c3x.co.uk

This is the response I sent in to  http://z6.invisionfree.com/Sustainable_Frome/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=22004557

I am writing to request that my views are known regarding the proposed extension at ASDA in Frome.

-- 

Creative Content  Coding eXtensibly . 

frome: 01373 473939 mobile: 07938 166101

c3x ltd registered in England & Wales no 7444396

www.c3x.co.uk

I have struggled for years with this problem. Today I finally found a solution that seems to work everytime. Brilliant. So happy I have to share it here, mainly in case I lose it :)

It came from here:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/vsdebug/thread/4f7b3eb5-67b5-4066-8299-fe7635cc1d82

Glastonbury History Part 2

1999

Myself and a friend Travis Pedley spent a lot of time talking about the power of websites as a social medium, especialy where you could have a web site that was based on a database which allowed the division of people writing good quality content and outputting the code to the internet to build a website. We saw this as a change with far reaching consquences as no longer would web sites need to be a geeky preoccupation obsessed with the topics of the technically obsessed but would bring the reach of websites to new audiences.

We'd been looking at websites since 1996 when we were involved with Lionel Lodge in founding a free magazine in Stroud Gloucestershire to promote a patchy live entertainment scene which generated a large amount of high quality original writing and new writers but with economics that could never work. We saw a potential for the web to radically change this so long as it could provide material that would interest it's potential new audience.

What was this material? What was the big secret that we could write about comfortably and present as a web site that could assist in really changing the audience outlook - of going through all the effort of using a computer to read news at 28Kbits when picking up a newspaper was so easy?

Lionel's father, Tom Lodge, was an interesting character and had come to Stroud from California from where he brought society changing artefacts like inkjet printers and AOL disks! He had been heavily involved in Radio Caroline, Britains major pirate radio station, as a young man he'd written best selling books, he's been involved in the struggle for freedom against conservative administrations his whole life. He would constantly pepper conversations with fascinating references to writers and thinkers. He introduced me to the phrase "the medium is the message" and many other ideas and people who had changed the world of broadcasting in the 1960s. Stroud was a great place for the kind of conversations that could span weeks and months.

So with this illumination we thought about the question of web content. What was it about the medium that would inform the message? The fact that it was non broadcast. In a web application an individual copy is "served" to each individual user, it is not presented to the user as part of a programme but the user has to choose it and choose every step and turn they take. Therefore it is driven by the interests of the being exploring it and

In press, cinema, radio, record production and television a master copy is made and mass produced virtually unchanged for all who consume it. This acted to force the producer and consumer into a one size fits all mentality. There are seams of difference, tribes and nations but all communication radiates from a centrally produced point to be consumed by it's subscribers. In effect it acts as a conservative force where change to the core values represents a threat to the continuum. When newspaper production was more organic with regional offices and regional printing presses and much more significant local news organisations you had more chance of knowing the local journalists, but with the advent of radio, the cinema and then television the media was produced at such a distance that it was not part of the everyday world of which you were part but just an input into your everyday world from a distant endpoint. When people become more alienated from the story that makes their lives in turn the inhibitions to violence decrease. This is manifested not only at it's end point of physical violence but also in a decrease in peace loving harmony and a sense of belonging to the people around you, so this violence can be in discourtesy, petty criminality and gratuitous hurt as the person feels less connected to the people around them, as if they are living in different narratives. It's long been impossible to prove that violent video games and movies lead to actual violence but the need to consume these products is demonstrably anti-social and does nothing to foster an understanding and cooperation between people.

So what was in our world that would most benefit from this? Stroud has a long standing connection to the Glastonbury Festival. There are many strands to this connection, including musicians who played big slots at the first and early festivals and especially the annual decampment of many of the town to work on the acoustic stage. This was led by a quite brilliant, fondly remembered but sadly deceased man, Andrew Thomas who had been involved in the production of the acoustic stage since it began. I don't know the whole story but it is my understanding that Andy was involved in managing some of the great music pubs in Bath whilst Michael was using the theatre there to source the acts for the festival. When he came to Stroud to run the Pelican it had a profound effect on thousands of people's lives. He encouraged vast amounts of creativity putting bands on almost every night of the week, tours, opening a theatre in his pub. It attracted some trouble but there was an overwhelming sense of engagement between everyone who was part of the story. His funeral in the winter of 2002 was a day that changed my life very positively too.

