I really just need a graphic designer at this point!

Ok, so I’m very close to being able to release the story.  The website for it is www.A2562.com which will make more sense once I put out the first weeks entry.  I feel that in order for the site to be a success it needs all the elements of a good site, which I would like for it to have… Even though my writing style has been praised from what I’ve shown so far, and most of my friends are anxious to read a little bit I’m afraid that with how fickle people can be online without good graphics to go along with each entry or at least one good picture per post people will quickly become bored.  I know that’s one reason why this site has never really boomed even with the many visits I get few stick around to read what I have to say all the time.

I also need to get permissions figured out on my site… I can’t CHMOD 777 everything, and because I tossed it up on my new server it’s being funny.  I think I need to create some new users for the server because it’s like Root owns everything so the users who should have access to things don’t.  Many of my websites can’t even write to their own directories so gotta get that figured out, and then try and get the site together.  If I can’t find someone to illustrate my story that’s fine I’ll just go on without it, but I would prefer it to be more complete.

I’m actually out of my own free will promoting another website here! haha, I know, no one is paying me or anything. I guess you might say that I feel that I sort of owe it to Petition Online for all the valuable service they’ve provided over the years. They sort of seem like an old friend of mine, and I really hate to see them losing power! When I first started using PetitionOnline.com they were a PR7 and doing quite well! Over the years I’ve made 29 petitions myself… amazing to look back at them. Most were complete silliness in fact and I use them because you can add an option to put websites with your signatures so I use them for link quality back to my sites. In creating so many petitions I’ve also created a lot of content for them and they get money out of that so it’s really a win, win situation for us. Allowing URL’s in your signatures isn’t always a great idea, and I’ve started to advance my petition creating techniques to avoid spammers with forcing people to either agree or disagree with the petitions! It works out, and yet even with how few petitions I actually see that allow you to put links in your signatures they still get quite a few spammers, so I figure whatever I can do to get things out of the ordinary is a good thing.

Anyways, the reason I am really writing this is because Petition Online seems to of added a new feature! PetitionOnline.com is a small branch of Artifice Inc. From every aspect I look at it PetitionOnline.com has no bearings on the Artifice company, but I will give them credit for creating the site! Artifice, Inc. is an architecture company, I’ve never been exactly sure on what they do, but I believe they make CAD software, along with some other things relating to the business. So where do petitions come in? Quite simple, they give link quality! What better way of getting thousands of incoming links to your website than allowing other people to create the content for you? In the early days of Web 2.0 the concepts behind PetitionOnline.com are simply ingenious, and have even kept their strength through several evolutions of the net… but since PetitionOnline was doing it’s job, and it was not their main business it got neglected quite a bit with very few updates and slow at that. Because of this neglect the strength they once found in Petition Online has begun to dwindle a bit. The once iconic PR7 PetitionOnline.com has slipped all the way down to a PR5 even though Petition Online is stronger than they’ve ever been! The reason for this is simple, content is being spewed out on the net at an astronomical rate. Most of you don’t look at things this way but every article I publish on this site is a new page, every ten I publish is another new page, every different day I publish on is another new page, every tag I include is yet ANOTHER new page… which is partially why Petition Online did so good in the early days, they took advantage of this page creation early on. Every petition created was three new pages, every hundred signatures was another new page. This very much so helped out the spread of information for Petition Online, however others have caught on and things seem to be changing rapidly. For one I generally include a minimum of five tags per entry on this blog alone, that’s six pages created with every entry no matter what. The way that PR or Page Rank works is simple it takes the number of indexed pages that Google has online and gives you a rating based upon the number of pages that point to yours on average with the number of pages that point to other pages on the net… it also factors in the strength of those links. The people behind Petition Online finally got the drift though and have now added a feature that allows you to add tags to your petition. This feature will definitely increase the value of Petition Online again, only I fear it may be a slow process, which is why I am content with helping them out a bit with some incoming links and news articles to get people using their new feature.

I’m sure many of you have used or signed petitions on PetitionOnline.com and surely owe them a favor for hosting the site at the very least. I know with their addition of the FaceBook button a while back I’ve seen a number of petitions end up on Facebook as groups getting people to sign their petition, which is very much so a help, but it needs more. We’ve got to keep the free ideas marketplace alive!

