Theo Todman's Web Page - Notes Pages
Status Reports
Status: Web-Tools (2026 - June)
(Text as at 13/07/2026 19:20:38)
Rationale for this Project
- This Project was alluded to briefly in a footnote on research methodology in my original Research Proposal1 under the head Research - Internet Technology2. When last at Birkbeck, I wrote a more extensive paper3 defending the Project and describing its rationale. I continue to take this Project further. There’s still a lot to do: still quite a few items on the “wish list”. It is fairly critical as an enabler for my research, so I need to get a move on as I had wanted it all out of the way before I re-started4 formal research.
- For documentation on my website follow the links below:-
- Functional5 Documentation6.
- Technical7 Documentation.
- Other Websites8
- Active
- Billericay Mayflower Bridge Club: since November 2021, on and off
- Old House Friday Bridge Club: a website that I’d created (amongst the other ‘small sites’) back in 2013. Revitalised in 2023.
- Enigma Ensemble: I created and maintain a small website for the music group Julie and I attend and which I now run. I’ve updated the site in the light of the retirement of our Director, to reference our new location and to show that portion of our repertoire acquired from MuseScore.
- a1waspsandbees: Commercial site for a bridge-partner. Minimal involvement beyond retiring duplicate sites.
- http://www.theotodman.com/MountnessingAndFriends.htm: A developing archive site for various defunct Bridge Clubs in the vicinity of Billericay.
- Inactive
- Sometime around 2005, I created a website for Dr. Sophie Botros, one of my supervisors at Birkbeck, but we then lost touch and it got maintained (very badly) by some desktop support outfit. In 15Q2 I took it back on again and spruced it up a bit, and maintain it periodically until 19Q3, when it was taken on by a professional outfit, Bookswarm. The “Sophie Botros” link in this bullet is now to their version of the site. My site looked like this.
- I created and / or ran a multitude of other bridge websites, but as of January 2018 I have either handed them over or mothballed them9:-
- I established the Hutton Website in 11Q4 using the standard Bridgewebs service, but with a couple of competitions using my own routines. This was handed over in 15Q3. I briefly took it on again in March 2020. It needed a spring clean, but I was waiting to see whether the club (and its members) survived the coronavirus pandemic, and I handed it back on that account. The club went ‘on-line only’ but has now closed for lack of support. The Bridgewebs website is no more.
- In 15Q1, I took over the support and development of the Essex Contract Bridge Association (ECBA) website, which also uses Bridgewebs, but is very much larger. I wrote a lot of code10 to make this job less tedious. The site was handed over in 17Q4.
- For several years, I collected data11 on bridge activity in the Billericay/Brentwood area (initially needed for a project to set up a new consolidated club) by “scraping” data off web pages, consolidating it into a database and modelling it in various ways.
- I used this data to generate websites with a multitude of ladders for small clubs (8 small Essex Bridge websites). These are now mothballed, with the exception of the Old House one noted above.
- I created and maintained a new website for the First Class Bridge Academy, giving it “small clubs” ladders (8 further “small sites” for Bernie) as these were easy to maintain with little intervention.
- As of March 2020 I took over the Mountnessing website on Bridgewebs. Earlier, in 16Q3, I created the Mountnessing Bridge Club Archive website, using the vast bulk of the pages from their legacy site, as the club had moved to Bridgewebs and lost its historical data. Sadly, the Club has now been wound up, but I intend to keep this historical record. The Bridgewebs website is no more, though I’ve extracted data from the EBU for Mountnessing and other sites to create http://www.theotodman.com/MountnessingAndFriends.htm as a proxy.
- I created a website12 for displaying the textual and grammatical analyses and appendices of Pete’s PhD on the Acts of the Apostles: Acts: Test Site.
Summary of Progress during April - June 2026
- I spent 89.25 hours in 26Q2 on this Project, or related work (295.25 hours YTD, where for "YTD" - Year to Date - I mean the (academic) year that commenced in October 2025). That's 114.1% of the planned effort (133.2% YTD). Overall, 11.5% of my Project effort in the Quarter was directed towards this project (making 12.6% YTD) - as against 9.2% planned (8.9% YTD).
- I scheduled a marginally-increased 6 hours / week on this project in 26Q2 and slightly overspent the allocated time, more so YTD.
- I’m still nowhere near catching up on this project, which will need to regain a major focus later in the academic year.
- Developments this quarter focused on Bridge NGS reporting for my RealBridge games at Milton Keynes. Maintaining this database is rather time-consuming, so I’ll need to ensure it’s worth the bother.