A festival very much is a place where each and every person there contributes to making it happen. Just by being there, enjoying it and being part of it and being. The festival needs every single person from the biggest headliner, every trader, all crew and every single ticket holder. Once you are part of it most people realise really quickly that their enjoyment is driven by what they give and not what they take. Most realise they're not depending on a story being fed from somewhere else but they're adding their story to the whole thing. The best moments come from the heart and are shared with those around you. If you're not engaged then it's not happening and the festival loses the strength of one heart so all around act to bring all hearts into the one being. This is not a conscious act but it's in the nature of festival. That's not to say that this is universal, there are still some unable to engage, but the many do feel part of it

Travis and I came to a view that the best way to build a website that could really showcase the power of content management and community engagement on the web was to build a website that covered Glastonbury Festival. There was just so much content there you would always have an engaging site with something for everyone. There had been a number of websites before this but they had focussed on basic information rather than the content of the festival itself. They'd also appeared to be run from a broadcast perspective rather than a community one. Information was centrally debated and then disseminated. Contributions from the public were submitted, assessed and rebroadcast if they were acceptable. The new website we wanted to create would be owned by the festival and the contributors and not by private individuals with their own needs to fulfil.

So at the time Content Management software cost many hundreds of thousands so I took to my room and wrote a new version of my CMS in Visual FoxPro that operated on a LAN. Internet connection speeds at the time were too slow to allow lots of people to connect to a server so instead we had a database server and a number of workstations attached to it that allowed about 6 people at a time to connect and enter content. This then was compiled into a site and uploaded. We spoke to Andy who spoke to Michael Eavis and we had permission and ten passes to have a table in a portacabin and an ISDN line. We came up with a truly terrible pun and www.glastonline.com (see what I did there!) was born.

I'm very sad to say though that it didn't actually happen. It wasn't all bad - I sold my CMS to 14 customers at about £3000 a time. Where it went wrong though was I hit the giant crocodile filled moat that is the festival politics. The official site had a box for you to submit links, and so I put a link to GlastOnLine.com in there. Within hours I had a phone call telling me that I couldn't do this. That I had to stop. They told Michael Eavis this too, who told Andy, who told me. I told the other 9 who thought they were coming. I didn't let this go without an argument. There was grave concern that we would infringe the copyright of performers, and the rights of the official press and broadcasters. I had an exceptionally long telephone conversation with a festival production manager, who subsequently became a good friend and I'd prefer not to name, and I recall it in every 3 hour 20 minute detail. I was flat sitting in Kensington hanging out the front window to get mobile signal, then I went pacing around Kensington and ended up sitting amongst the flags outside the Commonwealth Institute in Holland Park. There are so many things remarkable about that conversation not least that I held the attention of the person I was talking with whilst he had the whole site build going on around him, and that his mobile signal on the Glastonbury site held for so long. I feel that I won the debate but by that time the passes and the portakabin had been cancelled and there was no getting them back. I don't think Andy was too happy with me for "getting him into trouble" with Michael, I never got to really talk with him properly again after that. The most memrable part of the conversation for me was the threat that my photo would be placed at every gate with instructions to ensure that I could not get onsite with my equipment! That was a little scarey.

All we were seeking to do was an experiment with content management, and share the joy of the festival with people on the web who couldn't be there, or at least see how or if that could be achieved. It wasn't to be. The 9 were quite unhappy. I bought a ticket from HMV in Swindon I think I offerred to do the same for them but they were too bummed out. There is a happy ending to this story in the year 2000, but I think only 2 of them came back.

I must admit I had a brilliant festival. 1999 was outrageously sunny which was especially sweet after two horrendous years of mud. I caught up with some of my best friends in the world. I had an excellent time of music, dancing and campfires. The stress of all this soon melted away.

Apologies for the long ramble and congratulations if you got this far through the story. This year was a real turning point for me. What followed was seven long years of really testing out these theories. Total immersion in it. I didn't take a single computer with me in the end in 1999, or a camera but I do have a lot of happy memories.

Anyone who reads my CV will know that listed in my interests is "representing rail travellers as part of the First Great Western Customer Panel". We meet directors of the railway on a quarterly basis and listen to and comment on plans for improvements to the service, usually meeting the MD each year. I represent customers from Freshford, Avoncliffe, Bradford-on-Avon, Trowbridge, Westbury, Melksham, Frome, Bruton, Castle Cary and all stations to Weymouth, including Yeovil Pen Mill and Dorchester West. It's a lively session and surprisingly I'm known for getting a little bit aggitated.

