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  • Thoughts

    My personal thoughts.

    93 articles in this category

      The first steps - for year 3 site updates

      The first new steps for Year 3 updates are in progress now, and I am rebuilding the theme again on the beta site. I have started with the new header and will do the footer as well before I move things over to this site. I plan to add a light/dark toggle as well because it seems like a fun thing to do, but overall it will be a lot of cleaning up mostly.
      The new header is starting to come along and I have the basics done. I decided to move away from custom navigation and will instead use the default navigation. The only downside is that adding icons and pills require a bit more CSS than before, but I can live with that. The upside that the navigation is always in sync makes up for that, I think.
      I also remade the sections that will only be seen in desktop mode. It's pretty similar to what I had before, but some slight adjustments as I rebuilt it from scratch. If you want to test the prototype, then I have a codepen for that (seen below).

      See the Pen JWSE Sections by Jimi Wikman (@jimiwikman) on CodePen.
      I will move on to the footer soon, but first I will need to add the color variables and the font variables into the custom.css. I will also add the toggle for dark/light so I can see that it works properly before I do the footer. This is because the header and footer will probably stay the same regardless of setting.
      With the update, I will also go over the areas and the current features, since I want to remove some areas and set some others as hidden. This so I can focus on the refresh areas and remove areas that are no longer things that I find useful. I am also stepping away from the changes I made to the widget areas previously, and I will instead use CSS to break out full-width containers.
      For blocks, I will rework them completely to make them work even if I switch themes. That means that each block will contain all the CSS and JS, just like how Angular components work. I will also rework the CSS for every Pages template to clean them up as much as possible.
      It is still a week and a half until I start my vacation, but as always...things are moving, even if it is slow!

      Rebuilding the site again for Year 3

      With the upgrade of the site to 4.6 I noticed some areas where things broke a bit. Nothing major, but it will add up eventually and I do have a planned clean up set anyway, so I will do a bit of reconstruction, or rebuilding. As things have progressed, I have felt that the CSS is getting bloated, so I feel like correcting that while at the same time try some new things.
      As part of the rebuild, I will make some adjustments to the structure of things, like making sure that all databases have unique templates and that CSS is loaded only when a certain component or section is called. For example, I plan on adding section specific CSS only when that section is loaded by using template conditions. Same thing with components, where I will include the CSS needed in the component itself rather than using the global one.
      I will start listing the different main classes for Invision Community as well so I can use it in different overrides, but also to reuse in certain aspects of the design. For example, I am toying with the idea of having different theme colors based on the section, so I could quickly make a change to these colors by making an override file that only show on certain sections.
      I am looking into the possibility to add a dark theme switch to the site as well. Not because I think it will be necessary, but mostly because it is something that looks fun and it can be a good learning experience. When it comes to adding things, I am going to remove some things as well. It will be some plugins that I am not really using at the moment, like the Quiz, the Links and the Books sections.
      I will start with the framework of the site, where I will look into the possibility to move the header and footer to their own templates and then build the basics for the global variables. I will of course make these changes to the beta site first, where I will also take advantage of the Designers' mode since it will allow me to work faster.
      So, there is some work to be done!

      CSS Deep Dive - Exploring CSS in more depth

      With the new update to Invision Community coming next week and the end of Year 2 for this site closing in, I am excited to play around some more this summer. One area I look at digging deeper into are CSS and HTML, as they are things I love to play around with, but also seem to be a bit tricky for new developers. So why not dig into it and see what is going on in the world, while show some basics to new developers?
      CSS is one of those areas where you are never, ever fully a master. There are so many ways to work with CSS, and it is continuously evolving. It feels that every day I discover new ways to do things and how to use things in ways that baffles my mind. Everything from what measurement units to use to variables and key frames or even how to use CSS to create 3d animations is just mind-boggling at times.
      So I feel that CSS is a good place to focus for a while and to build up the section page for.  It would be nice to build something like the W3Schools, but I am not sure if it would make sense unless I can add something that w3schools do not already provide. I'll ponder on that for a while and see how I feel once I start playing around a bit. It would make sense to make sort of a catalog over things and create a new CSS section in the forum as a way to start expanding on the code section a bit.
      What I aim to do though is to go through pretty much all the CSS properties and see what new things I can learn. I have not played around much with animations, for example, and you always can look through the selectors and functions because I don't use them nearly as much as I should. Overall, this will be a fun exercise I think, and it should give me plenty of article material for a while.
      A bit unrelated, I am also going to work more on the mobile aspect of the site. This means there will be a some refactoring in general around here, and my first stop will be the database templates that I will rebuild from scratch. I will probably go with CSS grid since I want to move some things around, but also to play around with it to see its capabilities compared to flex.
      So, a lot of fun things to play around with soon!
       

      Going multitheme and preparing for Invision Community 4.6

      Invision Community 4.6 is coming soon and with it comes a new rank and achievements that is awesome. This will be a great place to start working on more community based features and to build in this system in the various databases and so on. I am also considering diving more into multi theme by adding more themes. Not just to play around with themes, but to explore better ways to build things, so it will work with any theme.
      The first iteration of ranks and achievements will have pretty much everything I was missing in the current rank system, so it will be a great start. The problem however is that the feature is only shown in the forum, so I will need to add it to the comments form for all other areas. I will see if I can find a good solution for that.
      Design wise I am looking into childe themes so I might be able to use it on the sections. This also means that I am going to dive a bit deeper into adding multi theme setups. I will probably also start looking into a dark theme eventually and how to best make the switch for the users. Not because it is exceptionally important from a health perspective, but more because I want to explore that aspect of web development.
      As far as making my setup here at home the way I want I have made some additional investments this week. I will make the big investment next month for the new table-top, but this month I have bought a set of Philips Hue Light bars. These will be placed behind my TV to brighten up the wall behind it. Once I have the new table-top I might add a light strip as well.
       