- Completed items included:-
- Own Website:
- Bridge
- Add Dave Turner to NGS Capture
- Revive Essex & Add Herts & Beds for NGS Capture
- Papers
- Remove 'pseudo-paper' comments for papers with embedded Notes
- Other Websites:
- Full details for 26Q2 are given below13:-
Website (Total Hours = 75.5)
- Website - Bridge Development (Total Hours = 22.25)
- Software Development - Bridge Database - Add Dave T to NGS Capture (2.25 hours)
- Software Development - Bridge Database - Revive Essex & Add Herts & Beds for NGS Capture (20 hours)
→ See "Software Development - Website - Development" (22.25 hours)
- Website - Bridge Maintenance (Total Hours = 27)
- Website - Development
- Website - Education
- Website - Infrastructure (Total Hours = 13.25)
- Bibleworks re-installation (2.75 hours)
- Develop & maintain procedures for junking US Healthcare spam (1.25 hours)
- Dropbox - Revitalisation (0.25 hours)
- EE Broadband: Outbuildings Contract Consolidation + Full Fibre (0.25 hours)
- EE Broadband: Outbuildings Contract Renewal + WiFi Extender (2.25 hours)
- Fitbit - Reviewing Fitbit Premium re renewal or cancellation (0.25 hours)
- Fixing paper jams on Epson Printer (0.25 hours)
- iPhone Cables (0.25 hours)
- Julie's Laptop - Sundry troubleshooting (1.25 hours)
- Kobo Clara Colour eReader - Connectivity problems (0.5 hours)
- Microsoft Windows & MS Office - Releases, Bugs & Periodic Re-boots (2.5 hours)
- MS Access table-row delete confirmation not working (0.5 hours)
- PC Backups / OneDrive (1 hour)
→ See "Admin - Website - Admin & Maintenance" (13.25 hours)
- Website - Maintenance (Total Hours = 3.5)
Website Others (Total Hours = 13.75)
- Website Others - A1WaspsAndBees
- Website Others - Enigma Ensemble
- Website Others - Mayflower DBC Maintenance (Total Hours = 10)
- "Admin - Mayflower Website - Admin & Maintenance" (2 hours)
- Admin - Mayflower Website - Attendance Module (2.5 hours)
- Investigating PlayMyBoard.com security warnings from Norton (1.5 hours)
- Mayflower Scoring Laptop - EBUScore & BridgeMate Control Software - Individual Tournament Set-up (2.5 hours)
- Mayflower Scoring Laptop - Home Uploads (no internet at MVH) (0.25 hours)
- Mayflower Scoring Laptop - Install Bridge Timer (1 hour)
- Mayflower Scoring Laptop - Windows Updates (0.25 hours)
- Website Others - Small Bridge Sites
Plans for the Near Future
- I’ve reverted the weekly time allocation to 5 hours. This is nowhere near enough to make progress but reflects reality. Maybe I will be able to provide more focus to this project later in the academic year.
- The Plan below is taken automatically from the Priority 1 items on my Development Log – as published in my Outstanding Developments15 Report.
- Own Website: Priority 1 Items By Category:-
- Architecture
- Complete XRef-re-engineering project:-
- Ensure all links and link-pages use the new XRef table, and pension off the old tables where appropriate.
- Check all link-types still work and fix any errors.
- Complete the auto-triggering of regeneration of “associated” link pages.
- Fix Bug whereby PaperSummary pages seem to have “Works-” and “Books/Papers-” Citings that refer to the same link-pages.
- Complete Documenting16 the process!
- Authors
- Creep-check for duplicate authors & fix
- Backups
- Determine why flag on directories "not to be backed up" gets reset
- Document and enable regular running of the de-duplication function ('pruning') of the backup disk. Keep a full record of deleted duplicates.
- Enable Backups to be undertaken on both my PC & Laptop and write reconciliation software.
- Incorporate new 5Tb WD Backup Drive into backup system.
- Investigate historic error messages
- Investigate Record-count discrepancies:-
- How do website files work as far as counts are concerned?
- Why aren't they recorded in Backup_History, nor the fact that the website was backed up?
- Different counts depending on whether new or old laptop is backed up. Investigate 63k discrepancy - lower on new laptop.
- Review architecture to improve performance; Need to document17 first
- Sort out the contents of my C:Drives, OneDrive and Emails as documented in my Backup Documentation
- Books/Papers
- For Books and Papers - add link pages - analogous to:-
→ BooksToNotes_
→ BookCitings_
→ PapersToNotes_
→ PaperCitings_
linked to from:-
→ BookSummaries_
→ PaperSummary_
and (maybe) from:-
→ BookPaperAbstracts_
→ Abstract_
But, the links are FROM the Book / Paper, rather than TO
For Books, ensure that all the links from all the Book's Papers are also included
- Import pdfs downloaded from "LRB - London Review of Books" into databases (& update LRB_Files table).
