If you want to try out the wiki, please do so.
Have fun!
Moved [en]
Apart from a sluggish dns propagation, everything has gone fine with the server move. Even though you probably won’t notice the difference, welcome aboard!
Knowledge Management [en]
Seth does a rather good job of explaining knowledge management to us, in two articles (more coming!) on the subject.
Knowledge management is an attempt to do with the collective knowledge of an organization — the individuals within the organization — what an individual does with his own knowledge. That includes storing, cross-linking, categorizing, contextualizing, retrieving, and of course presenting.
KM requires computer technology, because it can’t be done any other way. Remember, this isn’t the knowledge of a single individual being available to that individual whenver its needed, we’re talking about the knowledge of at least one individual being usable by at least one.
Education [en]
A tout prendre, mieux vaut une éducation un peu trop restrictive qu’une éducation trop permissive.
Weblog as Educational Tool? [en]
Schoolblogs.com acts as a centre to promote the use of weblogs in education. Read about the experiences of other teachers/educators.
[via scobleizer]
Pro Without Tables [en]
If you’ve been thinking that “tableless” sites are very good for personal playgrounds but not viable for professionnal sites, take another look.
Ben has done a really great job with Netspace. Not a single table (unless you’re using Netscape 4.x, in which case you’ll be redirected to a tablefull page), and all the layout is taken care of by css. Bravo!
Standards compliance requires a separation of structure and presentation. It is never total, we know that, but we do our best. CSS takes care of the layout and presentation, and HTML deals with structuring the content (if you can use xhtml strict, it’s even better).
If you’re thinking of selling this approach to your client or your boss, CSS talking points at ALA will probably inspire you. If you want more technical information, my tableless page will provide you with the necessary links.
Static? Dynamic? [en]
I had a conversation with Karl the other day, about static vs. dynamic implementations for a website.
Depending on how many page views you have per hour on the server, a dynamic implementation could slow down a site unnecessarily.
The important analysis is this one: divide the number of content changes in a given time by the number of page view requests for a given page. The closer that number is to zero, the more static your content is. The closer it is to one, the more dynamic it is.
My content is definitely more on the static side. I add pages every now and again, edit them every now and again, and of course, update my weblog fairly regularly. I don’t use a database back-end, but I do use a fair amount of PHP to hold things together.
I use PHP because it makes maintenance easier. I don’t really use it because my content is dynamic – so it could be seen as “abusive” use of a dynamic implementation. However, I don’t have so many visitors that it does make a difference to the server.
If the server load did become too important, however, I would certainly consider putting in place a script that would generate a static version of the site (each day or on demand). Visitors would access the static version, but it would be easily produced by the “generator script” on the basis of the easy-to-maintain dynamic version.
What is your opinion on the subject? Are “dynamic” website implementions being used abusively? Under what conditions do you consider using a database as a back-end? Do you have any numbers or statistics which either validate or invalidate the theories exposed above?
I’d love to hear from you. Add your comments below.
Organisation [en]
Poorly organised but accessible information is better than highly organised but unusable information.
Light in my Life [en]
Those of you who know me well won’t believe it. Those of you who have visited my flat, even less.
I have actually replaced the bulb in the kitchen (yeah, I seem to have a hard time doing these little things). But more important, I have replaced the one in the bathroom.
That actually is a feat, because during the last year, I tried to unscrew the lamp from the wall at least four times – with various assistance. This time I just decided to give it a go (never mind if it breaks, it’s not working anyway)… and it worked!
So, be informed and rejoice: a candle is no longer necessary.
Webloblog [en]
Quand le moyen et le but se confondent. Quand le weblog est son propre but. Quand la communauté ne fait que parler d’elle-même…