Wrafter Writes

There’s a suspected car bomb incident in London this morning. The device in question has been made safe. There was no explosion, and no injuries. For this I am relieved.

The BBC News website quotes an “intelligence source” here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6252276.stm, saying “All options, including the Irish, are open at this stage” in reference to who might be responsible for the suspected terror attack.

This shouldn’t NEED to be said, but with such a sloppy turn of phrase chosen by this “intelligence source” and then quoted by the BBC, I’d like to point out that the term “Irish” refers to the population of Ireland as a whole: old, young, male, female, north and south, catholic and protestant, muslim, jew and atheist alike. It’s a rather large brush that has been used to paint the canvas – and a bloody insult. I’m not impressed.

Over the last two years I’ve had various good web ideas. Two of which I’ve gone ahead to build and put live. One was Post Expression, the other, soon-to-launch is bicingTag.

I’m involved in web design you see. So when I get good web ideas I set about building these things myself, or working with people who have skills I don’t, to build them.

Post Expression is a fabulous idea, but the programming of it, done off-shore was torturous. The developer might take a hike for three days and leave us to just… sit there. Or some element might get added, and when we’d try it, it was full of bugs. The process of programming took so many months that all my enthusiasm for what is a novel concept just disappeared.

I find the same with bicingTag right now. It’s taking long than planned. I’m going thru page after page with the developer (different guy to Post Expression) and finding more and more to do as each page passes. I mean, basic example: there’s a photo upload button, and when you upload the functionality will accept jpg, not gif. Why Not?! When it gets uploaded there’s no option to delete the image and replace it with another image. Why not?! There has to be, for usability sake, and therefore I’ll sit here, with my eyes closing from boredom and frustration boiling in my veins, while I ensure this basic stuff gets done. He’s a good guy, the programmer, and seem interested in doing the work work well, so we’ll get through it. Again however, my enthusiasm for a good idea is being diluted to such a point, where I’m afraid that when the site goes live, I won’t have any energy left to promote it: just like what happened to Post Expression.

My advise to anyone in my position: get someone else to do it. Or else it will kill you. I can’t see myself taking on another project like this for a very long time.