Have you got a minute?

For me, the last day of the month is always long. It's the day I change the front page features on the OSCAR website and send out the monthly OSCAR Update email. It sounds simple but there's a whole process to go through to get to that point. Quite a bit of the work of collating new information, events, feature topics etc., is done on a continual cycle but there's still a fair amount that can only be done on the last day. It starts with pulling together the topics that I've already earmarked to feature. If there's a section of OSCAR that is featured, that usually involves a makeover of that section as well. The guest article that, usually, has arrived a few days before is imported into the site. Then menus, indexes and the sitemap need to be updated and link together properly. Dreamweaver, the software that manages the site, helps quite a bit! I also go through a number of mission course and event related websites to update the events list, though that has to be ongoing. Then I cut & paste the features, events, messages and the previous month's submitted job opportunities into the draft OSCAR Update email. When all the tweaking is done and everything works and links together, I get my wife to proof read it and tell me what she thinks (risky, I know)! Then after discarding most of it and starting again, the process is revisited (I'm kidding ... it's only usually on a few minor things!). When it's all ready to go, I upload the updated pages either late on the last day (like today) or early on the first day of the month. This is swiftly followed by emailing the OSCAR Update to around 750 subscribers. Finally I check it over again whilst it's online ... then relax!

Today I had the added bonus of uploading and introducing a brand new section (on 'blogs') which meant a bit more than usual ... though most of that work has been done prior to today. All in all it took around 12 hours. This may seem like a long time but if you divide that by the number of subscribers (750) its only around a minute each! Significantly less if you divide it by the 14000 visitors a month to the site. When I think of it in terms of people ... every minute is worthwhile.

Stay Connected Offline

It's only when my Internet connection goes down that I realise how much I do that requires it. Of course, I have various contingency
plans for when it does go down (dial up etc) but I'm still amazed that even a slight drop in the convenience of a connection causes
problems to my work patterns. Such is the nature of running an online service.

As a pilot, even with satellite and radio navigation, you still learn and practice the basics of pilotage and dead reckoning (two
navigation principles) just in case you need them. I guess it's good to do the same for the Internet ... stay in touch with your
offline options. For me, it means things like 'pick up the phone' and 'learning to write again'! How quickly we adapt ...

OSCAR Enters the Blogosphere

Well, after spending several months planning a new blogging section for the OSCAR website ... I'm taking the plunge and starting my own blog. It's quite a relief just to be able to write and not think about formatting and re-wording ready for publishing on a carefully crafted website (I'd like to think so, anyway!). Here I can just ... well ... blog.

I'm excited about using a new form of communication. Email changed my whole experience of mission whilst I was 'on the field' ... and the access to the Web that followed brought the world to my laptop in what seemed like a very remote corner of the world. Now I'm looking forward to a bit more 'real time' interaction with others around the world and blogging is one step, even leap, in this direction.

See you around ...