Raves

Posted on 23 May 2006 at 16:02

 

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Simon Edwards has weightier matters on his mind - like how to fill the hole in his back garden

Sometimes you've just got to get stuck into a job. I'm building a patio at the moment. Or, more accurately, I have a large hole in my garden full of hardcore. I had fun trying to find a supplier of that on the internet. The garden has been like a quarry for weeks because I know that the next step involves hard work and a sore back. Instead of cracking on, I spend my time worrying that I've not planned the next task properly and so the job never gets finished.

My DIY skills are not great, but my website programming knowledge was non-existent until about two months ago. Around that time I was obliged to learn, and learn fast. My mission, should I choose to accept it, was to build a website for a sports club of which I am a member. It should allow the head honcho to upload news reports and pictures using a simple interface that anyone with half a brain could use. If I didn't undertake the mission, I would be condemned to doing the updates myself the hard way for an eternity.

There was a lot of pressure to complete this job quickly, not least because it would save me huge amounts of time in the long run. Other members of the club were also grumbling loudly because the current site was in stasis, showing old news for weeks at a time. So, rather than spend ages learning to program, I had to get stuck in and write the management system without procrastinating.

One month later and it was done, and working well. "Bully for you," you might be thinking, "you smug little slap-headed show-off geek". "Fair point," I would reply, but the laboured point I'm trying to make is that, while planning can save you a world of hell, particularly where programming projects and DIY are concerned, if you want to get something done or learn something new, it can be a good idea to throw caution to the wind and go for it.

THE LEARNING ZONE

So join me, friends, in a super-early New Year's resolution to learn something new about your PC. Something you've always fancied but never dared to try. If you have never fired up Windows Movie Maker, do it. Take some video clips with your digital camera and make silly little films. If you want to do cool 3D animations you could even use the Carrara Studio 2 software on this month's cover disc (we've even provided a step-by-step tutorial on page 209 to help you on your way). Or write a tune, record it and beam it on to the internet.

Or you could learn to program, a subject that many of you have voiced an interest in. It helps to have a specific programming project in mind, and maybe you could get some inspiration from other projects freely available on the internet. Last month, we wrote a massive feature about how to start; this month, we've given away the software you'll need on the cover disc. The feature should still be on your toilet floor, so rescue it now before it gets buried.

Go on, have a go. I'm so hyped now that I'm going straight outside to finish off that patio. Just as soon as I've installed my new patio design software and done a bit of essential planning, naturally.

Author: Simon Edwards