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Back to Basics - the new JWSE

Design, Development, Invision Community, Thoughts,
I have spent a few days playing around with the new Invision Community version. It feels really great, and I have a nice starting point now, I think. While there are some things that feel a bit clunky, these will all be ironed out in the coming months, I am sure. What remains for me now I to start preparing the data to make sure it is ready for when V5 finally drop.

The new Tags system
The new tags system is a big change, so I need to decide on how to use that, since it kind of doubles what I have been trying to do with Databases a bit. It is working very well and the only thing I don't like about is that it is not currently possible to work very much with it, so it becomes a bit stale.
On the upside, I can attach pretty much anything I want to it, so it is just a matter of if we can extend the tags template with data from a database or not. It might be as simple as figuring out how to move certain things around so we can add the widgets below the header and intro text...

Tags will be more interesting as well...
One thing I will work on is how to take more advantage of the Tags system, but also the Forum setup. What I might end up doing is to make certain apps for example into Tags, and maybe even allow them to have their own subforum.
This is something that I can use both for financial reasons, but also to connect closer with certain app companies.

Starting simple
I am going to start simple and see what I really, really want to add instead of taking everything that I currently have and rebuild everything again. I feel I want to focus more on content than bloating things by building things that are too complicated.
Don't get me wrong, I will still play around and try things, but that will be something I will focus less on in the next iteration. This is because I want to be able to work with the website in a much more standardized way moving forward.

Fewer colors, less clutter
While I have always loved color coded sections, I want to tone that down a lot for V5. While it is fun to play around with, I want to try a more toned down design this time around. I have tested this on the Alpha site and I like the way it looks and feels with a more uniform design.
 
I am excited!
I have been missing to have something to work on, and this new setup is something I feel very excited about. I now feel that this is something I can finally start planning around, and I will start the structure work as soon as I can. There will be several updates to this website when it comes to structure and the content will be updated accordingly.
This feels amazing, and I can't wait to get started with the new V5 version of Invision Community!
 
By 💫 Jimi Wikman in Thoughts ·

Committing to this site again - Rebuilding

Design, Development, Invision Community, Thoughts,
With Invision Community V5 slowly creeping closer to release, I am in planning mode to renew this site again. As I am no longer a consultant and I am fully committed to the Atlassian Ecosystem, I feel it is time to renew this site accordingly. I think this is an urge I have felt for a while and now that my life has changed due to my diagnosis that I have Diabetes, I am eager to do a fresh restart!
I know this is a little counterintuitive, since I just a year ago split things up and created a new site for Atlassian. I am well aware of this, but it makes sense to me right now as I am rebranding myself a bit. I have not yet decided what to do about Atlasstic, but I will take a moment to take a decision on that after the summer, most likely.
So, what are the plans for this site, then? Well, to be honest, there are not a lot of things that will change. The most noticeable change will be a new design based on the V5 platform. I will also bring more focus to the Atlassian Ecosystem, making the ways of working separate, but still very much a part of the content.
The way this will be done is that I am restructuring the Forum first to try out the structure. The way I am thinking right now, and that might change as I work on this, is that the site will be divided into 4 different parts:
Personal Atlassian Ways of Working Interesting  
Personal
This will be very similar to today, and it will be my own personal area to present myself. My blogs will be here, my projects, my gallery and my awesome people. Information about me, of course, and whatever else I feel like exploring from a personal perspective. This is not a focus on the site, but I will promote certain parts in some areas as a way to position myself on the site.
Atlassian
This is now the main focus of the site. This is the area that I will try to build a community around, and I will focus on Articles, Videos, News and the forum. I will also revive the databases for Atlassian Products, Companies and Atlassian Marketplace Apps where the focus will be on the Atlassian products first. All areas of the site will focus on the Atlassian
Ways of working
This is the secondary focus of the site, which is a shift as this used to be the primary focus. While these are areas are very important part of the Atlassian Ecosystem, they are supplemental and as such I want to place them in a less focused position. My thought today is that content related to Ways of working will be separate to really provide focus on the Atlassian content and the ways of working separately.
Interesting
This is also not a focus area, but more of a focus area for very specific topics. These topics will be connected to the Ways of working content to prevent too much fragmentation and since the areas are kind of related. They will be placed in a separate section to allow focused content, but otherwise they will be grouped together with Ways of working as a separate content group.
 
