Resolution Review 03/03

So, it’s here already, my first review of the resolutions I set myself last month.

Since last month, when I announced the resolutions, I’ve released a copy of the Standard Model, designed to work well on projectors, meaning everything can be zoomed into and out of, while it’s still one big spider-diagram, I’ve published a lovely sheet to help me remember what my resolutions are, and how I’m going to achieve them, and I’ve started work on a new design for the blog and an extended article about creating themes for Wordpress.

So, with it being 03/03 today, I met with my resolution partner to review how the first month had gone, the general feeling was that, unlike a lot of people who start resolutions, we hadn’t totally given up within this first month, but, at the same time, we weren’t really able to show any significant improvement, or quantify our achievement at all.

While I’m not falling behind at all, I’m finding that the fun and creative side of my studies is sometimes not taking priority over the more fun tasks of creating revision aids and similar, which I did try to promise myself it would.

Before our next review on 04/04, I’m going to;

Studies

• Completely organise all of my folders, and get them all checked
• Make some substantial progress on, and publish my academic bookmark library

Studious Creativity

• Publish two of my new revision aids, although both will still be in beta
• Following from the reorganisation of my notes, publish my findings regarding how it goes, and the most appropriate and effective way to organise work like that

Pure Creativity

• Re-work my blog design. I started this last month, but never got very far, so I’m going to finish it, and publish it within the next fortnight
• Publish my extended article on creating Wordpress themes, aimed at complete beginners with a bit of HTML and CSS knowledge, like I was once

Fitness

• Have a serious review of my lifestyle, especially my diet and the amount of sleep I get, and put something in  place to fix this
• To fit my fitness activities around my normal activities, I’m going to try going to the pool before school, aiming to be in the changing rooms at around 7AM, when a lot of my peers are in bed

I’m still aiming to do something in each of these categories every week, each is an aspect of the main goals on my cheat sheet.

I’ve got a bit of commercial web design to get done too, not too much, but enough for it to eat into my pure creativity time, so I’ve gone for tasks that I’ve already started, where I can put as much work as I choose into them, without compromising on quality.

The next key revelation, is that this morning, on my resolution review day, I also received my annual report from school. Overall, very positive, and I’ve been able to identify specific points I need to fix. Over the next few days, I’m going to be reviewing the specifics of these, and I’ll follow this up with a summary on the blog.

So, I’m still not going after any numerically-based scheme as I was so tempted, but I’m aiming to complete, all ten big tasks listed here, and four little tasks (one per strand of the goals), per week, hopefully, if this works, by my next review day (04/04 of course!), I’ll be able to quantify my performance pretty well!

WJEC By3 Biology Practical Exam Folding Prompts

Following on from the (exclusively personal) success of my resolution cheatsheet, (although I must admit the mistake of not printing enough, I’ll sort that out over the weekend), I’m starting to get a bit of a thing for these simple, portable designs which are there solely to serve as a reminder of something.

With my AS Biology Practical exam coming up, I’ve been going over some old write-ups from class, what I did well with, and what I failed miserably at. There aren’t any patterns, so I need something short and snappy to remind me.

I’ve looked at lots of mnemonics, but for the shear quantity of information, there’s no way I can momorise it all like little facts. I needed a new idea.

While I was preparing for my Ph1 Physics exam, I created an 8-page booklet out of a single A4 sheet, and wrote out the derivation of a SUVAT equation on each, then, whenever I had a spare few minutes, I could get it out and start flicking through it. I did this a bit late, and couldn’t learn anything, and relied solely on common sense in the exam, but the idea seemed to work pretty well.

So, while I’m trying to learn my By3 points; what gets marks and how to generally succeed, I’ve put together a new one, which lists through the key areas of the By3 mark scheme, and what needs doing for each. While it’s not allowed into the exam, it’s something that needs learning, but in theory, it should be relatively easy to learn in this format.

I’m releasing a PDF version, which is all ready to print onto A4 paper, then fold neatly into a booklet shape, the booklet is small enough to slip into a pocket. It isn’t cheating, and doesn’t break any rules (although it shouldn’t go into the actual exam). This is only the same information as is available from WJEC directly.