      I also bought a Logitech C920s Pro HD webcam since I not only spend a lot of time in video calls, but also because I might be doing some tutorials for my YouTube Channel later. People keep telling me that I am a good teacher, so I figure I might try to throw out some tutorials for Jira and Confluence for example. I have heard good things about this one, and it comes with a privacy shutter that is also nice. Since I have a very thin top of my TV this one also seem to be able to handle that.
      To get my head a bit in order and to get some creativity flowing again I ordered a new Moleskin notebook and some pens. I felt a bit crazy today so I decided on a Blend Hardcover Large Dark Blue Moleskin. It has a fabric cover, which I have not tried before, so I figured why not. For the pens I caved and ordered some Tombow Fudenosuke hard tips since everyone say they are so great. I start out with just 4 colors to test things out: black, brown, orange and pink.
      Finally, I ordered a Samdi Vertical Laptop Stand in Walnut to place my MacBook Pro. I have not really tried to plug it in yet into the new setup, but I figure there are times when I might want to do that. If for nothing else to use Sketch again. It's not a big investment and it will look good on the new table-top I think.
      So, this setup I have in mind is slowly coming together. With the new table-top and the homemade "bench" to raise the TV a few inches so I get a lot more desk space I think this summer will be pretty amazing!
      So, fingers crossed 🙂

      Feeling Creative - Spring is here and it’s both painful and amazing

      Spring is here and with that comes some good things and some bad things. On the upside I am doing quite a lot of overtime lately, but in a very good way that is well worth the time spent for my well-being. I am also slowly getting back into a creative mode and it feels amazing.
      So, lets start with spring and the feeling of daylight returning that invigorate the soul. It has been some amazing days lately with lots of sun mixed with some rainy days that also have their positive effect on me. The combination have had a bit of a downside as well as the trees have really gone bananas releasing a lot of pollen.
      While I am not allergic, I have SHR and that makes it almost as bad. Unlike people with allergies or asthma, there are nothing that will take the edge off for someone with SHR. So it has been a bit annoying at times when breathing was a bit difficult, my eyes swollen and all my joints aching. Everything itches and I feel hot without having a fever.
      In short, it is not the best feeling in the world and it drains energy for sure. In the greater scope of things however it's nothing compared to the suffering we still have around the world. So I'll complain a bit and sleeping is a bit tricky, but I'll live.
      On the upside I have a second project on top of my 100% at Martin & Servera where I am helping ChessIT writing up a design guide for the design work I have done over the last year or so for them. I am doing this on weekends and evenings, which is usually a bad idea, but in this case it is doing wonders for my energy levels. It is really satisfying to be able to do design again and document it in a design guide type of way.
      It has inspired me to do more design as well, so this weekend I have created the new rank icons that will be added when Invision Community will release their 4.6 release that should come sometime before the summer I think. They turned out pretty good and just for good measure I have decided to top that with writing the guide for setting up the Task Manager using InDesign. It has been a while since I last used InDesign, but it is as fun as always!

      Life is (mostly) good and I expect that I should be able to get the first vaccination in a few weeks for COVID-19. Hopefully that allows me to go back to the gym again soon. I really, really need that...

      Other than that I am doing design sketches for the fence we are building around the porch and in about a month I will buy that new wooden desk top so I can pimp my desk a bit this summer.
      Life is good.

      Pondering over the week that passed

      Another week has passed and this week I caught a little cold again. This time stuck in the nose and throat, making things a bit difficult so I had to take a few sick days again. It sucks, but fortunately it was only two days. Over in Twitter-land things are stir crazy as always and today I looked into ordering a new top for my desk for my summer plan. It is busy days as always!
      This week started with a cold, which was a gift from my son combined with pollen no doubt. I still managed to get through a full day of training on Monday, but on Wednesday I had to call in sick and reschedule a few things as I could barely speak and was running a bit of a fever. On Friday things were under control again, even if I still feel the clog in my sinuses and don't really hear that well yet. I'll just blame old age and no one will notice anyway.
      Meanwhile, over at Twitter...
      On Twitter I have tried to stay positive, but it is testing my patience sometimes. People are...well, not thinking like me if I put it like that. I am also fascinated how many people that create accounts on Twitter for the sole purpose of being a complete asshole. I don't mean that they have different opinions than I do, I mean they go out of their way to really be mean and rude.
      Like some women that wish me and all men to die and trying to even say anything to these people will result in an all out assault that one could argue could fit the definition of hate speech. Or the arrogant and spoiled Marxist brats that will basically scream their lungs out to cancel anyone that does not agree with whatever they focus on at that moment. It is as toxic as you can imagine it, and then some.
      I also notice that the Swedish politicians are stirring things up and they seem stuck in a drive-by shooting tactic with little to no thought behind their actions. The latest stupidity is a list of 43 points to combat violence against women posted by one of the leaders of one of Sweden middle parties. I thought it was a joke at first because some points are so unrealistic and on a level that make me wonder if this is written by a politician or a 14-year-old with no knowledge of society. Some of these suggestions are even outright damaging to society, some are just nonsense and some are good actionable suggestions. It is the overall quality that baffles me and the lack of insight on how this reduces the credibility for that political party.
      New features from Invision Community
      As the world around us seem to burn it is easy to get caught up in it, but for every bad thing coming my way I have realized that if I look I can find 10 good things. For example there are some nice things coming for Invision Community soon and one thing I look forward to is the new achievement system. It allows me to build a rank progression system that I have put off for a long time now.

      The Best Movie of the year?
      Yesterday I also watched a wonderful movie that just came out on Netflix. It is an animated movie filled with relatable situations of fatherhood and the dynamics of families. It is of course The Mitchells vs The Machines I am talking about, which I think is one of the best movies I have watched this year.
      Desk Upgrade project
      This morning I also sat down and did some planning for the desk upgrade this summer. Basically I am going to replace the top of my desk with a sturdier version that look a bit more like I want it. I am looking at a custom sized top from Ikea with a walnut faner that you usually use for the kitchen counters.

      The project itself is not so much getting a new top, because that is just removing the current one with a new one. The project is that I am actually getting two of these and one will be a shelf for my TV/Monitor. So I will have one smaller (35cm/120cm) of these and then I will add legs to it. This will be placed on top of the desk and the TV/Monitor will be placed on to of it. This will provide more space below the screen and lift the screen up a bit.
      It will cost a bit, but I think it will be worth it!

