Blog: Google+ By: John Heisz

Just a heads up to those interested that I’ve been posting updates and project previews on my Google+ page.
In an earlier post, I said that I didn’t have the time to setup and maintain a Facebook page for the site, and that remains true. With YouTube’s integration with Google+, it made it pretty much mandatory to set up a Google+ page. I had done that earlier than the integration, but hadn’t any reason to do anything there, or be there. Now, I regularly visit the page and check what’s happening and occasionally post a picture or two of an upcoming project. For me, it’s so simple: I’m already signed in for YouTube, so it’s no problem to pop over there and quickly get something posted.
There’s been a lot of backlash against YouTube for doing this, but I really believe it is for the best. Certainly, I don’t have any major complaints and, like I said, it’s very convenient for me.
So, feel free to come and check out the page and I’ll do my best to keep posting updates and teasers for upcoming site projects.
Here’s the link:

https://plus.google.com/+JohnHeisz/

What? What did you say? Oh, you want to here me gripe some more? Not sick of that yet?
Ok, a minor issue, or so it may seem. Prior to starting this website, I had heard the expression: “personal search engine” from a well respected source, and really didn’t give it much thought. Thing is, if your are not ‘in the thick of it’, you can’t relate, not truly. Now that I’m truly in the thick of it, I have come to a full appreciation of the term.
Nearly every day I get an email asking whether I have a certain project, or plans, or video, and where they are. Some of these requests are to be expected, I guess, given that not everyone is a whiz with computers or finding things on a website. Still, I have to say that if my contact page could be found, the “search this site” bar at the top of every page on the website should be at least as easy to locate. In fact, what brings this to mind was how I had to use the search function myself, to find the blog entry linked to above. Just typing in “reddit” (since I did remember mentioning that) found the page. Granted, the search sometimes loses it’s settings, for some stupid reason, and if the page is fairly new, it won’t be found.

Still, I’m not bragging here or anything, but I think I did a pretty decent job of laying out the navigation on this site, so it’s fairly easy to find stuff without doing a search. Fact is, if it’s a woodworking project and it’s not in the woodworking section, it ain’t here – stop looking. Same for plans, they are all listed in the plans index page.
The same search capability exists on YouTube, and general search terms should find the video that relates to it. Once again, the search bar is at the top of each page. Typing in the subject and adding my name will find videos I did on that particular subject. For example: typing in “box joint, john heisz” finds all of the videos I did about box joints.

In other news, I have a slew of shop organization projects coming up. Some of these are small and some are bigger. This week’s article and video on the storage boxes is one, along with last week’s drill press cabinet article.
All will have detailed website articles, but no videos. I felt that in order to get these done in a timely manner, I had to pick the best way to present the projects in as much detail as I could, and that is with words and pictures. At the end of it all, I’ll do a shop tour video that covers all of the projects.

Lastly, I want to say that the first installments to the “My Old House” section are on the way. These will start at the beginning and work up to the present, and there will be an entry to more or less go with each of the videos done so far. While doing the work, and making the videos, I took a lot of photos and will be going into some details that are not covered the videos.
If you haven’t already, check out my other YouTube channel to watch these videos. Link is here:

https://www.youtube.com/user/IBuildItHome