I hate it when I don’t know what I feel… and generally when I’m like that I go straight here and blog about it to sort things out and understand myself a little better.  I’ve been in a bit of a rut lately and I have absolutely no clue what to do… Simply writing this my mind instantly goes to the question “In what do you put your trust?”  Which will make more sense once I start explaining my conundrum.  Ok, so I honest to goodness love coding… Websites is what I really know, specifically PHP but I love expanding that knowledge base of codes and working with them.  Even (and call me crazy) but I really, really enjoy debugging a script… When I put up a new site and it comes up blank, or there are errors coming out the yin yang you’ll see me light up as I stick a CD in the player and start opening 3 or 4 different browsers, my SSH program, FTP, and start pulling up pages and pages of code in GoLive CS2.  I know I’m not going to be leaving that spot (not to eat, to sleep, or anything) for the next 15-20 hours (generally if it’s multiple problems with PHP configuration on the server, and in the code).  I love delving into the endless task of creating better code… but I can’t do it right now with MTV and I really don’t know why.

There are a few problems I have with my job… first off being that the majority of the sites I work on are done in Ruby on Rails I don’t have the slightest clue as to what Ruby looks like on the code level, or it’s capabilities.  It is a programing language which generally speaking means the limits are your imagination and knowledge of how things work… and they have some people working on the code that really know what they’re doing so I can tell them to do whatever I want and they’ll get it done… The problem is I’m only a small portion of the process.  When a new site is launched I generally come in and do my run through testing out every aspect of the site possible and giving my report on what went wrong, what I thought didn’t fit, errors I got, etc.  Which is fine, and I know it’s a necessary part of the equation… just after so long I start seeing the same site over and over.  I don’t easily get distracted by the visuals of a site, I see it for what it is on a code, and functionality level.  I can find flaws, flukes, and annoyances with any website… but what’s the point if I can’t sit down with the designer of the site and say “ok, why did you choose to do things this way?”  Sometimes “problems” that I find with sites really aren’t problems at all they just annoy me, so I’ve got to tell some guy to change his work because I don’t understand why he did something one way.

Sometimes I think my boss puts up with me only because he feels the same way as I do about how fast sites are kicked out from MTV, and how unoriginal they are.  I only know that because of what he said to me when he called me back after several months of doing nothing with them.

So here’s my conundrum.  I like what I do for MTV sometimes, when there’s something new to be done… I also get paid fairly well for working with them, especially seeing as I make more money than most of my friends.  I need the money for rent, the server I just rented, getting my car legal, my motherboard is dying on me slowly… it never was very great it was a cheap $75 motherboard that was only supposed to be for a few months till I could get a good Asus board that never happened… But I can’t for the life of me get the motivation to do my job with them.  I look at the emails from them, I know the tasks that I have before me and I just stare at them and can’t bring myself to even begin to think about doing them.  I would much rather be coding the new site agapebeacon.com which is a huge task… I’ve got a good months worth of work ahead of me for that if it was the only thing I was doing… the problem comes in the fact that I’m not very good at multi-tasking.  That’s sort of a lie I work with 20 different programs at once to accomplish a task on a regular basis, but I’m very linear I do one thing at a time.  If I’m working on agape I’m working on that, if I’m working for MTV I’m working for them… I can’t do both at once, I mean I could easily do both at once it’d be more efficient, I just can’t do it.  So the problem comes in this… I want… or more so need to build this website, I would have to say that it’s something that I was born for, and as the last several posts of mine have said every moment in my life has lead up to this point, which will in turn lead up to another point, and so on and so forth… The problem comes in the fact that I “need” the job with MTV, without it I’m not making any money, but with it I’m not making any progress on this site.  I can’t keep working 5-10 hours a week with MTV they won’t put up with it forever… or maybe they will I haven’t talked to them yet.  I also don’t really want to quit working for them… as I said I like the job… I just wish I could work it when I needed to, kinda sorta felt like it you know?  Which also BTW doesn’t generally work out so well.  They have me on board because I pay attention to details, and when I go to do something I get it done right… I’m not really the fastest person at this stuff, and would say I’m pretty slow sometimes… so that can’t be what they like about me… but they’ve gotta like me because they put up with my eccentricities, which is a lot.  I’m not exactly sure what to do because I’m afraid if I go to them and ask to work like every other week so I could do their stuff and my stuff they might finally be like “you know what, don’t bother we’ll find someone else.”  then a part of me would be glad because I could focus on my projects… only then I’d have no money and it wouldn’t matter because I’d lose my server and my sites.  Which then goes back to the beginning and my question “what do you put your trust in?”  I’ve been in situations like this a million times before… often choosing to do my own thing where there is absolutely no glimpse of hope for making money and God has always taken care of me…

