Well. Guess who's back.
Sorry for the protracted absence, I got submerged by various projects and they pretty much demanded all of my focus for the past few months. That being said, all of those projects are now over and done with. I've also cleaned out my schedule for the remainder of the year. Bottom line: from now until at least January 2013, I get to concentrate exclusively on the website, I&A, and a few other things. Well, I'll still be teaching, but that's never been a huge encroachment into my other areas of focus anyway.
So. What's the plan for the rest of the year, then? I'm going to be focusing on three areas. We'll call them three tiers to make it sound formal and organized.
Tier 1 will be the website. I want to get back to putting content here on the web. It won't be as in depth as it used to be, ebcause I&A will still be the primary monthly source of information, but there are some things I'll be doing here. Anything opinionated will go here for obvious reasons. In addition, I'm going to start posting anything of interest that pops up in Google Earth's imagery updates. The only caveat there is that I've got to wait until they push out the KML for a given update, so I can fully investigate all of the new areas to see if there's anything interesting that is now visible. They can sometimes take a while to get the KML out, so don't expect to see something here the minute you see new imagery. The SAM Site Overview will continue to be updated as well. And, like I did during the Libyan bombings, current events topics, or pretty much anything else I find amusing, will go here as well.
Tier 2 will be I&A. If the website is the personal outlet, I&A is the semi-professional outlet. I am now armed with Microsoft Publisher, so I may even be able to finally get around to tweaking the layout. Beginning with the May issue at the end of the month, I&A will now return to its regular monthly distribution schedule. I'm going to put a bit more effort into getting things lined up in advance as well, particularly from contributors, so the turnaround time for each issue should lessen. That in turn should further increase the chances that I stop with all of the irritating delays in getting things distributed. Also, the fun things that I get into for places like Air Power Australia also fall into this category.
Tier 3...this is the professional-grade material. I don't expect there to be much of a difference in scope or quality from the aforementioned material, the difference here is that this material will not be available on the web or in I&A. That's right, I have invaded the publishing world. One of those projects taking up my time the last few months was my first professionally published article. The May issue of Jane's Intelligence Review features an article penned by...me! I'll be doing more with IHS Jane's in the future, and looking for other media outlets to invade as well. And yes, I am now referring to myself as a professional author.
So that's the plan. I'm now going to be focusing pretty much exclusively on all of these areas, at least until the rest of the year. After that...who knows? And I do have to thank IHS Jane's for allowing this to happen. Being able to convert my brainwaves into cash money is the driving factor behind my ability to ignore everything that doesn't involve my teaching job, which I like too much to get rid of anyway.
The first three things on my agenda, therefore, are:
-May's issue of I&A. Expect good stuff here. I've got something in the works on Russia's CVLO radar network, and am rewriting and updating the Blackbird reading list featured here a good long time ago.
-Imagery Update Highlights from the two May updates in Google Earth, the second of which happened a day or so ago. Right now I'm waiting for the KML to update displaying the new imagery and everything will be good.
-Updating the SAM Site Overview files. I've got new files ready for upload, they'll probably wait until the weekend just to allow this post to sit at the top for a couple of days. The current total is just over 7200 sites.
And of course, as I log in to post this, I see that Blogger has changed its layout and format. Bear with me for the next couple of days as I get used to the new system.
Sorry for the protracted absence, I got submerged by various projects and they pretty much demanded all of my focus for the past few months. That being said, all of those projects are now over and done with. I've also cleaned out my schedule for the remainder of the year. Bottom line: from now until at least January 2013, I get to concentrate exclusively on the website, I&A, and a few other things. Well, I'll still be teaching, but that's never been a huge encroachment into my other areas of focus anyway.
So. What's the plan for the rest of the year, then? I'm going to be focusing on three areas. We'll call them three tiers to make it sound formal and organized.
Tier 1 will be the website. I want to get back to putting content here on the web. It won't be as in depth as it used to be, ebcause I&A will still be the primary monthly source of information, but there are some things I'll be doing here. Anything opinionated will go here for obvious reasons. In addition, I'm going to start posting anything of interest that pops up in Google Earth's imagery updates. The only caveat there is that I've got to wait until they push out the KML for a given update, so I can fully investigate all of the new areas to see if there's anything interesting that is now visible. They can sometimes take a while to get the KML out, so don't expect to see something here the minute you see new imagery. The SAM Site Overview will continue to be updated as well. And, like I did during the Libyan bombings, current events topics, or pretty much anything else I find amusing, will go here as well.
Tier 2 will be I&A. If the website is the personal outlet, I&A is the semi-professional outlet. I am now armed with Microsoft Publisher, so I may even be able to finally get around to tweaking the layout. Beginning with the May issue at the end of the month, I&A will now return to its regular monthly distribution schedule. I'm going to put a bit more effort into getting things lined up in advance as well, particularly from contributors, so the turnaround time for each issue should lessen. That in turn should further increase the chances that I stop with all of the irritating delays in getting things distributed. Also, the fun things that I get into for places like Air Power Australia also fall into this category.
Tier 3...this is the professional-grade material. I don't expect there to be much of a difference in scope or quality from the aforementioned material, the difference here is that this material will not be available on the web or in I&A. That's right, I have invaded the publishing world. One of those projects taking up my time the last few months was my first professionally published article. The May issue of Jane's Intelligence Review features an article penned by...me! I'll be doing more with IHS Jane's in the future, and looking for other media outlets to invade as well. And yes, I am now referring to myself as a professional author.
So that's the plan. I'm now going to be focusing pretty much exclusively on all of these areas, at least until the rest of the year. After that...who knows? And I do have to thank IHS Jane's for allowing this to happen. Being able to convert my brainwaves into cash money is the driving factor behind my ability to ignore everything that doesn't involve my teaching job, which I like too much to get rid of anyway.
The first three things on my agenda, therefore, are:
-May's issue of I&A. Expect good stuff here. I've got something in the works on Russia's CVLO radar network, and am rewriting and updating the Blackbird reading list featured here a good long time ago.
-Imagery Update Highlights from the two May updates in Google Earth, the second of which happened a day or so ago. Right now I'm waiting for the KML to update displaying the new imagery and everything will be good.
-Updating the SAM Site Overview files. I've got new files ready for upload, they'll probably wait until the weekend just to allow this post to sit at the top for a couple of days. The current total is just over 7200 sites.
And of course, as I log in to post this, I see that Blogger has changed its layout and format. Bear with me for the next couple of days as I get used to the new system.
