Tag: Opinion

Links to additional resources for ‘Making the postmodern web’

Observations on what you need to build a website that will be found: a presentation for the Midland MakerPlace. Unfortunately it’s been a slow summer at the MakerPlace and there were no attendees. Hopefully a future offering will get better take-up.

One of the lessons I’ve learned over the last few years is to relax and let others do what they do better than I. For instance, I recently updated my ‘introduction card’ (aka business card), but this time instead of designing it myself, I decided to rely on the professional designer at the Midland Copy Shoppe. I am very glad that I did, and I will show you why.

It seems I’m doing more front-end web work than is ideal these days. I say that because I tend to prefer technical aspects of web development…

This is true despite the fact that I am moving my websites (including this one) away from OVHcloud and/or self-hosting, and am making a shift to using Microsoft 365. Some will never believe that nor accept what I have to say about it, but for me it’s the right decision. There are those think of proprietary companies as akin to ’the devil’ or some global conspiracy. A more realist view is that the reason open source and non-profit companies are not who provides most services for most people is that few people “put their money where their mouth is”.

If my feed was showing me what ’engaged’ me why did I get fed up and leave? There are several parts to the answer, but an important piece is the problem that Facebook’s algorithm is largely an uncontrolled ‘positive feedback loop’.

In my opinion, Windows is deceptively clear and smooth, but when once one really shines a light on it, one finds significant imperfections. Linux may feel a little less polished, but is more what you see is what you get (or better) — there are imperfections for a power user / developer like me, but those idiosyncrasies are minor compared to the more problematic ones found in Windows.