Slap/Pop

I've finally decided to start up a photoblog... digitalnoise|photo--a domain I have previously owned, but did nothing with. Part portfolio, part advertisement, part stripped down blog, and part motivation to myself, it's where I'm going to attempt to put a large portion of my photographic efforts to.

I'll still posting to my Flickr account and my Facebook, but the creme of those will be also featured on DNP. So go ahead and add the RSS feed to your feed reader, and there will be more up there on a somewhat regular basis--although I'm definitely going to bump up the output from that site.

I haven't updated this blog for a while, again, been almost about a month I'd guess. I've been pretty busy in my own life outside of my internets. Busy with what? Well, work, for one. My job's been getting tougher and tougher, yet easier and easier each week. Other than that, I've been busy with doing absolutely nothing at all.

What's that mean? How can I be busy doing nothing at all? Pretty simple, actually. It means that for one reason or another, I have either been unable to do anything, or unwilling to do anything. I have my new Canon 20D camera which I absolutely love. I take it to work with me every day, actually, just so I'd have it with me, you know, just in case. Although in all honesty, I haven't even used it too terribly much. A few random shots around the house, pics of the animals, my wife (although she hates those of course), a SacTweetup.com tweetup at Panera Bread--which is surprisingly quite a great place to eat, and one fun afternoon hanging out with a long-time friend for the first time in over a year. Other than that though, nothing. Quite sadly.

I also have a few web projects that I need to work on and get launched, but I can never seem to do ANYTHING on ANY of them. This is really infuriating. I get to the point to where I would like to work on them, but I can't--work, home stuff, etc. And then when I DO have the time to do so, I sit at the computer scratching my ass wondering wtf to do.

And then I end up playing WoW instead. I almost didn't start writing this post and played WoW. I probably will right after this post, too.

I can feel myself in this huge emotional/creative sinkhole. Why, I can't quite say. What I do know is I am having one hell of a time of actually DOING anything, and it's making me even more upset. And hungry. Literally. I need some food, but I don't feel like making anything.

Anyways... This was all kicked off by Zack Arias' recent video for Scott Kelby, called Transform, and it's really gotten my head into a spin even more than it already was. Reading Zack's bio was equally inspiring.

Now I have to be able to bring all of this together. The ideas, the inspiration, the dedication, and the confining resources that have been burdening me. I have to find a way to get out of this horrid funk and actually do something.

It all just seems so far away and impossible to accomplish...

I've wanted a new camera--a digital SLR--for years now. This is common knowledge to pretty much anyone who knows me. Well... The other night, my wife started asking my advice for a camera for our friend Brie.

Yeah, it's been a bit quiet around here the past few weeks. Why is that, you ask? Yeah, I know you're not really asking that, but for my own ego's sake, we'll just pretend you all are. Well, I've been moving. And lemme tell ya'... Moving sucks. I hate it. Although I do love moving from a smallish two bedroom one bath house in a ghetto-ish area of town to a spacious, four bedroom, two bath house in the country. Well, country-ish. It's BFE, surrounded by ghetto and tweakerville. But our little island between the two is awesome. So, why am I excited about living in an area that everyone else in Sacramento looks at me with confusion for?

Call this one an epic fail in internet advertising and gaming awareness... Google Adsense ad in Kotaku's RSS feed titled "Fallout 3 Sex". Really now? Really? Shame Shame, WhatTheyPlay.com...

[08:51] Walter: is microsd and minisd the same thing?
[08:51] Lou: no. i don't believe so
[08:51] Lou: http://www.engadget.com/2005/03/15/sd-minisd-and-microsd/
[08:51] Lou: your lack of skills with the internets is appalling.
[08:52] Walter: my god that was fast...how big of a nerd are u..LOL

[08:52] Lou: However, that just got you +13 for successful use of LazyWebs
[08:52] Lou: lmao
[08:52] Lou: i know how to Google.
[08:52] Walter: LOL

