The number of blogs that I have seen come, and go .... and yet "The Horse's Mouth" carries on. I don't know how many posts I've made exactly, but it's approaching 1500. Why the difference? I suspect it's because many blogs don't have a long-term purpose and so the blogger starts off with a fit of enthusiasm, but that wanes with time. And add to that ... if it doesn't become a daily habit, then odd days get missed then batches of days and the thing dies.
This blog has not one but
multiple reasons that keep me going; it's unlikely to "fold", and at times the main reasons are competing with each other.
• The blog is a way of making technical tips and techniques available to the world - these items are not for regular reading, but for search engines to index and provide a quick route to some hard to find answers
• The blog is to keep in touch with family who may read it from time to time, and with friends. We say "come as a Student, leave as a Friend" on our courses and so the line between technical and non-technical can blurr here
• The blog is a quick route to putting up some more "salesy" material - either for our clients to find and read directly (for
hotel or for
courses), or at times for standard answers which outselves keep using in emails to customers - a repository of standard paragraphs, if you like.
I try to balance - to post about 50% of my articles non-technical and 50% technical - as a compromise for all my visitors. And when I "err" as I have done in the last week and get all too technical, the knowledge of this helps pull me back in balance. I
do have a load more Tcl and Tk examples to post - you'll see them in the next few days - but I also have some non technical subjects I'm just looking for a moment to tell you about. Thank you for reading thus far, and please carry on watching this space!
(written 2007-12-15)
Associated topics are indexed as below, or enter http://melksh.am/nnnn for individual articles
G903 - Well House Consultants - Running and moderating forums and social media sites [22] Falling out over the silliest things - (2004-08-21)
[29] Silence is Golden - (2004-08-26)
[115] Expiration dates or times on web pages - (2004-11-12)
[130] Spelling and grammar - (2004-11-25)
[204] The confidence to allow public comments - (2005-02-06)
[231] Feedback as lifeblood - (2005-02-28)
[248] Use me, but use me effectively - (2005-03-16)
[424] How not to run a forum - (2005-08-24)
[516] Open source questions? Anyone can ask. - (2005-12-03)
[651] Please Register with Opentalk - but just once! - (2006-03-19)
[806] Check your user is human. Have him retype a word in a graphic - (2006-07-17)
[828] Freedom of speech and freedom to post - (2006-08-10)
[841] Forum help - a push in the right direction - (2006-08-21)
[919] Freedom for X is denial of privacy for Y - (2006-11-09)
[923] Why shouldn't I spam? - (2006-11-13)
[948] Running an on line campaign - (2006-11-27)
[1088] Why use BBC code not HTML? - (2007-02-21)
[1190] Save the Forum - A regular clean sweep - (2007-05-17)
[1362] No Thank You - (2007-09-23)
[1485] Copyright and theft of images, bandwidth and members. - (2007-12-26)
[1523] Ive just received an email from myself. Should I be worried? - (2008-01-29)
[1532] Comment spam blocked. Please comment via Forums - (2008-02-05)
[1539] A forum is not always the best vehicle - (2008-02-14)
[1563] Guidlines for posting on a forum - (2008-03-04)
[1569] I dont care - goodbye - (2008-03-09)
[1578] Please don't shout at me! - (2008-03-16)
[1595] First Great Western Weekend - (2008-03-30)
[1678] Software - changes and delays. But courses must run on time! - (2008-06-15)
[1759] While the world sleeps ... - (2008-08-19)
[1923] Making it all worthwhile - (2008-12-04)
[1972] Pettifog and forum boards away from public view - (2009-01-03)
[2103] Ask the Tutor - Open Source forum - (2009-03-25)
[2116] Why do we delay new forum members through authorisation? - (2009-04-03)
[2156] Stopping forum spam - control of the signup process - (2009-05-04)
[2162] Admins thoughts on banning a member from a forum - (2009-05-09)
[2177] Preventing forum spam - checks at sign up - (2009-05-12)
[2254] Forum membership - a privilege not a right - (2009-06-22)
[2386] Computing under the influence of alcohol - (2009-08-29)
[2526] A reluctance to move from old shoes to new - (2009-12-05)
[2527] Flying tonight - (2009-12-05)
[2569] How to run a successful online poll / petition / survey / consultation - (2010-01-10)
[2781] The 500 pound question to get you started - (2010-05-26)
[2820] Netiquette for forum newcomers - (2010-06-20)
[3479] Practical Extraction and Reporting - using Python and Extreme Programming - (2011-10-14)
[3910] Identifying your real customers and keeping them well informed fast - (2012-11-02)
[4017] Acceptable User Policy / vexatious interacter - (2013-02-24)
[4025] Backups, Codebase, Strategy and more - dealing with forum incidents - (2013-03-03)
[4065] Handling requests to a forum - the background process - (2013-04-17)
[4234] Change to Libel and Defamation laws from 1st January 2014 - (2013-12-31)
[4239] Facebook marketing - early experiences - (2014-01-19)
[4283] Can a legitimate forum post become illegal a year later? - (2014-07-11)
[4307] Identifying and clearing denial of service attacks on your Apache server - (2014-09-27)
[4315] Welcoming genuine forum posters quickly - but turning away off topic advertisers - (2014-11-16)
[4403] The unbalanced relationship between customer and provider - (2015-01-21)
[4492] Almost so wrong, but perhaps it's right for some? - (2015-05-11)
Some other Articles
Shopping for Christmas and looking forwardTcl/Tk - updating your display while tasks are runningUsing Tcl/Tk resource files for flexible applicationsMaking a variable dynamically visible in a Tcl/Tk GUIThe Horse goes on and onCliff Lift simulator- Lynton to Lynmouth - in Tcl/Tkfill and expand on Tcl/Tk pack commandCurley brackets v double quotes - Tcl, Tk, ExpectLexical v Arithemetic testing, Bash and Perlstdout v stderr (Tcl, Perl, Shell)