Journal of Tormod Haugen

It is official; I cannot name things or version products.

I hereby declare version oh-won (0.1) of Simpla 2 released. The only change is that it now supports nested comments and other fun comment related stuff from WP 2.7.

Please feel free to rework, criticize and moan loudly. Responses are cherished!

(the theme is still under CC-Attribution Share-Alike license. The good bits are by Phu Ly, and the bad parts and minor WP 2.7 related changes are by yours truly).

Simpla 2 is now released. I removed the display of categories and tags for pages, and that’s it. If you add widgets for Pages, Categories and Blogroll, it should look just about the same way as the original theme by Phu Ly.

It is not the one I’m using here - currently this differs in font size and placement of the sidebar.

Please speak up if you have comments and/or questions.

It is now over two weeks since I said I would focus on my blog and theme. And I haven’t blogged the last week. Good start? Yes, I think so.

I haven’t done as much as I wanted to, but I wouldn’t say that much time has been lost to me switching focus. The lack of updates the last week is unfortunate, though, and I should focus on getting blog posts out even if my focused project isn’t going forth. I’ve been spending time on other things than the blog lately, but most of that is on stuff that is more important than a project; friends, family etc.

I’ll drum together a package with the changes I’ve done to Simpla, and make it available. It is CC licensed, so it is alright. I might do more later, but the next blog/theme related project is to hack together a new look, as I have mumbled about earlier. This is not my next project.

I’ll blog my next focus later today, and I’ll also try and keep my updates ticking in a few times a week, at least.

Then there was a new year. I mentioned, at the end of last year, that I wanted to structure my personal projects a bit more, to actually get something out of the time I spent on them. And not, like usually, jump from one to the next without getting anything done.

In that respect I plan on getting this blog re-themed. I’m jumping to the Simpla theme, and I will be documenting my changes through the process of making it my own. I’ll try and preserve some of the touches of my current theme, inspired by Hemingway for Wordpress. This will be my focus for the next two weeks. No other major project will be worked on during that period.

Two other announcements are; My two month goal is to get the blog up and running nicely again, with at least three posts each week. I need this practise in writing, and I also see that in it’s current state this blog leave much to be desired in terms of content. I’ll try and get something good going here, and would love feedback in the time ahead - if nothing more than a quick comment or a word on twitter.

The other minor thing is that my goal for 2009 is to get better at languages. I’ll try and get from a skill level of nothing and up to awful in Japanese. Why that one? I have a few reasons, the most important is that I like its sound. Or rather, acquaintances of mine has rekindled my interest. I was looking for evening classes, but they sadly fall in on the same days and time that my SO is attending choir practise this spring. I’ll go for the cd/workbook courses, and hope to report on my progress as I improve. Don’t expect anything the next two weeks, though - I’m working on my blog…

This last six months I have focused a bit more on managing my spare time. It started out well, with me doing a bit more work on Wikka Wiki, maintaining a monthly (board) gaming evening and getting a bit more out of my evenings. Then it started to slip out again, as usual. Too many projects started, none ended - not even to a milestone or one measly todo-list item.

I suck at organizing myself outside of work, and I know it. What it usually boils down to, is my phasing creativity and motivation. It helps having people working on the same thing, or at least inquiring into my work. I guess this is one of the reasons I get things done at work. That and coffee, guilt and integrity.

So, I’ve decided I need to get to burning bridges aga… things done again. I have Getting Things Done standing unfinished in my bookshelf, I know how to do agile methods in projects, reviews and stuff. I just don’t apply it outside of work. Something must change.

I’ve been reading David Seah’s blog for a while, and at least one of his good ideas have registered over time; his Groundhog Day resolutions. I first thought I’d try something like that, but as I am trying to fix up my spare time, I wanted a bit more time on my resolutions. Quarterly or something like it. That being an awful lot of time, I thought to have some sub-goals sprinkled in between - monthly or some such. Right. Back at the start.

Last week I read Corvus Elrod’s Hats in the New Year, and decided that; yes - it is time to get something done around here. After a brief chat about one of his projects I managed to derail the conversation in on keeping focus on one project at a time, and he suggested taking an agile approach. As that actually makes sense, I’ll try it out. Quarterly (fuzzy) goals filled with two week sprints. This, with accountability from blogging, should keep me focused on a (few) projects at a time. If not, the problem probably is the wetware aprox. ten inches from the screen…

As it is in the middle of the holidays right now, I won’t commit just yet. Though I’ll say this; there is an overwhelming chance that my first goals will be related to me getting into blogging regularly. I need that.

Have a nice time.