The new design
The new design will be influenced by the new Jira design language and the new Invision Community V5 design language. That means that I am aiming for a lighter, and softer, design than what I usually make. For example, I will start looking into making new icons for the Atlassian products and a new set of line art icons for the website. I will also update the colors a bit to fit a softer design language.
Example of the new Jira design language.

Things will be a bit messy for a while
As I am restructuring the content, things will be a bit messy. As this is still waiting for the Invision Community V5 release, I do not expect that this will happen before the summer. This is not just because of V5 though, I also need to keep up with the videos and I have a very hectic time ahead of me at work that will affect the pace of which I do this.
The important part for me is that I am feeling inspired again and that I can get my fingers "dirty" again writing code and doing design work. I have missed not having the energy for that for a very long time. When I also get back to the gym, I think my energy levels will be even higher and that should lead to a lot of new fun things here!
By 💫 Jimi Wikman in Thoughts ·

My Current Status - My Status and why I have not uploaded videos in a while

Health, Personal,
For a while now, I have not been feeling 100% and a few weeks that culminated with me ending up in the Emergency Room for not being able to breath. Fortunately I quickly recovered and it seems that the loss of breath was a combination of a massive pollen release, my wife cleaning the bathroom with some heavy duty chemicals...and something else.
As the clean air took care of my allergic reaction I also took a lot of tests. One of those tests was Glucose to see my blood sugar levels and those tests were very high. I took some additional tests and a long time blood analysis and was diagnosed with Diabetes.
This did not really come as a surprise as I have been suspecting this for a while. Since my dad also has diabetes and it is hereditary, I have been expecting it sooner or later. I also have been very thirsty, lost weight and been very tired, which are also signs of diabetes.  I also have been craving sugar a bit more than usual for almost a year now.
I guess I just did not want to admit it to myself, so I kept ignoring it and hoping it was something else that I could just shake off. I should have known better, but it is easy to be wise in retrospectives or something like that.
I have now been taking pills for the diabetes for two weeks and I feel a lot better. I still have insulin so I don't have to mess with that and I have diabetes type 2, which is the milder of the two. From a diet perpective a lot has changed and I am back on Lifesum again checking my food and trying to figure out what is bad and what is really bad.
I also got new medicine to try out for my SHR that is triggering badly now with the massive pollen releases that seems worse than ever this year. So far they actually seem to help a bit, even if i get a bit tired from it. I also got a new nose spray that is really helping and my breathing is so much better now thanks to that.
While going to the ER is not something to recommend, in this case it seems to have been a blessing in disguise. Finding out that I have diabetes so I can take steps for that was very much needed I think.
So I am catching my breath a bit, but I am still planning massive changes to this site as soon as I can. I will obviously continue to release more videos on my YouTube channel and I have a big backlog for that already!
Life goes on.
By 💫 Jimi Wikman in Health ·

2024 and a new beginning

Design, Development, Invision Community, Thoughts,
For a while now I have been absorbed in my work. In fact, most of 2023 I was 120% focused on it and as a result I have neglected this site. As I passed the new year, I felt this changed a bit. I am still very much focused on my work, but more at 100% instead of 120%. That means that I am now looking into how to get back to this site and what I should do with it.
Rebranding
One of the main things that I will do is to rebrand. I have already done that on my Social Media, and it is now time to do so here on this site as well. The rebranding is a fairly simple rebranding with colors and a new logo. I would like to wait for Invision Community 5 to drop, but since there is no word on when that can happen, I might have to start before this happens. I already have the starting point of the rebranding setup, and it is just a matter of completing the design aspect of this.
Based on the new theme editor, it looks like redesigning the site will be a lot different, so I will see how to handle that and what it means for setting up a design specification in Figma.
 
Refocus
I have always had a hard time focusing on just one area, but with the rebranding and my new direction in life, I feel that I now have a clear path in one focused area. This is of course Atlassian and I will refocus this website accordingly. This means that I will promote myself as an Atlassian expert and I will focus the content around the Atlassian products.
Due to the refocus, I will change the content as well so it is more focused on the Atlassian products. I will still write about other things, but the main focus will be on the Atlassian products.
 
