Apocalypse Now? Happy New Year!

January 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment

People think the Mayans predict the world will end in 2012 but no record can be found in their history to suggest that’s true. But the calendar they used does end a 5000+ year run on December 12, 2012. Whether doomsday does arrive or not, I’m still moving forward with my plans for 2012, just in case.

Last year was much better for us than previous years. We’ve been through quite a lot and the break from major life catastrophes was a welcome change. Erin is still healthy and that’s really all that matters to me. Everything else is gravy. But now that she is well we’re a tad low on gravy.

I tend to make overly optimistic plans ever year and never see them through. So this year I’m keeping it simple. This is basically it:

Do something every day to move towards your goals.

That’s it. I have no other resolutions, as this covers them all. I do have goals for the year and doing something every day to achieve those goals is how they’ll come to pass.

  • Finish losing weight. Over the last few years I’ve been losing weight and this year I will finish this project. I’ve stalled a few times here and there but this is one of the things I’ve stuck with the most. I’m down to around 178 from 240! My goal is somewhere around 150. The actual weight isn’t the goal. It’s a certain size/shape: flat, not fat!
  • Put a big dent in our debt. Between medical bills, housing fiasco and only one source of income our debt has become a looming cloud of doom for me. It’s one of the few things that can ruin my usual easy going, optimistic demeanor. To that end Erin is finally able to get back to work (she’s already interning and looking for other work) and I’ll be freelancing some of this year (more on that later). We’ve already cut our bills to the bone and now it’s time to hit these bills with a hammer.
  • Make money for myself. I’ve always done web development for fun and for other people. I’ve had a few projects of my own but none of them really ever focused on money. This year I’m taking making money for myself very seriously. A good chunk of the money I make from consulting will go to debt but the rest will be invested into my own ideas.
  • Have more fun. I don’t goof off nearly enough. It’s not that I’m serious all the time. Far from it. But I do tend to take everything very seriously even if it doesn’t show. And when I have something to do and I’m too tired or burned out to do it I still sit at the computer just staring at the screen because I feel guilty for not at least trying. I plan to goof off more and not feel one bit guilty about it. I plan to feel less guilty this year in all things.
  • Create more art. I’m not planning on becoming a full time photographer, artist or writer but I do plan on being more creative this year. Art is the reason I got into programming in the first place! I created Lit.Org because nothing like it existed at the time and I’ve been programming since. Oops. I’ve already sent off a few samples for a couple of writing gigs and I’m working on more. I have some guest blogging planned as well as more creative stuff that I’ll be publishing on Lit.Org.

So that’s the simple plan. Put one foot in front of the other and get going.

Filed Under: Blog, General

Video Blogging

April 26, 2011 By 3 Comments

I’ve always been drawn to the idea of doing some sort of video content for one of my sites. I’ve thought of doing a little news video blog type thing or just random blog posts or focused on a specific topic. But nothing really clicked with me enough that I thought I would be adding any value. Finally, I think I have an idea.

I’ve been doing web development since 1995. Everything from servers to code, graphics to marketing. I’m not an expert on everything, but I know my stuff and I love helping people and teaching others. So I think I’m going to be offering a combination of video types. Free webinars that teach people some of the things I know, and then how to videos. On the how to front, I’ll be specifically answering questions sent to me. I’ll be putting up a form and people can submit questions and I’ll answer them with video showing exactly how to do it. My goal is to create a product from the information I know and give lots of it away for free and charge for some of it in certain formats, like perhaps a printed book or dvd, etc.

I still have some other ideas for videos for some of my other sites too, but video can take a lot of time to process so I’ll be getting into video slowly. I’m in no rush, but I am excited about the possibilities.

Filed Under: Blog, General

Instapress Plugin for WordPress

April 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment

When Instagram announced their API I really wanted to take a crack at it and develop a WordPress plugin to pull in the pictures I share on Instagram. I’m really love Instagram and iPhone photography in general.

I haven’t had enough spare time to get around to writing my own plugin, but I still may. I have some ideas more integration with WordPress later. In the mean time, I found a handful of plugins that pull in your Instagram photos. I tried them all and Instapress is my Favorite. Like most plugins, it’s simple to install. It uses a widget to place the images in your sidebar and it supports a shortcode for embedding into posts/pages.

I tweaked the style it ships with a little to suit this layout. And I used a different size image than default because wanted a larger version so it would fill up the sidebar more since a single column was the only layout option. You could tweak that with css pretty easily to make them into columns, but I liked the photobooth type effect that the strip has.

One note on image sizes. It seems Instagram supports just about any size, but anything I tried over 300 kept turning into a rectangle instead of a square. I didn’t take any more time looking into it. It could have been my sites CSS or some other thing. I just dropped it back down to 250 and it still looks good.

Instapress is a pretty good plugin if you want include your Instagram stream.

Filed Under: Blog, Plugins, Wordpress

Some Thoughts on Facebook

April 23, 2011 By 1 Comment

I have to admit, I didn’t get Facebook at first. I was pretty early on Facebook in my sliver of the social graph, but it had even less appeal to me than MySpace did. But as more and more friends got on that’s when the magic started happening. Facebook’s killer feature is you’re friends, family and colleges. It’s the new email.

