(Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes)

Blogging really sucks. It’s hard work. Inspiration is fickle as fate, and motivation blows with the wind. Why would anyone set their shoulder to such a task? You fire your old boss, then find your new boss (you) isn’t much better. And there’s all these rules and shi^H^Htuff about how blogging is supposed to be.

Where’s the fun in that?

Hey, how do you like that headline? Rockin’, right? Gonna get me some real search engine lovin’ on that one, oh yeah!

Pfffft.

Since I’m dedicating this article to all of you who are in your “I loathe/hate/despise blogging” phase, I thought I’d channel me some Kelly Diel’s headline advice and poke a sharp stick into Blogistan‘s collective eye for how things oughter be.

But I’d hate to disappoint anyone, so I’m going to trot out the tired old trope: There’s good news and bad news. Which, as we all know, really means “You’re not going to like what I have to say, but my compulsion to say it outweighs my consideration for your feelings.”

Let’s be about it.

Good news!

• You are not unique, everyone hates blogging sometimes.
• Even when you hate it, when it’s your job, you can jobify it. More later.

Bad news!

• You are not unique, everyone hates blogging sometimes.
• Even when you hate it, when it’s your job, you can jobify it. More later.

Helloooo, my Special Snowflake!

I love snowflakes. Every one different, unique, all in the same way. It’s the human condition frozen into an eighth-inch of wonder.

Julian Colton - Snowflakes

It’s amazing. In some respects (like, to dogs), we all look the same. Two arms, two legs, two eyes, etc. Bilateral symmetry rocks.

But the the odds of two people who are not twins having identical DNA are like a million billion trillion to one. That’s pretty low odds.

Even more important: however you’re feeling right now, someone else has felt it in the past. Likely, someone else is feeling it right now. I know this is true because if you can describe your emotion in words, someone had to feel enough the same way to invent a word for that feeling. QED.

If you’re at the stage of blogging where it all just seems soo dreary, you’re in good company. It happens to everyone, whether they write about it or not.

And just like everyone else, you can 1. choose to quit in disgust, or 2. choose to just get on with it (possibly in disgust, that’s cool).

Get with the program. Jobify your blog. Unblog it.

So.

It’s a nice day out there, and you just don’t feel like working on your blog. But money doesn’t grow on trees.

It’s not nice outside? It’s really crappy out there and you just want to stay in bed? Money doesn’t grow on trees!

On days like these, blogging is part of your job. Deal with it. Like a job. Here’s a few jobification tips:

Get the maintenance work done. You should have a checklist for “unblogging,” boring, bloggy chores like these:

1. Clean up spam.
2. Moderate and respond to comments.
3. Make sure plugins and themes are up to date.
4. Make sure everything is backed up.
5. Check your server logs or redirection logs for 404 errors, redirect as needed, or drop posts you don’t want indexed.
6. I’m sure you can think of many more. What’s your least favorite blog chore? Tell us in the comments (then go do it).

Get a load of this stuff done, right now, then call it a day. Everyone who matters will be here when you get back, promise.

By the way, I wrote a little whitepaper on daily blog chores, and I show how to handle all these chores (and more) in Blog Maintenance Challenge. But this isn’t a sales letter; if you want in to BMC, email me or leave a comment, I’ll send you a link and set it up.

Remember: you don’t have to feel like doing something to get it done.

You just have to get it done.

(And tell us about your least favorite blog chore in the comments!)

Post from: Website In A Weekend

The Uninspiring, Unencouraging and Unmotivating Guide to Unblogging

(Reading time: 5 – 8 minutes)

Long time readers might notice something a little different this morning.

Ok, a lot different!

Welcome to the new Website In A Weekend.

Bolder!

Brighter!

More cheerful!

I’ve always been a fan of bright colors. Most of the art I have is bright and cheerful, with oranges, purples, greens, blues, reds and golds. Websites I really like include Laura Belgray’s Talking Shrimp and Kristi Hines’ Kikolani, both with bold, cheerful colors.

(Kikolani? Talking Shrimp? What the hell do talking shrimps have to do with copywriting? Does it matter? NO! Keywords my shiny red…)

Anyways, it’s loud, it’s proud, and I’m running this design for the next six months.

