I have been neglecting posting for a while. I keep writing up stuff and posting them way after events have happened. I am going to try and set more time aside to write. To me it is not a chore since I find it relaxing. my only issue is recently I have been stressed and busy, and also my hands hurt from working on the computer all day at work. All good excuses, but I still want to write more. All I can say is I am working on it.
Blogging
The New Webpage
Over the past few years I have focused my web presence on my blog. I have a website but I just haven’t been keeping it up. For that matter I have been blogging less, and I know it. I just have been busy and too tired to write when I normally like to. Just as I was writing this post I realized that I missed this blog’s anniversary. March 23 marked my 3rd anniversary blogging. My other website I maintain existed in some form or another since December 1995. Last year marked the first time I truly used no windows computer and maintained my electronic existence on a Mac. This posed a problem that I just ignored. I haven’t found a good web editing / site editing program for the Mac. I had Dreamweaver MX 2004, but I never got into using it. I had always used Frontpage since like 1997. I know it sucks, but it was easy to use for page creation. it was also easy to make site wide changes. With my move to the Mac full time I had not used anything to update my website. With blogging taking up most of my free web time, I ignored the other site.
Today I felt like updating my site and began to backup my existing site. Long drawn out process because of several issues I don’t want to go into. While that was happening I decided to search for a decent Mac web editor. iWeb was too basic. I found on Maczot a link to Rapid Weaver. The demo looked cool, even though you could only make 3 pages. So for $34.95 I gave it a try. I am creating my first photo page now. If it looks good I will start the process of redoing my site using it. I know it will require a total redo of the site, throwing out everything. I don’t think this is a bad thing. Hopefully it works out. I am going to stage the new site on my .mac account to see how it looks and then when I am done, or at least substantially complete I will post it to my main site.
Technorati Tags: blog, mac, web design, website
Flickr And Me
I signed up for the Flickr photo service a few months ago. I just never used it. I thought, I have a photo album on Typepad, and I use a MOB on Textamerica. I also maintain a photo album site on my home page. Why do I need to post my photos somewhere else? Well the devil is in the details. I finally went onto the Flickr site and was looking around. You can do some cool stuff with the site. I also like the ability to batch upload files using iPhoto since someone wrote a plug in. I already uploaded the past 2 months worth of photos to the site.
I also found someone posted how to take a Flickr badge and use it in Typepad. I got it setup in 5 minutes. Not bad! Now I am going to play with the tags on some of my photos.
I can also get rid of my Typepad photo album. It was easy to use and convenient to have, but it was never that great. I can delete the photos and save space on my account, not that I need to!
13 Months With Typepad
Last week (or so) I passed my 1 year mark as a paying customer of Typepad. How do I remember this? I just glanced at my credit card statement and saw that they charged another year onto the card. I am not upset. I thought the renewal was coming up. I actually started using them in early September last year but I had a 1 month trial. I am normally against paying for hosting services since I could easily to it myself. But recently (actually starting with me using typepad) I have gotten lazy and figure it is just easier to let someone else deal with my hosting. that is why I host nothing at home anymore, and I have less stress to show for it.
Yeah, I am Sick
I took the day off today. I feel like crap. I didn’t sleep at all last night. The final straw was at 6:30AM I was not able to goto sleep. I took more Tylenol PM and tried to sleep some more. I can barely talk. I hope I am better enough to goto the office tomorrow. I am bored. Whoever says staying home from work is fun?
Also the blog seemed to have been down for a while. According to Typepad’s site they are moving servers. Why they are doing that during the day I don’t know. They claim it wont impact the app, but from what I have seen on my site it has. Looks like I am up now though.
Site Update
I updated my August 2005 Camera Phone images to my personal site. This page is everything that I post to the mobile blog (MOB) and more. I don’t work on my personal site that much anymore. I spend my free web time writing or working on this blog. I am having a minor issue with how some pages are presenting. It looks like it is an issue with the CSS of some photo pages conflicting with the way I did the site template. I need to go back and remove individual page CSS files and have everything use the default site CSS. That means I need to ensure that my global settings are what I want. Way too much tech info, I know!
Power Outage
Looks like my web hosting provider (MediaTemple) lost power today. LA was having a power issue, and their data center is in down town Los Angeles. Reading about outages and then not being able to bring up my mail or site leads me to think something happened! No notice on their site about it. that was nice of them:(
This blog was unaffected since it is hosted by Typepad!
Still Findable On The Web
My cousin Synde said that she googled her family and up came my blog. I think that is pretty cool. But that poses a problem. I don’t use first and last names. I may have used their first names in one past and last name in another one. if that isn’t it I don’t know how they would come up on my blog. I try not to be that conspicuous on the site. She was surprised that I had a blog. I could swear that I told her about it. Her husband knew about it, but I told him about it a long time ago.
I found the reference on the site that she found. I did use the last name once. I have since removed it. I am not a fan of posting last names on the site. Anonymity is nice for a bit. That being said I am making other changes to the site. I am slowly making the Powerpedia domain the only one for this blog. Why you ask? It’s whois information is hidden. Why is that important? I don’t want crazies knowing who I am. It is probably paranoid behavior, but I think it is worth the few bucks the anonymous registration cost.
I also changed the theme of the site back to my old theme. The new one was nice, but I didn’t like the fact that the center column with all my posts was not flexibly in size when you resized your browser. The posts were squished into a small space. My old (current) theme adjusts the posts based on the size of the browser window. Much nicer!
New Theme On Site
Typepad upgraded their systems last night, and a bunch of new themes are out there. I treid one. I like the color palette but I have issues with how it keeps the middle (the posts) of the site so small. The other template I had kept the middle fluid so I could make it bigger if I made the browser window bigger. This one doesn’t allow that. I am going to keep it around for a few days and see if it grows on me, and others.
It is funny when a provider I use does maintenance and the first thing I think of is the time of day they did the work and the impact on their user base! I read their notice and was surprised they brought down the system at 5PM (8PM EST) on a friday. That is work that I would normally do at 1AM EST. It was just funny that I thought of that. I am too involved in technical operations I guess:)
I also uploaded all my Camera Phone Images from June.
Site Move
I have completed my move of my website & photo site to my new hosting provider. I have also migrated my email over. Now all I have to do is call RCN and tell them to turn off my static ip. Couldn’t come too soon I say! I had DNS problems on my cable modem today. Not sure what was up with RCN’s DNS, but when I switched over to other servers I was up and running just fine.
All is well with the new provider so far. I have had some quirkiness with my IMAP mail, but besides that I am happy with my service.