- Sub-Topic ID has reached 996: What happens after 999? Research and Fix
- Bridge
- Add extra NGS Information for Results Export
- Documentation
- Website Generator Documentation - Audio18: Review & Complete Documentation
- Website Generator Documentation - Author Narratives19: Complete Documentation
- Website Generator Documentation - Backups20: Complete Documentation
- Website Generator Documentation - Citations21: Complete Documentation
- Website Generator Documentation - Code Documenter22: Complete Documentation
- Website Generator Documentation - Create Notes Web Pages23: Complete Documentation
- Website Generator Documentation - Cross-Referencing24: Complete Documentation
- Website Generator Documentation - Functional Overview25: Review & Complete Documentation
- Website Generator Documentation - Language / Ling Pages26: Complete Documentation
- Website Generator Documentation - Links & Link-Pages27: Complete Documentation
- Website Generator Documentation - Monthly Reporting28: Complete Documentation
- Website Generator Documentation - New Items29: Complete Documentation
- Website Generator Documentation - Note References & Reading List30: Complete Documentation
- Website Generator Documentation - PID Note, Book & Paper Usage31: Complete Documentation
- Website Generator Documentation - Precis Export32: Complete Documentation
- Website Generator Documentation - Prune Website33: Complete Documentation
- Website Generator Documentation - Spider34: Complete Documentation
- Website Generator Documentation - Thesis Dashboard35: Complete Documentation
- Website Generator Documentation - Thesis Technology36: Complete Documentation
- Website Generator Documentation - Time Recording37: Complete Documentation
- Website Generator Documentation - Timelines (Photos & Blog)38: Complete Documentation
- Education
- Read "PC Pro - Computing in the Real World".
- Read "White (Ron) & Downs (Timothy Edward) - How Computers Work: The Evolution of Technology".
- Infrastructure
- Migrate from Chrome to Bitwarden for password management
- Notes
- Allow the option to embed blocks of re-usable text in Notes (ie. linearly embed them essay-style) rather than using hyperlinking. Slightly analogous to Note_Snippets or Sub_Notes, but more flexible.
- For use as "disclaimers".
- The identical block of text in the Dashboard39 to that in the Note Thesis - Method & Form40 that describes the Thesis.
- For Thesis / essays: the difficulty here is the need for linking passages to make the text run smoothly.
- As a more controllable alternative to 'Printable Notes'.
- Correct processing for 'References & Reading List' section in Thesis - References41. There are over 7,000 but only 7 items appear!
- Determine why all my Status Reports from September 2021 are missing from Notes_Archive. Seek to recover them from backups.
- Develop method for (manually) deleting otiose Archived Notes: ie. ensure links work for remaining Notes!
- Enhance PID Note, Book & Paper Usage42 to include a section listing works cited in my Thesis but not read
- Investigate Note_Links: Section references seem to be incorrect
- Notes_Links: Segment & Provide Jump Table (Eg. For Thought43)
- PID Thesis References - De-duplicate / suppress and / or change sort order / aggregation for non-anthology book chapters
- Temp_Note_Timestamp column in Notes table not working: introduced to correct Active Note Groups with Notes Updated in the last 7, 14, 28 days (JumpTableTitles_Recent_Control). Should be x 1,000?
- Update Personal Page44 & Home Page
- Upgrade Auto_Reference_Notes to reference Sub-Notes: Used to only affect one note - Somerset Maugham - but now may be urgent
- When using the '#' reference to Notes, allow the omission of the Note ID for links within the same Note.
- Papers
- Split PDFs Available on Local Website45 page into alphabetical sub-pages
- Photos
- Timeline software46: Add photos for Bakers' Coxes Farm Development Phase III
- Timeline software47: Add photos for Henry's Biography
- Process
- Determine why Recalculation & Changed Book/Papers produce unneeded regeneration.
- Spider
- Investigate reduction in size of Web_Generator_Performance database that holds Raw_Links.
- Suppress MsgBox for 'Near to 2Gb' database size check (just use Debug).
- One-off deletion of rather useless links: EMail, TheosStyle.css, TT_ICO.png, #Top, ...
- Remove code that generates these links, and check them.
- Investigate removal of website 'root' (C:\Theo's Files\Websites\Theo's Website\) from Raw_Link and Full_Link. This would save 200Mb, but needs careful checking - especially against the Directory_Structure and related tables and code.
- If the above 'root' change is to go ahead - one-off updates + code changes required.
