several months ago I relaunched this site. The original idea was to focus more on “work” related topics and grow my personal brand. I’ve failed miserably and I’m ok with that. I have a handful of topics that I’m passionate about and I plan on building sites around those ideas. Here on chrispian.com, the idea was to focus on web development and related topics. I just don’t like the idea of doing that on my personal domain. I’d rather have a site dedicated to to the idea which would open the door to guest posts and possibly even having other bloggers as regular contributors. So I think a slight shift in what the purpose of this site is needs to happen. So instead of putting a lot of pressure on myself to write here, I’ll relax that and write whenever the mood strikes me. It will still be about the my work, mostly, but it’ll also cover other things of interest. I’m going to shift the design around a little so that it can incorporate all the content I create on other sites, especially things like Twitter, Flickr and my other blogs.

I’ve got a couple of domains that I can do web dev specific stuff on. I’m in the process of shifting twitterhacks.com to mobilityhacks.com so I can cover broader topics there. I also own greenlivinghacks.com which I’ll be launching pretty soon along with a handful of other blogs. This are all written by me personally, but since they are broad topics and not tied to my name I can have guest bloggers as well as other regular contributors. That’s probably my favorite part about blogging is working with other people.

Another project I’m in talks to work on is huntsvillemetro.com with my friend Keith. It’s a site he did several years ago and really hasn’t had time to work on. He’s not really a programmer, but he’s great at design and ideas. So I think between the two of us we can create a really killer local portal which is something I’ve always wanted to do. Huntsville is a great city and I’d like to highlight all the cool things about it. We’ve got a couple people who are interested in writing about Huntsville and some really cool features that I think will be pretty fun to work on.

I’m in no rush to push my projects forward. Since I have a day job now it’s not so important to rush and get to the point where these things are making money. I love my job and hope to be working there for quite a long time. However, I’d still like to have my own projects moving forward and making some extra spending money just as a backup and hopefully one day become a very nice second income. I may not have mentioned this before, but my boss at work is also my mentor. He’s teaching me more about the business of running sites and we have a few projects that we’ll be doing as a joint venture. I can’t talk about those just yet, but I’m really excited by some of the ideas we’ve had. I’ll talk more about those once we have some of the details ironed out.

In the near future I’ll be posting more about some of my new projects and I’m very eager to work on a some sort of collaborative site of some kind. If anyone is interested in building a site with a handful of authors blogging please feel free to get in touch with me. I would really like to see something like that happen. I own webmastersweekly.com - we could work on some sort of weekly magazine or even something where there’s a new article every day from a different author. Or any other subject, I’d just like to do something that I’m not the sole person behind it. If you’ve got an idea and need a web developer type geek or just another writer, let me know!

I’m really excited about what’s been happing at work and with my own projects. It’s been a while since I’ve been this stoked about web development and it feels really good. I’m also looking forward to meeting more folks at some of the conventions this year and next year. I’ll post my conference schedule in a couple of days and hopefully I can meet more of you!

I’ve written a few pieces on managing email in the past and it’s something I love thinking about and discussing. Email is just so disruptive and too many people use it in ways that kill productivity. In case you didn’t know, I recently went back to work full time and one of the cool things we do at the office is that every so often everyone is assigned a teaching assignment. Everyone picks a topic and then gets to teach it for 15 or so minutes. Almost everyone keeps their email client open all day long and use email to send things that really didn’t need sending. As a general rule, every email you send generates two replies!

I volunteered to each first and my day is Monday. I’ve got pretty much everything together (I’ll share it here too) but I wanted to get some feedback. What are some of your favorite tricks for managing email? What’s working or not working in your office?

So yesterday I posted about Good People Day and I hope you took the time to check out Gary’s video blog. I love this idea and I don’t even know where to begin. There are so many good people in my life and in my circle of friends that I couldn’t possibly recount them all. Instead, I’d like to share a story about two very special friends who I will never be able to repay for their kindness.

