New stuff on G-Loaded

It’s been a few months since I last updated the web site, so apologies for the long period of silence. During the last months, although I was around, I tried to spend as less time in front of a computer as possible, so updating the website was not a priority at all. Not using a computer was good for many reasons, the most important of which was the opportunity to realize the tremendous amount of time I have spent on pointless computer-related activities. It would have been impossible to realize this while in front of a computer monitor.

Of course, the pointless computer-related activities I mentioned earlier do not involve updating the website or administering and maintaining the server or doing any kind of actual work on the computer. They mostly involve things like spending days trying to find a workaround on how to use a buggy piece of software or trying to become an expert on software or a technology which was not designed to be useful or is outdated or trying to make a device, which was not designed with interoperability in mind, to inter-operate with other devices or with various pieces of PC software. I’ve done it all, but these things just don’t entertain me that much any more…

But… I just realized that I am getting off-topic, so let’s stick to what will change on G-Loaded Journal in the upcoming weeks.

First of all is the availability and distribution of the content. Although I was totally against delivering the full article content through the feeds in the past, now it seems that my views on this matter have changed. However, I am still trying to figure out what would be the best way to achieve this. Maybe two choices will be offered to the user: an ad-supported feed with the full content and a separate feed with the article abstracts. I haven’t made any final decisions yet. An announcement regarding this issue will be posted in a separate post soon.

Second, searching G-Loaded had been a pain in the past because of WordPress’ simplistic internal search mechanism. So, I decided to replace it with a custom Google search engine. The new search form is now available throughout the web site pages, so feel sure that you will find what you search for.

Third, a help page explaining the structure of G-Loaded and containing information about how to read the published guides or how to use our forums will be added soon to the main link bar.

The forth change involves money donations via Paypal. Until now, I was totally against receiving money for my work on the HOWTO articles or the software, but, recently, the emails of some kind people who insisted on donating a couple of bucks for my efforts have managed to change my mind about this. It’s not about the money. It’s just the appreciation of the effort. So, a Paypal donation form will be added in the near future.

Finally, the major changes on G-Loaded will involve the frequency of updates and the detail of the tutorials. Until now, I’ve been posting without schedule, but this is about to change. From now on, I will try to transform G-Loaded into a monthly column. It will be updated with a HOWTO document on a monthly basis, but, of course, smaller posts containing tips, announcements or news may be published in between.

Regarding the detail of the guides, some changes will be there too. Until now, I tried to write detailed guides, which, apart from providing the reader with the steps to achieve the article’s goal, contained information about the involved software in an attempt to educate the reader. This last thing, the reader’s education, will not be a feature of the upcoming articles. The only reason for this change is the limited free time.

As I have written earlier, I spend very little time on the computer, so I do not know when all these changes will actually take place. So, stay tuned!

If you have reached that far, thanks for your interest in the upcoming changes of G-Loaded.

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