By the way, if you don’t like the new look, that’s ok. Some people will love it, others will hate it. (What’s important is how it converts. More on that later.) I’ve already been informed that the size of the logo indicates a certain “anatomical inverse relationship,” and from someone else that “I don’t like your colors.” With respect to this second remark, that particular gentleman programmer is most definitely not in my audience. The first assertion gives me a bit of pause, coming from my colleague Al, a brilliant, professional Web 2.0 designer.

Given the new Google Instant Preview, maybe it’s a good thing I’m not a Web 2.0 blog. Larger banners such as those on Corbett Barr’s ThinkTraffic, Annabel Candy’s Get In The Hot Spot and Copyblogger will certainly stand out in Google’s preview. As will Website In A Weekend.

However, I value Al’s advice, and I suspect you will hear more wisdom from him in the future (He’s really, really good). But we’ll table that for later.

Both the redesign and the launch have been a team effort with Roberto Koci and Teresa Deak. If you haven’t yet met these talented folks, let me introduce them.

Roberto Koci – Red Diamond Studio

I’ve worked with Roberto Koci since December 2007, nearly 3 years. Roberto consistently delivers high-quality work. Having worked professionally in print graphics, he has a great eye for color as well, and isn’t afraid to take design risks.

For this particular project, the constraints were staying within a nominally GPO (green-purple-orange) color scheme, and increasing contrast by darkening accents while increasing white space.

Furthermore, the whole implementation is in Thesis theme. As explained below, we used Github for version control and distributed development. Roberto could add a set of changes which I pulled to my local server, modified, then pushed back to Github for Roberto’s use. Very convenient.

The Social Butterfly Solution

Teresa Deak of Social Butterfly Solutions played a critical role in the success of this launch. One of Teresa’s core business services is providing uniform branding across related websites, or “outposts.”

Uniform branding in this case means propagating the banner and color scheme to Website In A Weekend’s outposts. Teresa provided branding for:

• Amplify: provides a stream similar to Twitter, with posting similar to blogging (including tags and categories), and clipping similar to Clipmark. That turns out to be a powerful combination. I use Amplify to support certain links (it’s do follow), and as a sort of “super-bookmarking” system. Even more cool, Amplify is built on WordPress MU.
• Gravatar: Most people log in to Gravatar.com exactly once, to register and upload a photo. As it turns out, there’s more you can do at Gravatar. Did you know you can set a collection of links to various websites and social media profiles? That these will appear on any blog implementing Hovercard? You can see Hovercard in action on Website In A Weekend, just roll your cursor over my Gravatar in any comment.
• Posterous: is another so-called microblogging site, useful in part because it’s easy to post by email. Often, when you send me a question by email, I’ll cc: (or bcc:) my reply to Website In A Weekend’s Posterous account to use for a future blog post. Posterous also accepts clipping, which is useful for grabbing comments and excerpts for quoting in blog posts.
• Twitter: There’s not a lot new I could say about Twitter. Find me here: @websiteweekend.

All these outposts went live a couple of weeks ago. These had to be done manually; can’t just switch themes as with WordPress. That’s more difficult to synchronize so we pulled trigger on each when ready.

Relaunching Website In A Weekend

Anyone in this business long enough figures out that “getting it right” is a little more involved than shoving a new theme on the web server.

For example, if you’re reading this on 1:25 pm November 28, 2010 Pacific Time, you may notice this blog post isn’t exactly finished. Turns out I accidentally hit “Publish” instead of “Save Draft,” and didn’t catch it before it went into the RSS feed. Once it’s in the feed, it’s impossible to get it out (show me I’m wrong, I’ll thank you for it).

In any case, a few more notes:

Collaboration: We used github for synchronizing files. This made it far easier to determine who had the correct version of each file, and to merge in changes when both of us worked on the project’s PHP and CSS files.

Testing: first round of testing is moving from Roberto’s private server to my private server. This exposed a number of issues, primarily in plugin modifications. (Some of which hasn’t been deployed yet.)

Tweaking: Final tweaking occurred on my local server, where I have an entire hosting and development system installed.

Roll out: was pretty simple. Since git branch management is so convenient, the existing design (violetminded) was maintained in parallel with work on the new design (reddiamond). Deployment reduced to a single rsync command:

$ rsync -essh -vta --cvs-exclude custom myusername@myhost.com:public_html/websiteinaweekend/wp-content/themes/thesis_18

Thesis 1.8 doesn’t have child themes, which is becoming a serious handicap for quickly rolling out an updated design, so this combination of git and rsync worked well.

