I know I haven't written in a long time. I apologise. I have been ill, yes I know, the time old excuse. But this is true.
I was on antibiotics for an infection, and the penicillin was making me feel nauseous. But I needed to make myself well, as I was having my right lower wisdom tooth surgically removed under general anaesthetic. Which has now got infected, and I am on a new course of antibiotics for the new hole in my jaw, as well as being on pain killers for the agony. I just wish they would give me stronger ones so I can sleep through it...
Anyway, I apologise. We're good. Let's get going.
In one of those 'can't get out of bed, so I will just watch daytime TV' phases of illness, I gave up and watched Social Network.
I watched it thinking, 23 years ago I remember sitting in front of a computer thinking "what the hell do I need to learn how to use this for? I can just use a pencil and paper" Well, I wouldn't have used the word hell, I was 6 and in Year 2 with Miss Jones. That was my first experience with a computer, a Dot Matrix, and we did pictures. And as we got a bit older through Junior school, we got to do graphs. In colour....!!!! And I sat there thinking, I wonder what would have happened if I'd gone into that line of work from school. Then I remember that 1. I am not mathematical in any shape or form, and 2. I have always wanted to work with books or English in some shape or form. Wouldn't have worked, just wouldn't have.
But then I started to think about technological advances in general. What if we had no internet. Internet kicked off when I was young. We were one of the first in my class to have it, though not one of the first to have anything else! We being myself and my sister. So I have pretty much grown up in a world wide web kind of world. For information only though. Social networking really only kicked off in a major style in my 20s. Or at least, this was when I started noticing it more. I never did the Yahoo! thing, but I did have MySpace and Genes Reunited. And it took a while to migrate to facebook. But now I wouldn't look back.
The thing that concerned me most, was the fact that social networking was cited so many times in reasons for relationship breakdown. I mean, if you have a perfectly happy, healthy relationship, then some website shouldn't be able to rock that, can it? No! Of course not. There was clearly problems there to begin with, it is just that the accusing party does not want to admit that they messed up somehow. I am a prime example. I faked being happy for 4.5 years, met my best friend through facebook finally told her I was living in hell, and she persuaded me to stop lying to myself and everyone else and get it sorted. I did. Facebook was blamed. I guess there are times when it won't go the same way - you meet a girl/guy online, fall in love, leave whoever you're with, and then nothing happens. But still, there was clearly some underlying problem in the first place. I got over my concerns pretty quickly when I got to meet my Louisiana family on MySpace, and then on facebook. And I have now managed to find distant relatives through facebook too. It's all good, all good.
And without the joys of facebook, how would we (being myself and Ellie) have been able to spread the word about the book. How would we have gotten so many submissions from around the world in such a short time? Or found proofreaders, formatters, illustrators, people to buy it? I mean, since Ellie started the page in September, we have had 122 likes. Although, we have had 2 of those unlike us. And of these 120 likes, they are as follows - and remember, I am hoping these will change, but as of today they stand at this:
· 66 - United States of America
· 44 - United Kingdom
· 3 – Australia
· 2 – Germany
· 2 – Canada
· 1 – Philippines
· 1 – Netherlands
· 1 – Barbados
How would we have managed all this without the world wide web, facebook and all their glory? Well, we wouldn't, quite matter-of-factly. And would we be able to sell as many copies? No, probably not. And would all the wonderful projects that Equipeare trying to fund suffer without this ingenious technology? Yes, most definitely.
So, with this great technological buzz going about. Where do we go from here? Well, I will tell you. Mobile technology! You know, us Brits aren't stupid when we call mobile/portable/cellular phones "mobiles" - it would be because they are 'mobile'!! And then you have the different types. I, myself, am a BlackBerry girl, whereas my sister is an iPhone junkie. Unfortunately, the technology to make a BB app is much harder than it is to make an Apple app. Or even an Android app. But it will come, eventually. Actually, hopefully sooner than we think. Because..... the website that I am planning to build my app on does say in it's FAQ's, that they are working on being able to do BB and Android apps shortly.
Ellie kind of beat me to the chase on the app front. My plan was to make an app for the conrtibutors only, so that they could keep up-to-date with the goings on, and not have to log into facebook all the time. And I was also going to make one for Equipe. But she has made one for the book. I haven't spoken to her on how it will work, but I am sure she has all the ins and outs sorted. As Apple takes a percentage of each sale, 30% I think it is, and obviously my apps would be free to download, as they would form part of my university project, and hence given to the university for approval before going live (but the fact that I had made them, would still be in my portfolio, so it wouldn't really matter if they went live or not, I guess).
I have just realised that I have been writing this since I dropped both the children off at school, and my weetabix is still sitting next to me in a bowl. I really need to go! I will be back with more updates soon. I will get better at this. My jobs today are emailing Lucy at Glyndwr, about my Project work for Equipe; starting to create the apps; and remembering to take my pain killers on time. Oh, and I need to finish watching The Jury - it was homework for Media Law. I also need to get a wiggle on with that assignment too. Oh the joys of being a student.... :)