Theo Todman's Web Page - Notes Pages
Status Reports
Status: Web-Tools (2017 - March)
(Text as at 10/04/2017 23:38:24)
*** 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 Project 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-start4 formal research.
- For documentation on my website (currently password protected) follow the links below:-
- Functional5 Documentation6.
- Technical7 Documentation.
- Other Websites8
- I established the Hutton Bridge Club Website (Hutton Bridge Club) in 4Q11 using the standard Bridgewebs service, but with a couple of competitions using my own routines. I’ve retained supporting these despite handing the Website on.
- I took over the support and development of the Essex Contract Bridge Association (ECBA) website (Essex Contract Bridge Association), which also uses Bridgewebs, but is very much larger, in 1Q15. I have written a lot of code to make this job less tedious.
- Over the last few years, 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 now using this data to generate websites for small clubs (Essex Bridge Results).
- In 3Q16 I revived the archive website for Mountnessing Bridge Club (Mountnessing Bridge Club Archive).
- I’ve created and maintain a new website for the First Class Bridge Academy (First Class Bridge).
- About 10 years ago, I created a website for Dr. Sophie Botros (Sophie Botros), one of my supervisors at Birkbeck. I’ve now taken it back on and spruced it up a bit, though it requires more work.
- I’ve created and maintain a small website for a music group Julie and I attend – the Enigma Ensemble (Enigma Ensemble).
- Most recently, I’ve created a website for displaying the textual and grammatical analyses and appendices of Pete’s PhD on the Acts of the Apostles. It exists in two versions: Live (Acts: Live Site (Defunct)) and Test (Acts: Test Site).
- I did consider returning to work part-time as an MS Access/Excel developer, with a spin-off into website generation, but have done nothing about it so far.
Summary of Progress during January – March 2017
- This project retained some of its prominence, more so than last quarter, and I almost achieved the effort planned.
- A continuing disappointment was that I didn’t pursue my web-training with Sitepoint, despite having – in anticipation – extended my membership for another couple of years. I have, however, grabbed all the eBooks in their library, and this quarter managed to catalogue them all.
- Nat successfully completed the course put out by Harvard - "Harvard University - CS50 Introduction to Computer Science - 2018 Admin + Set-Up" - and has found it so inspirational that he’s managed to get a job in IT development. I’ve taken a look at it and made a start, but then stopped. I plan to take it seriously next quarter and to complete it by the end of the year (academic or calendar – to be decided!).
- I spent only 5 hours on my own site. Otherwise, effort was expended on “education” or on the other sites I support:-
- Provided some stats for "Mansell (Peter) - Bottom Up Reading of Acts".
- Updated Sophie Botros’s site with information on her new book.
- Created Master Point Lists & promotions for the ECBA website.
- Added new features (70s Club & Monthly Pairs Winners) to my “Small Bridge Websites”.
- During 1Q17 I expended 174 hours on this project (328 hours YTD, where for “YTD” – Year to Date – I mean the academic year that commenced in October 2016). That’s 97% of planned effort, 90% YTD. Overall, 25% of my project effort in the Quarter was directed towards this Project (making 25% YTD) – as against 29% planned (29% YTD).
