So why don’t I blog about what I do?

Jan 29, 2007 | blog

That is an excellent question.  I’ve really never blogged much about what I actually do in my day job, and I’m not sure why.  It’s something I’ve been doing for over 15 years, and yet I haven’t really talked much about it in this space.

You may have found a brief overview on my About page, but it doesn’t really hit the day to day items that I get involved in.  I’ve recently realized that without a good picture of my daily routine, its hard for anyone to really take my perspectives and professional advice seriously.

Part of the reason that I haven’t blogged about my day job is because I take very seriously, the public image, integrity and intellectual property of my employer.  However, that does not stop me from talking about the technical and personal triumphs and setbacks that everyone experiences in their professional life.

So starting this week, I’m going to be putting those experiences and thoughts here on the blog for all to read.  There are many times I’ve had items I wished I could blog about, but stopped myself from doing to because I thought there was a conflict of interest.  Now, after two+ full years of blogging (I had a few false starts), I’ve got the perspective on how to do this, providing interesting content here, and respecting my employer as well.

As I mentioned in a post on Friday, I’m gong to be creating a custom theme for RickMahn.com, and will post the “development” URL when the base theme is ready to view.  It’s a renewed push here to get more experience in design and layout.  Feedback is welcome!

Where is my custom WordPress theme?

Jan 26, 2007 | blog

My old RickMahn.com Blog Logo I’ve been using some very nice (I think) themes from very creative developers in the WordPress community.  They all have had some design component that I really like, maybe the full use of space on one, the clean uncluttered look of another, the graphics on a third, the font/type/CSS creativity of a fourth, and so on.

However, I’ve not found that one theme that I can be happy with and just leave alone.  Sure, I could hire a professional designer to create a real professional theme just for my site, but I can’t justify paying a couple thousand for a good design.  Not that they are not worth the money, I just am too cheap to do it.

The nice thing about all these different themes that I’ve tried or tested, is that I’ve learned a lot about CSS and a little about PHP.  Each one has taught me a little more about how to manipulate each section, where to place an add, how to wrap objects in the proper tags, and much more.

So with that said, I’m going to start work on my first custom WordPress theme, complete with custom graphics designed by yours-truly.  Though, the graphic part is probably the only area that anyone should be worried about – I’m not a graphical designer, nor played one on TV – :).  It might look really bad – guess we’ll find out.

So, in short, there may be a few posts focusing on the trials and tribulations of theme development as I blow off steam.  Or there may be cryptically giddy posts about something working.  Either way, I would really enjoy feedback about what your likes/dislikes about the sites you visit, or the themes/layouts that you use yourself and, of course, your opinion of how the new theme is turning out.

I’ll be developing the theme on a separate development blog that I’ll post about later, so it won’t effect the day-to-day usage of my main site.  Maybe from there I can work on a few others for another site or two I work with.

Thanks for stopping by today!

T-Mobile Ranks Highest in Customer Service. Again

Jan 25, 2007 | blog

Some question why I stick with T-Mobile when there are so many other choices.  Many mobile service providers have better phone selections or provide faster mobile data services.

One of the reasons is that the service I get from their support teams is unmatched.  The other big reason is the very competitive pricing compared to the other national carriers.  3G will come along in due time – I have no desire (or the pocketbook) to pay bleeding-edge prices for mobile data.  I’ve also got the phone that I had been waiting nearly 5 years for.

Though, 2007 seems like it will be a great year for T-Mobile again as they have the wireless spectrum to roll out 3G services.  They are also focusing on bringing the best phones in price/performance to their lineup.  Their work on getting the BlackBerry Pearl, and the Windows Mobile based Dash are examples of this.  Affordable phones that fit the needs of their customers, not just the 1% that want’s the latest phone to hit the FCC website.

My T-Mobile MDA will be a year old in March, though I have been using one since Oct. 2005.  It has been everything that I’d ever wanted in a phone since PDAs started morphing into the phone category.  And with T-Mobile’s continued effort in customer satisfaction, I’ll remain a Tmo customer with their upcoming network upgrades and phone selection.

Via: Wireless Week – T-Mobile Ranks Highest in Customer Service. Again.

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