, but it has only been in the last few years that I thought it would be a great idea to have a paper version of the website.

So as I have said before the paper version has got to version/edition 3 I think ( see even I don't have a clue where I am at times) any way the last version has got stuck in edit hell as I have know idea on the indexes that this book really needs I mean by that with so much information in it you need more than one index to help you find what you are looking for and things only get much much worse(is that a word) as the book gets bigger as I update it with new material.

As I have said before the book is not for public publication as I have a feeling getting copyright clearance on some of the pictures ect. would be a nightmare.

The strange thing is that this is a project that I do like doing and I hope one day that one of the versions/editions will be printed up so that I can give it to Dirk( so that he can then tell me what's right and wrong with it) currently the book is in an A4 format as that is what I tend to write my book projects in.

The publication cost for privately printed book sits at about 15 UK pounds which for a 300-400 page book of that format does not look to bad.

So I will have to get on with it, I think what I might have to do is abandon version or edition three of the book and move to version 4 as Dirk has now produced more shows that are on the website but not in the book.

Projects

Projects

Some work has been done on starting up the Citrus Project, I have got as far as starting to redo the website.

Dirk Maggs book, this is still stuck in edit hell with no further progress at this time, although a journalist did as for a draft copy of it even though I told him that it was a draft and that it was stuck in edit hell. So far I have had no feedback on what he thinks of it yet. It is also becoming very clear to me that I am going to have to revise the book even before I have completed it, as Dirk is not standing still and is still producing very good work(must remember not to say that bit to him!!)

So as always it comes down to time, time is very precious and is always in short supply and to make thing worse as you get older it speeds up and passes you by must faster.

How is it

How is it that sometimes when you want to work on one of your pet projects, like for instance in my case my Dirk Maggs chronology book things and life get in the way?

Do others people have this same problem of stuff getting in their way and the projects that they want to do?

At the rate at which I am not doing the Dirk Maggs book I will have to revise it before I have completed it as it will be out of date.

Backup & Why I use them

So start of new year, well a couple of days now into the new year and the USB HD that is about 18 months old has well, how do I put this died, it started with a noise like a machine gun when starting up, the noise would then go away and all was well, until the day that I when to look at the root directory where I keep such files as my current book, yes that one on Dirk Maggs, that has now been stuck in edit hell since June 2008.

When I looked at the root directory what was there was one item and not the several thousand that I have come to expect.


But for some strange reason when looking at the drive in Thumbs plus and Pisca all my pictures where there!, so I copied them to another HD.

It was at this stage that a sale at PC World caught my eye and so the end result is that I have a new cheap computer that some how or other seems to run Vista, with only 1G of memory!

I have since found out that if I put a fast 4G USB key in it will use it as memory and boost the speed of the machine, this I have done.

Reinstalling stuff from backups is fun, so I have all my data but a lot of programmes that do not run very well on vista, so most of my time has been spent looking for free ware versions of the old programs that I used to use.

I mean, some of the software I use goes back to 2002!

So the good news is I have all my projects data and I mostly have software that can do the job the old software that no longer runs on Vista.

But my Dirk Maggs book is still stuck in edit hell!

Dirk Maggs Book Part 20a

The book is as I last spoke you in the last blog.

Some new news is that the firm that I was going to use to do the private printing LULU.com have changed the costs and stuff, the only problem is that if there email is anything to go by I will not stand a chance of working out what the costs or changes are.

So I am now going to have to put on the to-do list that I don't have find another book publisher...


Bum is all that I can say to this as it's yet more work.

Updates again

I think there must have been something in the water yesterday as I did some updates!


yeah I know ...scary or what?


The updates were to the ae35 pod cast site, in that I did a new pod cast number 8!

This pod cast was mainly about the progress or lack of on all the projects that I am doing eg the Dirk Maggs book the website and the ae35 pod cast.


If I am not very careful it could be that I might update more.

