Demon's days numbered...

I've had the website for Hodges' model on Demon since 1998 and for many years things never changed in terms of the space provided for websites and facilities. That said I was never going to strain the bandwidth although I did fall foul early on with some traffic violations. For many years though it was 'steady'.

Over the past few months what is a static website - no database, no dynamic content - has totally given way to a static service and one that looks set to disappear in about two years according to discussion online. Demon has switched its web hosting to intY Limited.

The homepage was last modified in 2005, the links pages in the Spring. Now I've a reason to seek alternate hosting. It is good to know that past efforts are preserved back to 1999.

If there are any hosting services out there able to offer Drupal hosting, ideally UK based and at a reduced rate for an advert placed in the sidebar here and on any new web presence, please get in touch: h2cmng AT yahoo.co.uk 

Hosting sponsor offer for Hodges' model site

I've had some great news (really welcome as I try to sort my pay and future career prospects)! The offer of sponsorship with hosting - 5GB space and bandwidth to boot - c/o and thanks to Chris Ward at Human Ecology Forum and Greenhosting.

Chris and I have exchanged e-mails and blog posts already through the Northern England Human Ecology - CHE - group, which should next meet in March - details tbc.

This is a great incentive for me to push on with Drupal and content revision. It will take some time, but knowing there's a home for h2cm is a flag to aim for. Apart from the part-time flavour of this enterprise another reason not to hold your breathe is that I plan to include learning objectives with all relevant content. So with Drupal I need to check the potential of CONTENT TYPES and MODULES and forms .... without re-inventing any wheels. Exciting, but heady times...

Buckets and Spades - Fit to Drupe...

I'm away for two weeks from Tuesday on holiday with my wife and daughter. So you can have a break too!

Never been to Crete before, but I believe the wild flowers and Easter time is very special. We plan to get into the mountains as well as the coast and ancient sites. I love the Med. Greece, Turkey, Italy... The people, history, food, climate and snorkelling great, although not sure it will be that warm for us. I think we are actually the first flight out for the season. Not sure if it will be possible so early on to visit Santorini - we'll see.

BBC4 has featured programmes on the Med covering geology and art.

Holiday reading includes Drupal. I’ve downloaded files including text and screencasts. What I really need is a block of time to fully grasp the basics on my PC and in my head! As mentioned previously I had a bare bones Drupal site successfully installed using XAMP. When I went back to it - yep I'd lost the plot. In the end I scrubbed it all. It may have salvageable, but my book David Mercer's 'Drupal' uses Apache2Triad. So I went with that. Now I've successfully installed another bare bones Drupal test site, learning in the process.

Some things I've noticed already:

Drupal content types includes blog, book, forum, story and much more...

The blocks to build a site are the usual elements of header, main, side bar(s) and footer.

I think this blog Welcome to the Quad will continue, but there's two other possibilities:

1. They say there's a book in everyone (which of course includes our readers!). So unsurprisingly, the Drupal book content type might be really useful to begin a collaborative outline for a open source book on Hodges' model. Believe me this won't happen without the views and input of others, but h2cm is a cognitive currency that must be shared. I say currency not in the monetary sense but the sense of a shared value.
2. There's a world of expertise out there and c/o the Global Alliance for Nursing and Midwifery there's the possibility of a community of practice devoted to Global Frameworks for Health. This is about being open-minded in terms of other generic high-level frameworks. In resorting to Drupal I don't want to reinvent the wheel, if there are existing communities to join then let's get on with it.

It will be great to put together a dynamic site and look for a serious hosting solution. I should have done this years ago. Maybe though (to rationalise a little) everything happens in its own time - whatever that means...

Finally started a banner for the blog (so far it's erm a bit bubbly) and podcast 2 is nearly there. I have still not heard about the Serres-Hodges chapter effort (the web version is not that submitted), was supposed to last month.

Ruby's going on holiday too (for reading) and something lighter for the sake of the case and relationships. There's another post about the great books and music that somehow passes us by. I've never read Don Quixote - so I could put that right.

I’ll pack an art pad too. The door to that room is going to creak like mad, but it will be worth pushing ajar and walking through. Once there, at least five other doors beckon. Something to share with Beth. Bye for now.

See you sometime after the 18th!