Chris Betcher

Many people I know struggle with technology. They bumble by, more-or-less managing to make their computer do what they want it to do, but often without that real sense of confidence that comes from feeling fluent with the software they are interacting with. And let's face it, when we talk about "technology", we mostly mean "software". Sure, there are some hard-to-use hardware devices but by and large when I watch someone struggling to feel comfortable using "technology", it's usually because they are out of their depth with the software they are trying to use, not the hardware. It might not seem like it when you're so frustrated you just want to throw your laptop out the nearest window, but companies who build software try really hard to make their tools easy to use. Of course, not all software is actually easy to use, but I do believe that all software designers really do try to make their software as easy to use as possible. It's not eas...

Sometimes it's good to stop and take stock. To think about getting rid of some of the clutter that we allow to build up. You may recall that I was thinking about shifting my blog to a new server and running a self hosted Wordpress blog. Well, I had intended to think about it a little before I did anything drastic (I think that's called procrastination), but once you get started on these things it all begins to snowball so you may as well just get on with it.  So here we are... the new online home for Betchablog. If you're reading this in an RSS reader then you probably won't even notice a change (at least I hope not! Moving the old RSS feeds across to a new server was something that always put me off making the move, but I think I worked it out). I used Google Forms to ask for some feedback about the old blog and 41 people took the time to respond with some really useful comments. (That Google Forms is just so darn useful!)  It's good to occasionally stop and take...