I don’t know, I’m just rambling on… I don’t suspect I’ll get any answers from this, or really expect much of a response from anyone I just had to put it down in writing before I lost my mind thinking about it

Ok, I wanted to run this past all my Facebook friends first before doing something rash like actually buying anything :-P  So the “Christian Facebook” as I’ve deemed it for now is taking shape!  I mean it really is… Instead of being foolhardy and attempting to code the thing from the ground up with PHP and MySQL I’ve decided to take a little help.  I’ve enlisted the help of a rapid development framework!  The site is still “PHP” so to speak, but my side isn’t very much PHP unless I’m defining a new object that isn’t included in the framework.  It’s object oriented which means I use objects instead of PHP… it’s actually much faster too.  Problem is it’s new to me, so there is a bit of a learning curve as might be expected… not to mention I’m using the beta version of the development framework I’m working with because it has all sorts of necessary features, functions, and doodads that aren’t available in the stable version… also they change a large number of the objects so the stable versions documentation is no help at all… and the Beta’s documentation is just starting to come together.  So try and learn a new programming language with no real help… Never the less the site is still coming together very nicely!

In fact things are developing so fast that it’s time to start thinking about what the site should be or look like.  What I need from you guys is your opinions on these matters:

1. Profiles - I was thinking StumbleUpon esque, very simple, not the main feature of the site.  But would like to know if you guys would prefer them more robust like with MySpace or Facebook.  Of course you’d still be able to customize everything the other way but it’d be limited to only a few photos, preferences, etc.  (check out http://archmaille.stumbleupon.com/ for more details on what it might look like, plus a signature wall for your friends, 5-10 photos instead of 1)
2. name of site - I’ve been racking my brain and praying about this… I wanted something that sounded ancient (me?  ancient?  No way) Kind of wanted something to show like old forum type of thing you know?  Because that’s the main purpose of the site to gather Christians together.  Then I started thinking lighthouse, or beacon… finally came up with “AgapeBeacon.com”  (oh, and another thing is it has to be available, things like GodSpace.com and everything went through my mind, the owners of the site aren’t using it, but want like $2k for me to buy the domain from the, I can’t afford that).  AgapeBeacon.com is available but wanted to see everyones reaction to it before getting it.
3. Niche - Ok, so yeah, I was thinking social networking all along… but not necessarily Facebook, MySpace type of site.  The main thing I was going for was the discussion board.  A place where Christians can go to find sound advice about life.  I have a lot of ideas and things set in motion for the discussion board… but how do you guys feel about that.  Is a massive forum really what is needed?  Or something different.  Forum is sort of underplaying the functionality of the site since it will be much MUCH more than maybe what you guys would think of as an online “forum” like PHPBB or whatever.  I mean for starters much more in depth personal profiles, networks, and calendars to help organize off site events.

Thoughts feelings suggestions?  I was kind of lucky, as I am with my job anyways to only work 1 hour with MTV.  Of course I could of worked more if I called them and said “Hey I’m out of work send me more!”  But I appreciated the time to fiddle with and learn the new framework.  I’m going to be doing much more work with MTV this week, and every week preceding of course.  I’m going to need the money as I’m actually going to rent a server for this site (hoping for over 10k users, maybe into the 100k range some day and that can’t be done on a shared hosting plan.  Yeah sure I get over 2,000 visitors to all my sites combined on a daily basis, but it’s not the same thing).  I also will need the knowledge.  That’s one thing that has been amazing about working with MTV, I’ve learned SOOO freaking much!  They’re always like “hey can you do this?”  And I’m like “Yeah sure no problem!”  Come to find out it usually is if it’s off my usual path of interest.  But I get the opportunity to research and learn new things.  Oh, and also development with the site will be slower… we’re talking one month or so before I have something you guys can all jump into and check out.

Wow, this is going to be the first time in a long time that my post isn’t really spiritual… which is fine.  This is just going to be me, more or less talking to me.  If you really want an update on my life here it is though!  I haven’t done one of these in a long time either… Anyways, most of it is about the new job too (well not so new since I’ve technically been working with MTV for over a year now) so if you’re not into computers and geeky stuff I suggest plugging your ears… er… well covering your eyes, because I’m about to get very geeky, very quickly

I must say I really like the new position with the job… I mean last year I was reviewing websites and keeping an eye on the 4chan guys but never got to go past that.  yeah it was good being able to be creative and outsmarting some rather tricky people, but it got boring after a while.  Now I do everything, I get documents on the operations of their sites, I get tips tricks, and techniques on how they build their sites… it’s like being paid to go to school… but even better than that because I don’t have to listen to a teacher I get to teach myself, at my own pace!  Plus I’ve got a support group of just really cool people totally willing to help along the way.  I have to say that I’ve had to learn to become very organized, really quickly though.

