Feb 17, 2006 | blog
Welcome to the culmination of my blogging efforts for the past year. RickMahn.com is the place where I will talk about daily events in the technology space and blogosphere. About work, a little about life, and sprinkled with a few rants on occasion.
The reason for starting a new blog is both simple and complex. I’ve been using a number of blogging tools (Blogger, WordPress.com, MSN Spaces) with differing results. I’ve come to the conclusion that Blogger.com currently was the most flexible, WordPress.com the most powerful, and MSN Spaces – well… oh my, look at the time.
So after a lot of research, learning new technologies, blogging, thinking, and figuring costs and such, I’ve set up shop here at www.rickmahn.com. I’ll be here mostly every day posting on things that I find interesting, interacting in the blogosphere, commenting on others’ posts and so on.
So, come on back from time to time and check out what I’m doing – drop a line and let me know what’s good and what’s bad. See ya round the ‘net!
Feb 12, 2006 | blog
Ok, so I think I’m turning into a blog nut… I’ve been looking at tools, utilities, plugins, etc… for a number of reasons, mostly ’cause its fun. I’ve finally come to the conclusion that I need to go “pro” at this – what I mean by that is to sign up with a hosting service, manage my own site with a professional blogging tool that I can customize to my needs and personal preferences.
So what I’ve found to date is that I’ll be building this site over the next two weeks (and last two weeks – I’ve already started) and getting it off the ground. This weekend has been one of learning some neglected (by me) web language technologies (XHTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL, WordPress layouts, etc…) that are crucial to getting the site I really, really want to publish to the world.
My page layout and site design is mostly complete, I’ve got a site & domain name picked (I’ll post about that later), a hosting service identified, at least a temporary theme picked out that I have customized somewhat (check out my WordPress blog for a taste). One thing that I would really like is to be able to design a theme that really fits what I want to display for “style”. I’m not a graphic designer, or an artist – at least not skill-wise, I DO have opinions as most of us do.
One goal will be combine my two existing blogs (here at blogger, and my WordPress.com blog) into one. Though I will keep the two blogs I have, they will likely play a different roll which I can’t think of at the moment. What I have learned from both these blogs are some interesting things, for one – they both are drop-dead simple to get started, which is excellent because that means more people can start a blog without needing to understand the underlying technologies. They are both also very powerful. Blogger at the moment is more customizable right away, WordPress.com has only been available to the public since I think Oct 2005 and is a bit more controlled at the moment making customization unavailable right away – though Matt Mullenweg is working on this for future options (Go Matt!).
Well, there is much to do even though its a good start. I’ll post more information soon – maybe a few screen shots of things here and there as well.
Feb 5, 2006 | blog
Russell Beattie has gone “old school” as he puts it in his blog this weekend. He mentions how much time responding to comments takes up, and I’m sure it is a time-sink though I don’t have as much experience with that sort of blogging traffic.
Russ, in case you’ve missed it, there is a new comment-tracking tool that is currently in limited beta called coComment, and may be of help to you as you deal with comment overload. Interesting timing actually, the anouncement of this tool and your decision to turn comments off on your blog. Well I hope it goes well for you, and you find that extra time you’re looking for. In many ways, I don’t blame you, but I’m sure that you’ll get some feedback on the negative aspect as well. See ya round!
via: Russell Beattie Notebook
Feb 2, 2006 | blog
OK, I’ve fixed a few things here on my blog that were bothering me – just needed to take the time and find where to change the code in the template. I’ve updated the Permalink so it says “Permalink” instead of the time – thats bothered me for quite awhile. Next I changed the title so it always links to the permalink as well – call me something-retentive. Also, I added a small bit to place the any title link I add to the bottom of the post called “link”. Finally, I added a link & logo for w.blogger, which I find to be a very nice tool for posting – even at work.
When I get a few minutes, I’m going to see if there is an easy way to add Technorati tags to the bottom of each post as well – or at least to the tech-releated posts.
Feb 2, 2006 | blog
While I ramble a bit on this post, I’m using IE7 Beta 2. Looking good, and an improvement over previous betas. I’m not posting here much, but am staying busy on my other blogs.
The new features added to Spaces is nice, but it still is not camparable to professional blogging software like WordPress (I’m convinced its the best).
Busy at work, busy at home, busy trying to launch Rick 2.0 (warning geek humor), and finding that there is just not enough time in the day. Many challenges at work, many projects that I’m all of a sudden becoming the Project Manager on – be carefull of what you wish for.
The challenges are great because it allows me to grow and learn every day (sometimes every minute!), and keeps pushing the boundaries that I thought werer further down the path for me professionally. More and more I wonder if just limiting myself to IT is the answer to my professional growth. Of course its not, but a person is hesitant to make too many changes or too drastic a change as it is uncomfortable to think of failing.
At any rate, its fun to be challenged!