Most of my business is conducted either writing code on the train or travelling to customers sites on the train, where I can give rapid feedback by writing up reports etc. on the way home instead of lots of frustrating driving. As such I travel extensively over the rail network in FGW area, and originally came to Frome & Westbury via a commute from Brighton on the now FGW line, formerly the "Wessex main line". When this service was incorporated into the "Greater Western Franchise" I applied to join the panel to try and ensure the smiley and pleasant service didn't degrade. Many of the people I work with also travels these routes by train and many ad-hoc and informal project meetings occur in this space too.

Just thought I'd share my response to these press release for further comments.

DfT: 8,800 extra spaces for busy trains on key routes

&

FIRST GREAT WESTERN: Additional Carriages for Bristol

The feedback I've received from other channels also suggests that these numbers are a little bit misleading as they do not take into account the outflow of stock from FGW over a similar time period. However hopefully at least this new stock is more relaible than what we lose.

I'd really value your comments especially if you live in the rail area I represent.

So this is what I wrote to the customer panel in response:

to: customer.panel@firstgroup,com

That's fantastic news.

Just out of interest, it's worth noting a couple of things about the Bath-Bristol-Westbury service that then either terminating at Westbury/Frome or onwards to Weymouth or Portsmouth/Brighton service.

Obviously this was one of the pinch points that caused the vocal protests and "rail fare strikes" some years ago. It has been the case recently that due to frequent stock failures that these trains have recently often been formed of 2 instead of 3 car services and this still causes massive overcrowding and people not being allowed to board on a regular basis.

The over crowding is now to a comparable level to the highly contraversial overcrowding that occurred around the start of the Greater Western Franchise.

So as I say fantastic news.

The other thing that has been really good is the use of trains that have extra carriages between Westbury and Bristol and then these detach for the less busy services onwards to Cheltenham/Worcester etc, or Weymouth/Portsmouth.

However what is really worth noting, the trains that are just shuttling from Bristol / Westbury tend to be more lightly loaded as they don't have the base load of passengers travelling further afield, these passengers tend to have more luggage and bicycles etc. but as these services are relatively infrequent it is these services that have the heaviest load. The stress level is raised further if you try and board a train at Bath Spa which is overcrowded and you know it is 2 hours until the next service, the passenger is far less likely to take no for an answer and then delays ensue whilst passengers scuffle and argue to get on the train, making the whole experience one that denigrates the FGW brand as a whole.

I understand that the reason why there are service gaps of up to 3 hours between trains to Weymouth is due to a lack of stock. Maybe McNulty will lead to the prices for these tickets also increasing - and so making it economically more viable to run more trains without the risk of not breaking even on extra provision of rolling-stock. Frome is a major population centre, compared to other freqeuently served stops such as Bradford-on-Avon, Freshford & Westbury. In Frome there is a strong local will for greener travel but with service pattern of up to 3 hours between trains travel is frequently unviable for many travellers. There is a totally unacceptable gap in the evening service provisions meaning that you either need to depart Bristol at 17:49 or 19:49 (with an unreliable changing option in between and a greatly extended journey time). If it is possible more trains that start/terminate at Westbury should be considered to go from Frome as was previously the case, eg the Trans Wilts train (once a day via Melksham & Chippenham to Swindon) used to start in Frome and there are many Frome based people who travel to these towns but the change at Westbury again makes this route less reliable and more time consuming.

Yeovil is also another major population centre with stong transport demand to Bristol & intermediate stops but with this terrible service pattern. Maybe a train that stopped at Yeovil or Taunton to meet with services that no longer stop at Castle Cary/Westbury to make for a faster journey time.

The travelling experience from Westbury to Exeter in the day time is now woeful with this lack of connection possibilites to Taunton.

It has been stated in the past that more services to Weymouth (via Frome) are not possible due to a lack of units. I hope it can be considered that if there are more units this service provision can be improved.

The use of spare units to travel just between Westbury & Bristol does increase the journey time, sometimes by only a few minutes which is more than acceptable but at certain times of the day it is 25 minutes or more.

