Theo Todman's Web Page - Notes Pages
Status Reports
Status: Web-Tools (2013 - September)
(Text as at 16/10/2013 20:08:10)
*** THIS IS NOT THE LATEST VERSION OF THIS NOTE ***
(For the live version and other versions of this Note, see the tables at the end)
Rationale for this Project
- This was alluded to briefly in a footnote on research methodology in my original Research Proposal1 under the head Research - Internet Technology2. When last at Birkbeck, I wrote a more extensive paper3 defending the project and describing its rationale. Now that my PhD is in suspense, I have decided to take this project further. There’s a lot to do: still quite a few items on the “wish list”. It is fairly critical as an enabler for my research, so I need to get a move on as I want it all out of the way before I re-start formal research.
- For documentation on my website (currently password protected) follow the links below:-
… Functional-Documenation4
… Technical Documentation
- In 4Q11 I established the Hutton Bridge Club Website (Hutton Bridge Club (Defunct)) using the standard Bridgewebs service, but with a couple of competitions using my own routines. Recently, I’ve been collecting data on bridge activity in the area (needed for a project to set up a new consolidated club) – by “scraping” data off web pages, consolidating it into a database and modelling it in various ways – and have booked this time to this project as it enhances (or at least maintains) my IT skills in this area.
- I’m still considering returning to work part-time as an MS Access/Excel developer, with a spin-off into website generation.
Summary of Progress during July – September 2013
- This was another bumper quarter as far as this project was concerned, and quite a lot was achieved.
- During 3Q13 I expended 256 hours on this project (651 hours YTD , where for “YTD” – Year to Date – I mean the (academic) year – just completed – that commenced in October 2012). That’s 114% of planned effort, 94% YTD. In all, 37% of my Project effort was directed towards this project this quarter (27% YTD).
- Major developments included:-
Further details are given below:-
Website (Total Hours = 255.75)
- Website - Development (Total Hours = 236)
- Becky's Church Spreadsheet - using "Professional Excel Development: The Definitive Guide" (2 hours)
- "Bovey (Rob), Wallentin (Dennis), Bullen (Stephen) & Green (John) - Professional Excel Development: The Definitive Guide to Developing Applications" (1 hour)
- Bovey (Rob), Wallentin (Dennis), Bullen (Stephen) & Green (John) - Professional Excel Development: The Definitive Guide (0.5 hours)
... See "MacDonald (Matthew) - Access 2010: The Missing Manual"
- Bridge - Joint Project - Data Modelling (0.25 hours)
... See "Admin - Bridge - Joint Project"
- "Couch (Andrew) - Microsoft Access 2010 VBA Programming Inside Out" (2 hours)
- Hutton Website - Butler IMPs (5.75 hours)
- Hutton Website - Competition Review & Development (0.75 hours)
... See "Admin - Hutton Website - Admin & Maintenance"
- "Jelen (Bill) & Syrstad (Tracy) - VBA and Macros: Microsoft Excel 2010" (1 hour)
- "Lazaris (Louis) - HTML5 & CSS3 for the Real World: Sitepoint Learnable Lecture Series" (0.75 hours)
- "Lloyd (Ian) - Build Your Own Website the Right Way Using HTML & CSS" (0.5 hours)
- "MacDonald (Matthew) - Access 2010: The Missing Manual" (1.5 hours)
- "PC Pro - Computing in the Real World" (4.25 hours)
- Sitepoint (Learnable) - Sitepoint Learnable Web Development Courses - Investigation & Sign-up (2 hours)
... See "Sitepoint (Learnable) - Sitepoint Learnable Web Development Courses"
- "Weakley (Russ) - Getting Started with CSS" (12.75 hours)
- Website - Generator - "Papers Collection Categorised" Pages - Enhancements (4.75 hours)
- Website - Generator - "Single Image" development (7.25 hours)
- Website - Generator - Add closing HTML tag to bullets (0.75 hours)
- Website - Generator - Allow "Authors Works Lists" to be linked-to from Notes (0.5 hours)
- Website - Generator - Archived Notes Re-Export processing (15.25 hours)
- Website - Generator - Bug with WebRef where already hard-coded (1.25 hours)
- Website - Generator - Convert "Consolidated Bridge Results" to webpage - Enhancements (7.5 hours)
- Website - Generator - Convert Tables to CSS3 standard (35.5 hours)
- Website - Generator - Correct "Book Collection Categorised" Pages (2.75 hours)
- Website - Generator - Correct "Papers Collection Categorised" Pages (2.25 hours)
- Website - Generator - Correct Links from Book-Paper Abstracts to "Summaries" not "Abstracts" (0.5 hours)
- Website - Generator - Correct Links from Notes Reading Lists to "Abstracts" (where available) (1.5 hours)
- Website - Generator - Develop "Books by Location" Pages - Enhancements (6.25 hours)
- Website - Generator - Develop "Books" Pages - Enhancements (2 hours)
- Website - Generator - Enhancements to "Authors" Pages (1 hour)
- Website - Generator - Enhancements to "Book/Paper Citings" Pages (1 hour)
- Website - Generator - Fix bug - "N" in alphabetical book/paper lists (0.5 hours)