YouTube and News
Part of my rebranding, I am also putting a lot more focus on YouTube. Unlike most YouTubers, I am not just doing tutorials, but I also put focus on news. This is something I enjoy doing, and I want to bring this to this site as well. I already have a basic setup in my Stories database, but I want to change that a bit to make it more focused and easier to curate.
As I have a setup where I use Feedly and Zapier to organize and push news to this site, I want to expand on that. I just need to make sure I do not just repost content, as many of Atlassian's feeds are full articles. So there need to be some curation going on there to remove images and ensure that the news only contain a snippet of the articles rather than the full content.
If done correctly, it should create a pretty good news section that I can then enrich with my videos and articles.
Speaking of my Videos, I need to revise my Video section since it will be more in line with what I have created over at Atlasstic. The difference will be that I will split the videos into a section for just my video and one section for other content creators. I might make two databases just for this, but we'll see what make sense as I start working on it.
 
Moving to .com instead of staying on .se
As my .se is kind of polluted with years of experimenting, I might move to my .com domain for a fresh start. It would probably be the easiest way to rebuild this site, as I can just clone this setup and reassign the license when I am ready. I have not really decided what to do as it has implications beyond the site itself and I can just as well just transfer the data to a dev site and clean up this site if I want.
 
Planning what to keep and what to remove
Looking into the current structure, I am trying to make some plan for what to keep and what to remove, or perhaps archive is the better word. I have a few areas that I want to keep the way they are and a few where I feel I need to do some serious changes. The biggest change will of course be to go from a wide range of topics to a focused Atlassian site.
The About Me section will of course remain pretty much the way it is. I might bring back the Movies section and I will of course update my projects since it is not really complete yet.
The Articles section will be updated with a new categorization, and the Forum will absolutely be updated with new discussion areas. When it comes to the databases like companies and Atlassian products, I will look into how I can use them and what benefit I will have from linking things to them.
 
New functionality as part of the new license model
As Invision Community have changed their licensing model, we now get all products. This means that we will get the Blogs and the E-commerce functionality, as well as the current apps. I am not really sure how to utilize these, but I have a few ideas. The blogs are easy to figure out, as I can just let people write on my website if they want.
I might take advantage of the E-commerce app to sell advertisement or to let companies add themselves to the companies' database, for example. I might even build new databases for different things for this purpose, or maybe just for donations or something like that.
I am sure I will figure something out.
 
Building a community
With some of the new functionality coming with Invision Community, I look forward to building a community again. With the new focus, I feel that it makes sense to take advantage of things like the new community expert functionality for example, but also to take the badges' system for a new spin.
 
I have some brainstorming to do
I think you can see that I have some brainstorming to do, and I am very much looking forward to it!
2024 is going to be an amazing year, I think.
By 💫 Jimi Wikman in Thoughts ·

I finally got a Cintiq.

Design, Thoughts,
After many, many years I finally decided to invest in a Wacom Cintiq. I picked the 22'' because I always wanted a big screen to draw on, and the price was very good. I don't have a lot of room for another big screen on my desk, but it actually fit pretty well once I made some adjustments. While it is heavy and not that easy to move around, it is not a big problem if I want to put it away and play games for example.
The reasons for wanting a Wacom Cintiq are many of course, but the main reason is that I am a visual person and often want to see my thoughts drawn out if that makes sense. I often scribble ideas and thoughts on whiteboards and on paper when I do deep thinking. These thoughts are often difficult to share, but with a digital medium that problem goes away.
I also take notes in meetings where I scribble down things that needs to be done or take actions on. This I can do on my iPad, but I tend to do that in a notebook instead. This I now also can do very easy on the Cintiq and I can combine that with drawings and other things if I want.
After trying a few apps out for this I have landed in Nebo since it has the features I want. The most important aspect is that it comes with an infinity canvas, meaning I can scale it anyway I want without limitations in height and width. That provides me with the ability to extend in any directions when I need it. Nebo also comes with a decent set of pencils and a nice color palette that you can set yourself. It has copy and paste and scaling objects and a dual setting for eraser so I can remove whole objects or erase small areas only. It also features a dark and light mode and you have some options for setting background patterns and colors.