The last "before work" train leaves Frome at 8:05 and then there is no service until the 10:15  departure that starts from Weymouth. This then holds at Westbury for 25 minutes timetabled delay and the guard advises people to go to the cafe whilst they wait for the extra carriages to be joined on. So then the journey time to Bristol is significantly extented, and you get to Bristol at nearly noon. Just not a useful service provision for serious business or time constrained travellers.

There would definitely be significant revenue returns from very slight improvements to the service pattern. There are big holes here that need to be filled.

But brilliant news that there is now more stock.

Congratulations.

In a world of so many false reported threats it's rare to see a warning that is not a hoax. This is however a very clever new way of stealing  your login details in  multi-tabbed browsers. I first read about it on my favourite on-line community http://www.vloodycloody.com  and you can see the original post here:

http://boards.vloodycloody.com/index.php?showtopic=3631&st=28740&#entry502357

There is also another article about it here:

http://www.lovemoney.com/news/get-the-best-deal/scams/the-new-scam-that-secretly-steals-your-bank-details-4993.aspx

Spooky Angel writes:

SpookyAngel Posted: Jun 9 2010, 11:42 AM
internet scammers get more sophisticcated

Watchout for been tab scammed. I've actually had something like this happen to me with FB where i've logged on then opened a new tab to come on VC, gone back to FB & its asked me to log in again. If it ever happens again i'm gona make sure to close the browser down & open a new one.

QUOTE
Watch out for this new online phishing scam which uses 'tab napping' to attack your computer - and your finances...

As internet users we're all vulnerable to online scams. Unluckily for us, as soon as we become pretty good as spotting one type of attack, another more sophisticated version comes along in its place. In fact, technology company Mozilla - which developed the Firefox web browser - has recently warned against a possible threat from a new scam known as 'tap napping' which takes phishing one step further.

What is tab napping?

Tab napping is essentially a new kind of phishing scam. Until now phishing has involved sending hoax emails in an attempt to steal your usernames, passwords and bank details. Often the sender will claim to be from your bank and will ask you to verify your bank details by clicking on a link contained in the email.

The link actually directs you to a fake website which looks just like your bank's own website. Once you have typed in your login details they can be accessed by the criminals who set the fake site up.

But we're beginning to wise up to phishing attacks like this, and many of us know we should be very wary of clicking URLs even if they appear to be in a legitimate email.

With awareness of phishing on the up, making it more difficult for scammers to succeed, tab napping could be the scam to watch out for next.

How does tab napping work?

Tab napping is more sophisticated than the phishing scams we've seen so far, and it no longer relies on persuading you to click on a dodgy link. Instead it targets internet users who open lots of tabs on their browser at the same time (for example, by pressing CTRL + T).

How does it work? By replacing an inactive browser tab with a fake page set up specifically to obtain your personal data - without you even realising it has happened.

Believe it or not, fraudsters can actually detect when a tab has been left inactive for a while, and spy on your browser history to find out which websites you regularly visit, and therefore which pages to fake.

So don't assume that after you have opened a new tab and visited a web page, that web page will stay the same even if you don't return to it for a time while you use other windows and tabs. Malicious code can replace the web page you opened with a fake version which looks virtually identical to the legitimate page you originally visited.

How might tab napping work in practice?

Imagine you open the login page for your online bank account, but then you open a new tab to visit another website for a few minutes, leaving the first tab unattended. When you return to your bank's site the login page looks exactly how you left it. What you haven't realised is that a fake page has taken its place, so when you type in your username and password, you have inadvertently given the fraudster easy access to your account.

Even if you have already logged into your bank account before opening another tab, when you return you might find you're being asked to login again. This may not necessarily rouse any suspicion since you might simply assume your bank has logged you out because you left your account inactive for too long. You probably won't even think twice before logging in for a second time. But this time round you have accidently inputted your security details into a fraudster's fake page which have been sent back to their server.

Once you have done so, you can then be easily redirected to your bank's genuine website since you never actually logged out in the first place, giving you the impression that all is well.

How can you protect yourself against tab napping?

This is pretty scary stuff but thankfully tab napping should be relatively easy to avoid. Here are five simple ways you can prevent yourself from falling victim:

Make sure you always check the URL in the browser address page is correct before you enter any login details. A fake tabbed page will have a different URL to the website you think you're using.
Always check the URL has a secure https:// address even if you don't have tabs open on the browser.
If the URL looks suspicious in any way, close the tab and reopen it by entering the correct URL again.
Avoid leaving tabs open which require you to type in secure login details. Don't open any tabs while doing online banking - open new windows instead (CTL + N).
Finally, take a look at Online banking: How to stay safe to find out other ways to protect yourself from online scams.