      Finding Calm - a week of many things

      A long week has come to an end. It has been long, not because it has been a rough week, but because it has been a fun and enjoyable week. It has made me tired, but in a good way and I look forward to next week already. It has also been a week a frustration as the world continue to descend into madness an intolerance. It is under control however and I do not get as upset as I once did. Overall I feel this has been a very good week.
      This week the training at Martin & Servera begun and for the next 8 weeks I will conduct training sessions on the new setup and how Jira and Confluence works. So far the response has been positive and next week we will step things up a bit and start to look at test tools and dig deeper into the requirement parts.
      The training is a bit slow as pollen start to affect me a bit and making breathing a bit heavy at times. I also get so very tired, which combined with the tiredness that comes from holding six-hour training sessions I have struggled a bit with energy. Or rather the lazy me have won over the active one 🙂
      As I watch the world around me seem dead set on burning the entire world to the ground it affects me less. The fact that the US are slowly degrading into a country where people have a pissing contest on who can be the worst racist or sexist I find myself watching in fascination as people make up excuses to be racists towards white people that make the Apartheid in South Africa pale in comparison. I find myself wondering how long it will take before the fist "correction center" for white males will appear and when the BLM logo will be found on official uniforms that round up the "privileged ones" to never be heard from again.
      The community of misandry, claiming to be feminists, is stepping things up and I hear quite often how women are relieved that men soon will be eradicated from the planet or that men should have curfew, so women can move without fear of being raped or murdered. The hate is quite irrational and blind and I have blocked more "feminists" on Twitter in this last week than I have in total on Twitter for 10 years. The sad thing is that this irrational hatred is something I can handle because I know that this is not rational people making death threats or calling me names, but young boys hear this almost on a daily basis and they don't  have the experience to handle this.
      I fear that the death toll for suicide among men and white people will start to rise as these two narratives are getting louder. Not just on social media, but traditional media also focus a lot on this narrative, even to the point of bending and manipulating facts and truths to sell it.
      This may seem depressing, but the world has always been crazy and filled with people driven by unreasonable hatred. If it is not religion, then it is sports or politics. People unhappy and weak-minded always group together with others like them to hurt those around them that are different. People die every day from this and I can either drown in the misery of it like the media want me to, or I can be like a proton and stay positive.
      So I focus on the good things in life and do my bit to lift people up instead of bringing them down. People are amazing, even if they express bigoted opinions that are both sexist and racist. Just listen and look underneath the pain to see what they are actually saying. Every one is worth listening to and everyone is more complex than a single opinion.
      Individuals over groups.
      Always.

      Spring cleaning on the site...and plans

      As light return again so does the need to organize and clean up some things on the site. I have fallen a bit behind on my plans lately, and it is time to get back to doing again. I am in a good place when it comes to work, with just some minor things to fix, and I feel that this is now a good time to get the site back in progress again.
      The first thing to do is the same as last year pretty much and that is to clean up the templates. I will need to take inventory and really clean things out. There are some CSS and JS things that need to be merged together to make it more clear what goes where.
      The second thing I need to do is move over the latest updates to My Tasks from my Beta site and then do a full reset on that. I will use that as my main development area going forward instead of messing around with the live site. The Beta site will be closed off as well and setup for some hard core coding, so I can start exploring some new stuff.
      My Tasks also need some love as it is a bit wonky right now, and it needs additions of a cookie toggle that allow the views to be switched properly. It also needs to update the fields a bit because right now the solution reset some fields in detail view, which is not very good. It works well enough though, so I'll dig into it later.
      The start page is still a pain point for me because it does not look the way I want. I aim to recreate the Sketch files I have for the site into Figma and then start working on a new start page. I have a design in my head, so I just need to get it out to see if it works in reality as well. I also have some clean up to do for My Projects and Awesome People that I will do when time permits.
      Speaking of My Projects I have an idea to build a special page for one or two projects. These will be more elaborate Case type of projects that will explain in more detail how I work and what I can do. I have an idea about using a PowerPoint I once did as base for the story I want to tell.
      The My Story section is an area I want to build something different for as well. Right now it is pretty barren, and I have some thoughts on how to build that section. I want it to be a section that can be really me, where I can collect all the sections and bring them together. A place where I can place things that does not really fit the other areas, if that makes sense.
      So, let the spring cleaning start with Project Purgo!

      Calmness and feeling good.

      This weekend I have had a little cold. It's not really a cold though, but that one that comes from when you end a project. A signal from the brain that you should slow down and enjoy life a bit before going into the next assignment. The new office space is taking shape and I am  starting to get the whole "working on Windows" part down. I feel calm in heart and soul and it's a pretty good day today.
      As my assignment for Stockholm Exergi came to close I felt good. Not to leave as it is a great place to work, but because I felt I provided value during my time there. I will do a few hours each week to support Stockholm Exergi even in the future, which feels good. Overall I feel very good about my time with Stockholm Exergi and I may return at a later date if they have need of me.
      On Monday I start a new assignment with Martin & Servera. I will execute the plan I did a pre-study for last year to implement Jira and Confluence in the organization. It will be a lot of fun and I look forward to it a lot.
      At home, I have worked at my new home office for a week now and it has been amazing. I am very pleased with the setup I have now, even if I still need to make some cable management and small adjustments. I thought I would find the huge TV to be difficult to get adjusted to, but it has been nothing but great. No matter if I do design, PowerPoints or write code it is very good. For gaming, it is awesome and for movies it is breathtaking.
      Working on a PC again is a bit of a pain of course, but not at all as bad as I thought. The only real pain point is Figma so far, but it is growing on me. I still don't like it for vectors, but for web design it works very well. It is like the best effort software that takes the best things from multiple products and mash it into one. It does all things pretty well, but none of it as well as the focused products. I can work with that.
      Now that I have calmness again I did set up Visual Studio Code so I could start working on the project with @Marko Salonen that has been left hanging a while as life sorted itself out. It is not behaving as I want it to just yet, but it is good enough to get coding again. Yesterday I set things up and started coding the design for the start page, which now look pretty good. It should not take very long to get that project setup properly in a few weeks so we can start to expand it later this spring.
      For the website I am going to make a small update to the edit template for projects and then the plan is to get a design in place for the Roles database. I have it roughly sketched up on paper, but I will make it in Figma as well to make sure I like it. As I work quite a lot with roles for work, I think this can be a good thing to have set up and build upon. I know a lot of people are looking for this kind of definition, so it will be a good thing to offer.
      That is all for today. Now I will go shave and then probably do some cable management before I relax with some Outriders demo in preparation for the full release in a few weeks.
      Calmness.