Download WJEC By3 Biology Prompts (PDF, 100KB)

I’m rather interested to get any feedback on this!

The Blog Themes

I’m currently working on the following, simultaneously, which may seem a touch ironic!

First, in line with all of my new branding, I’ve got a delicious new Wordpress theme! It’s similar to this one, however makes better use of my brand colours and I think it’s generally a bit cleaner and nicer.

Secondly, I’m planning on releasing a new Wordpress theme tutorial soon, which will be my first proper tutorial, which I would really appreciate feedback on. As you may have  guessed, part of the reason for leaving the new theme for my blog is so that I can do work on the tutorial around it.

So, expect the theme some time next week, hopefully around about Tuesday, but I can never be sure with this sort of thing, I’ll probably have a last minute urge to change everything, which pushes it all back several months.

Resolutions Cheat Sheet

So, I kicked off my resolutions two and a half weeks ago, and I have been working on them quite solidly since.

Since I’m following David Seah’s Groundhog Day Resolution model, I feel compelled to ‘copy’ ideas from his work, so, when he announced his Groundhog Day Tracking form last week, I began copying.

I quickly found that it wasn’t actually very helpful for me, and I felt like I might be wasting my time, so I decided to set it our a little more in the style of a reference sheet or cheat sheet. The top section matches Dave’s, but from there onwards, I’ve taken my own spin on things, listing key facts about how I’m currently doing, and what I know already about what I need to do.

Simply, the plan is that one copy of this will eventually be laminated, and kept around my desk, one can go with my timetable at the front of my school work file, and I’ll keep it at arms length all the time!

In theory, this should give me the ability to track exactly what I’m doing already, and how the new activities I undertake as part of my own resolutions can fit into this

When I have my review in March, (03/03, of course!), I’ll see how this is going too, but so far, I’m liking what this lets me do!

My Master Sheet

The Projector-Friendly Standard Model

Two weeks ago, I sat through a lesson which revolved around a Powerpoint of the simplified Standard model. There wasn’t too much information, but to fit it in 1024×768 pixels it is near unreadable.

The presentation revolved around one slide, which details gradually appeared on, however to get the level of details needed at AS level, there was a considerable amount of text, which meant it was all small and pixelated.

I left the lesson, having managed to make a rough copy of the diagram based on what was said as each element appeared, and copied this onto Prezi.com.

Prezi is brilliant, and as of very recently they have an educational version available, which just needs a school e-mail address to register for. It creates a big animated presentation, which moves around and zooms in and out of one page, which can contain loads of text, images, youtube videos and lots more!

I have tried to copy my diagram into the Prezi editor, and it’s embedded at the top of this post. For best results, and especially if it does get through on a projector, once you’ve loaded it up with the ‘Play’ button, make sure you click the Full Screen button on the ‘more’ menu. You can either scroll in and out to zoom and make your own way around or click the forward and back arrows to move through the details in a logical order.

This is by no means a finished piece, and open to comments and suggestions as to what I should do with it next, and if there are any typos I’ve missed or anything similar!

This means my resolutions are actually going quite well. This is both a creative multimedia creation, and it’s educational! Brilliant!

Resolutions

I read loads of blogs! One of my favourites is David Seah, who describes himself as an investigative designer. He is the brians behind the Printable CEO series, which is an absolute godsend when managing small projects that I can get on with by myself.

Since 2007, he has run a series of ‘Groundhog Day Resolutions‘, starting on 02/02, which are just like New Years Resolutions. As I’ve started writing my post after a busy day, at the other side of the atlantic, Dave is (according to Twitter) writing his post like this.

This year, I decided that having a barrage of January exams, and having just spent Christmas away, I wasn’t ready to try and make any changes in my life, or set any ambitious goals, so I postponed setting any until February. I’ve decided to set myself some resolutions based on Dave’s, but personalised slightly.

Being in the UK, groundhog day is virtually unheard of, (the closest we get is St Swithun’s Day, but that’s in July), however I’m still rather fond of the 02/02 format, reviewing on 03/03, 04/04 and so on up to 12/12.

One line on Dave’s blog stuck out for me;

Telling people what you’re doing is always a great way of gaining perspective.

And for that reason, after looking long and hard, I’ve found someone from school with remotely similar goals to me, who is going to be working on the same overall goals, just with marginally different specific aims.