- Full details for 1Q17 are given below:-
Website (Total Hours = 44.5)
- Website - Bridge Development (Total Hours = 6.25)
- Bridge - Website Update (5.5 hours)
- Bridge - Website Update - Compress multi-year ladder jump-table (0.25 hours)
- Bridge - Website Update - Stats enhancement (NGS) (0.5 hours)
→ See "Admin - Bridge - Admin"
- Website - Development (Total Hours = 5)
- Website - Generator - Fix bug - Exception in Time Recording if task is space (rather than null) (1 hour)
- Website - Generator - Fix bug - Start number for embedded numeric bulletted list (3 hours)
- Website - Generator - Fix minor bug - "Eds" isn't an author! (0.25 hours)
- Website - Generator - WebRefs - Fix for Notes (loop for Note 1145) (0.75 hours)
→ See "Software Development - Website - Development"
- Website - Education (Total Hours = 23.5)
- "Adams (Cameron), Bolton (Jina), Johnson (David), Smith (Steve) & Snook (Jonathan) - The Art & Science of CSS" (0.25 hours)
- "Adams (Cameron), Edwards (James), Heilmann (Christian), Mahemoff (Michael), Pehlivanian (Ara), Web (Dan), Etc. - The Art & Science of JavaScript" (0.25 hours)
- "Allen (Scott), Attwood (Jeff), Barnett (Wyatt), Galloway (Jon) & Haack (Phil) - The ASP.NET 2.0 Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks" (0.25 hours)
- "Andrew (Rachel) - The CSS Anthology: Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks: Third Edition" (0.25 hours)
- "Andrew (Rachel) - The CSS3 Anthology: Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks: Fourth Edition" (0.25 hours)
- "Andrew (Rachel) & Shafer (Dan) - HTML Utopia: Designing Without Tables Using CSS" (0.25 hours)
- "Barnes (Russell), Ed. - Web Designer" (1.5 hours)
- "Boronczyk (Timothy) - Jump Start MySQL" (0.75 hours)
- "Bretz (Adam) & Ihrig (Colin J.) - Full Stack JavaScript Development with MEAN" (0.25 hours)
- "Brown (Tiffany), Butters (Kerry) & Panda (Sandeep) - Jump Start HTML5" (0.5 hours)
- "Castledine (Earle) - Jump Start CoffeeScript" (0.5 hours)
- "Castledine (Earle) & Sharkie (Craig) - JQuery: Novice to Ninja: new kicks and tricks" (0.75 hours)
- "Cederholm (Dan) - CSS3 for Web Designers" (0.25 hours)
- "Darie (Cristian), Barnett (Wyatt) & Posey (Tim) - Build Your Own ASP.NET 4 Website Using C# & VB" (0.5 hours)
- Discussions with Nat on IT Development (3.5 hours)
→ See "Software Development - Website - Development"
- "Edwards (James) & Adams (Cameron) - The JavaScript Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks" (0.5 hours)
- "Eernisse (Matthew) - Build Your Own Ajax Applications" (0.5 hours)
- "Goldstein (Alexis), Lazaris (Louis) & Wehl (Estelle) - HTML5 & CSS3 for the Real World" (0.25 hours)
- "Goodrich (Glenn) - Rails Deep Dive: Build a Rails Application from Scratch" (0.75 hours)
- Harvard University - CS50 Introduction to Computer Science - Admin + Set-Up (0.25 hours)
→ See "Harvard University - CS50 Introduction to Computer Science - 2018 Admin + Set-Up"
- "Hawthorne (Andy) - Jump Start Rails: Get Up To Speed with Rails in a Weekend" (0.5 hours)
- "Hopkins (Callum) - Jump Start PHP" (0.5 hours)
- "Jones (Darren) - JavaScript: Novice to Ninja" (0.5 hours)
- "Jones (Darren) - Jump Start Sinatra" (0.5 hours)
- "Keith (Jeremy) - HTML5 for Web Designers" (0.25 hours)
- "Lazaris (Louis) - Jump Start CSS: Get Up To Speed with CSS in a Weekend" (0.5 hours)
- "Lenz (Patrick) - Simply Rails 2" (0.5 hours)
- "Limeback (Rudy) - Simply SQL" (0.5 hours)
- "Lloyd (Ian) - The Ultimate HTML Reference" (0.25 hours)
- "Mitchell (Lorna), Shafik (Davey) & Turland (Matthew) - PHP Master: Write Cutting-edge Code" (0.75 hours)
- "Myer (Thomas) - No Nonsense XML - Web Development With PHP" (0.75 hours)
- "Nguyen (Don) - Jump Start Node.js: Get Up To Speed with Node.js in a Weekend" (0.5 hours)
- "Olinik (Mick) & Armitage (Raena Jackson) - The WordPress Anthology" (0.5 hours)
- "Olsson (Tommy) & O'Brien (Paul) - The Ultimate CSS Reference" (0.25 hours)
- "Panda (Sandeep) - AngularJS: Novice to Ninja" (0.5 hours)
- "Pehlivanian (Ara) & Nguyen (Don) - Jump Start JavaScript" (0.5 hours)
- "Shafik (Davey), O'Phinney (Matthew Weier), Turmelle (Ligaya), Fuecks (Harry) & Balbo (Ben) - The PHP Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks" (0.75 hours)
- "Sitepoint (Learnable) - HTML & CSS: A SitePoint Anthology" (0.25 hours)