      BenQ Screenbar Plus Lamp review

      The BenQ screenbar Plus lamp is a very nice addition to your desktop setup as it add both a great working lamp, but also because it can help reduce some eye strain issues. The setup is super easy, but it comes with a few issues...
      When I got my BenQ screenbar Plus I was first impressed by the packaging. It is pretty great, and you can really see the care placed into that design. The second thing I noticed was how simple it was to assemble and setup. Just insert the bar into the handle and twist. Done.
      Function wise BenQ screenbar Plus comes with a small dial that is super easy to use and very convenient. It comes with two buttons, one to switch between brightness and color temperature and one for automatically setting the light to fit the surrounding conditions. The dial makes it easy to manage the light and temperature, and it also acts as the power button.
      The bar itself is easy to place at the top of your monitor. Unless you have a super thin OLED screen like I do, then you need to get a bit creative. BenQ screenbar Plus fit anything that is between 1 cm and 3 cm and with my screen being just a few millimeters thick at the top it did not fit properly. I simply added some soft furniture pads on to of each other to get the thickness I wanted, and it worked like a charm.
      One thing that worked great for me, but that I can see can cause a bit of an issue is that BenQ screenbar Plus has a split cable. That means that if you have the USB outlet and the lamp itself widely separate places you might need a USB extender. As I said, for me this was not an issue since I just plugged it into the USB outlet on my screen, which was a perfect fit.
      I have not really experienced any eye strain yet from my massive screen, but I think the BenQ screenbar Plus help relax my eyes more. This is especially important since I do not have proper lightning in the room yet, which means there is very hard contrast between the screen and backlight.
      The BenQ screenbar Plus is not cheap, but having used this for a few days I think this has been a very good investment.
       

      A new home office on the way

      After a long time working from home, I finally have a working home office again. It still needs some tweaking and adjustments, but it is a whole lot better than before. I feel I can finally focus again and actually get things done, even if I obviously could get things done before as well, but you know what I mean!
      The new screen (TV) far exceed my expectations, and it is amazing for focused work. I have added a BenQ Screenbar Plus Lamp to add some front lightning, which feels amazing to be honest. It adds that direct light I need when taking notes or drawing ideas. It also reduces some blue light to make working long hours feel less strainful on the eyes.
      My Mophie keep my Apple devices charged without any cords as well as provide a quick glance when I want to know what time it is. I picked out my old Jabra that has been tucked away for years, which give me a proper speaker on my desk. Once I get a webcam as well, I no longer need to rely on my Mac for online meetings, which is great.
      My gaming headphones and Razer Tartarus fit nicely behind the screen and I have plenty of space between myself and the screen to place items I need there. For now, I have my Mac and iPad below the stack of notebooks I have, but I am looking into solutions for that in the future. I am considering adding a small shelf to place the screen on, so it comes up a bit and provide some additional space below.
      There are still a few things on my to-do list for the home office, like adding some form of backlight to the wall behind the screen to soften the room a bit. Other things like buying a headphone stand are also being planned as well as some form of foot support below the desk. First though I need some form of cable management because things are looking horrible at the moment!
      Getting this home office in place have provided me with a sense of calm I did not even know I missed this badly.
      Life is indeed good.

      Feeling unfocused and disorganized

      Even though I love my new computer and the TV that I use as a monitor, I feel unfocused and disorganized. Having my work area in the kitchen is far from optimal, especially with windows and me living on the bottom floor. Fortunately this should all come to pass on Monday.
      Let me start by saying that working on a PC again feels weird. Working on a 48-inch TV is even more weird. Yet it feels amazing! Working in the kitchen however is not amazing, but it is endurable. The biggest issue I have is that I have windows on my left side and behind me, making it a bit hard to concentrate as people run past or a car pull up with the headlights on behind me.
      Because the situation is temporary I also don't want to commit too much to the setup in terms of cable management or peripheral devices. This makes things less organized than I like, and it causes some frustrations. So when I learned that my desk would not show up until March 15 due to the size of the table top I decided to change that to a larger one. This way I can get it delivered on Monday, which is something I feel I really need at this point.
      My Monday is of course fully packed, but I will work some extra hours this weekend, so I can clear parts of Tuesday to get things setup properly. Since I will have a raisable desk I will need to check how I want things setup and based on my decisions I will need to buy some additional cables and things for cable management. I also need to look at power management and depending on the material of the table top I might look into drilling out a hole for cable management or to expose USB ports for example.
      So hopefully things will start to feel complete, and I can focus much better when I have the home office space properly setup.
      I can't wait!

      Waiting for order to set in again

      Things are a bit chaotic right now. Tying up loose ends at one project, prepping for the next and at the same time doing some design work and responding to incoming requests that are really flooding now. All this in a work environment that is a tad chaotic as my home office is waiting for deliveries.
      So, working from a kitchen table is not optimal to say the least, but it works. Hopefully this will be the last week that I will be doing that as I should get my new desk this coming week, or the week after that. This will give me a more secluded space in the bedroom where I will be able to focus better. With a raisable desk and a proper office chair my body will be most grateful as well I think, so I really look forward to that.
      Today I also got the news that my new screen and computer has been shipped, which means they will arrive later this coming week. Me and my wife have decided that some form of combo for TV and computer screen will be a good investment, so I am getting a huge LG 48" OLED 4K OLED48CX. It will be a bit of a challenge to have such a large screen, but I have looked at some tools to make it possible to focus work a bot better based on David Zhang's productivity video using the same display.
      In my last post I wrote about some other purchases I was planning and these have now all been delivered and sit ready to be placed in their right position on the new desk. I am very happy with the purchases and I really look forward to start using them more in my work.
      I have a feeling that my Mophie 3in1 charger will see my wife's phone snuck in there from time to time as she loves the wireless loading as well. For my Airpods Pro I use them quite a bit already, and I really love them so far. The ability to switch between noise-cancelling and hearing everything is great, not just when you are out walking, but also at home when the rest of the family is also around. The MX Keys keyboard is another thing that I can't wait to start using more as it feel very nice to type on and the possibility to switch between laptop and desktop is awesome. I might extend that to my iPadPro also if it will fit on the desk.
      As this will be my work station for a foreseeable future due to the state of the world these days I will start moving things over to PC from my Mac. By that I mean that I will have things like Office 365 and OneDrive there of course, but I will also start digging into Figma over Sketch to see how I like that. It will be more of a duplication as I will still use my Laptop for many things, or when I need to move away from the stationary office space.
      For my new computer I decided to invest a bit in a more powerful computer, so I can use it as both a productivity computer, but also as a gaming machine. It is not going to be a monster by any means, but it will do the job. I got great advice from @LordVektor that helped me make sure I put in good choices when selecting the components from the prebuilds provided by Komplett. Unlike most gamers I went for a silenced and "invisible" chassi since this one will sit in the bedroom and I did not fully load it with RAM or drives, allowing me to expand as I see fit.
      So, right now things are a bit chaotic in the seating department, but as soon as my desk and chair arrives I feel that I am going to be set up very well.
      Patience is a virtue they say, right? 😉