A few people have asked me recently what I have been doing at past Glastonbury festivals. So I thought it would be worth posting:

1992, 1993, 1994

I went for the first time with my girlfriend Jenny Beasley because the Cud band were in the advert in the NME. Truth is I didn't actually get to see  Cud play but I did have an amazing time. Too many stories to tell, mostly more suitable for over a beer than a blog. I think my favourite tale is as it was my first time camping since the scouts I'd borrowed a hopelessly impractical tent from a friends Mum, it was a big 3 room frame tent thing and all orange nylon - nice! Back in 92 the bus used to drop you on the main road and you walked about 2 miles down the lane to the site. I'd already been introduced to the very strong Glastonbury serendipity earlier in the day - when begging Jenny to lend me some money (i wasn't proud) I showed her my empty cashpoint balance - only it wasn't empty there was a random £340 paid in - this was "holiday pay" a totally new concept to me that I had no idea was coming and being paid in that day and in the end I lent  Jenny money. So anyway  we arrive, we choose a spot, I look at this 50KG 70s marvel I've carried all the way  here and remember that I don't actually have a clue about putting tents up, I hadn't thought about this part until  now at all. Luckily Jenny was fairly sublime in nature and agreed with me that the best plan was to have a beer and think about it. We'd also  carried quite a lot of beer quite a long way. The weather was nice. It was a holiday. Why rush? So another beer, as no ideas had yet come. If Jenny was getting stressed she wasn't showing it. After 2 beers nature takes its course and so I head for my first Glastonbury toilet experience. I had no reason to fear anything, I had never heard stories of Glastonbury toilets before. As I queue and await my turn and naturally get to the front of the queue the next door to swing open ejects a character that I know. In fact in the most bizarre of coincidences ever it's my old room mate, a man called Andrew Demster, known as Demo, who had often shared a room with Jenny & I. More fantastic was the fact that Demo was something of a Venture Scout. He wasn't just good at camping, he loved camping and tents and that sort of thing. If there was one thing that could improve a less than dreary day for Demo it was some idiot with a random tent they couldn't put up. I had no idea he was going to be there. He did  come, he did help, we did have a tent. I was sold. Glastonbury was the most amazing place on earth. The bizarre events continued, the amazing coincidences abounded. We had a wonderful time. It opened our eyes to a world we knew was there but didn't know was so real. I returned in 1993 & 1994. Each time we bought tickets at HMV on the way to the festival. In 1993 I had my boots, money and car keys stolen in a tent slashing on the Friday morning but had an amazing festival living entirely on the charity of strangers.

1995

I played bass guitar in an Irishy folk rock band called Reincarnation. It was great fun, these were great times. Reincarnation was a vehicle created by fiddler Peter Miln and singer / guitarist Dan James. There were many often bizarre lineups and gigs. The glastonbury lineup was Dan & Pete, Neil Baker later of Flipside on latin percussion, farrier Garrick Nelson on Bodhran, Steve Paul (a man like myself and half the band with no convincing surname) playing rock kit drums, plus a couple of friends who danced on stage. At glastonbury we were booked by Arabela Churchill to open the outside theatre stage at 10:30am each day, and to play in the fire procession on the saturday night that was arranged to celebrate this being the 25th Glastonbury festival. This procession gig was awesome and we played, carnival style on the back of a truck, for about 3.5 hours to 10,0000s of people and they all danced. The absolute high-point of my musical career :D

1997

My very dear and deceased friend David Fleetham & I went as guests of Dubstar. I think on paper we were the woodwind section, and we took my flute and David's clarinet with us as props in case there were any awkward questions. Now David was haeomophilliac with many extreme complications including terrible arthritic ankles that made it incredibly difficult for him to walk. So I spent a fairly intense weekend with him, he was far too proud to use crutches and so most of the weekend I was his crutch, and also his drinking buddy. I think as usual we drank most of Dubstar's fairly substantial rider, just to help save Christian from liver failure. I have hazy memories involving David Baddiel and Hanson's Mum's who were camped next to us. I got very clear insights into being at Glastonbury with a disability too. It was extremely muddy. We did get out to see Radiohead and that set was lifechanging. We did also see Dubstar on the other stage and that was lifechanging too in a not so manic way.