- "Skvorc (Bruno) - Jump Start PHP Environment" (0.75 hours)
- "Weinberger (Sharon) - Web of war" (1 hour)
- "Yank (Kevin) - PHP & MySQL: Novice to Ninja" (0.75 hours)
- Website - Infrastructure (Total Hours = 6.75)
- Fix USB Driver failure for printers (1.75 hours)
- Julie's PC - Died? Repaired! (1.25 hours)
- Microsoft Windows 10 - Releases & Bugs (1 hour)
- PC Backups / OneDrive (0.25 hours)
- Transfer Phone & Broadband (Main House) from BT to EE (2.5 hours)
→ See "Software Development - Website - Development"
- Website - Maintenance (Total Hours = 3)
Website Others (Total Hours = 130)
- Website Others - Bernie's Website Development
- Website Others - ECBA Maintenance (Total Hours = 34.25)
- Admin - ECBA Website - Eve Goblets (2.5 hours)
- Bridge - Butler IMPs - Data Output (0.5 hours)
- Bridge - ECBA Website - Nat re ECL App (0.75 hours)
- Bridge - ECBA Website - Routine Maintenance (30.5 hours)
→ See "Admin - ECBA Website - Admin & Maintenance"
- Website Others - ECBA Membership - Development (Total Hours = 34.25)
- ECBA Website - Membership download changes (Investigation & Development) (0.5 hours)
- ECBA Website - Membership Masterpoints (Investigation & Development) (17.25 hours)
- ECBA Website - Membership Promotions (Investigation & Development) (16.5 hours)
→ See "Software Development - ECBA Website - Development"
- Website Others - ECBA Tournaments - Maintenance (Total Hours = 6.75)
- ECBA Website - OneDrive - Tournament Entry Spreadsheet - New Sheet for 2017/8 (2.75 hours)
- ECBA Website - OneDrive - Tournament Entry Spreadsheet - Support for Linda (4 hours)
→ See "Admin - ECBA Website - Admin & Maintenance"
- Website Others - Enigma Ensemble
- Website Others - Joint Project Data Analysis (Total Hours = 14)
- Bridge - Joint Project - 70s Club (1.5 hours)
- Bridge - Joint Project - Bridgemate App Appraisal (0.75 hours)
- Bridge - Joint Project - Bridgewebs-style import - Boards (0.25 hours)
- Bridge - Joint Project - Buzz re Jubilee (0.5 hours)
- Bridge - Joint Project - Data Modelling - Monthly Pairs Winners (9 hours)
- Bridge - Joint Project - Tony re St Ediths, Hutton & Promotions (2 hours)
- Website Others - Joint Project Data Collection (Total Hours = 21.5)
- Bridge - Joint Project - Data Collection & "Mini Website" output (21.25 hours)
- Bridge - Joint Project - Data Collection & "Mini Website" output: Brentwood & District (0.25 hours)
→ See "Admin - Bridge - Joint Project"
- Website Others - Pete's PhD
- Website Others - Sophie Botros
Plans for the Near Future
I’ve increased the planned weekly effort on this project by an hour to 15 hours. My intention over the next 18 months is to reduce the amount of effort expended on other sites and focus on sorting out my own, together with updating my technical competence. Because I may change the technology of my site, I will treat it as substantially “on hold” until I’ve re-educated myself.
Summary of Progress to Date
This is hived off to a separate10 document11. A summary of time expended across the years developing my website12 is at "Software Development - Website - Development".
In-Page Footnotes
Footnote 4:
- Well, I’ve missed the boat, so will need to continue with both projects in parallel.
- This was always likely to be necessary, as new features will always arise in use. It’s a prototype methodology, after all.
Footnote 5: This is very tedious to produce and consequently is both incomplete and out of date.
Footnote 7:
- This is much more fun, as it’s a purely technical task.
- I’ve written a vastly-improved general-purpose technical documenter for MS Access.
Footnote 10:
- This document requires significant updating as it hasn’t been touched since December 2010.
- It may also be largely superseded by other documents – eg. the Outstanding Developments and Functional Documentation.
- But it may provide a different “take” on what I’ve done. Maybe higher level.
Footnote 12: 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 64)
Table of 12 Later Versions of this Note (of 33)
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Summary of Note Links to this Page
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Text Colour Conventions
- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2025