Updates & all that stuff

it's been some time since I last said anything in this blog, and also about the various projects that I have on the go at some time or other. As this blog is for me I think I need to tell myself what i have been doing or not over the last few weeks or so.

The Dirk Maggs books has not got any further along in its editing and the problem with the indexes still needs to be sorted one way or another. I just have not had several clear hours in which to work on the book. One problem is that after all this time of not looking at it, you forget things that are in it and also the things that you wanted to change last time but never got around to it.

The podcast website AE35 has also stalled, I have done 6 or so pod casts and then things happed and well, I am making excuses for why it just has not moved forward, one of the reasons has to be me being lazy I guess. The other is time again, always a good excuses I think or not.

One of the great things about the pod casts is that some how or other it has been found by the odd brave sole and downloaded! Yes I know quite what thay made of all of it I just don't know.

The Dirk Maggs website is up to date, as he has not produced any new work for a while I have no backlog of updates to do to the site, which is nice.

The DMP 2 wiki website has had a bit of a redesign so it has very little content, but lots of backroom stuff has been done to it, but just like an iceberg you the user can't see the effort that has gone on.

The DMP wiki website has been frozen while we look to see if DMP 2 is going to work, if it does then the content form DMP will transfer to DMP 2.

So that's the update as to how things are at this time, as summer is now almost over( if it ever started here in England) I could get some free time soon and get some of these projects moving.

Dirk Maggs Book Part 20

Guess what?

Yes it's true!!

I did some work on the book today, not a lot I must admit but at least I did something, so progress of a sorts.

Changed the publish date and altered some of the body text. I have come to the conclusion that more tables to store the actores names in will also be needed.

Dirk Maggs Book Part 19

UPDATE


The update is that I have not had the time or the energy to do any more to the book at this time.

Dirk Maggs Book Part 18

Did I tell you that I am now into the final edit of the draft, but I have some tables that need to be redone in a better way so that they take up less space? Well, the snag I have is that its hard work and such and such and well I have stopped doing the edit, the other reason being that I have a great read on at the moment by Alastair Reynolds called The Perfect and well I want to find out whats going to happen, really its that good, I think so.

Dirk Maggs Book Part 17

The edit on the 1st draft is going well I think. The draft without any index is 327 A4 pages long. As the edit goes it should drop down as I have some tables that need to be altered so that they go across the page and not down the page, some of the are quite long, so I am hoping that when edited as I said above that the page space being used will go down, so that will also mean the page count will also go down. When I do whatever I am going to do with the index or indexes then the page count will then go up, by how much I just don't know at this stage.

Dirk Maggs Book Part 16

Yes

I have done some work on the book at last. In fact I have started to edit the final draft an have got to page 40 so far.

Dirk Maggs Book Part 15

The news on the book project is not good. As you know I put the draft to one side, to let it mature as they say. Well the draft really is mature now and I suppose I should look at it, do the final rewrites and correct any spelling mistakes that I find, and if I am lucky add a few more new ones!

The truth of the matter is that I have not done this, other things keep getting in the way, why?

I have also still yet to work out what kind of index or indexes I want in this book. As the book is just for me I just do not know how useful more than one index would be, I have some books that have more than one index, but it does seem to be something that is rae and not the norm all, but as it's my book I can do what I want.

As I am also the publisher of the book I can also do what I want, just so long as the book does not cost me a fortune when I come to have it printed. As the book will never be for sale there is no real pressure on me to have it published by the deadline I set myself, apart from the fact that the book will be out of date!

Back

Been on a holiday, which was great lots of walking and peace and quite, which is what I needed.

I notice that I have done very few blogs over the last few weeks, and I can only put that down to work life and all that sort of stuff, some of it very stressful.

I think that enough time has gone by to look at my Dirk Maggs project again and see how much rewriting needs to be done. I know that the index or indexes still need to be done, but you cannot work on the index until the main text is done and is complete in the form that will stay with that edition of the book.