ptworld.net renewed for the Sigala project

My first foray into Internet consultancy was in 1998, under the guise of PT Internet, but it was short-lived as I took up a full-time post a few months later.  However, wanting to maintain some online foothold, I bought the domain ptworld.net.  I naively assumed that a .net domain could denote an association with any kind of Internet services, whereas, at the time, it was intended for organisations involved in networking infrastructure or Internet Service Providers.  However, after a few years, with the proliferation of top-level domains, such a specific association faded away and I eventually got round to create a website, but sadly it became quite neglected until this year ...

After months of preparation, I’m pleased (and relieved) to have launched a renewed website, up-to-date and providing extensive coverage of what I’m about – especially in terms of research and software development, and my experience.  The site’s navigation reflects the interdisciplinary nature; hyperlinks are used liberally to allow ease of movement between the more theoretical research topics concerning Buddhist ethics to more practical perspectives such as cognitive interventions using thinking routines.  Regarding software development, I try to take a historical perspective when solving problems, which I incorporate also in my portfolio.   Alternatively, connections on a given themes may be explored via the tags or the use of the search facility.  

The banner image is a photograph I took whilst living in Doha.  It depicts the Corniche, with promotional slogans in English and Arabic.  The complete set (in English) is ‘Think’, ‘Realize’ and ‘Achieve’ — remember that Arabic is read from right to left.  Certainly, they have already achieved a great deal for a small state and the World Cup is arriving very soon.  It serves partly as a prompt to myself to persevere and keep the dream alive, as it were.  I’m not so good at self-promotion, but at this juncture the website is primarily an invitation to help nurture a viable business to support Sigala, a project that I have researched extensively.   The project needs to convincingly answer the question of why it’s a good investment.  How can the trusted network be leveraged to generate income ... ?

In terms of roadmap, there remains the need for a proof of concept.  Whilst I’ve established that Symfony is capable of delivering prototypes, I have found that consolidating all the project strands has been quite an undertaking and have not yet progressed this.  It may be better for someone else to do the coding, so with that in mind my next step will be to create mockups. 

Another reason for the delay has been a detour, which led to a mini project in itself to address the problem of delivering a faster and more secure public-facing website.  You may notice with the ptworld.net site, that URLs typically end in ‘index.html’, which means they are static pages, with no processing overhead from scripts or database queries to deliver the content.   All being well, you should notice that translates to faster page loads in your web browser.  The software responsible for delivering such pages – the result of this mini project – is MakeStaticSite, a set of Bash shell scripts released under the AGPL license, invoking popular GNU tools such as wget and rsync to generate and deploy with various options a static site.  It’s an age-old problem, but my focus has been on deploying live sites rather than creating archives, and is aimed especially at converting sites made in WordPress, though it works generally with any site accessible via http.   

Many developers consider WordPress retro, old or out of date, and prefer more modern approaches that are unconstrained by such a monolithic architecture and thus replete with possibilities.  But whether making WordPress headless or dispensing with WordPress altogether, it is acknowledged that it carries with it a significant technical overhead for development and maintenance.  I doubt that many individuals and small organisations are concerned about the constraints of themes; they will be happy enough if there’s a nice-looking result that clearly conveys the nature of their activities and will reach the intended audience. WordPress already satisfies their needs, so for them, at least, MakeStaticSite can allow this to continue whilst providing the additional benefit of delivering a safer and faster public-facing site. 

MakeStaticSite is already quite functional and I can see many possible improvements, but I need to move on as time is really limited.  If only I had a good and capable team at my disposal ... 

First Impressions of Qatar

I started work on the 1st July and two days later received this memento:

It is from a party I attended along with colleagues to congratulate a senior member on their new appointment. The occasion seemed more akin to a wedding reception - complete with guest book - and illustrates, I feel, the kind of welcome that local people like to offer. :-) I think hospitality has been a long-standing custom in this area, a tradition expounded in the recent exhibition called The Gift of the Sultans . (I'm particularly interested in gift exchange as I think its importance is growing in wider economic development.)

