[Reposting this to get it on my blog. @timapple and @apoorplayer: just ignore this. Pretend you’re everyone else in the world…]

@timapple mentioned the new 37 Signals app, which is a simple and fun version of Kan Ban called Fizzy. I went over and checked it out. Now, Kan Bans are used for tracking collaborative projects with a decent number of people [@drjlwells has informed me this isn’t necessarily true], which is not me at all. I’m a solo act these days. However, I watched the demo video done by 37 Signals co-founder Jason Fried, and then signed up for the free trial today and started using it.

So far, it’s been kind of fun. I want to keep track of progress on my book projects, online writing, and home improvement projects. Right now, I’m trying to restore one of my previous books to the web for free online reading, and it is helping me organize what needs to be done. I also threw a “card” up (you created cards that are then added to columns that indicate levels of progress) about an article I stumbled on and might want to want to write about later about “ecoscenography,” which is a design approach for theater productions that tries to create sets, for instance, out of things that can be upcycled, recycled, or reused. I can attach the article to the card along with a few sentences to remind me of what I was thinking, and I put it in the “Considering” column.

I could see this as being useful for something like a podcast (@apoorplayer) or YouTube channel where you have to organize and track various stages of production. If I were still teaching, I was use the heck out of it for my class prep, committee work, production work and so forth.

For some reason, I find this kind of fun, especially recently when my mind has a bunch of new and unexpected energy. I look forward to exploring other uses. The trial gives you 1000 cards, after which you can either pay $20/month or download the source code and run it yourself. Unfortunately, the latter is beyond my pay grade right now, but it might be something I could learn later. @timapple, how is it going for you?

OK, let me expose my ignorance. I’d like to create a very simple web page for a book not unlike Matthew Butterick’s – a series of linked pages, the ability to tinker with formatting (e.g., decent fonts, line spacing, text boxes, etc.). I’d actually like to use Microsoft Word for the layout (I think), and then either export as HTML or copy and paste it. But here’s where I get lost, because I’ve always used Wordpress, Scalar, or Blogger to publish, so I don’t really know what is available. I don’t really want to learn HTML, and I don’t really understand GitHub or how to use it (although I could learn). Can anybody give me some guidance? I have a hosting service with the usual CPanel CMS’s. I just don’t get how it works…