Monday 28 February 2011

#398 - Tweet! Tweet!

It has been a while since my last entry - but that's just because I've been working very hard on the Malt Madness site itself. One recent enhancement is the inclusion of a Twitter feed on the home page, which will enable me to refresh the site more frequently from anywhere in the world. And there's even a special page with more tweets. (And some clandestine music you might be able to enjoy if you can find the hidden buttons that will reveal it...)

I imagine that things might be getting a little confusing for the people that have been following Malt Madness and the "spin-off" Malt Maniacs for a few years. First, there was the separate Malt Maniacs site (and Serge's "Whiskyfun" sister site, of course). And then the maniacs appeared with their own "group" on Facebook... And then some more maniacs started their own sites... And then Malt Maniacs appeared on Twitter... And then Facebook sort of abanded their "groups" idea... And then even more certified malt maniacs launched their own web sites... And then Malt Madness appeared on Twitter... Indeed, very confusing... 

The root of all this evil is NetObjects Fusion. When I built the very first pages of the Malt Madness site in 1995, I did so by writing HTML code directly. I moved to Netscape Composer not long after that - and finally to the antique WYSIWYG editor "NetObjects Fusion" in 1998. At the time, it was a fairly brilliant program that was a serious competitor for Macromedia's Dreamweaver. Well, somewhere along the way something went horribly wrong. The result is that, in practical terms, the software is not supported any more. There is no meaningful development, so there is simply no way to develop the current web site(s) much further in technological terms. So, any further evolution will have to use other platforms and technologies as well - like social media, mobile phones, etc.

Anyway, with entry #400 coming up, I suddenly noticed that I haven't posted any fresh tasting notes on this blog recently. There actually has been more than enough fresh material in the profiles in the distillery data section and on the malt maniacs monitor, but I haven't been able to posting anything here yet. Well, as luck would have it, I've just received an interesting sample from Duncan Taylor. However, I'm still struggling with the after-effects of a nasty cold. So, look for that in my next entry. 

In fact, you might as well stop reading right now if you'd like to read about whisky any time soon. I'll be abusing this blog to keep those who want to know about my life informed - until I've reached a healthy weight again and can enjoy more whiskies than the two or three drams a week I'm allowing myself right now. Check out Malt Madness (or follow me on Twitter) if you'd like to get back to whisky...

Thanks to the aforementioned cold (and the very crappy weather we've had over the past three weeks), I haven't been able to do much exercise over the past few weeks. As a result, my weight is still bouncing between 105 and 106 kilo's. So, I've only lost some six kilo's since January 1 - the next six will probably be quite a bit harder. Still, I have some high hopes to get under 100 kilo's again by June 1.

Further updates on my life: Remember my post about my smart phone? Well, I decided to upgrade to a Blackberry to be able to check my e-mail - with a Vodafone account so I could keep the same mobile number. And then it turned out that I couldn't actually keep my own number. Or check my e-mail for that matter, at least without paying some extra wads of cash to Vodafone AND Blackberry each month. FUKNUGGETS! To cut a long story short: I now have YET ANOTHER mobile phone. It's probably less smart than the previous two, but at least it can't be used as a conduit for commercial arse-raping by "the system". 

OK, that's it for now - more later...

Sweet drams,