If my copious notes are anything to go by, there's been a lot to interest, perplex and marvel in my first few days.  At the party I did not escape having a microphone shoved into my hands, and all I could really say is that it's been somewhat overwhelming experience to take everything in, but it has been actually quite wonderful - that is, there are many things to wonder at. Before I arrived I had been reading a little bit about the geography and history and had a sense of very quiet and simple existences - of Bedouin tribes and pearl fishing villages.  So when I see all the development, the contrast is striking; it seems even more marked than the modern urbanisation of Bangkok in the '80s and '90s because here in Doha 10 years seems already a long time ago.  This is especially so in terms of staffing: having just come from Oxford, where departments could have half a dozen staff with 150 or more years service between them.   In Doha, I guess this would be unheard of, so you really feel the newness of this incarnation!   In such a short timescale without really knowing what the future will bring it's inevitable that some construction plans are made somewhat hastily, but the overall direction towards a 'knowledge economy' and the investments in arts, culture and education seem laudable and I think will bear fruit.

I've seen or met quite a few people, yet I've hardly made any excursions.  When I asked about getting out and about on foot or by bus, I got a doubtful look; it does seem that most people just drive or use drivers, though I did see a few Mowasalat and other buses go by, particularly US-style yellow school buses.  It's really the multitude of people who have been passing through the hotel and whom I've met at the workplace.  For instance, some reception staff are from countries in Eastern Europe such as Ukraine and Belorus; many Filipinos act as drivers and also room service staff; there are also Indonesians, particularly from Bali.   I met one staff member from Nepal and he had relatives in the UK (and knew about Joanna Lumley's support for the Gurkhas!)  Other drivers are from North Africa - e.g. Sudan - and South Asia, e.g. India and Pakistan; you soon realize that there are several continents and many nationalities within 3 hours flying time.   This is also reflected in the hotel laundry list, which for men includes items such as dish dash, gutra, Gahfia cap, and serwal.

At the office my colleagues (some of whom are on LinkedIn ) are from states/countries such as Qatar, US, Canada, India, Syria, Egypt, and Eritrea.  Several of my non-Qatari colleagues that they were born or brought up in Qatar, which initially surprised me, but then on reflection that is to be expected because, I think, for several decades the expat community has outnumbered the Qatari citizens.  Now the population of Qatar has exceeded 1.7 million, about 80% of whom are expats, many from other Arab countries, plus South Asia and the Philippines, whilst Westerners make up only a small minority.   However, I've not encountered so many people who are like myself of mixed ethnicity, at least not many in comparison with the UK, whose diversity has come from long-term immigration especially through Europe and Commonwealth connections.  I think that reflects the Islamic code of conduct around marriage, which is stricter than in secular society, plus the fact that many immigrants come here for relatively short contracts and ethnic communities here may be quite self-contained, though I don't know.

I work fairly standard office hours - compared with my previous jobs I start  early and finish early leaving plenty of time for the rest of the day.  However, some hours of work are evidently much longer: I was concerned to hear one driver declare that he offered a 24 hour service - "you can ring me at 2am and a driver will be there within 15 minutes."   "When do you sleep?" I asked.  "During my holidays!" came the reply.  In effect, when not driving, he's on call all the time.  Yet he was recommended to me because he has a reputation for being reliable.  I hope he doesn't get so many night time calls.

The Qatar Museums Authority is a quite large organisation with headquarters in a tower block; I use the staircase to get some exercise (10 flights of stairs to the floor where I work); so far I just walk, but one of my colleagues has been running and can race up them in 2 minutes or even less!

Here is a promotional video made in-house with QMA staff, aimed particularly at University students.



QMA has some UK links, particularly with University College London.  Here is another video, describing the partnership with the Qatar Foundation, Department of Culture and QMA:



The fields of cultural heritage and archeology seem to me a good match!


I never thought that I would become an expat - but somehow it happened.  You get a few reminders of your new offshore status, such as visiting UK news sites which display adverts offering super-charged pensions and salary schemes, trying to entice with "Free Report for BBC Readers in Qatar" or "Create your own personalised high interest offshore savings and investment design today!"  I think I'll stick to something simple, though I shall need to open a bank account soon, now that my residency permit and ID card have come through.

So far my experiences have been very positive - the Qatar I've experienced is buzzing with optimism, a 'can do' attitude.  And lest I get too busy, I can recall the words of Desiderata.