In March 2005 my wife Aeryn was diagnosed with cervical cancer. In fact, tomorrow is the 3 year anniversary of that horrible day. The original plan was that Aeryn would get a full hysterectomy and then have some chemo to make sure all the cancer was taken care of. But when they started the operation they found the cancer had spread to her bladder and other areas. They couldn’t proceed, instead an aggressive radiation treatment and chemo regiment would be prescribed. She had external and internal radiation and chemotherapy. Her chemotherapy took nearly 8 hours a day and she had to stay sitting there during the entire thing. I, of course, sat with her the entire time.

Two friends who I met online back in the bbs days found out and decided to get Aeryn a get well gift. We got home one day and a package was waiting on us. Inside was a brand new Sony PSP and some games to help her pass the time. This is when the PSP had just came out. This was an amazing gift and meant so much to Aeryn and me. It was an important moment in my life and a very trying time and my friends reached out in a very real way to help out. I can never thank Andy or Justin enough for their friendship and kindness. They aren’t just good people, they are great people and I’m better for having them in my life. So many others stepped up too and helped us and supported us, but this particular gift was just so far above and beyond… just, thank you guys.

Aeryn has been in remission for about a year and a half now and I know we wouldn’t be where we are without the support of great friends. Thank you all. Thank you so much. I hope you have Good People in your life too, today and every day!

Technorati Tags: GPD08

I’ve been watching Gary Vaynerchuk for a few months now. Someone had posted a link to his show talking about how good it was and while I don’t really drink much wine (I’m trying!), Gary’s just got charisma and energy to spare. He’s also started blogging about the whole web biz, personal branding and those sorts of things, which are right up my ally. Best part? Gary’s got to be the nicest guy and he gets it. I wish I knew he was at SXSW, would have loved to say hi.

So today he posted a video asking people to take part in Good People Day tomorrow. It’s a great idea, the gist of which is to highlight the “Good People”. Love it. I’m already working on my entry for tomorrow. Check out the video. Pass it on!

Technorati Tags: GPD08

So I’ve been back working a regular job for two days now and it’s been pretty good so far. Yesterday I had the pleasure of consulting with Karina from Hispanic.com, which is a fantastic domain name. Karina has a great sense of humor and I think she’s going to do a great job with the site. Meeting people like her is one of the best parts of working back in the office.

Being around people again is going to be interesting and mostly in a good way. I’m sure there will be some rough patches here and there. You can’t spend eight hours or so a day with people in close proximity and not rub each other the wrong way sometimes, but having people around to collaborate with and cut up with is good for the soul. I can already feel the creative energy building up and just the buzz of doing something new.

Once I’ve been there a little bit longer I’ll go deeper into what all is going on, what I’m doing and the good and bad bits about returning to work.

So, tomorrow marks my return to the 8-5 world of an office job. I’ve really enjoyed freelancing the last 7 or 8 months and the freedom that came with it but I’m very much looking forward to being back at a regular job. I’m going back to work for my old boss before I left to start 451 Press. I’ve been doing freelance work for them for some time now and it’s just a good fit. I’ll get more into specifics in a later post. There are plenty of things I don’t like about working in an office but I think the pros are worth so much more than the cons. This doesn’t mean I’m abandoning the company I’ve started on my own. In the long term it means more opportunity.

One of the things I’m looking forward to most is a more structured routine. What I’m not looking forward to is getting up in the morning. I’m just not a morning person. Even after working full time for nearly 25 I’m very much a night owl. I really get creative and energized as the night goes on. Hopefully after enjoying the flexible schedule for so long it won’t be too hard to fall back into the routine. Tuesdays were always the hard day for me. This time around I’m going to try and establish my schedule 7 days a week instead of sleeping in on the weekends and see if that helps.

At any rate, I’m excited and if anyone has any tips on returning to work after a long time freelancing I’d love to year it.