Another way to use a Cintiq, which I had not considered, is to actually screen share from it and use that as a whiteboard in presentations or meetings. This is very useful, especially since I can screenshot something and then bring in as an image to draw on. As I am rolling out a big Academy program soon, I have a feeling this will be rather useful.
One interesting thing is that a long time ago I bought an Apple Magic Trackpad, but I never started using it because it was not working the way I hoped on my PC. So it has been collecting dust for a few years and I was contemplating getting rid of it. As it turns out Nebo have a zoom function, but it does not seem to work with a mouse. So I just tried it with the trackpad and it works like a charm. It is extra nice since I use my left hand now to zoom, pan and tilt things, which is new to me.
After just a few days with my Wacom Cintiq 22'' I am very happy with it.
I will probably play around with it in Photoshop later to try to make some drawings as well. I have not really done any drawings in years and I have never done it in Photoshop so that will be a learning experience.
I feel that this was a very good investment.
By 💫 Jimi Wikman in Thoughts ·

Going back to basics - making a change

Thoughts,
In the last 6 months, a lot has changed in my life. Not in a bad way, quite the opposite, but I am struggling a bit when it comes to this site as it has become a bit too big for me. So, as I wrote in my last blog post back in September, I am splitting things up when it comes to content. I am also rebuilding this site to be more personal focused.
I have already disabled several sections and will update the navigation to better fit the new focus here. All things related to Atlassian I have moved over to Atlasstic.com, or are rebuilding there. I will keep the articles because I think they add a bit of value, but the other databases will be removed until I see a use for them again.
The sections will all go away, and I will pretty much focus on the About Me section instead. I will also move a lot of things towards the Atlassian products. This means that I am building a combined Atlassian setup with the Atlasstic.com website for support and documentation.  With the new Gallery upgrade, I will rework that area to be more used as well.
I will remove most of the users as I am getting some spammers in here now. Instead, I will manually curate anyone who want access to make sure I know who is here and why. I will probably use Jira Service Management for that purpose, because JSM is pretty awesome.
I am also considering moving my Book to Confluence since I constantly feel that I am getting stuck because of the tool and Confluence is easier to use I think. We'll see how that turns out when I have everything setup when it comes to the Atlassian Tools.
Overall I am in a good place and working on this change for this website feels right. I just need some time to get it done properly, so expect things to be a bit messy here for a while.
It feels good to be creative again.
By 💫 Jimi Wikman in Thoughts ·

Splitting things up a bit, maybe...

Thoughts,
At the moment, I am considering a split of content for this website. The reason for that is that the site is getting very heavy and a bit difficult to navigate. It also feels a bit unfocused and I feel that maybe it is time to change that as I am moving into year 4 of this incarnation of the site. It is not something that comes without a cost however...
As you might have noticed, I have not been very active here for a while. That is because I have not felt inspired and because I have been a bit low on energy for a while. The idea of splitting content is of course nothing new, as it is always on my mind. A split of content however comes with a cost and I am not sure if it is a cost that I am willing to pay, or if it will be a good thing long term.
Every time you divide your attention, it comes with a mental cost, as split your attention in multiple areas and content switching occur. Time is also a factor and with my work time is not something that I have a ton of. At the same time, this also provides an opportunity to focus on specific topics, which might improve the quality of the content you produce.
 
So I am a bit torn on what to do next.
 