      A crappy week and something to look forward to

      This week I spent in bed mostly as I was home sick. Typically, this comes at a busy week with lots of fun things to do, both at work and privately. I had some setbacks on the Task manager as well, so I decided to pay for some help. On the upside however things are going well with building a new office space at home, which I very much look forward to.
      Being sick always suck and even if I still have some crap lingering in my joints that still hurt a bit, things are significantly better. Of course this came at the worst time with me having several sessions at work to get new work processes going, and I was working on the task management system.  I will pick this up again next week of course, but it cost time and that sucks.
      As for the task management system I am working with a developer I found on Fiverr to try to figure out how to manage the drag and drop functions. It is a one step forward and one step backwards kind of process, but we do the best we can with a setup that is so far from optimized for what I try to do. It is a bit frustrating as I could not really commit to it when being sick. We'll see how it evolves next week I guess.
      On the positive side however I am getting a new space to work from at home. I have had a sort of gaming spot in the hallway for a while. It is not really a great experience as I sit on a regular chair and my desk is only 40 cm deep with a  fixed height that is way too low for me. It works for short periods of time, like for gaming a few hours, but it is not a great experience for prolonged periods of time. Combined with a lot less movement working from home it has caused issues with my back.
      My wife suggested that we could move the wardrobes in our bedroom as they are standing in a sort of alcove inset in the wall. Since we are renting the apartment I checked with the landlord, and we have approval to move the wardrobes. So next week we get a carpenter coming by to help with that as there is some electrics that needed to be managed and of course securing the wardrobes in the hallway where we will move them.
      I have also ordered an adjustable desk to fit that alcove, so I can both stand or sit when I work. I also ordered a proper chair, so I get a good working situation when seated. As my keyboard I have for my PC is pretty old and the cord has been damaged I also invested in a new keyboard. As I prefer low profile keys I went for the MX Keys keyboard as it seem to fit my needs. I will also switch between my mac and the PC, which is easy to do as the MX Keys have dedicated keys for that. It also has both PC and Mac designations on the keys, which will be great.
      I will invest a bit more in this office space once I see how it will be setup. I will for example need to extend the network cable and do some cable management. I also plan to buy a wireless loader for my Apple devices, which I should have bought a long time ago. I will probably get the Mophie 3in1 charger, just so I can manage all my devices at once. I also plan on getting the Airpods Pro, not just for the video calls, but also for the gym that hopefully will soon be open again, so I can get back to that.
      Overall I am a bit tired from last week, but I feel very good about finally building a proper office space at home. I think it will be amazing, and it is all thanks to my amazing wife ❤️

      Task management and other fun stuff

      This week has been very productive. This is true for work where I held two pretty big training sessions, but also for the site where I built a task management system from scratch using Pages. This week has also been a busy week for recruitments and I have received five actual job offers this week alone.
      At work this week I held two training sessions for the client I am working for. One for portfolio management and one for requirement analysis. Both of these required quite a lot of preparations and with both training sessions being two hours long, I could definitely feel the price. Fortunately these things also give quite a lot of energy, so even if it drains you it also put just as much back. So I have felt very good this week I must say.
      This has also led to me taking on yet another crazy project (I know!). This time it is to build, or rather try to build, a task management system. I used Jira as the starting point, but with the aim to make something that land between Trello and Jira. Fast, easy to use and very lightweight. What I have now is very much an MVP, but I like it very much. The backlog of things I want to do is still quite long, but I am in no hurry. I am digging into JavaScript a bit more, trying to find solutions for how to sort and later drag and drop cards in a Kanban view. It's fun, and it feels good to have a good tool for task management at hand on the site as it make it much easier to use.
      Other than that  have been overly popular this week from headhunters and I have had no less than 5 job offers so far.  What is interesting is that the job offers are more on point than usual, and it seems that the salary they offer is more in line with what I expect for my experience and knowledge. I do get more than a few job offers over the year, but they are often not really something that fit me, or the salary offered is 20-50% below what I would even consider. It seems that the headhunters are stepping things up a bit and that companies out there are willing to pay for experience.
      So overall this has been a great week because not only have I accomplished a lot, but we also got some snow finally!
      I hope your week has been good as well and that life treat you well.

      Reflections on building a task manager

      It is kind of weird how your mind get wired to certain ways of working. Even more weird is when you are forced to do things differently you actually find that those ways may not be the best way to do things. When building the Task Management using IPS Pages I found this to be particularly true...
      Hierarchies
      Coming from 10 years working, designing and educating for Jira I had certain things hardwired into the way I designed the Task management database here on the site. The Hierarchy of issues for example has constantly been an issue in Jira. In Pages there are no hierarchies and after trying to hack it a bit I realized that I can actually have any hierarchy without having to build it.
      By adding a database relation field pointing to the same database I can create a bidirectional link between the tasks. I use this to allow each task to define a parent issue. By doing this I can create any structure I want. In the issue view itself this linkage is shown for the parent link, but it also shows that link from the other end. This allows me to show tasks as subtasks for any task that have set the task as its parent.
      I added a form below the subtasks that automatically add the parent link of the task you create them from. That makes it very fast to create subtasks as well.
      Show all and use the filters
      At first, I wanted to hide subtasks to get that same look as in Jira. Once I stepped away from the hierarchy idea I also realized that since I no longer had a hierarchy that was no reason to hide anything. Everything is just tasks to be done, and I added both the issue type and the assignee fields as filters. This makes it very flexible as I can show tasks on any level assigned to anyone, or I can just look at all activities at once.
      I think this will be even more powerful when I add the sorting feature, so I can drag and drop things to set the order of items. Even without that I really love the flexibility these filters provide.
      Notifications
      Notifications are something that is very annoying in Jira and at first I had my mind set on making sure you get notified when you get assigned and so on. Once I started to look into it however I realized that this is actually not something that benefit most users. I started to consider how many times I have set up rules for notifications from Jira just to get rid of them and how many times I actually had any action taken based on a notification.
      I realized that it is far better to communicate if I want to make sure the assignee take some form of action. This is very easily done using the comment form with a mention.
      A good way to challenge your views
      Overall I think I have challenged my views on what a task management should look and behave like. Old ways are not always the best, and it is refreshing to consider things from different angles because the platform forces you into new ways of defining your workflow.
      More lessons to be learned.
      I look forward to digging deeper into this and to see if I should add a second database for support requests, or use the same. The idea of one single entity for support kind of appeals to me to be honest, and I am playing with the idea of adding different issue types to different categories to some extent. I might even add support articles, so I can tie them into a support ticket and so on.
      There is so much to explore and learn.

