Wednesday 13 February 2008

Musing on Websites and Blogs

This whole internet phenomenon continues to amaze me. As one who has worked a lifetime in IT I marvel at the use of graphics, communications networks, database technology and so much more that was considered "difficult" just a very few years ago, but has now become commonplace.

My background is as a programmer and systems analyst, but starting in a very different world from today's wealth of multi-media. Working in the computer laboratory at Salford University, supporting the NAG librarary we thought using a programme to do matrix arithmetic or seeing the GINO-F graphics libarary draw a gingerbread man, was cutting edge - I wonder how many people who use a graphics editor and rotate a picture through 90 degrees have any inkling of the mathematics behind ther actions?

Writing COBOL programmes for stock control for BICC in the mid 1970s was very different to the development I see happening in my own company, using tools like VB.net with sophisticated development environments - no queuing to submit a stack of punched cards then wait a day for the results for today's developer!

I developed my own website Travels with my Digital Camera to learn HTML, PHP and MySQL. It probably helped quite a bit that I have a programming background so database design and structure held no fears, but it is also possible that I have limited my horizons by my own thoughts of what is and is not possible.

Since signing up for the blog, I've also discovered Google AdSense, so having incorporated some ads on my site (and blog) I am confidently sitting back and waiting for the cash to roll in.

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