Where I am right now in my thoughts is to split out the methodology sections to a separate site and then make a third site just for Atlassian content. This would make the content a lot more focused, but it would also split my attention and it would cost a lot more, of course.
I am looking into the possibility to set up a second site at the moment and I am playing around a bit with a new design for it. This would be the site for methodologies, where I would post about the different disciplines and my thoughts on work processes and ways of working. The idea of adding a dedicated site for Atlassian has been around for a while as well, but up until recently I have not seen the need for it. As I am getting ready to focus more on video content, however, that is also something I am considering.
If I decide to move forward with this, I will need to consider the implications that will have on my YouTube channel, for example, but also how I use social media in general. I might split YouTube into two channels, one private and one for Methodology and Atlassian. I think that should work, but I might also split into three if I think that will make sense.
Besides the higher focus, I also feel that this could be a good split from a creative perspective. One of the reasons that I am feeling a bit low on energy is that I lack a creative outlet. Creating two new websites would absolutely take care of that problem. Another reason is also that I have the need to clean things up and simplify things, and again this would certainly happen if I split things up into multiple sites. The last reason is that I am interested in if I can build a community again and perhaps monetize on YouTube.
Financially, I am looking at investing into not just more domain names, but also licenses and server space. While this is not a lot of money all things considering, it is something that I think I should try to compensate for in the long run. This is where I think that I can add a small income for in the form of sponsorship and of course monetizing on YouTube.
---
So, there are some planning to do and I feel excited just planning things right now. We'll see how things go from there, but don't be surprised if there will be a new website or two coming your way in a near future 😉
 
By 💫 Jimi Wikman in Thoughts ·

Seeing clearly again - getting new glasses

It has been a while since I wrote here, and it is because I have had this inner stress. A lot of things are going on in life right now, and it has affected me a bit more than I realized. This has caused me to end up in a state of frustration and sort of state of urgency because there are so many things all jumbled up in my head. With this in mind, I decided to take a first step towards making this better, and that is to get new glasses and slow things down a bit.
Anyone who have followed my blogging over the years, or know me, also know that the first quarter of a new year is usually a more quiet period for me. Not only do my mind run all over the place with all the new things I want to do for the new year, but I also have a low period, since I have many memories related to this period. Finally, I tend to reflect a lot this period as it is the darkest time of the year, and it is a natural breakpoint for many things.
I don't get depressed, though, just low on energy and focus inwards more. It is quite common for me to feel restless, like I do now, where I have a hard time focusing on one thing as my mind want to do many things at once. It may sound annoying to be fractured in your mind, and it can be. Furthermore, it also a time when I kind of collect energy for the burst of creativity that always seem to happen around this time, when the light returns.
What I often do to transition from this inwards and chaotic period to the more focused and creative one is that I try to find one change to make as the catalyst. This year, that catalyst is to get new glasses. It is something that I have needed for a long time, but I have put that off because it is a very expensive experience and while I make good money, I have pushed that in front of me since I know the cost it will entail.
This time around I went to Synsam in Vallentuna, which was my first visit there. As expected, I need multiple glasses, but what I did not expect was how good the experience was. Don't get me wrong, I have never had a bad experience getting glasses, or lenses, but this was by far the best experience I have ever had. Not only do I feel that testing my eyesight was better than ever, resulting in crystal clear reading, but the whole staff was above and beyond in their service mindedness. It felt great to be honest, and having my wife there to help select the frames was even greater.
In a few weeks, I will have three pairs instead of one, which will be interesting. My current glasses are progressive, and they have served me well, but they are old and no longer fit me eyes properly. They are also broken and scratched, which makes for a less than enjoyable experience. So I really look forward to getting new glasses that are optimized for different things. I will get a pair of progressive glasses that are photochromic as my out and about glasses, one pair for working in front of the screen and one for reading.
I am looking forward to these new experiences.
Pun intended 😉
 
