Author Archives: JustinLL

It’s Being Done Differently Now

It was time. I had to do it. I changed the site layout, or “theme” as it is referred to in the loop. I’m announcing this obvious fact for the folks in the feed-readers; they can’t see a layout change. For the most part, at least.

Anyhow, like I was saying. It was time. The previous layout was too dark and difficult to read (look at.) I’m not a fan of sites that use light-colored text on dark backgrounds. It doesn’t make any sense to me. Don’t get me wrong, I like the _look_ of it, but it does not read well. If you’re planning to have anyone read your stuff, it needs to be easy on the eyes. I don’t want to get into a long UI discussion (although, maybe I should), but trust me when I say that this new layout is much better.

I’m not sure if the spark for change came from a talk I had with a fellow blogger, or a conversation I had with a colleague about her business’s web site. Probably it was a combination of the two and, either way, it sent me out tinkering with all sorts of pre-developed WordPress themes. (An added bonus to using WordPress is the many site layouts that are freely available for personal use.) After several hours of working with Gimp and creating my own CSS from scratch, I decided it was a better idea, and also much quicker, to mash together a bunch of already existing lines of code. (Why re-invent the wheel, just make it more round. What? I mean make it roll farther.)

This was only half my problem. I spent a bit of time this evening, searching for a reason as to why my PHP was not working with WordPress 2.6, which I had hesitantly upgraded the site to late Monday evening after trying it on another site I host. 2.6 was working great everywhere I used it, with all my plugins in tact and new features working flawlessly. But then I loaded up my new layout, which, silly me, I was testing locally on a linux box running WordPress 2.5. (Imagine that! It was working in one set of conditions, but not another.) “Warning!” “Error!” “the function() requires a string at line 18.” Oh my.

What I’m getting at, is that there are going to be some kinks for a few minutes, and I’m doing my best to work those out of the mix. So, if you would be kind enough, bear with me a minute or two, and, if you notice any errors, please draw them to my attention so I can remedy the situation. I’m just getting back into the old smell of PHP and, honestly, I was never a CSS fan. However, it’s proving to make a whole lot of sense now that I’ve plopped myself in the world of web site development. (Is it still a client if you do the work for free?)

I’ll leave you with it so I can get back to it. My next goal is to clean up the tags and categories. Both of these are useful tools when used correctly, but we’ll have to let that sit a moment.

Focus Your Site Content

I have a tendency to wander around town from time to time, which often ends me up in some sort of new and strange conversation with another voice that results in a lot of time being used to talk about nothing. While these experiences can be entertaining, they are not always the greatest use of my time. (Not that I know what that is either.) Sometimes, though, I have semi-useful conversations with folks I know better than others, and that is a good use of my time while still entertaining. I recently ran into an editor friend from the Sacramento Business Journal and she gave me some feedback after viewing the site, essentially saying two things to me: 1) Write more, and; 2) Focus the content. Sound advice, no doubt.

The first of the two is an easily reachable goal. I have a habit of writing down whatever I can remember in whatever order it is remembered. As time goes on, I’ll use more and more of that writing for the site and we’ll have plenty of entries. This is the problem that makes difficult achieving number two. (What?) As it stands now, the site has no real focus other than to humor me, possibly entertain you, and be not always nonsensical. Not the clearest set of instructions, right? It makes sense, but what does it mean.

I understand the need for focus. People don’t like ambiguity. They don’t want to be taken to wandering all over the place, essentially wasting a bunch of time to ultimately, probably, accomplish very little if nothing at all. You’re going to want content with clarity that is concise. That takes most of the fun out of it for me as the writer. So the questions now are — Do I get focused? How is it done? Possibly (I don’t want to rule it out completely,) and here’s how it’s done:

Clearly Defined Goal(s) Know what it is you want to accomplish with your content. For example, “maximize revenue per unique visitor to the site through conversion” Be specific. Be clear. Knowing exactly what you want to do will help you determine how you do it.
Know Your Topic It’s much easier to focus and be clear when you yourself are knowledgeable and interested in the topic you’re covering.
Get to the Point Quickly It’s a bad idea to fumble around in the first paragraph. Say as much as possible as soon as possible about your topic. Make sure the reader knows straight away what the rest of the post is going to be about and why he should continue reading.
Relevant Photos We tend to enjoy the visual, so include photos and be sure they have something to do with your topic, potentially aiding in the further explanation of what you’re trying to communicate.
Omit Needless Words Remember what William Strunk, Jr. taught in The Elements of Style, Rule 13 — Omit Needless Words. It can’t be said enough. Proofread your writing and remove fluff. Don’t write about the writing. Write about your topic.

