Posts Tagged ‘wordpress’

Overly Complicated?

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
It's Complicated
Image by Or Hiltch via Flickr

Is it really as complicated as you think?

Sometimes we see things from the wrong perspective.  We think they are complex, complicated and wicked to learn, use to do.  We see them as something unattainable, something that will always be either just out of reach, or a million miles away.  Sometimes we stop and think to ourselves, “That will never happen…”, or “I could never do that…”  Is it really that complex, that complicated or that wicked?  Many times they are not, and we all need to learn that about ourselves, the things we do, the thing we would like to accomplish, use or do.

I think we all sometimes just need to step back and re-evaluate how we are peering into our path.  How we perceive the obstacles on that path, and where we ultimately want that path to take us (whether it involves a turn, a new path or more).  Sometimes, we have to brave where the is no visible path – and with the right support behind us – our group of people, whether online or offline, that are our backing, the pushers pushing us to excel – we can build a path.  Our own path.

Does it need to be complicated?

Sometimes, and being a web programmer by trade I see this alot (and have even been guilty of it myself), we over complicate things.  We make them harder than it should be.  It’s nothing with our perspective or outlook, but in our natural habits.  We add steps, layers and side trails – not out of the fear of failure or other things pertaining to our paths and such, but out of a necessity to be thorough to the point of complications.

Why?  We all have off moments, and sometimes that is all it is.  A moment of clouded clarity, or no clarity at all.  Other times it’s the best we know at the time, and we just haven’t honed out skills to work, create and be lean, mean machines at what we are doing.  Finally, sometimes we just do it to see if we can – which can work against us, or for us, depending on what the outcome should be and what the outcome ends up being.

How about we make things uncomplicated?

Let’s face our fears, let’s build that new path, let’s learn about who we are, what we can do, should do and want to do.  Then, let’s get out there and do it.  No more complications from us not pushing forward, okay.  How about we try to maintain clarity – yes sometimes we just need to slow down or stop to gain that clarity – and that’s okay.  Your competitors (if your applying to a business mentality) aren’t going to get that far ahead of you if you stop or slow down to renew the clarity.  Think about it, they won’t get any farther ahead than you staying in a cloudy state for a longer period of time, now will they.  And that clarity may give your business just the edge it needs.

In our personal lives – let’s slow down and find that clarity – to interact well, live well and take more moments to cherish those around us.  Those who are helping us on our paths deserve nothing but our best in return for what they do for us.  Let’s give them that, shall we?

Why not.

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New Theme Launched

Saturday, April 11th, 2009

Just put up a new theme on the blog. It’s my first customization attempt at a Wordpress theme. Let me know what you think! I tried to keep it clean and simple, much better readability I think than the old black background with white text theme I had.

I do still have some items to change and tweak up, but that’s okay. I had to publish it at this point, or else it probably never would get done – at least only having a few tweaks left will motivate me to get them done since it is now live.

Evolution Of A Blogger

Sunday, January 25th, 2009

Have you noticed what seems to the traditional evolution of a blogger? If there is such a tradition in such a relatively new area. I have noticed it, and the following seems to be what I have found most commonly.

  1. Free Blog Hosting: Starting out, many sign up for Blogger, Wordpress or some other “free” hosted blog. This gives them a great URL such as http://southplatte.wordpress.org that they can blog on and test the blogging waters out with. There is very little knowledge needed to do this, no hosting to figure out and pay for, no domain name to register or anything else. It also isn’t the best way to brand or build a phenomenal and popular blog, though it can be done.
  2. Commercial Hosted Blog: This is the next step for many bloggers. Registering a domain name, buying a blogger or basic hosting packing from a hosting company. Many times the domain is less than $10USD and the hosting as low as $5USD. Usually a host is found that is blogger friendly – meaning they will have a control panel with a one click installation of Wordpress or some other blogging software. Many time they will have a selection of themes to go with the blog package so users can get a good looking blog without any coding, graphic design or layout knowledge. This works great and there are many blogs that are popular that do just this. Many times in this area users will scour the web finding free themes for their blog – installing many, selecting a few and hoping that the design looks good and works for visitors. They hope and pray that 10,000 other blogs haven’t chosen the same theme, since after all they are trying to set themselves apart, right?
  3. The Custom Blogger: This blogger knows that to stand out they need it all. They need a custom domain name, custom hosting package and a custom design or theme. This blogger sees the value in being who they are, how they are. They also understand they should not have a blog that looks like 10,000 other blogs on the planet if they want to make a name for themselves. This is the blogger that is in it for the long haul, constantly writing, improving and trying new things.

Agree or disagree – leave a comment and discuss it and let’s see what others have to say!

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New Design Coming for SPWD

Sunday, January 25th, 2009
Screenshot Wordpress
Image via Wikipedia

Over the past few weeks I have really been reading up on blogging, social media and all that fun “web2.0″ buzzword stuff – you know how it goes. One common thing with most of the top blogs that you find is they all use some form of custom theme. Whether it is a premium theme (Thesis seems popular due to all the features and customization that is possible) or a custom rolled theme, the story is the same – to really make an impact you have to be credible. Somehow we all don’t view the “free” themes as credible.

So as such I will be joining the ranks of bloggers to use a custom design here on this blog. Fortunately for me I am a web designer & developer so I will be doing all the graphics, all the Wordpress customization and pretty much anything else.

As a shameless plug – if you like the new design when it launches and are interested in hiring me for your custom design all you have to do is contact me and we can work out the details and see if we can make a good partnership.

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Get My Tweets Plugin Updates

Thursday, January 15th, 2009

Earlier I was working with the Get My Tweets Plugin and found a bug in the URL parsing scheme I used to parse URLs in Tweets. I am working on rewriting this portion of the code, and will release an update to the plugin as soon as it has been tested and is available.