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Blogging / Personal / Reviews / Software / Web Design / Websites / WordPress — No Comments
30
Mar 08

Migration to WordPress 2.5 complete

Wow, that was the simplest update I’ve done for a piece of software online before. Just copy a few files and go to the upgrade page, super simple.

I really like the new WordPress layout. It’s smart looking and a big improvement over the outdated layout they previously employed.

My favourite part is the write page: it’s a lot easier on the eyes and the options are grouped in a much my organized manner. All the common tasks are on the right while most of the extra junk you’ll never use is pushed below the post.

What really looks awesome is the new built in gallery part. You can upload multiple files at once and it will catalogue them in the nice gallery for you. Matt Wullenberg, WordPress’s founder, has a great example of a fully functioning gallery.

My biggest gripe with WordPress to date has been the speed and the stats. Right now my installation is pretty sluggish, and I don’t think it’s DreamHost. I’ve read a few comments and it’s one of the top ideas in the Most Popular Ideas section of WordPress Ideas. On that note I think it’s awesome how WordPress includes the highest rated ideas in their upcoming releases. Most community sites might do well to implement something along these lines :)

So far I haven’t been able to get my stats to work with WordPress, but that’s ok because I’m using Google Analytics as well and I think it’s a bit more accurate anyway.

Screencast of WordPress 2.5

You can grab the latest WordPress release here: http://wordpress.org/download/

Personal / Websites — No Comments
22
Mar 08

My home page

My NetvibesI’m slowly moving toward a completely decentralized way of working. I wrote earlier about migrating all my email to GMail and having access anywhere. I also use Google Docs for school projects and I’ve recently been trying out Microsoft Office Live. It’s a really decent product I hope to make more use of in the future.

For at least a year I have been using Netvibes as my homepage. It’s a great tool that I use as my RSS reader and it keeps me posted on all the news I’m interested in. Netvibes is an awesome tool because of all the widgets. Right now I mostly use the Digg and Facebook widgets, but you can add tons of things like your Flickr, Twitter, or any Web 2.0 account. Also available are maps and even Pac Man!

There are thousands of types of content you can add to Netvibes, and with RSS feeds the options are limitless. It’s a really smooth interface that doesn’t require you to ever leave so I have it permanently in my browser as the first table (collapsed using FaviconizeTab, a great FF extension).

One thing that has been boggling my mind for a while is how Netvibes manages to make money. I never see ads and they never push any sort of premium product at me… hopefully they are doing it somehow so I don’t lose their service! Netvibes also recently introduced the next phase of their product codenamed Ginger.

You can browse through my public Netvibes “universe” here: http://www.netvibes.com/ericwarnke

Alberta / Personal — No Comments
3
Mar 08

Alberta General Election

So I voted… The Alberta General Election was held today. I voted conservative based on the party platforms I read here at Mapleleafweb. This is the first election I actually did research for. The deciding factor for my vote was their bit on free enterprise economy:

  • The Party believes that the creation of wealth and jobs can best be achieved by a free enterprise economy. The Party is committed to fostering policies that encourage and respect entrepreneurship and innovation.

I’m a firm believer in global capitalism and I hope to pursue something along those lines as a future occupation.

Personal — No Comments
3
Mar 08

Reviving this blog

toast.jpgA series of events have inspired me to start writing again. My last post was last August and a lot has happened since.

School has been doing well: I took 5 classes last semester and passed them all, although my GPA was poor because I decided to focus mostly on things like Chillin’ 4 Charity, a business case competition which we won, and of course my Internet Café.

The cafe has been doing well also. I’m not exactly rolling in money but I’ve been in the black every month and paying all my bills so I can’t really complain. Right now I’m waiting for two huge edge lit LED signs to arrive from Carmanah. It looks like they do good work but they’re definitely taking their time. In the next few days Van Houtte is installing a nice Keurig coffee machine, I plan to make a post about that endeavor later.

In December I officially stopped being a paid employee for Nexopia.com. I spent two years with Nexopia, initially working out of Timo Ewald’s – our founder – kitchen. Since then I’ve watched the company grow to 30+ employees. I helped move offices twice, and built walls, painted, and whatever needed doing. I was treated extremely well and I grew a lot both emotionally and professionally while working there. I had to leave because my commitment to school and my side business need to be my priority (in that order) and I don’t have time for two jobs and school. I suppose that’s three jobs. I plan to post more on Nexopia and social networks in the near future.

Once again my attitude toward blogging has shifted. I recently set up a WordPress blog for one of my good friend’s, Andrew. Andrew is getting married on August 16th and he wants to use his journalism experience to write a blog chronicling the journey towards the big date. You can find his blog at 227days.com. Hopefully he gets his rear in gear and catches up with his posts!

I also bought a new Nokia N95 8GB smart phone. It is hands down one of the best hand held devices I have ever used. First of all it’s made by Nokia, the cell phone masters of the universe, which means it’s durable as hell. My last Nokia phone was run over by a car and dropped in bars so many times I can’t count and it always worked when I pieced it back together. My Blackberry Pearl had the scroll ball break so I could only scroll down and after a few months of hot-keying around the phone I decided I needed a change. Much research (and money) later I ended up buying the N95 off of a great power seller on eBay. They also run importgsm.com. Nokia makes amazing phones, and amazing software which I will post about later.

I’ve also signed up for a Flickr account which I hope to use often. I previously hated Flickr because it was slow and the browsing interface isn’t the friendliest but I want to give it a shot.

Last but not least I ported my old posts into a WordPress blog. I know I previously posted that it was too verbose but I seriously don’t have time to fiddle with my own code, especially the security aspect.

Keep on truckin’.

Personal — No Comments
20
Aug 07

It’s been a while

I’ve had a lot of people bugging me to start posting again. I’ve been so busy this last month that the last thing I wanted to do was crank out a story about my life. I always run into this problem when I start blogging, I just don’t find my situation interesting enough to write about. Apparently everyone else does find it interesting so I suppose I’d better start writing again.

A lot has happened since July. I’ve been running the cafe for a whole month and I have two great staff members holding down the fort. I recently hired a third girl who will take some shifts starting September. I was accepted to the University of Alberta and will be starting the third year of my business degree. It will be interesting trying to finish school and running this business. I am hoping to get some credit towards my degree for running the cafe.

I’ve decided to major in International Business, which my uncle refers to as “a slogan”. He believes there is just “business”, not wishy washy labels attached to it. As part of this major I’m going to learn German. I know a tiny bit already and I have been to Germany. Ideally I will be able to study abroad and take an MBA in the future. Germany offers a fine MBA at some of their universities and I would love to get out of Canada for a while. I still have a little more than two years left before I finish my undergrad degree.

Business here is picking up. I had 5000 4″ x 6″ flyers printed and I have been slowly distributing them around Whyte Avenue. They seem to be working because the place is making more and more everyday. I’m really happy that this is turning out how I expected it. Hopefully it will be self sufficient enough that I don’t have to worry about it as much in the future.

In other news, my BlackBerry Pearl’s trackball only scrolls up, down, and left. It’s too bad almost all the functionality of the phone requires me to scroll right. I will need to look into getting something different soon. I can’t see myself getting a phone without Wifi though, I’m sick of paying through the roof for data from a wireless provider.

Well that’s all for now, I’ll try to post more regularly.

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