1998

For the first time I bought tickets in advance, framed them put them on bedroom wall and then had them stolen at quite a good party, so again bought tickets on the way down from HMV in Reading. Again an incredibly muddy year. By the time I got there all of the friends I was meeting had left. I spent the time with my new South African girlfriend Shaldean Van Der Merwe her French friend Nadine and her American boyfriend, I felt like a cultural attache explaining everything that was going on. We made some amazing friends in the campsite, we worked together and kept a massive fire going all weekend, and I will always remember the Sunday morning Hothouse Flowers set (I think) where he started "WELCOME TO THE SURVIVOR'S CLUB" it was electric and great fun. That year the website had been run by the Guardian and I'd found it very annoying as it really wasn't very updated, there was very little of  the information I was looking for and I started thinking I could do a better job.

1999

With my friend Travis Pedley we worked  on this idea of a much  better Glastonbury Festival website. We wrote some quite detailed proposals and essentially the idea was to create something that today you'd call Social Networking and Content Management. It's name was a terrible pun (glastonline.com) but it still  makes me smile. I wrote an application that was essentially a networked database that could output web pages via FTP and could be contributed to by many people. We had an agreement with Andy Thomas who, had spoken with Michael Eavis about it, to have six people in a space in a portacabin in the acoustic field to take photos, write, get data, upload stuff and generally capture the richness of info available and make the internet a little bit less boring. The guiding creative principle was that in the way I had just stumbled into the festival 7 years before, someone could stumble  into  this website and confront some ideas that may inspire or entertain or maybe educate them. There was a new official website at www.glastonbury-festival.co.uk that had been put together by Simon Glinn of the JazzWorld stage and Neil Greenway of eFestivals.co.uk - when we sent a link to them for them to link to us and vice versa all hell broke loose. Essentialy we were threatened with a lot of "heavy shit" if we did this and compromised the festivals rights agreements with others. At one point I was told a photo of my face from my personal website would be distributed to all gates to stop me entering. On the Tuesday night before the festival I had a mobile  phone conversation of over 2 hours with Simon Glinn that we both laughed about afterwards, especially as  we don't even know how it was possible for the signal to hold out that long never mind distract  him from the setup. In the end I had to let my friends down and it didn't happen. But I went to HMV in Swindon, bought a ticket, came to the festival and had a fantastic time at the best festival I can remember.

READ MORE: 
my Glastonbury History  Part 2 :
/blog4u/2012/1/12/glastonbury-history-part-2

OK please be gentle on me. I am going to  write my first ever blog post and it's been a long time coming. I feel on paper I should have written many blog posts, but this is not  on paper is it. I want to as briefly as possible get out of the way all of those questions like who am i, who are  we, why are we here, what sort of things have we done, what sort of things do we do, and will we do. You know those sorts of question. Then  once those are out of the way I can deal with lots of much smaller questions. Context  - that's what I'm talking about  - I want to post a kind of context introduction to our  brand new blog.

Who Am I?

My name is John C Scott  and I was given it on the 13th January 1972. It wasn't until 25th December 1981 that I got  my  hands on my first computer of my own in a Sinclair ZX81. Luckily my brother and sisters were very tolerant of me using the only TV in the house to write programs in 1KB of memory. I was hooked on that first day and would happily write the rest of  this post about how I learned to use memory and the 256 bytes of video RAM etc,  but this isn't that story. I've carried  on taking an interest in how computers work, and allowed them to inspire my imagination ever since. I've done other things too, but usually brought computers into it somehow. Unkind people might call me an obsessive Internet geek, kinder people would call me it  to my face with a big reassuring smile.

I took a route from ZX81, ZX-Spectrum, to Mac IIse, Atari ST, DOS 5, Win3.11, NT4 and at the same time Z80 machine code, Hypercard, DBase3, FoxPro, ASP, and currently C# .net. From 1986 onwards I did a great deal of DeskTopPublishing starting with Letraset's ReadySetGo!  then electronic Typesetting and from there got into databases, and then combining  the two with content management from 1995 onwards. I built my first web pages in 1995 using iHtml, then Coldfusion, ASP classic and currently working with .net.

I  got quite excited about "Web Applications" in the mid to late 90s, I'd built a few office LAN based applications around databases and and really saw the power of having lots of people contribute to different parts of a  database, and started developing around the idea of websites where the user didn't need technical skills to contribute their thoughts and ideas. Throughout this my ideas were very abstract  and about inspiring others to contribute, whilst providing the  tools and the training and supporting those I worked with.