      Building a taskmanager using only standard Pages functionality

      Yesterday I started playing around with a new database to see if it is possible to make a task management system using nothing but standard functionality in Pages. I am going for a list type of task management similar to Jira as the first step and so far it is going pretty well.
      The biggest challenge so far is of course that Pages do not have hierarchies. Task management should have at least tasks and subtasks, which is proving to be a bit challenging. My first try is based on just having a separate issue type called subtask that is not shown in lists, only if it is related to another issue. It is a crutch, but it seems to work so far.
      I am using categories as something between an Epic and a component, but it makes it fairly easy to manage that type of categorization. Labels are of course built in as are notifications, so that i nothing I have to worry too much about.
      A challenge I need to figure out if how to make fields editable in the front end instead of having to go through the edit form all the time. I can make the fields editable in the frontend just fine, but they are all tossed out in one place, so I need to figure out how to reposition them where I need them. I also need to make it so that people that can edit can see the edit fields and the ones that can not edit only see the output.
      Create new subtasks is another thing I want to find a good solution for. Just an input fields and a submit button would be ideal for quickly creating new subtasks inline. I can add the database relation in a hidden field and then refresh the issue to see the newly created subtask. It should work, but I need to find out how to do it as right now it is not working properly.
      This should be a fun side-project and later on I will try to add a drag and drop functionality for ranking in the list. I also will try to find a solution for making a kanban board with columns for each status, so I can drag and drop things. For this I will also need two states for issues, so I can have a backlog and a "sprint". For first iteration though I can probably just have a continuous work setup where all issues will show in the kanban.
      It is a fun little thing to play around with, but I do not put it high on the priority list at the moment.
      So it will be done, when it will be done.

      Time to work on a design system on top of IPS?

      The more I build, the more I see the need for a design system for JWSE. Not to replace the IPS underlying styles, but to extend on top of them. I have quite a lot of duplicated code right now from trying things out, and it makes sense to try to consolidate things into a more focused design experience.
      As with all sites where you explore and tinker around with things there will be a need to clean things up and optimize from time to time. I already started to explore a design system when I started this site, but I find it a bit hard to switch over to a different system just to document things.
      The question is if the problem is that working with IPS just fall outside of regular development processes since I do not really use an IDE or code repositories. Maybe I just have not found the right tool for me for this purpose. I am not sure, but I will explore it a bit in 2021. There is always the option to simply build a database for it right in IPS, which is an idea I am not terribly against to be honest.
      For the CSS I will start breaking things down in 2021 and define some standard classes that I use most. Tabs and forms for example makes sense to standardize since I use them quite a lot. I have already setup variables for colors and I will extend that a bit where it makes sense for a more functional CSS style.
      I do not plan to have a fully fledged Tailwind or Bootstrap setup, but at least some structure that makes it faster to add components that I use often. It also makes sense to define certain design elements such as colors, fonts and border radius for example. It also makes sense to have a standard definition of things like flexbox and a library of components.
      In the best of worlds this would allow me to simply drop in a custom CSS file in a new theme, change a few colors and then everything will work out of the box.
      It will be a fun project to play around with I think.

      The databases are coming along just fine

      The work with creating the new databases are moving along fine. The hosting database is getting finished and the company database is just missing the form design. The Product database is next on my list and after that I will focus on the Profiles database. Things are not moving fast, but steadily.
      Hosting Database
      The hosting database is coming along fine. The record view is pretty much done, and I am working on adding the category structure. Since there are quite a lot of countries in the world I found that I have to break some regions into subregions. I want to have icons that match the map of the section that forced me to remake the icons a bit, so I can map out the countries for each region in the larger map.
      Fortunately I found that Vemaps have great vector maps I can use for this. The biggest issue right now is to figure out what regions are since it varies quite a lot depending on what type of break down you want to do. This should be ready for its first iteration shortly I think.
      Products
      The Product database is next on my list of databases to finish. There are quite a few fields for that and a few are new features here on the site. I think this database will need a few iterations because there are so many ways to make this, and it will take a few attempts to get it right I think.
      At the moment I have added connections to several other databases, which looks good. I also added a gallery slider and some other goodies, so I am pretty happy with things right now. I still need to make a custom form for this database, so that is next on the to-do list.
      Roles
      The roles database is pending a bit. This is because I have not put my final thoughts on how this should look, or what information should be added. I have plenty of thoughts and at the moment it is a mix of traditional role definitions such as responsibilities, mandate and relations within the organization and information found in personas such as goals, motivations and pain points.
      I am also toying with the idea to add some personality sliders for things like introvert/extrovert and connections to certifications and education, people and jobs and assignments.
      Profiles
      The Profiles database is still very much a database in progress. I have some thoughts running in my mind, but nothing defined just yet. I want something like the Awesome People, yet more focused on a sort of online CV to promote yourself. Unlike  LinkedIn where the focus is on experience I want to focus on skill. I aim to connect these profiles with roles of course, so you can connect multiple roles that you feel that you are great at.
      Products allow you to show off your expertise, company show what company you are working at, and I might add a way to show previous companies as well. Of course, you should be able to add files such as a CV and a gallery for images of yourself or work that you have done. I might even build a special function for a portfolio...
      Personality I will add the DISC/16personalities as for Awesome people and I might even add a slider like in the Roles database. I will for sure connect to awards and things like certifications and probably to articles as well, so I can connect articles to profiles.
       
      Other Databases
      As you can see I already have some plans for additional databases such as Awards, Jobs & Assignments, Certifications and Courses & Training. I also have the Atlassian Apps database that I am working on. The way I can connect these make it interesting to create a web of databases. Considering how easy it is to set these up it also means I can do this pretty quickly.
      So things are coming along just fine, and I am having a blast building these databases!
       

      Hosting database with pricing tables

      As the companies' database is starting to look good I am looking at the first product based database, which is the Hosting database.  This is something I have wanted to do for a very long time and I did a first attempt back in 2009 that failed because I did not have the tools to make it a reality. Now I have the tools and I just need to figure out how to best make this as good as possible.
      The main focus of the Hosting Database will be the pricing table. The idea is to allow for three packages for each hosting offer. This way most hosting companies can fit their different plans into a nice comparison view. I will need to add some nice CSS accordions to the form to make it easy to work with, and it will need a ton of custom fields.
      This morning I created the new icons for the hosting part and set up the base category structure. I had an icon from back in 2009 in mind and when I searched for my old website I stumbled upon an interview I did with Tommy that sadly passed away in 2019. It made me a bit sad, but I know Tommy would love to see this new section as he loved services like this.
      So, I will continue building this and will make sure it will be a service worthy of an article or two. It is fun to read the ambitions I had back in 2009 are almost the same that I have today!
      Onwards!