[08:52] Lou: seriously. i typed "microsd minisd" into google. without quotes. and BAM!
[08:53] Walter: i'm too lazy for that
[08:53] Lou: apparently.
[08:53] Lou: of course...
[08:54] Lou: looking for me online and typing "is microsd and minisd the same thing?" is way longer and takes more effort than, say..
[08:54] Lou: in firefox, which you probably have open... going Ctrl-T for new tab, pressing Tab to get into the Google search bar, typing "minisd microsd" > Enter, and clicking on the first result... y'know?
[08:55] Walter: LOL

[08:55] Lou: or if you're using Chrome, you could've just googled from the URL bar. which you can still do in FireFox 3.
[08:55] Lou: seriously.
[08:55] Lou: wtf, man.
[08:55] Walter: I know all this...but I'm too lazy
[08:55] Lou: your laziness excuse has lead to actually putting forth more effort than being ACTUALLY lazy.

When I started "blogging", I hand-wrote code. I quickly discovered that having to FTP new code to the server was tiresome, not to mention difficult to edit while at work, and not at home with my FTP info. The hunt for some sort of software was on. I settled upon good ol' PHP-Nuke back in the day, and got pretty good with it. I ended up ditching PHP-Nuke after getting repeatedly hacked, and losing the hosting I had. When starting a new site back up, I decided to look for another CMS, one with more security, and more up to date standards and features. Behold, the nectar of the blog-gods, Wordpress was found. I don't even want to think about how early of a version it was. Bleh. But swear to god, it was AMAZING at the time.

A good while later, a few sites in the future, I decided I wanted more power than Wordpress for a few projects at my day job involving communities, and started playing with Joomla, and despite it's power, I couldn't get past the quirks, such as incredibly poor SEO, nevermind the lack thereof out of the box. Went back to Wordpress for all other projects. See a trend here?

After looking at competition for Joomla, I put some serious thought into Drupal, and as you can see, that's what this site (and a few others I'm working on) is running. Drupal is fast, powerful (REALLY powerful!), looks gorgeous, has a lot of great features, but that being said, it really takes a developer mindset to get everything out of it that the CMS can provide. Add to that the fact that as far as third party developer support goes, it doesn't have as much as other platforms, and what it does have isn't usually too recent.

A few days ago, I ended up re-registering a domain I had a year or two ago, wanting to bring the project back up. I have a backup of the site on an old drive, and brought the Wordpress install up without any effort (unfortunately it was a backup from before I had pumped much content into it, but still, it was quick!). So here I am, in 2009, fully enamored with Drupal 6, and I find myself with an old install of Wordpress 2.1 and barely any content. How bizarre. So I follow through with what every self-respecting geek does: Upgrade that shit!

Here's where things start to get a bit odd, however. As I mentioned, I really do like Drupal. It does a LOT. However, it's not without it's short-comings. Just the other day I went on a rant about how ridiculously difficult and tedious it is to upgrade Drupal, and posted a comment on the forums at Drupal.org (link coming when their site's not off-line--how ironic!). Drupal SERIOUSLY lets me down in this aspect. For how advanced it claims to be--and is in many respects--it just fails epically at some things.

So back to Wordpress. I bring up the other site, and go to upgrade Wordpress. Upgrading Wordpress is still as easy as I remembered: copy the files, run the upgrade script, and you're done! So within three minutes I had upgraded both site, code, and database from WP2.1 to WP2.7. This definitely makes me happy.

Then I go look at the modules that were installed. Some I didn't need. Some I knew I'd replace, others I wanted to update. News to me, but WP2.7 allows for updating from a single link in the Plugins page! And installs the same way! Drupal can't even TOUCH this, I'm thinking to myself. This could get ugly.

WP2.7 has a new dashboard and admin interface, so it was a bit of a change, but I picked up on it pretty quickly. It's fast. And with Google Gears functionality, it's even faster. Very ajaxy and slick, it does as much as possible without having to refresh the page. This saves MONSTROUS amounts of time. And the new plugins I had installed for Adsense, Analytics, etc, just blew my mind. Everything is so... Nice...

