What do you think of it so far?
Posted in What We're Up To
Welcome to the new Digital Unite Blog. It’s called Does Not Compute (DNC for short). We chose it because…
- it’s got slightly techy overtones (it’s what robots say)…
- with a hint of a joke (we’re not always great at computing)….
- and we needed a name in a hurry.
But we can always change it – or pretend it stands for something else. Digitally Networked Communities anyone?
Please let us know what you think of the new site. It’s a work in progress, not a finished project. We want to keep on improving it - we know we’ve lots to do already – but all comments are gratefully received. What did you like? What couldn’t you find? Let us know.
We’ve re-organised our site quite quickly and quite cheaply. We’ve focussed on the ‘publishing’ side of our business initally – things we do FOR people, like the Learning Zone or SSD event holder guides. What we’d like to do now is focus on stuff we do WITH people – answering questions, connecting people & learning things from each other.
That’s where this blog comes in. We want it to be a place where people learn and share new ideas, where you can find out interesting things to do with digital technology – new buttons, new places, new ways of using it. There’s a whole load of people who aren’t first time users – who like technology and what it can do for them – but maybe aren’t always served well by what’s out there on the net. We want this blog to be for them.
Most of me wishes we’d spent lots more time on this area before we made the site live – but part of me thinks it’s a good thing we haven’t. It’s not about us telling you stuff, it’s about everybody doing things together. So maybe it’s much better to evolve it openly than unveil it. ”Expect great things - if you help us do them….. ”
Are their regular features you’d like? things about digital technology you can never find on the web? Things you just can’t get to grips with? Let us know that too…
Thanks
sophie
March 4th, 2009 sophiet | 10 Comments »
March 6th, 2009 at 9:16 am
http://learning.digitalunite.com/category/read-full-questions-and-answers/ appears not to work ? What happened to the previous question / answer forum where one had to log in ?
Phil
March 6th, 2009 at 9:48 am
Hi Phil
Thanks for the comment.
The Q&A where you have to log in is being replaced by one which is open to everyone. We thought the (double) log-in put people off and stopped people asking/answering/ accessing. And it should be super smooth to use – but isn’t yet…
It’s next on the list for fixing – but we ran out of time to get it all working before we launched the site.
It currently does work – but in a very very clunky way. If you click on the questions – they open in a new window and you can answer them in the ‘comment’ box. (The “Ask a Question” form should be working properly – but does need a new field for email address).
The reason it works (doesn’t work…) like this is that the site is built out of open source software for a blog. We’re taking the basic blog set-up and trying to modify it to make it do extra things. So each question is reallu a blog post – and the answers are comments. But it needs some coding to make it work better and make this clearer. It won’t now be fixed til next week – but it should work by then.
I hope it’s not too irritating. We didn’t copy the old questions over – we thought we’d start afresh. But if there was a particular strand/ answer you’re after – let us know and we can get you the info…
regards
sophie
March 6th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
I will be updating the How to Use th Learning Zone guide (http://learning.digitalunite.com/files/2009/03/how-to-use-the-learning-zone.pdf) shortly with details of how to ask a question and how to respond and view the answers.
I will be putting some of the more recent Q & As from the old site in there as well.
Bob Holmes
March 7th, 2009 at 8:41 am
Good move to make the Qs & As an open forum – I agree that the log-in was an irritant.
I was rather hoping to find an archive of past questions and answers that I could refer to, otherwise I feel you may get the same questions being asked repeatedly.
I note that the guides do not have reference numbers at the moment. Have you discarded them deliberately?
You seem too to have abandoned the different levels for the guides, except for Beginners. I think that is better, since I imagine people’s overall skill levels are not necessarily defined by specific areas of competence. What you want to learn next at any time is pretty much a matter of chance.
I didn’t find a list of links to other interesting websites, but I may have missed them. And I couldn’t work the text size change.
You said something about putting up photos – was it of the staff? That will be nice – I was thinking of asking for them before the change.
LOOKING GOOD SO FAR !!!
March 7th, 2009 at 8:50 am
Ah! found the bit about photos:
“The blog is written by a mixture of the people from
Digital Unite and by users. We’ll add short profiles
here shortly – with pictures so you know who you’re
dealing with.”
This word ‘users’ doesn’t slip easily into my understanding.
More commonly encountered by me in relation to drug users. And aren’t we all using the blog anyway? I would have expected “members of the public” or some similar phrase. Or just “other users”, or “users with a common interest”. I just feel it doesn’t quite say what it means.
March 7th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
Hello Judith hope you are very welll, thanks as ever for all the comments.
Yes there are lots of little thinsg to fix, so bear with us and do keep pointing things out, suggesting and disagreeing, it’s what will make the site even better.
For users, how about enthusiasts – because that’s what you are – and it is a good, positive description?!
March 8th, 2009 at 10:11 am
Yay! “digital enthusiasts” or “IT enthusiasts” or better still “other digital enthusiasts”. Puts us all in one happy family.
March 9th, 2009 at 11:32 am
Hi All, Nice to see Judith up there commenting – Hi Judith.
Just for fun, i thought I’d see how many meanings for the acronym DNC I could find. Brace yourselves . . .
DNC Democratic National Committee
DNC Democratic National Convention
DNC Do Not Call
DNC Digital Nautical Chart
DNC Direct Numerical Control
DNC Do Not Change
DNC Delaware North Companies
DNC Does Not Compute
DNC Domain Name Commissioner
DNC Do Not Carry
DNC Did Not Compete (racing)
DNC Distributed Numerical Control
DNC Does Not Conform
DNC Do Not Cross
DNC DeadNetCentral
DNC Dilation and Curettage
DNC Distributed National Collection
DNC Dance Courses
DNC Downconverter
DNC Dynamic Network Controller
DNC Dynamic Noise Covering
DNC Dinitrocarbanilide
DNC Domestic Names Committee
DNC Dermatology Nurse Certified
DNC Drill and Ceremony
DNC Distributed Network Computing
DNC Day-Night Capability
DNC Distributed Network Control
DNC District of North Cowichan (British Columbia)
DNC Delayed Neutron Counter
DNC Director, Naval Communications
DNC Distributed Network Conference
DNC Dynamic Network Configuration
DNC Directorate of National Coordination
DNC Data Name Card
DNC Di-Nitrocellulose
DNC Diocese of Natchitoches Collection (Louisiana)
DNC Departmento Nacional de Cafe (Brazil)
DNC Disaster Nursing Chairman
DNC Direct Network Cabling (systems)
DNC Do/Does Not Care
DNC Dynamic Neural Control
Well – you did ask. Oh. Didn’t you? Oh well . . .
Steve.
March 9th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Euuurgh – I’d forgotten all about dilation and curettage!!!
March 10th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
In my day dilation and curettage was known as D&C. You’re surely not suggesting it should be written D’n'C, are you Steve?