That’s it. There you have it. A quick start guide to getting some focus. It sounds easy enough. Doesn’t mean it’s easy to do.

My editor friend suggested I write about Sacramento since I’m out and about so much. It makes sense, and I have some Sacramento entries. But I also want to write about “nerdy computer stuff” as she worded it. I’ve been tinkering and hobbying around the computer world since the late 80s, and I studied Computer Science at Cal Poly. I get a kick out of the latest developments to hardware and software, so I’m going to write about that stuff. And let’s not forget that sometimes I just want to write and write and say nothing at all. I’m sure you won’t mind.

Most Useful Google Tool, Google Alerts

(I know. I know. Google Search is the _most_ useful.)

This isn’t anything new, as it’s been out for a long while, but here we have probably the only tool from Google that actually saves more time than it helps to waste when it comes to scouring the net for the interesting information you seek.

From the Google Alerts FAQ : "1. Google Alerts are emails automatically sent to you when there are new Google results for your search terms."

Because Google is always crawling the web, it usually knows about new information before you do, so it compares what it finds with what you want to know and emails you accordingly. (The one downside being that it will email you the same information more than once if it finds it on more than one web page. So it’s best, for busier topics, to receive updates no more than once per day, to eliminate the spam effect.)

This seems like the Google tool that goes most unnoticed, and I’m baffled as to why. I can only think that maybe people don’t know about it. But it’s easy to use (as you can see from the picture,) you fill in your regularly searched terms, select the type (I usually go with Comprehensive, but you can get more specific,) tell it how often you want to hear about new results, and where you want those results emailed. It’s too good to be true, but it is true.

I have a handful of terms I want to know about as soon as Google finds them. Here are my top two: 1) Most important to me is my name. I want to know where and why my name is on the Internet, in case it’s somewhere it shouldn’t be; 2) I want any and all news having to do with the ship my brother is currently calling home. (He doesn’t really call it home, but he’s living on it for quite a while.) He’s in the Navy and I want to know as much as I can about anything having to do with his ship’s status.

If you’re not already using it, check it out. Google Alerts — Enjoy it with your breakfast!

Walking The Path That Is Your Life

Roughly eight years ago, I wrote a letter to a close friend complaining about the amount of time it takes to grow old and sit back to enjoy all the nonsense a person has to live through, should he live long enough to look back upon his life. I was complaining about always wanting to get to the next stage in my life so I could get to the next step beyond that. I told her, “I’m always doing what’s needed to get to the next place in my life, so I can get to the next step and start working toward the place after that. I just don’t get it. So I want to hurry up and grow old so I can be done with it all.” (Silliness, I know.) The whole process of _achieving this so I could work toward that_ seemed absurd, whatever _that_ might actually be when it arrived. Why couldn’t I just enjoy what I was going through and not worry about whatever was supposed to happen after? I didn’t have a name for this, nor did I think too much about what the idea meant. I only knew that it had been driving me crazy for years and finally I had to tell someone. So I did.

All these years later, last week, I come across the post Not Being a Real Person: The #1 Self-Development Anti-Hack by Clay Collins over at The Growing Life . Clay, in his first four bullet points, managed to sum up everything I was trying to say many years ago, and he did a much better job of delivering the message altogether, coining the term “stepping stone lives” to describe what I was trying to convey. He says, “We spend the majority of our waking hours working for goals that are merely stepping stones to other goals.” He goes on to say all sorts of things about being a real or an unreal person, but you can read his article for those details. You don’t need me to re-write the entire thing for you.

I hadn’t given much thought to my idea since I’d written my letter all those years ago until reading Clay’s post, which prompted me again to start examining the life of stone-stepping. If you step not from stone to stone, how do you get from there to here? Do you hop randomly to whichever stone is nearest? Or most convenient? Without giving away too much, I never wanted to be a real person. At least not once I’d decided that most of what other people do is mostly for what I consider to be ridiculous reasons. At the same time, I don’t think it’s possible to avoid living a stepping stone life.