So here I am, sitting with a handful of Drupal 6 installs, struggling to get certain components the way I want/need them, and then end up with a fully-operational Wordpress 2.7 install with most everything I need popped in within a day. What the hell am I supposed to do? While it doesn't have the advanced taxonomy that Drupal has, nor it's powerful plugins and community possibilities, Wordpress is just too easy to deny for most projects. Yeah, Wordpress won't work too well for a dating site, but then again, even Drupal doesn't have a great add-on set for a dating site. Community sites aren't much better either, all of the options I've seen done consisting of a crap-ton of modules all working together, feeling like they're being held together by duct tape, bailing wire, and pantyhose--just like most Volkswagons I've seen.

At this point, I think I'm really considering switching my efforts back over to Wordpress, at least for this site and one other, until I can come up with a better plan of attack on Drupal, at least for now. This site will remain on Drupal, as it did take a good amount of time and tweaking, and I do honestly like this CMS. And yes, there are things I don't like about Wordpress as well. Last I remember, putting in Javascript and other code in widgets/sidebar elements was a complete pain in the neck. So we'll see what happens.

As for this other site that I'm running my shiny new Wordpress 2.7 code on? Well, that's a bit of a secret for now. You'll see soon enough. ;)

I look at a lot of blogs and websites through a wide variety of channels. Some from Twitter, some from myspace or other social networking sites, some from video sites, and some from less informational sources, such as Entrecard. I'll be honest, most of the sites I run into aren't very interesting to me unless it's a specific topic I'm really interested in with a lot of very useful content right up-front. If it's a personal blog (as in not a marketing blog, get-rich-quick site, payperpost, etc), and I'm not taken by the content immediately, then there's one thing I always do--look for the About page.

But oh no! Your blog doesn't have an About page! Or if there is one, it's not filled out, or just a generic Blogger/Blogspot profile page with no info. What do I do now? Most likely, never take the time to read your blog again. Why is that? Because...

2008 has been an interesting year for me for sure. Lots of craziness, memorable occurrences, and interesting times. Here's a recap:

--Was laid off from my last job for reasons completely outside of my control.

--Got my old band, LowFlyer, back together, recorded a great three song demo, my first time in a fully professional studio.

--Played The Boardwalk for the first time, which has been a goal/dream of mine for the past eight years--back when i was in ToeFinger5, up in Redding.

--Band broke up shortly after playing the Boardwalk.

--Found a new job that looked like it was awesome. Job position ended, and instead of getting laid off, I got promoted to a new position. Best. Job. Ever.

--Had my Xbox 360 red ring TWICE.

--Celebrated my first year wedding anniversary (second year this February).

--Learned the awesomeness of Greader and have streamlined my blog-reading nerdiness.

--Have played a shit-ton of Guitar Hero and Rock Band games.

--Started a Death Knight in WoW, and have two characters over 60 now. Never thought I'd get that high, but my paladin is rockin'.

That's all I can really think of at the moment... I'm sure there's more, but that's all that's popping into my head now. Regardless, it's been a decent year, not without it's ups and downs, but been pretty good.

As far as New Year's Resolutions, I probably have even less... But what I can think of, I think are pretty good... Here's what I can think of now:

--Be a better husband to my wife.

--Make more time for photography, and take more pictures.

--Use my film cameras more.

--Somehow, some way, get a digital SLR.

--Blog more often, with more important and viable content.

--Quit smoking Keep not smoking (today is 15 days without a single drag from a cigarette.

--Become much more skilled above and beyond expectations with the app at work.

--Be a better communicator.

--Play in Photoshop more.

--Procrastinate less.

--Market this blog more often.

--Get off my ass with some other web projects.

--Eat smaller portions, and eat better.

--Learn at least some more PHP.

Hrm... i think that works for now. I'm a bit distracted at work, and can't think, but I wanted to get this posted before I head home for the day, so it's here for sure. That whole not procrastinating thing.

Good luck to everyone with their New Year's Resolutions, have a wonderful New Year's Eve, be safe, and have fun.

See you all in 2009!

A senior tech--known for pulling pranks--goes on vacation, returns to find his cube completely girlied out. Epic fairy power!

Please please PLEASE... Digg this story!

I'll have my own photos up soon as well, over on my Flickr page.