I’ve not talked about it to anyone else yet other than Adam but I’ve got another very good idea for a site to start up.  I would really like to bring some sort of social networking site to fruition… it’s sort of a life goal so to speak of mine.  The thing is I’ve had the idea to start up sort of a Christian Facebook.  Ok, so here’s where the concept came from… for the last three years I’ve spent a LOT of time online… Been on just about every site there is out there… it’s obvious that social networking sites are here, and here to stay.  Everything is moving in that direction, it’s what I’m primarily working on for MTV right now, it’s what everybody is getting ready for their sites right?  Well I’ve also been a forum junkie for a long time, there was a time where I was on over 150 forums, active member of them all, forums used to be the thing before the social networking scene.  There is one newer social networking site that combines the two MyYearbook.com with it’s advice sections and forum that puts top articles on the front page… Love the concept of the social network with super old school forum with a bit of a twist… hate the forums.  I can’t go a day without seeing a new message pop up “Challenge to Christians - Prove god” “I’m horny talk to me” or hundreds of other sex related topics that spew forth all day long… You can’t escape it for anything… and the owners/admins of the site don’t care, in fact the encourage it publishing even more sex stories, and drug related topics in their “magazine” part of the site… I’ve tried a number of times to get some of my stuff on there, but Christian stuff just doesn’t stand a chance… it’s buried before it ever gets off the ground, or turns into a total flame war.  So what I want to do is create a Facebook/Myspace/Myyearbook style site that networks Christians together.  On all of these social networks you can join schools, cities, etc. as part of your network to find others from those same places… but what about Churches?  I would like to create one that your primary network is the church you attend!  I think it would be amazing…

Adam and I were going over the idea and it brought up all kinds of great things, Adam’s idea is to have a global church no matter what denomination or whatever your church is make them all one!  He also said we should put some sort of map that would allow you to see networks and churches in other areas so if you were going on a trip you could find a place to attend church while out of town.  I thought that was a great idea, and would even help if someone was moving to a new town, you could look at churches and get to know members in the area you were going to be moving to ahead of time.  The possibilities are really ridiculously endless!  I’d like to incorporate some sort of “area calendar” so that lets say the Kansas City area or even smaller to like Parkville and stuff small groups, Christian Concerts, even Sunday morning services could be listed on the calendar to make it easier to find ways to connect with other Christians on your schedule…

It’s all amazing, and I’m really REALLY excited about it… already got some of the groundwork for the PHP and MySQL platform started on it.  I really don’t have much time to just sit down and hardcore code right now working with MTV unfortunately… but I can’t say that it is unfortunate either.  I would of been a duck in the water if it weren’t for this job with MTV.  Yeah, I understood the dynamics of working on the backend of a large social networking site, but until you’re behind the wheel you don’t understand.  I’m really lucky to have these people to learn from, and I feel it’s no mistake that God gave me this job with MTV right now to learn the ins and outs of the business so that I can manage His business with the greatest success.  I don’t really have a name or anything for the new site… or well much of anything for that matter, but it’s all good it’ll come eventually.  I honestly wouldn’t of been able to have even coded it without what I’ve learned in the last couple of weeks working at MTV so it is true everything has it’s time.

Romans 12:

1 So brothers and sisters, since God has shown us great mercy, I beg you to offer your lives as a living sacrifice to him. Your offering must be only for God and pleasing to him, which is the spiritual way for you to worship. 2 Do not be shaped by this world; instead be changed within by a new way of thinking. Then you will be able to decide what God wants for you; you will know what is good and pleasing to him and what is perfect. 3 Because God has given me a special gift, I have something to say to everyone among you. Do not think you are better than you are. You must decide what you really are by the amount of faith God has given you.4 Each one of us has a body with many parts, and these parts all have different uses.5 In the same way, we are many, but in Christ we are all one body. Each one is a part of that body, and each part belongs to all the other parts.6 We all have different gifts, each of which came because of the grace God gave us. The person who has the gift of prophecy should use that gift in agreement with the faith.7 Anyone who has the gift of serving should serve. Anyone who has the gift of teaching should teach.8 Whoever has the gift of encouraging others should encourage. Whoever has the gift of giving to others should give freely. Anyone who has the gift of being a leader should try hard when he leads. Whoever has the gift of showing mercy to others should do so with joy.