Looking Back

The last 12 months have been an eye-opener for me. After my school work fell to pieces this time last year through illness, everything piled up and I couldn’t keep up. Having not been well, there was nothing I could have done, but it did make me want to understand things the first time, so that I don’t need to rely on having more time to go over them. Teachers regularly come out with “37 lessons until your module exam”, and I feel like this encourages a little procrastination. I’ve got no way of saying that I’ll be in all of those, so I need to get everything spot on now!

Over the summer, after getting my medical things fixed, I’ve gone back and started designing websites on a freelance basis again. I’ve been working with a couple of graphic designers I knew to start with, and amyone who I can hire from Elance on some pretty big and awesome projects. Ideally, I want to carry this on, but I need to keep things in proportion and not let it overtake the more important things!

The final point is that while I used to do a little gentle physical activity, it all fell apart after I was ill, and I want to get back to it! I was never a real fitness enthusiast, but I would go swimming, walking, jogging and cycling. From a health perspective, it would do me good to get back, to this level, and beyond!

The Resolutions

So, I’ve been trying to decide what to actually do about it! I’ve come up with a resolution based on each of those three strands.

1. Do Educational Things – I read a book last year, about Einstein’s life, and I found that with the small amount of details that that went into about various discoveries being made which affected his research, I understood more about things that were relevant to my school work. I want to do a lot more of this, anything that links, even remotely, to my work!
2. Do Creative Things – I can get a bit robotic in my web design, when I look on websites like DeviantArt and ThemeForest, there are some stunning HTML designs around and some pretty amazing stuff that can be done with Photoshop. I’m going to carry on with commercial design projects, and hopefully, when I do, I’ll get the chance to try something new! I’m interested in making things available under a Creative Commons/Open Source license so that everyone else can make use of it, and I’m looking to collaborate on specific things.
3. Do Physical Things – The first point is that I’m going to get back to the level I used to be at. Cycle commute, jog and swim for the fitness aspect of it, have a look at my diet, and once I’ve got those covered, I’ll see what else I can do!

The key point here, is that number 1 & 2 are pretty collaborative. I can find an excuse to mess around in Photoshop, that is related to school work and this is exactly what I intend doing!

Next month, during our first review, I’ll be coming up with some measurable targets, and looking at creating something ‘Concrete Goal Tracker’ style, (I’ll decide nearer the time though, no rush!), however in the mean time, I am aiming to;

• Do one large task per week, relating to any one of the goals.
• Produce something publishable relating to either 1 or 2 each week.
• Do three physical things a week

My Next Review

I’ll have my first review on March 3rd (03/03) with my new resolution buddy (who isn’t much of a Blogger), and I’ll hopefully have a good idea of how things are going. Then, I will be setting some measurable goals, however next month, I’ll hopefully sit down and have a qualitative  review, and think about what I got done for each of the areas!

So, overall, my resolutions can be expressed as; Learn, Make Stuff, Get Fit.

Full Screen Mac Web Browser

I’ve just discovered PlainView, and I think it’s quite frankly brilliant!

Full screen web browsing, complete with bookmarks and neat floating panels which will hopefully make presentations flow beautifully.

Can’t wait to get some use out of it!

Wordpress Theme

Until I get the more substancial hosting sorted out, you can download my K2 ‘Scouting’ theme for Wordpress here.

K2 Scouting Style

Doorbell vs Wireless Burglar Alarm

Hmm, here’s one for you.

My front door is fitted with a wireless door bell. It’s pretty simple, no channels or anything, and 8 tunes. The middle door is fitted with a magnetic switch, which is part of a complete wireless burglar alarm system.

When I got home this afternoon, I walked through the front door. Fine. The alarm wasn’t set. Fine.

When I opened the middle door, which has a magnetic door sensor attached, the doorbell started playing a tune, not one of the tunes that it can be set to either.

Since then, every time the door with the magnetic switch attached opens, the doorbell makes an annoying beeping noise, which also isn’t one of the options.

Batteries are out now, so everyone’s happy, but why are these interacting now, when they haven’t at all before, and why does the door bell play a tune that isn’t one of the available options?

Ideas welcome…