I've decided that it's time to start blogging again. Or rather I've decided that I have time to blog again. I'm currently on-board a GNER train from London to Edinburgh (presently in York) and taking advantage of the wireless internet access. I had already decided that it would probably be worth paying the £10 to use wifi for the who journey, but as it turns out, it seems to be free of charge. Not complaining. Except that the service is provided by a company based in Sweden, meaning that I have a Swedish IP address. Not a problem, except that banner adverts are targetted at "Europeans" and I can't watch the live streaming of the Open Golf from the BBC. Damn it!

I'm on my way back to Edinburgh for the Summer, to work with the Pleasance Edinburgh (the largest Fringe venue in the Edinburgh Festival) throughout the month of August. I've developed a new website for them called PleasancePages. The concept is somewhat like MySpace crossed with BlogSpot or Live Journal. Each company which is performing at the Pleasance this summer (there are 180 of them!) will have their own page where they can upload pictures, video, blogs and reviews from the press.

The concept is great, and was not difficult to code, but the tough part came from the need to make application completely water-tight and unbreakable. The site is going to be heavily used by people who are not familiar with web concepts and conventions. In otherwords, it's not acceptable to expect the users to be able to mark up images for inclusion in a post: a wysiwyg approach is a must. Also, the theming has to be consistent throughout. It's not acceptable to leave parts of the back-end unthemed and messy since this is likely to cause confusion for users.

It's complete now, in public beta if you like, and initial feedback on usability is very positive - which is a relief!

Now potential audience members and fans will be able to find out about their favourite performers online at PleasancePages... and the Pleasance has a self-generating source of unique, relevant and frequently updated content for its website... and we all know the benefits of that!