      Companies database

      The first step towards setting up the new databases has been taken, and I now have a pretty good start I think. The basic template is there and the first countries has been added. The template for People work great and the other tabs are showing up as they should. I feel that this is a good start!
      Even though there are some CSS magic to be done still for mobile and tablet, I think things are looking pretty good already. There will be a lot of work setting up the countries, but other than that I think that the design is pretty much done. I decided to use a 7 continent setup and then have countries as subcategories. This should be sufficient, especially since I have set up the Industries field as a filter.

      For the company listings I designed it light, and I also added a color to the pinned and featured listings. That will come in handy to highlight special companies, but it can also be used down the road if I want to add a form of paid listing feature.

      The detailed view comes with a little backdrop in the header if you like that and some basic company related fields. I also bring in data from the People database and the Hosting database right now. I will add the Atlassian Apps database later as well and there is support to add as many tabs as I want down the road.

      For the People tab I am still playing around with it, but I can directly call the template I made for My Projects. This makes it very easy to just add the CSS to the page and then everything works perfectly. I will build up the People database with more data though and expand that information even more. For example, I am considering a "looking for work" feature like on LinkedIn.

      So far so good, next up is the hosting database and then the People database....

      2021 - I still have hope

      2021 is almost here and despite a world in flames filled with madness I still have hope. It is easy to focus on the negative in these times, but I refuse to get trapped in that negative spiral. I already have clawed through that earlier this fall and I plan to focus on positivity in 2021. Even more than usual.
      Rather than making resolutions or make promises that fail for 2021 I will simply focus on one single thing next year: Keep moving forward. No big plans, no fixed goals, just continuous momentum no matter how slow. Nothing perfect, just small increments of improvements. All the time.
      I will stop feeding the trolls in 2021 as well. There are a lot of angry, confused and stupid people out there and most of them swarm towards social media to unleash their madness. While it pains me to not point out the lack of logic in their feeble attempts to rationalize their inability to form coherent logic I have realized that it is a futile effort. I have already more or less left Facebook and will do the same with Twitter.
      I will consider what to do with Instagram, but it is a limited platform, so I will most likely dial that back as well in 2021. LinkedIn is one of the few platforms I will remain active on, mostly because it is a good platform to form useful connections rather than a platform for madness. I will still try out different new platforms that popup, but less active than before.
      Instead, I will focus on my website. It is what give me most satisfaction and now that I see some traffic coming in I feel the passion to write and build again. This is where my heart sings with joy, and it is here that I can make meaningful contributions to help others realize their own dreams. Even though I plan to write some controversial things here under my Debate category, I will make sure that critique is partnered with suggested solutions to make it constructive.
      So, for me, I still have hope for 2021, and I look forward to a new year filled with new teachings and explorations.

      2020 in retrospect was not a great year, but it had som highlights

      I think we can all agree that 2020 was not the greatest of years in general. Even though COVID-19 changed the world in 2020, and we lost a lot of people not all things was pitch black. For me the year got better with time because I started the year really bad even before COVID-19, but the end of 2020 was actually not that bad all things considered.
      Professionally
      I started out 2020 being almost burned out from after effects from a bad internal situation at Zington and a high stress situation in 2019. This situation escalated with new management at Zington that did not fit my view of good management and I choose to resign rather than stay in a work situation I was not happy with. I was not alone in taking this decision and after checking my options in the midst of the Corona outbreak I followed some colleagues to build up something new at Cartina.
      The first quarter of 2020 was really bad, but there was one thing that made everything awesome despite that and that was the assignment with ChessIT. Working with ChessIT was great, and it was exactly what I needed at the time. Great people, great attitude from all involved and the soothing work of making design again. This not only sparked my creative side during the project, it revived that passion I have for this website as well.
      The second quarter was a bit rough as I resigned from Zington and did not really have a plan going forward. I just knew I could not stay with Zington the way I felt at that moment. With COVID-19 raging across the world most companies stopped hiring and after some consideration I decided to follow some colleagues to Cartina. As I had worked with Cartina before on several occasions and with the opportunity to help build something new, this looked like a good fit for me. Even with a new employer it was still hard to find assignments, which was the same for most consultants at the time. I helped out with the new Cartina website and looked for assignments, but overall things was pretty slow.
      After the summer we managed to lure over our former boss Aki and also Margit. This is where things really started to turn around for me emotionally and searching for assignments got a big boost knowing I can always count on Aki and Margit to be there to support me when if I needed it. Never any pressure, just support and positive energy. We also added a nice CV tool that made applying to assignments so much easier, especially for me with so many roles I can take. Slowly the market started to change as well and where the market was reluctant to hire, I now got bombarded with offers. Most of them was for employment of course, but it did not take long before I had three projects landing in my lap. I have now concluded 2 of them and working on the third. For next year it looks like I have assignments at least until the summer.
       
      Personally
      After a rough patch in 2019 things was much better in 2020. My wife started working again after her studies and got a job she really likes and that seem to fit her perfectly.  My son started to find his place in school as well. After a nice vacation in Dalarna with Jenny's mother and a little balancing with Benjamin's medicine for ADHD he seems to have settled in and is doing well in school again. He also grew quite a bit and lost weight in the process, just like I did in his age. He also started working out at the gym and for the first time ever he actually enjoys gym at school, which is amazing.
      We had some big expenses at the end of the year for car issues and a cat that needed surgery, but overall this year has been pretty good for the family. I am gaining some pounds and need to get out more, but I am having fewer issues with my SHR since I stay home. I also don't really have any good place to work, which in combination with not enough exercise have given me some back issues. Nothing more than usual though, so overall things have been pretty ok.
       