Last year I made it to my first sxsw conference and it was so much fun that I knew I had to do it again. This year we had the luck to get the Hilton right across the street from the convention center, which means were are right in the thick of all the goings on. Last year was mostly about panels, learning and meeting a handful of people. This year was all about meeting people. The panels were decent, but didn’t seem quite as good as last year and it seems like all the good panels were spread out so far apart that by the time you got to the one you wanted to attend it was standing room only. I’m sure it doesn’t help that this even continues to grow by leaps and bounds every year.

The high point for me this year was finally meeting old friends in person: Patrick, Brandon, and Stephan. It was a lot of fun hanging out with these guys and of course Steve. I appreciate Brandon making sure I got back to the hotel after the web awards after party. Lets just say we had too much fun that night.

I also had fun hanging out with the b5 crew. Some of which I’ve known for a while, others are new friends. It was just great to see them in person: Jeremy, CJ, Darcie, Mark, Aaron, Chad, Laura, and anyone else I might have missed. I think every other person I met was from b5!

Darcie also did a great job putting together this years Blog Network Camp where I got to catch up with Jim and finally meet Omar and Rick. Great food, great conversations.

It was also very cool finally meeting Darren. The beer bus was loads of fun and a great way to get people talking. I’ve got some video that I’ll post later that Ryan from Chitika might not want me to post ;) I think Darren got some pics as well. Chitika did a great job getting this together and providing great snacks, booze and fun.

By and large this was the most fun I’ve had in a good while. I’m already looking forward to next year and thinking about hitting up at least 3-4 conferences a year. It’s a great way to connect with friends, make new contacts and get inspired.

And to all the “internet famous” people that I just randomly went up to and said hello: Rober Scoble, Leah Culver, Evan Williams and so many others, thanks for being cool. Everyone was totally cool, down to earth and very nice. That’s what rawks about sxsw.

There were a ton of people that I met and It was fun meeting everyone. I hope to see as many of you as I can again next year and at other conferences.

I’m heading to the airport in about 30 minutes to head to SXSW. The flight is only about 3 hours, but we have to make 1 stop to pick up folks in Nashville, TN. We should be touching down in Austin around 4 ish, hopefully at the hotel by 5-6 if everything goes smoothly.

If you are going to SXSW this year, feel free to look me up if you want to chat or just say hi. The main reason I go is to meet people and just have some fun. I’m looking forward to catching up with old friends and meeting new ones!

In case you haven’t seen me before I added my mugshot.

I’ll post some pics and videos from SXSW as time permits.

Technorati Tags: SXSW, SXSWi

Whew, the last couple of weeks have been crazy. I’m wrapping up on one major contract and trying to transition everything over to my replacement on that project and gearing up to start the next big project. In the past I’ve had 2-3 medium sized projects all the time, but for the next few months I’ll be working with one client on several bigger projects which should make communications easier and maybe be a little less stressful. It should also be interesting as at least half of the projects are new developments vs. cleaning up existing ones, though there are at least two of those as well.

Next Thursday I hop on a plane for SXSW and I can’t wait. I really need a break. Also, In the next day or so I’ll also be posting some articles on Affiliate Marketing including my first guest post here on this site, which I’m happy about. If anyone is ever interested, feel free to pitch me your idea.

Hopefully things are getting back to normal now and we’ll be back to our regularly schedule program.

I just got a comment by someone who’s link was to a BlogTalkRadio.com user page. At first that seems normal and I almost approved it without looking closely. Then I noticed the username in the blogtalkradio.com was Buy_Meridia. Red flag! So I check out the page and sure enough, it’s a real page on BTR, but it’s just chocked full of spam. After a few seconds it redirects you to another spammy site. The folks over at BTR need to make sure they remove meta refresh and those kinds of codes from user submitted content. Spammers can now hijack profile pages and direct people away. Very nasty bit of spammage.