- Website - Generator - Improve "Concatenated Notes" production (0.25 hours)
- Website - Generator - Improve Book-Paper Abstracts regeneration selection (2.75 hours)
- Website - Generator - Improve Notes regeneration selection (1.25 hours)
- Website - Generator - Investigate Twitter Bootstrap (0.5 hours)
- Website - Generator - Investigation of Microsoft Visual Studio Express (Freeware) (0.25 hours)
- Website - Generator - Link Archived Notes to Current Note (0.5 hours)
- Website - Generator - Make reading-lists Optional in Archived Notes (1.25 hours)
- Website - Generator - Make System Performance Recording Optional (0.5 hours)
- Website - Generator - Modifications to Paper Abstract Web Pages (0.5 hours)
- Website - Generator - Note Footers (1 hour)
- Website - Generator - Parameters for Performance Improvement (1.5 hours)
- Website - Generator - Re-engineering Monthly Reporting - Change of Year (11 hours)
- Website - Generator - Re-engineering Monthly Reporting Tables (1.25 hours)
- Website - Generator - Re-engineering Time-Recording (7 hours)
- Website - Generator - Remove Abstracts from Book Summaries (0.5 hours)
- Website - Generator - Simplifying / Re-engineering Notes processing (17 hours)
- Website - Generator - Sort conflicts between Subject, Topic & Sub-Topic IDs (18.25 hours)
- Website - Generator - Sorting out Authors' Lists (0.75 hours)
- Website - Generator - Spring Clean (0.5 hours)
- Website - Generator - Spring Clean - Remove Defunct Queries (2.25 hours)
- Website - Generator - Use CSS (25.75 hours)
- Website - Generator Documentation (1.75 hours)
- Website - Generator Documentation - Code Documenter - Maintenance & Enhancements (6.25 hours)
- Website - Spring Clean (0.75 hours)
... See "Software Development - Website - Development"
- "Yank (Kevin) - Build Your First Website: Getting Started with HTML & CSS" (7.25 hours)
- Website - Maintenance (Total Hours = 19.75)
Plans for the Near Future
Given that activity on this project is high at the moment, and to avoid a long straggle of items on this report, I’ve created a document5 listing outstanding items, together with those completed since the document was created. As a result, only the more important items, and those likely to be addressed shortly, appear here.
- Hutton Bridge Club Website: Weekly maintenance
- Bridge “Joint Project”: Continue data collection & modelling
- Educate myself to professional standard in Web Development. Read eBooks (on Kindle):-
… "Lloyd (Ian) - Build Your Own Website the Right Way Using HTML & CSS"
… then others as appropriate, and apply principles to my site.
- Read books on MS Access and MS Excel, namely:-
… "Couch (Andrew) - Microsoft Access 2010 VBA Programming Inside Out",
… "MacDonald (Matthew) - Access 2010: The Missing Manual",
… "Bovey (Rob), Wallentin (Dennis), Bullen (Stephen) & Green (John) - Professional Excel Development: The Definitive Guide to Developing Applications",
… "Jelen (Bill) & Syrstad (Tracy) - VBA and Macros: Microsoft Excel 2010".
- Use the above books to remind myself of how to get MS Access and MS Excel to “tango” – by both writing out to spread-sheets, and using automacro facilities within Excel to allow Access to control Excel.
- Restart, and complete, "Weakley (Russ) - Getting Started with CSS".
- General PC Education: Read:-
… "PC Pro - Computing in the Real World".
- Write my CV ready for job applications.
- Undertake a trawl through the code for all functions within the generator – making improvements for efficiency and function.
- Supply rudimentary functional documentation as a spin-off from the above.
- Undertake a trawl through all (categories of) web-page, making aesthetic improvements, and correcting content.
- Ensure FN referencing within Notes and referencing between Abstracts and Notes works for archived Notes.
- Expand the link to Notes from Papers and Books to be two-way, so that it’s clear that a Note is referenced by my comments on Books and Papers.
- Review and Utilise Web Spider
- Fix bugs in multi-level footnoting in Printable Notes – the referencing is going wrong.
- Investigate the use of RTF in memo fields, so that I can get round the 64k character limit.
- Improve flexibility of password-protected areas (ie. multiple areas, with different log-ons).
Summary of Progress to Date
This is hived off to a separate document6 (which requires updating). A summary of time expended across the years developing my website7 is at "Software Development - Website - Development".
In-Page Footnotes
Footnote 7: As distinct from developing other peoples’ websites – time which is also recorded against this project, but not against this task.
Live Version of this Archived Note
Table of 12 Earlier Versions of this Note (of 50)
Table of 12 Later Versions of this Note (of 48)
Summary of Notes Links from this Page
To access information, click on one of the links in the table above (if any).
Summary of Note Links to this Page
To access information, click on one of the links in the table above (if any).
Text Colour Conventions
- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2026