Sure, it can get pretty boring and a person can feel very trapped living a so-called stepping stone life, but no one can live a life that involves no stepping. You’re always going, moving, growing. You step with your family. You step with your friends. You step alone. You step out. You step in life. You step in shit. You get the idea. And you get to decide whether you step to the tune of what the rest of the world around you is doing, or whether you step to the tune that’s playing in your head. (Assuming you have a tune in your head, and it’s different from what’s being pushed through, or down, your throat.)

I stated back then in my letter that I wasn’t going to do it anymore (work for the thing beyond the thing that’s supposed to be next just so I can look back at it), and I would go with the flow – but apparently not till after I finished college, which was a real process for me and another stepping stone – whatever it may have turned to. It’s turned to this. Me sitting here writing to you about a letter I wrote many many moons ago.

Posting Schedule

Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. This will be our aim, but from time to time I’m sure I’ll miss a post. Returning home late Sunday from an unplanned trip to Half Moon Bay and San Francisco helped me realize this. (As if I couldn’t figure it out on my own, I required a spur-of-the-moment vacation.) As it is… If I do post outside this regular schedule, then that’s just a little something extra for all of us, but let’s not expect too much of that.

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I’ll leave you with one of my favorite Sunday morning reads — Post Secret. “PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people email in their secrets anonymously on one side of a postcard.” The site owner selects a variety of Secrets which are newly posted every Sunday. This is the only feed I read during the weekend, and I’ll usually come across at least one Secret that gives me something to ponder away the day, or at least over coffee. Enjoy.

Happy Fourth of July!

Happy holiday to each and all. I’ll be back Monday with the new entry. Enjoy your time away.

New 140-Character Platform, identi.ca

The latest and maybe-not-so greatest (yet) micro-blogging tool identi.ca is up and running, and wants you to answer the question, “What’s Up?”. It feels very new, which it is, and I’ll have to experiment with it a bit more before I can fully conclude as to whether or not I’ll make the leap away from Twitter. Twitter, by the way, is slowly driving me crazy with all its whale fail screens and seemingly random removal of features. (A whale fail screen is what you see when Twitter is not functioning correctly. Not quite as bad as the infamous BSOD, but definitely up there.)

Really quick:

What I do like:

Laconica, OpenMicroBlogging (HUGE)
OpenID support, which I use
Layout similar to Twitter’s (unlike Plurk, which is difficult to read)

What I don’t like:

Early stage software, missing features
No Search, how to find Twitter followers
Getting auto-logged out

What identi.ca needs right away:

SMS support
Desktop Client (maybe Twhirl will add it)

Check identi.ca out for yourself, if you’re into that sort of thing. If not, keep on keepin’ on with your current 140-character service.

MARRS Building Home To Luigi’s Slice

Ever since I can remember I’ve been a huge fan of pizza, eating it whenever I can get my grubby hands on it. I don’t care if it’s two in the morning just before bed, or four in the afternoon and I’m ruining my appetite for dinner — if a slice is available, I’m going to eat it.

Imagine my joy and pizza-eating delight when Luigi’s Slice found its way into the MARRS building on 20th between J and K. It’s central to all of midtown, so I can get to it from any of my local hangouts whether I’m up on 29th & E or down at 16th and P. Granted, there are quite a few pizza-by-the slice locations around the grid, but this is my favorite, so that’s why I’m mentioning it here first. (I mean before I mention any of the others, which I will eventually get around to typing to you about.)

Prices for a slice range from $4.15 to $4.85, which isn’t bad given the going rates and the size of the slice. Several beers are on tap, as well as some wine from a bottle, in addition to the usual soda fountain. (I typically take my slice with water, so as not to fill up on fluids.) The slice itself is somewhere between New York Thin Crust, and Chicago Deep Dish. It’s filling. It’s good. Check it out for yourself next time you’re out. It’s a great follow-up after enjoying the night at Lounge on 20.

Many a weeknight I can be found running down the street in an attempt to beat their eleven-o’clock closing hour; that’s when the pizza tastes best.

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MARRS Building Home To Luigi's Slice