By 💫 Jimi Wikman in Thoughts ·

Affixes and Prefixes for Roles and a bad start for The Flexible Atlassian Setup

This week has been a bit up and down, but as always there has been progress. I feel that the need to define things are getting more and more important, so I have started working on the Flexible Atlassian Setup, with various degree of success. I also just added a new category in the Roles playbook for affixes and prefixes, which I also will add into the roles themselves. I have also updated the Fontawesome I use here and done a ton of bug fixes. I also have played a bit of Path of Exile, which has been frustrating and rewarding.
The Flexible Atlassian Setup
This has been a focus for me this week, and I have started to add some content to the playbook. I also recorded the introduction, which is based on a presentation that I made a new PowerPoint template for last weekend. As it has been a while since I recorded anything, I was pretty happy with the 30+ minute video, until I realized I had no sound in the video...
So I will make a new attempt later for this. With sound checks.
When it comes to the documentation, I am slowly adding that to the playbook. I have started adding the design principles, the issue types and the workflows, since those will be in the first videos. I am working on an update of the workflow design for Build that  have designed in Figma, and I will add details on the work processes soon. These descriptions will have references to Roles, so I also want to make sure I have a start on that database as well.
The Roles database get affixes and prefixes
The roles database is still in progress, but the base is there, and I just need to finish up the templating. This morning I added a new category that I want to focus on first, before adding more roles. This new category is for affixes and prefixes, which refer to where a role belong and what responsibility is expected. By defining for example what a leader or architect means, then we can better understand the roles that are constructed in a conflicting way. Like a Scrum Manager, for example, which is an oxymoron and an artificial construct that does not exist as a role in Scrum.
Speaking of Scrum, I have a playbook planned for methodologies, but I have not yet decided on the format...
Font Awesome 6.0 and bug fixes
As you might have noticed, some icons have changed on the site, and that is because I have updated my kit to the 6.0 version that was released recently. I have also, slowly, been fixing bugs in the new templates, but also updated some things in the theme itself. This will continue for quite some time, as I have a pretty long backlog of bugs and theme changes that I need to do, mostly to the basic relationship templates.
Skills database is in the works...
I have started mapping out an embryo for this database, which I will need in multiple places, like My Projects and the upcoming People database. There will be a lot of categories for this, as I will try to keep the structure short and deep rather than long and flat. So I am starting out with four main sections: Tools, Methodologies, Areas of expertise and Social.
Since Invision Community Pages does not have cascading custom fields, it means that each skill will need to have multiple items, one for each level of skill. I intend to start with three levels: Beginner, Experienced and Expert. I know there are other standards, but I feel these three levels fit well within IT where we also have three levels of experience for roles with Junior, Senior and Expert.
Adding all of these will take quite a lot of time, but as I don't need to write a lot in terms of description for each skill initially, I think I just need to start mapping out the most common tools and methodologies and work from there. The format will be skill name and then level, I think, so something like this: "Adobe Photoshop - Experienced". I might play around with symbols as well, we'll see.
 
Playing Path of Exile
I have returned to POE again as this league looked fun and I don't really have anything else I feel like playing at the moment.  POE and I are always in conflict because I have this hate/love relation to the game. On one hand, I love the customization and the loot, but on the other hand, I can get really frustrated over the passive skill tree and the sheer complexity of the game.
Last league I tried a toxic rain build and I liked it since it is more of a passive build, but this league I went for a Spark character as starter. While it is not bad, it is just spamming ark and overall it felt a bit lackluster. So I did a second character and went for a blade vortex build, which felt much better.
I am just starting mapping and both characters had that same feeling when you kind of hit a wall with your build, and you just get frustrated.  Usually this happens in act 6 when your resistances drop like a rock, but I also felt it going into maps. This is because both these builds require a bit of investments to get their defenses up, and even with that they are not very tanky.
With my blade vortex Occultist I had to re-gear pretty extensively to get battle ready as I had almost no defensive layers with less than 100 in armor, low evasion and maybe a hundred or so on Energy Shields. I also had I think 18% or so in fire resistance and did not cap out cold and lightning. I could still kill pretty much anything almost instantly, but I would also instantly die if I got caught with something.
Now I have full 75% resistances and a decent chunk of armor, evasion and energy shield to take the edge off things. I will do some ascension paths today and level up a bit, so I can switch to the correct weapons I already have in store. I will also need to invest in the passive tree more to get the full effect of the setup.
It is interesting though how life is often like POE...
Life often feels like this as well, I think. You hit a plateau and life just become frustrating, then you make a few adjustments, and it is smooth sailing again.
By 💫 Jimi Wikman in Thoughts ·

Configure browser push notifications

Chrome (Android)
  1. Tap the lock icon next to the address bar.
  2. Tap Permissions → Notifications.
  3. Adjust your preference.
Chrome (Desktop)
  1. Click the padlock icon in the address bar.
  2. Select Site settings.
  3. Find Notifications and adjust your preference.