Grammar Captive

An important part of entrepreneurship is embracing the unexpected, because things rarely go as planned in unchartered territory.

In short, I fear that my situation will once again compel me to postpone the production of Grammar Captive’s first completed podcast for still another month or even a full academic term.

In order to deal with the unexpected, the entrepreneur cannot sit idly by and allow the decisions of others to get in his way.  He must remain flexible and endure each and every hardship as it occurs.  Fortunately, I have little shortage of endurance, and long turn-around times from my host server has taught me the art of multi-tasking.  Here is the new agenda until I better know, if podcasting can begin as planned:

1. Write a PHP class factory for PHPMailer that will allow me to use the same code for all email communication with “grammar captives”  including newsletter subscription email, newsletter delivery email, webinar sign-up and notification email, authorization email, confirmation email, password renewal email, and the like.
2. Create a timed depository for data obtained from Grammar Captive’s custom Matomo server in an effort to speed up the rendering of graphs and data.  User’s simply have to wait too long to see what they want with the current set-up.
3. Convert the images of the seven gates on the Grammar Captive podcast homepage into rotating blocks for the purpose of affiliate and sponsor advertisements.
4. Implement the MeCab parser to enable Japanese the same ability to search the Grammar Captive archives in Japanese in the same way that others can search the archives in French, German, or English.

Headway in all of these tasks has already begun, and some are on the verge of completion.

Be on the look out for good things ahead despite any and all further postponements in production

Roddy

 

There is a lot of free code on the internet;  some of it is poorly written, some of it is well written, and some of it appears to be what it is not.

What I believed to be a problem of variable selection was, indeed, a problem of the code that was used to remove duplicates after the variables were selected.

Ironically, I probably would have not caught the discrepancy between serverDate and serverDatePretty had it not been for the miscoded removeDuplicates() function.

Fortunately, both discrepancies have now been addressed, and Grammar Captive’s first multi-variable graph is robust and working across all variables.

Roddy

The troubled Time Schedule option in the Availability menu has been removed and replaced with something much simpler and likely more effective due to its simplicity and cross-device and platform flexibility.

Localization was an important priority when the site first began, but I have come to realize that it will only truly be effective when the entire website is localized in all its aspects — a milestone on a still very distant mountain.

Roddy

Sometimes the need to celebrate is so great that we finish by celebrating too soon.  Indeed, a careful second look at the old graph revealed inconsistency in the two sets of data that were being compared.

It turns out that Matomo’s serverDate parameter was the wrong parameter for tracking visitor data.  So, I  switched parameters and reformatted the chart label so that it now appears even more elegant than before!  But, I will not celebrating again for a while, as there remains so much more to do.

Roddy

 

It was no easy task producing Grammar Captive’s first graphical display, so I thought I would celebrate the occasion by adding a little technical sophistication to the graph.

Once again, look for the menu option Graphs & Charts under Visitor Profile menu in the navigation bar on the Grammar Captive mainpage.

Roddy

 

 

Grammar Captive has just generated its first time series graph based on visitor behavior.  You may view it by clicking of the Graphs & Charts option in the Visitor’s Profile menu of the mainpage’s navigation bar.

It is a modest beginning, but the foundation has finally been laid.

Roddy

We do not always get things in the way that we want, but if we want them badly enough we do eventually get them.

Accordingly, at Grammar Captive you might not always get what you want when you want it, but if Grammar Captive promises to provide it, eventually you do get it!  Grammar Captive has just posted its first graph on the Graphs & Charts panel.  (Just click on the Graphs & Charts option under Visitor Profile in the navigation bar on the Grammar Captive mainpage.)

Now, the chart’s content has nothing to do with Grammar Captive, but it is a far better indicator of what is to come than an otherwise blank page with a lot of words and no image.

Not only are the promised graphs and charts more aesthetic and more flexible than what Matomo has to offer, but they will be obtained without the unwanted excess exposure to the Grammar Captive data base.

Podcasts in October?  I have never felt more confident, but who is to say, Grammar Captive’s destiny does not depend on me alone.

Persistence and determination are what make success possible.  They are, however, not a guarantee; it will be the content that will make or break Grammar Captive’s success.

Let’s wait and see.

Roddy

 

Reformatted the entire GC Tutor insertion panel in order to  fix the smartphone alignment problem.  Revised the time schedule for GC Tutor and made it easier to find the language-specific weekly time schedule.  Next-up is to fix the language-specific time-schedule so that it reads properly in one’s own language.  It was working before the server and PHP upgrade.

Most of the subscription panels are also working again including

• Gate Seven of the Grammar Captive Splash Panel
• the Free Consultation Insertion Panel
• the Newsletter Insertion Panel, and
• the Weekly Podcasts Insertion Panel

Roddy

Although there remain several minor glitches that still need to be addressed, the design of the Grammar Captive website has been substantially upgraded for smartphone users.

My new Centos 7.5 operating environment has proven to be a nightmare for new software installation.  I am simply not up to the task and do not wish to spend any more time with it.  This said,  time-series data remains on the agenda.

If all goes well, podcasting will begin next month.

Sorry for the continued delay.  Although a proper work environment for the task has been found, other matters have delayed setting up.

It has been a busy week, as I continue to accustom myself to Grammar Captive’s new server environment.  Installation of node.js, npm, and Chart.js has turned out to be far more difficult than I originally thought.  Then too, many things that I have initiated at Grammar Captive have taken longer than expected.  So, this is nothing new.  Hopefully something manifest will appear soon.

Within the next couple of weeks,  I hope to restart podcast production whereby development will become a secondary, but still ongoing activity.  During the next six month one can expect a gradual transition from development to production and marketing.  I will keep you up-to-date.

Have a great weekend!

Roddy