In 1998 I thought a good exposition of all of  this would  be building a  site for Glastonbury Festival  and this became an all encompassing undertaking for the next 10 years. It had meant to be just a side project to test and develop some ideas to use in a commercial product. It was clear that the festival couldn't financially support what was needed and so I worked on some interesting 6 month contracts and then had the rest of the year to work passionately on Glastonbury. We pulled together some great achievments for that and  to do it justice this needs to be blogged separately too. Now the festival needs a new  approach  to it's website and it's time for me to climb aboard the leading-edge again after a period of learning, listening, growth, development and recuperation.

The world's moved  on a lot  since 1981 and many  of the things since then I thought of  as  science fiction are now very much fact, yet some are still to have their day. One thing to come about is blogging.  It's definitely better for me to use someone elses tool to start publishing my varied thoughts, plans, hopes and reminisces than to spend  time building and maintaining a  tool for  other people to do the same. In a few rare spare moments I've speculated what I would write if I had time,  and now I do, and now you're reading it.

I believe passionately in free (as in free and fair elections, as well as free beer) software and that the challenge of our times is how  well we can work together. The truly great art of the past may have been made by a single artist but the great pieces of our modern times, such as movies like "Slumdog Millionaire", are harmonic works between hundreds of collaborators each enabling another to exceed  what they could do alone.

I've mostly shared in the past by getting passionately involved in message board communities and always trying to answer at least one question for every one that I need an answer  to. However these contributions live mostly only in the context of those boards and if everyone is blogging it  then maybe it's time to admit I should have a go at this medium. So there are a couple of very specific projects I have in mind for this blog and some more random  ones, and I look forward to finding  out which fly.

Who Are "We" ?

c3x associates are people who enjoy working together. I recognised a long time ago that it was no longer possible to have an expert level of understanding of everything in computer, databases, operating systems, languages, design, publishing, the web etc. For example  I couldn't produce the  graphical treatment for this blog but that was provided by Wojciech Wawrzyniak. Across all the disciplines needed for a major  project we have associates who can provide stress-testing, clustering, hosting, content, copy writing, original music, photography, illustration, cartooning, database tuning, needs analysis, training, documentation, requirement gathering, project planning, security, encryption, design and graphical realisation plus many other things. The important thing is we have a track record of working together effectively, the tools to make projects work, the experience to advise if  a project can work and the honesty to say what needs to change to allow it to work.

why are we here

I really believe there is more to life than another day another dollar,  that every day is a conscious opportunity to  allow us to learn something new and to develop and that by this approach  we can deliver work that constantly exceeds expectations. We are here to understand what needs to be done and then to deliver it on time and on budget.

what sort of things have we done, do we do, and will we do.

This certainly needs to be the focus of many  more posts. Things we've done include content management systems since 1995, logistics and financial applications, and solved many challenges. That includes an understanding of how best to achieve change and what tools can best help the people at  the centre. Presently we are supporting Ektron CMS and Umbraco for a number of clients.

We will continue this collaborative approach and intend to form more relationships in an increasingly open world where you will continue to  be only as good as your last recommendation.

There are three different aspects to building any website and when these are working together harmoniously a great website is made. Creative can mean the primarily graphical  creative tools,  but also bending and using the tools  and  technologies to provide more insight into the message. Content is the message itself, but the medium is the message too, it's important to remember someone using a website is trying to find some content, the creative is useful for making it easy to find and easier to understand once found, but the content is the meat (or textured vegetable protein). The coding is the part that should be invisible, it should work and will only be visible when it is not working, you need it though  and without it you don't have the page. Ideally these three jobs should be  done by three different people who are good at working together and their conversation will cultivate a fruitful answer. A three way conversation is also idea as we're mostly born with two ears and one mouth and should use them in that proportion, all other things being equal then a three way chat should enforce that ideal. I've been using XML since 1998 and have really loved how it can bring flexibility without sacrificing purpose, so if you start by using extensible markup language as the way to join these disciplines together you have an answer which is inherently extensible and can then grow is novel ways, giving a life to the project to  develop on it's own path free of restrictions created on it  before  it was born.

So in summary the meaning of c3x are to make web implementations from the harmony of creatives, content authors and coders using tools that support  xml and xslt to allow the sum to exceed the parts.