Speaking of family, I never thought I would like the idea of my family being on Facebook. Turns out, it’s probably one of the things I love most about it. I get to keep up with close family, cousins and even distant relatives in Germany, one of whom just found me on Facebook today. From a town of 630 people!

Facebook has become an important part of how I communicate. I probably get as much, if not more of my contact with people through Facebook these days. So much so that I have to check it a couple of times a day just in case one of the many projects I manage have an update through the service.

Facebook really doesn’t do all that much. It’s probably very sophisticated code, but the features of Facebook are like a forum in reverse. Instead of viewing discussions, you view profiles and you have discussions on them. But features isn’t what Facebook is about. It’s all about your contacts. That’s why, out of all the new services I’ve seen spring up Facebook might have the best chance of long shelf life. Because your best friend from school is on there. Your brothers, sisters, parents, cousins and extended family are on there. Your co-workers, clients and vendors are on there. It’s email 2.0.

Some articles have said that Facebook is mostly about “weak ties” type relationships. But I think it’s making many of my relationships stronger. I get to keep up with people I care about in a way that I couldn’t otherwise. We all have busy lives but it’s very nice to keep up with what’s happening in the lives. It’s also brought me closer to friends in real life. Not only do I see what’s going on with people I don’t get to see often but because of Facebook I’m also meeting up with more friends for lunches or dinner or just to hang out.

All in all, I’m glad something like Facebook exists.

Filed Under: Blog, General

30 Day Challenges – What Should I do Next?

April 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment

April is getting close to the end so I’ve been thinking about what to do for my challenge next month. In case you missed it this month was a blogging challenge where my goal is to blog every day this month. I missed one day, but that’s not the point.

For May, I had thought I would do Darren Rowse’s 30 Days To Building A Better Blog. While I’m a seasoned veteran at this, I feel it would be a good challenge and a fun experience. I’ve been out of this for a couple of years now and this would be very fun to do. But I can’t do it in May because I’ll be out of town too much. So I plan on doing this in June instead. If you’re interested in doing this with me, let me know and we can do this as a group. I’ll post more about that another time.

So now I’m trying to brainstorm on what to do for May. Since I’m trying to get back into shape (Lost 22 pounds so far this round!) I’m thinking things like giving up sugar or something healthy like that for the month. Whatever it is, it must be something I can do away from the computer because for 7 days, I’ll have no way to get online nor to a computer.

I’m leaning towards giving up sugar, but I’m open to ideas. What should I do for my next challenge?

Filed Under: 30 Day Challenge, Blog

Weight Loss Update

April 21, 2011 By 2 Comments

Today I passed my latest 10 pound goal, hitting 179 and now I’m on my way to 170. It seems I get asked more about this than anything else lately, and I’m happy to talk about it.

One of the big questions I get is how I find the time. Obviously, I don’t have anymore time in a day than anyone else and it takes me a hour and a half for my workout. And that’s if I really hustle. I do my cardio anywhere from 50-60 minutes. Some days I also do about 15 minutes or so of weights. And I get very sweaty, so I need 10-20 minutes to cool down and then shower. It’s a pain in the ass.

Finding time to lose weight is a lot like losing weight. It’s as much about what you don’t do as what you do. So you eat healthy meals? Did you cut out the sugar and snack food too? It’s the same with time. Most Americans watch way too much TV. And believe me, I understand the appeal. I’ve loved movies and TV since I was a kid. I worked at the local theater and I still keep up with movie news. But I don’t have cable and I watch 1 hour of tv a week (Criminal Minds). A quick Google search seems to suggest that the average time we spend watching tv is anywhere from 2.5 to 4.5 hours per day. That doesn’t account for things like video games, movies, reading books, surfing the net or other liesure activities.

Your workout needs may vary. Figure out the amount of time you need for your workout and take it from somewhere else. Don’t say you can’t. Just like the number of people who can’t lose weight for medical reasons is a very, very small percentage of the population, so are those rare people who truly do not have the time. If you want to lose weight, you have no choice but to make time Besides, with today’s technology, you can still watch whatever you want and workout. I’m now up to watching 1 hour of tv per day, but I only do so when I’m running on my elliptical. Otherwise it may be too boring. Just don’t get on there and be slack ass about it. Put in the effort while you enjoy some entertainment.

Also, for you workaholics out there, take a break and work out. Studies have shown that working longer hours is actually counter productive.

The bottom line is, you can only lose weight if you want to. So go do it. The only thing stopping you is you.

Filed Under: Blog, Losing Weight

The Government Wants To Control User Identities?

April 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment

As usual, Read Write Web has the best coverage on this new initiative by our Government to create a unified login system. Go read the article.

The gist of the idea is to provide a single, secure trusted identity for logging into sites and other services online. I think one of the biggest problems with the internet today is anonymity. But I’m not advocating that we need to reveal who we are, but a single sign on that could be banned is very appealing as a web developer and one of the reasons this idea is scary.

