1. We've stickied a recent news article on the from page of our site for a while, using the some ewhat mild (some would say inane) text "Recent Article". It's all been good stuff there - upcoming schedules, special deals for delegates, information about how our product really is different and how we look after our customers - hotel, conference and training - making sure that they have a productive and pleasurable experience.
What a shame that the inane text has hidden the best articles.
2. Let's face it ... whilst there are an encouraging number of good friends and interested parties who follow the blog on a regular basis, there are many other for whom "daily" is an order of magnitude too often, and even "weekly" is far too much. But those "many" are also our ambassadors, and want to be updated from time to time.
We suspended
the Of Course magazine that we had published, twice a year for six years, as this blog took off. Printing and postal costs had risen, and the technology of paper distribution was moving from "old" to "archaic" - and in our internet line of business it really wasn't the way for the future.
'Of Course' is back! It's published bimonthly ... available for viewing from our site, and I'll be notifying regular clients by email. Current edition
here and other recent editions ...
July 2009 •
May 2009 •
March 2009 •
January 2009
November 2008 •
September 2008 •
July 2008 •
May 2008 •
March 2008 •
January 2008
November 2007 •
September 2007 •
July 2007 •
May 2007 •
March 2007 •
January 2007.
Some threads are coming together. I have long talked about using blog articles to put together a regular newsletter - allowing us to reach our customers and prospective clients every couple of months, and providing a link-based system where those of you interested in staying at Well House Manor can link easily to recent articles on that subject, Webmasters and moderators can look at their section, and if you're into Perl or Lua or Python ... there will be a link to a section on YOUR language, without rubbing your nose into my ramblings on Java, Tcl or Ruby!
Stage 1. There's an experimental system up ...
link to new, current newsletter. It includes a recently selected "keynote" article that's general, topical and looks forward to the next two months. And also the titles of the five most recent items on each of around 20 subjects so you can find out what else has been going on all from the one page.
Every 2 months, I'll be 'freezing' a newsletter ... so you can refer back if you want to
July 2009,
May 2009,
March 2009 and so on - indeed you can go right back to 2005 if you want (
May 2005 for example).
By having an interactive system, we can do much more too. If you find a 'track' that's particularly relevant to you, you can open it up - even at Stage 1 - and see all the previous articles from earlier newsletters too. And beyond stage one, we have all sorts of possibilities such as a regular (2 monthly) mailing, the ability to expand articles in situ and to give precise, and more.
(written 2009-08-29, updated 2009-08-31)
Associated topics are indexed as below, or enter http://melksh.am/nnnn for individual articles
G998 - Well House Consultants - Newsletter Highlighted Box [1011] Well House Manor and Beechfield House, Hotels, Melksham - (2006-12-29)
[1068] ls -l report, Linux / Unix - types and permssions - (2007-02-06)
[1132] Well House Manor, Melksham, Art Gallery - (2007-04-02)
[1237] What proportion of our web traffic is robots? - (2007-06-19)
[1307] Troy, up state New York - (2007-08-17)
[1375] Python v Ruby - (2007-10-02)
[1475] Tcl/Tk - updating your display while tasks are running - (2007-12-16)
[1521] Evening drive across the roof of Wiltshire - (2008-01-27)
[1621] Linux and Java Course in London - (2008-04-24)
[1629] A short introduction to our courses - (2008-05-03)
[1751] Public Training Course Dates until July 2009 - (2008-08-13)
[1843] How many cups of coffee? - (2008-10-17)
[1967] LinkedIn - Thrice Asked, and joined. - (2008-12-30)
[2050] Why the Pony Tail? - (2009-02-21)
[2125] We have lost a regular business guest - (2009-04-10)
[2222] A (biased?) comparison of PHP courses in the UK - (2009-06-07)
[2400] Are you wanting to learn PHP? - (2009-09-08)
[2520] Global and Enable - two misused words! - (2009-11-30)
[3168] Web Sites - Subject to Advertising Standards from 1st March - check your sites - (2011-02-13)
Some other Articles
Writing with our customers words`Of Course` is back!to Clifton Down and AvonmouthComputing under the influence of alcoholReading all our recent news from a single sourceLooking ahead to the Autumn season of training and accommodationLua Regular ExpressionsGiving up on user input - keyboard timeout in PerlChecking the database connection manuallyObject Oriented programming - a practical design example