Why make a directory?
Collection – This could be as simple as making a list. The most common directory in use is the Contacts list on your smartphone (people and phone numbers, sorted in alphabetical order)
Curation – Seeking to list the “best of” resources for a topic
Examples
Feed Handbook (by Andy Sylvester) – Information on feeds of many types (RSS/Atom/etc)
Radio Userland Resource Directory (by Andy Sylvester) – created in 2007! (have to hover in front of the entry to see the link, need to update this sometime…)
Bob Dylan Bibliography (by Ron Chester) – created in 1996!
Indieseek XYZ (by Brad Enslen) – A human edited Indieweb directory
href.cool (by Kicks Condor) – in the style of the old DMOZ and Yahoo directories
Tools
Web page – make a ordered list or an unordered list and – voila! – a directory is born
Hugo – static site generator, used for the Feed Handbook above
OPML – XML file format used for subscription lists for podcast players
OPML Editor (for editing OPML files)
Little Outliner 2 (for editing OPML files)
WordPress – use of categories could create a directory structure, also there are many plugins to support creating directory websites (like Yelp, etc.) or simple directories
Getting motivated, taking action
I am also finishing reading Atomic Habits by James Clear, and have used two of the concepts from the book this week on starting a new habit. The first concept I used is “make it easy as possible to start”. I chose to write 100 words per day, and decided to do it in the form of blog posts. The second concept is to set up a reward after achieving the goal. Usually, there is a website or two that I read at lunchtime. I decided to make sure to accomplish my goal before I look at the websites. So far, I have been successful (today is day 3)!
Haste makes waste, part 157
Sometimes there are business reasons for shipping something by a certain date. The cost of meeting that date, though, sometimes includes future payments to correct problems. There is no “one size fits all” answer to this topic, but the cost of corrections should be considered as part of the overall cost (unless schedule is king, which means resources will be made available to fix what needs to be fixed). Thoughts, anyone?
Install notes on 1999.io and MyWord Editor
- Install separate instances of nodestorage for each app (using different ports), otherwise you will mess up one of the tool outputs.
- The Twitter API setup at apps.twitter.com has changed a little bit, what used to be called consumer secret and API secret are now part of the API secrets at the top of the page with the secrets info.
If you want to try the installs, go to the following URLs:
- http://fedwiki.andysylvester.com:1999 (1999)
- http://andysylvester.com/files/mwe5/ (MyWord Editor)
Read: How to launch a minimum viable product
Read: Boeing software outsourced
Read: Implementing h-feed
Read: Unloved patches
For a long time I have admired the WordPress project, for developing such a robust blogging platform that is ultimately open, and free, and anybody can contribute improvements to it. I encourage many of my customers to use WordPress with MarsEdit, because it seems like a “safe bet” going forward. M