I’m not political, so this has nothing to do with that. I don’t follow politics and I don’t really care. I should, I just don’t have the time. So the idea of the Government running this project is insane. They can’t even keep hard drives safe in nuclear plants. They can’t keep their own sites from being defaced. They can’t can’t even keep their own top secrets secret anymore.

Not only that, but the Government moves at the speed of red tape, not the speed of technology. While they have the means to hire talented people to pull this off I just don’t think the Government really gets technology anymore. I don’t mean the scientists, engineers and other technical people in the Government, I mean the the lawmakers and decision makers who are so out of touch with today’s technology.

The idea is sound though, and I have to give them credit for thinking through the sticky situation of wether or not to make this mandatory. Although, I think this would be the perfect bait and switch kinda of deal here. They could say it’s optional, wait until it works well and has some adoption, then try to force it on people. I don’t think that’ll happen, but I can’t help be a bit paranoid.

The other issues that bother me about this is funding and privacy. With the budget in the state it’s in and the cuts they are making does the Government even have the resources to do this? And if they do, can we be sure it won’t be canned when the next round of budget cuts hit or the next President decides to spend the money on whatever his or her pet project is.

Then there’s privacy. We know the Government, or at least some people in it, can’t seem to control themselves when it comes to power. However minor it may be. Just look at the whole TSA problem. You’ve got TSA agents taking home images that aren’t supposed to even be POSSIBLE to take home. Not a few, but many thousands of images. Why, I couldn’t say. The images couldn’t be any more boring. But it’s violation of law and privacy. And if we can’t trust them with some X-Ray images how can we trust them with our online identity.

Besides, we already have things like oAuth and OpneID etc. You can even sign on to just about anything these days with Facebook. I think the Government should focus on more important things than solving problems that don’t need solving.

Filed Under: Blog

Sanctuary

April 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I’m an introvert. I’ve been tested several times and reading about introvert characteristics is like reading a checklist of personality traits that I wrote about myself. Most people think being introverted means things like not being around people or being shy or anti-social. Wether you are outgoing or not is not the same is if you are an introvert or extrovert.

Introverts, like me, need alone time to recharge themselves. Extroverts need to be around people to recharge. That’s the key difference. Being around people all day drains me and I need the quit, alone time to recoup.

That’s something I don’t get anymore. At work, I have no office nor doors. I work out in the open, with no way to control interruptions except for headphones. Another trait of introverts is that we need quit to think and like to work on one thing at a time. Another problem at work.

At home Erin and I moved into a one bedroom apartment to save money and pay off our credit cards and the like. Unfortunately, that means the dining room is her office and I have a corner in the living room. It also means I now have no sanctuary of my own that I can retreat to to have any quit time.

I don’t really have a solution either. I live with my headphones on all the time. Which I hate. I love music, but I need quit time to think. I need some me time and I just can’t get it. I have no idea what to do about it.

I don’t know if it’s a trait among introverts, but I feel more alone in a room full of people than I do a 100 miles away from the nearest person. I’m going to have to think about this problem more and figure out what to do.

Filed Under: General

I Hate Waiting

April 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I remember my Dad trying to teach me patience when I was a kid. I’d get a new toy and want to open it on the way home. You know, like kids do. But I waited, and I have to say I’ve become pretty patient because of my Dad. Once a thing is set in motion, I can pretty much let it run it’s course. Except for one waiting on one thing will effect the next event in the sequence.

For example, when I know I need a part and it’s holding up the project. Or if I need to pay for something but the check to me is late. Or if I have to have something by a certain date and the deadline is getting too close. Then I hate waiting. I hate that uncertain feeling that things will go wrong.

The main way I’ve found to deal with this is to not get in those situations to begin with. Some are unavoidable, but for the most part better planning and preparation mean these issues pop up less. When these things do happen, I just do what I can within my ability and not let the rest bug me so much anymore. Life’s way to short to sweat the small stuff.

Filed Under: Blog

Don’t Beat Yourself Up

April 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

So I meant to blog yesterday as part of my 30 Day Challenge. I don’t count the quick link I posted. So I missed yesterday and while that stings, I’m not going to beat myself up about it.

It’s a lot like losing weight. It’s easy to make an excuse and soon you’ve fallen back into old habits. For example, it’s Thursday night and you’re out with friends. You’re trying to lose weight and you have a little too much fun at dinner. You get carried away and drink soda, eat a little too much and have some cake for desert. You wake up Friday and say, we’ll, it’s already Friday so I might as well enjoy the weekend. Monday comes and it’s the 23rd of the month and you figure, you might as well get a fresh start on the 1st of the next month.

I know, because that’s how I rationalized things. But the truth is, getting in shape in any area of your life is about changing behavior and not repeating bad habits. So when you slip up, and you will so enjoy those moments, just get back on track the very next meal if it’s eating, or blogging the very next day if it’s blogging. When you get into practice like that, these little “mistakes” will be minor blips instead of major setbacks. The important thing is sticking with it. So don’t beat yourself up. Let it go and just keep doing better.

Filed Under: Blog
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