      The website
      This website has been my savior this past year. There has been so much to learn, and I feel that 2020 was the year when the website really started to come together. I have several new sections that I have wanted to build for so many years that I finally could see come to life this year. The fact that I have several more coming next year just make my heart sing with joy.
      While I have been posting blog articles and slowly rebuilt the site after loosing all graphics back in 2019, things was a bit slow for the first half of the year or so. It was when I finally rebuilt the templates and moved from the SuperGrid app that I first used while learning how to build my own themes. With that knowledge I now feel that I can build pretty much anything in Pages.
      The big highlights however came at the end of the year when I built the database for My Book - working for real and then the redesign of the Movies app. I have been feeling bad about my book since it has been locked away in a software that I find hard to commit to opening. By moving things to a public database this becomes so much easier to access and work on. The fact that it is public also make it a bit more rewarding to write as I can get feedback on it.
      The Movies app was just a spur of the moment purchase as I love movies and TV Shows and spend quite a bit of time watching those. I also worked in a video store for several years, so the idea of building a database of movies and TV Shows have been a long dream of mine.
       
      Life in general
      If this year has taught us anything, then it is that change is painful and that even the smallest of problems can cause big disruptions. A small virus has pretty much crippled the entire world, and we will live with the effects of this for decades. Thousands of people have lost their lives and the situation have illuminated big problems in pretty much every country.
      In Sweden, it is our elder care, or rather lack thereof, that has become painfully obvious. It is nothing new, but we have ignored it for decades. Even if we focus on COVID-19 right now you can be sure that thousands of our elders have died needlessly from other viruses such as the flu due to the same lack of education and routines that is now killing our elders by the thousands.
      Hopefully we can make sure all who work with elder care at least get basic healthcare training, proper time to care for the elders that survive and of course that we have solid routines to prevent virus and bacterial spreading. As bad as things have been this year I do have hopes that those that survive will see better elder care in the future.
      For introverts this year has been the year when remote work finally became acceptable. We could see a huge spike in investments in the remote work sector and once the initial trial period was over most could see that remote work actually works very well for many in the IT sector. I have a feeling this will increase in 2021 as well and hopefully this will lead to a hybrid situation in the future that work for both Introverts and extroverts.
      I also think this year have shown the contrast between those that will sacrifice themselves to help others and those that care only about themselves. Never have I felt more despair than this year watching people willing to cause physical harm to others for selfish reasons. Never have greed and selfishness been more apparent to me than this year as more people are forced to deal with their inner demons in isolation or as desperation sets in due to loss of income. It is clear that as fear takes hold of our hearts we will lash out and show the worst part of ourselves.
      This year my respect for those that are willing to sacrifice to help others have grown to new heights. It is something amazing to see a person go through a literal hell to help others. To see people work beyond exhaustion or give freely of what little they have to ease the pain of others. These are the people that give hope in a world that seem to continuously drown in selfishness, envy and greed.
      2020 was a difficult year, but we will survive and move forward. I only hope that we have learned something from the suffering the world have endured. I doubt the greed will subside magically, but I have hope for a more tolerant world in the future...
       

      Carousel, new categories and Company profiles

      Today I look into Company profiles over at TechCrunch and try to figure out how ipsCarousel works while mind mapping the new categories for the site. There are still some days left on this year, so let's make the most of it!
      As I continue the planning for the site I look into CrunchBase from TechCrunch as inspiration for the Company database. Basically it is the tabbed design and some of the data fields I look at. I will start small and then build based on that I think. I have this idea that a user can add themselves to the company with the click of a button, but not sure how to actually do that. Yet. I will probably will start with something easier like directing the user to the people's database where they can connect their profile to a company.
      ipsCarousel is the feature that make those nice sliders in most apps. It is a great feature, but also very much undocumented. This goes for a quite a bit over at IPS, so I am considering making some sort of database for that. At least for the templates it should be easy to make a list of attributes that can be used to help people get started. For ipsCarousel however I will look at making a block or two into sliders as I found a forum thread with some basic info and some example code:
      <div class='ipsBox ipsSpacer_bottom'> <h2 class='ipsType_sectionTitle ipsType_reset'>{lang="featured_downloads"}</h2> <section id='elDownloadsFeatured'> <div class='ipsCarousel ipsClearfix' data-ipsCarousel data-ipsCarousel-fullSizeItems data-ipsCarousel-slideshow data-ipsCarousel-shadows='false'> <ul class='cDownloadsCarousel ipsClearfix' data-role="carouselItems"> {{foreach $featured as $file}} {template="featuredFile" group="browse" app="downloads" params="$file"} {{endforeach}} </ul> <span class='ipsCarousel_shadow ipsCarousel_shadowLeft'></span> <span class='ipsCarousel_shadow ipsCarousel_shadowRight'></span> <a href='#' class='ipsCarousel_nav ipsHide' data-action='prev'><i class='fa fa-chevron-left'></i></a> <a href='#' class='ipsCarousel_nav ipsHide' data-action='next'><i class='fa fa-chevron-right'></i></a> </div> </section> </div> This weekend I also went over the categories on the site and made a little mind map over the databases and sections using XMind. This is because I see that the IPS content will grow, and it is a niche that have potential for the future. I also see that I need to add a new section for Databases where I will place People, Companies and Roles. I have also mapped out Section specific databases like a hosting database, Atlassian App database, Management Frameworks database and so on.
      2021 will be an exciting year for sure 🙂

      Contemplating a bit...

      As this year slowly comes to an end I find myself filled with inspiration. Looking past the situation in the world these days things are not that bad to be honest, and I have a fire in my heart to build. I have struggled a bit with that this year, but now I really feel that my heart long to build and to write again.
      Sure finances could be better as there have been some big costs lately and a long time without proper income. Still, I am more fortunate than most and as financial things rarely matter to me, as long as I can still pay my bills and have a little something left over.  Health wise I am mostly tired, and I don't get out much. It will get better as light returns now and hopefully the vaccination can make it safe to hit the gym again soon.
      When it comes to building I feel that I am in a good place right now. I am looking into the next step and strangely enough I stumbled upon a topic on the IPS forums about a job board. It seems a lot of people want something like that and as I started to think about it, I realized that the solution for a job board actually fit what I have in mind for this site, but for a few different things.
      I already have a database for people (two actually if you could Awesome People) and I was planning on adding a database for companies. This was first meant for Hosting companies, so I was thinking that I should add a database for services to that as well. Now if I think about a job board it is three types of data:
      The Job Offer The company that offer the job People that want the job So if I make a database for Companies, then I can pretty easy add different offers and then connect them to different offers or services. That would work well with my thoughts to have databases for people, companies and services/products. People will be located under Community while Companies and Services / Products will be located under Resources.
      There are now quite a bit of links under Resources however, and I might move things into a new section called "Databases".  This makes sense to keep things organized, but it makes the footer a bit complex, so I may need a new design for that area. Overall I need to sit down and focus a bit on the structure of the website going forward.
      Things are good now 🙂
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