- Use Edge rather than Internet Explorer for External Links Spider (use Bing AI)
- Status
- Status: General Culture48 for March 2025 has 29 hours assigned to "FT - Five Books - Various Subjects not covered elsewhere" rather than just 0.75 hours with the bulk to "BBC - Miscellaneous iPlayer and Podcasts". Also in Status: Summary Task List49 and Status: Summary Task List - YTD50.
- Reorganise Status Reporting:-
- Merge Consciousness Project51 with Thesis52 (as a sub-project).
→ Merge historic plan & actuals
→ Adjust current Thesis plan, actuals & task list.
- Create a new Project: Culture & Politics
→ Move 'Thesis background reading / writing and 'Aeon' to this new project.
→ Create project plan and move historic actuals to it.
→ Adjust 'Thesis' historic actuals and task list: move relevant items to new project.
- Make sure the Status reports - both manual and automatic - still work
- WebRefs
- Create a page showing the use of WebRefs more clearly. The pages accessed via Theo Todman's Web-Links Test Webpages are of little use other than as an audit. Also, there are many broken links not picked up by the Spider. Need pages that use meaningful names.
- Documentation & Bug-fixes: Phase 2
- Re-document the procedures in the light of recent changes.
- Resolve issues generated / revealed by the spider.
- Investigate - and fix where possible - broken links.
- Find a way of recording Missing / Unknown Webrefs (eg. Webrefs 8395 and 8342 in Archived Notes 1292 and 1317) other than debug.print: create table, then suppress message for known problems
- Investigate items flagged as defunct. Populate Defunct_Explanation in WebRefs_Table. Consider use of FairUse (Link (Fair Use)) for documents no longer available that I'd downloaded.
- Investigate WebRefs with Issue = 'URL Translated OK': does the translation really work? How?
- Visitor Stats - cmdVisitorStats_Click (and following) - loops and requires 'DAO.DBEngine.SetOption dbmaxlocksperfile,1000000' to be typed in the Immediate window. Re-engineer.
- Other Websites: Priority 1 Items By Category:-
Summary of Progress to Date
This is hived off to various separate documents, which have now been harmonising and / or consolidated:-
- Summary of Progress to Date53.
- Outstanding Developments54,
- Functional Documentation55,
- A summary of time expended across the years developing my website56 is at "Software Development - Website - Development".
In-Page Footnotes:
Footnote 4:
- Well, in a sense, I’ve missed the boat as I’m now putting effort into my research, though in an informal basis, so will need to continue with both projects in parallel.
- This was always likely to be necessary, as new features will always arise in use. It’s a prototype methodology, after all.
Footnote 5:
- This is very tedious to produce and consequently is both incomplete and out of date.
Footnote 7:
- This is much more fun, as it’s a purely technical task.
- I’ve written a vastly-improved general-purpose technical documenter for MS Access.
Footnote 9:
- It’s a shame to abandon the “mini websites” with all their ladders, as it’s rather well done.
- However, I couldn’t waste time on these after I’d abandoned bridge.
Footnote 10:
- In particular, for the ECBA “Victor Ludorum” competition.
- I cannot hand any of this code over, so the tedium will return, though not to me!
Footnote 11:
- I had agreed to share this data sometime early in 2018.
- But will wait until asked again, as I doubt it’ll be of any real use to anyone.
Footnote 12:
- It used to exist in two versions, live and test.
- Pete decided not to renew the license for the live site, now it has achieved its purpose, so only the test site remains.
Footnote 13:
- Note that where fixes or small enhancements are made to a previously “completed” development, I don’t announce it again against the list of “completed” items above, though the work appears in the full list for the quarter.
Footnote 56:
- As distinct from developing other peoples’ websites – time which is also recorded against this project, but not against this task.
Table of the Previous 12 Versions of this Note: (of 100)
Summary of Notes Referenced by This Note
To access information, click on one of the links in the table above.
Summary of Notes Citing This Note
| Internet Technology and Philosophy |
King's Maths Questions |
Simon - T1S1T1 |
Status: Consciousness Studies (2023 - September) |
Status: Priority Task List (2026 - July) |
| Status: Summary (2026 - June), 2 |
Status: Summary Task List (2026: July) |
Status: Summary Task List (YTD: 25Q4 - 26Q3) |
Theo Todman's Philosophy Page |
Theo Todman's Website Maintainance History |
| Website - Progress to Date (2026 - July), 2, 3, 4, 5 |
Website Generator Documentation - Control Page |
Website Generator Documentation - Functors, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
|
|
To access information, click on one of the links in the table above.
Authors, Books & Papers Citing this Note
| Author |
Title |
Medium |
Extra Links |
Read? |
| Software Development |
Website - Development |
Paper  |
|
|
Text Colour Conventions
- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2026