If you’ve not heard already Microsoft has finally materialized its desire to purchase Yahoo!

They’ve tried before, a few months ago started up discussions on merging the two companies. Both MSN and Yahoo! are struggling to keep up with Google, and as I stated before MSN and Google have been battling it out for some time over various aspects of the computer world. That article I have only scratches the surface of what they’ve been up to also… there are several deals, and several blows that have been left out. This time Microsoft simply threw out a bid to takeover the company, $45Billion in fact. So far there is no word from Yahoo! whether or not they’ll accept the offer, but seeing as Microsoft offered a 46% premium on the share prices I don’t see how they could refuse! Yahoo!’s profits are down, and slipping… granted I like Yahoo! a lot, I really think that they are in touch with what their users want, they’re also a huge innovator… unfortunately the behemoth that is Google has simply steam rolled them and they have no way to fight back. In order for the internet to not be taken over by Google I think this deal needs to go through.

I’ll keep updates rolling on the situation and post as soon as (well hopefully) the deal goes through. This could revolutionize the way you view the internet! So keep an eye out.

**update** Ok, I just looked it up and it’s been 18 moths that Microsoft and Yahoo! have been in negotiations… but from the looks of it Microsoft has been the aggressor in the matter,  as it is still being considered a hostile take over even if Yahoo! agrees fully to the deal (as is obvious that their share holders are in agreeing that it is a good deal since Yahoo!’s stock jumped 50% today, however Microsoft dropped slightly as many people didn’t like the 46% premium they were paying for the stock in Yahoo!) **/update**

Pepperjam Announces Launch of Next Generation Affiliate Marketing Network

Pepperjam, a two-time Inc. Magazine fastest growing company and industry leading full-service internet marketing agency, today announced the launch of Pepperjam Network, a proprietary next generation affiliate marketing network.

If you are an advertiser or affiliate and would like to sign-up for Pepperjam Network please visit www.pepperjamnetwork.com.

Wow, didn’t realize it but there are 95 entries into this contest… anyways, Jordan and I need your help! If you really love us you’ll help us though. If you vote for everything every video goes up against every other video… so here’s the rules:

1) distribute votes as evenly as possible if not voting for Jordan’s video

2) vote for my video (piece of crap I was half asleep when I did it) when possible to defer votes from others that might compete against us

3) Vote for Jordan’s video any time it is on the screen, simply by doing so gives a huge lead to Jordan already.

Have fun, and try to vote for us, Contest ends as of February 29th

Go to this contest on Bix

I walked down to the dam today to check out the “Bonner lake” as described by Jordan that appears after a rain. I was always confused about the dam behind out house, but I guess there are a few places prone to flooding and it simply slows the water here and causes all the flooding to occur in a safe place. When I got back there there was no lake, but there was something much more precious. It was still early, and there had been a light misty sort of rain all night. The combination lead to a light fog cover especially in the valley behind the dam and in the forest. The trees were laden with fog that flowed through and around them. With the leaves gone the trunks of the trees had been thoroughly soaked by the nights rain leaving them darker than usual. The dark, foggy forest had an ominous tone about it… but the beauty of it all is enough to ensnare any eyes that take the time to truly look upon it.

The moment grabbed my attention and took me out of this efficient, busy world to bring me to a place where there are no deadlines, there is no quota, it simply is what it is. We don’t see beauty as a good thing in our society anymore though. Oh sure we worship the way people look, ever prevalent on the cover of so many magazines, but we don’t actually appreciate true beauty. When we get up in the morning and the world as we know it is covered in fog we moan and groan about the problems it causes, and how we’ll be late to work… instead of seeing the beauty in it we only see inconvenience. But isn’t that true? Beauty isn’t primarily functional… and in fact rarely has any function at all. Yet it is so essential to us, and I never want to get to the point to be one of those people that has become so efficient that I stop seeing beauty for what it is, and start seeing it as an inconvenience.

Many businesses now days are becoming more spread out. Everything from medium sized businesses to large corporations are being spread across the globe. Personally as a freelance web designer, writer, and blogger I’ve worked with and for companies all the way from California to New York. I’ve never had to move to work for one of these companies thanks to the nature of the internet. One thing that is so convenient about the usage of the internet is that even with vast distances between businesses, partners, and clients the void is closed with technologies over the internet. Not only are there great options with VoIP, web pages, and messengers the growing popularity of video conferencing is an ever present factor.