Because there were so many changes (mostly beneath the hood), the roll out has been proceeding for several days. What you see today are the last pieces: the banner, background and footer.

How did your last redesign and roll out proceed? Any bobbles, or smooth sailing?

Post from: Website In A Weekend

WIAW! Bolder and Brighter with a Cheerful New Design

(Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes)

Internet Marketers and online entrepreneurs are constantly presented with new information to study, techniques to learn, and great advice to follow.

If you are anything like me, you might have a hard drive full of unstudied information – most of which you want to study and recognize as being valuable and useful.  The trick is, finding time to study the valuable information which you can use in our businesses and projects, to get more done and more effective, while still having time to work on the projects themselves.

Having only so many hours in a day, it can be hard to find a proper balance.  If we spend too much time absorbing information and not enough time acting on it, we will accomplish little.  Yet, when we are untrained and uninformed on the best ways to go about things, we can lose countless hours doing things the wrong way.  Or at least – not the right way, not the fastest way, not the smartest way.

Meanwhile it is easy to overlook the most obvious solutions.  I recently came across one of those obvious solutions which I had been so obviously overlooking – and it’s called an iPod.

Learn a lot in a short time

Many years ago when I was a teenager in Germany, working numerous jobs to earn money to travel to Asia and often waking up at 4 in the morning and working till late at night, I had a similar problem.  I had a lot to study and a lot to learn, and I also had a lot to do.

When I decided to learn German, I got a set of “learn German” cassette tapes and my walkman, and began to carry them around with me.  I listened to those tapes over and over and over, while I cleaned hallways and biked from job to job across Munich.  Within a few months, I spoke German well enough to be mistaken as a German, by a German.  (Note – that was then, this is now.)  Later on when I took a train from Prague to Beijing, I wanted to learn Chinese.  I studied my Berlitz “learn Chinese” tapes every day on the week-long train ride. and I learned Chinese.  Well, enough Chinese to survive that is – not enough to be mistaken as a Chinese person!

Later on in life, when living overseas for several years in Denmark, I thought I might learn Danish. 

I did not have a tape or something which I could just listen to.  I got some CDs but in order to use them I had to sit down at the computer and work on just that.  The result?  There was always something more important to do with my time.  Since I would have had to “set aside time” to study Danish, it just never happened.  If I had had lessons which I only needed to listen to, as I did in the past, I might very well have learned Danish.  As it was, I had 6 years to learn it, and I got as far as counting to 8 and reading billboards.  I never learned conversational Danish after all those years and could still speak other languages better, even for countries where I had only spent a few months.

The system is the key

The point is, when you set up a system for yourself where you can study and learn while doing other things at the same time, you can get a lot further.

Quite a lot of Internet Marketing data is available in MP3 format.  If you set aside a bit of time to collect it together and organize it on an iPod or MP3 player, you may find it to be very well worth it.

I have begun listening to my MP3 files during my walks.  I try to take a walk every day around a small mountain in the forest where I live.  I need to get away from the screen, get some exercise, and breathe some air.

I can also absorb quite a lot of data during that time by bringing my MP3 player with me.  And if I want a break from that as well, I can just pause it and play with stones for a bit.

Another family member of mine has learned a large amount of Internet Marketing information in a short time, in this fashion.  She simply loaded her iPod with every Mp3 file she could find, starting with the priorities of course, and began to listen to them – in the car while driving, on walks, etc.

If you start loading up your MP3 player with information you can listen to, and get in the habit of using it, you can get through a lot of material.  You can learn a lot of very useful information which will help you succeed better with your projects and business endeavors.

There are many times you can utilize this – while driving, commuting to work, walking, exercising, washing the dishes, cleaning the house, and even (for some people) while falling asleep at night 

If you start to get into this habit you might find that you do have a lot more time to study and that you can absorb all that valuable data that has been sitting in your hard drive – or at least, start to make a dent in it.

Anna Williams is a blogger, webmaster, photographer, and poet. She has lived and traveled in four continents, and currently lives in a forest, in the Pacific Northwest. Visit her personal blog, view photos, or read poetry. Anna offers website development and related services.

Post from: Website In A Weekend

Making Time to Study

(Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes)

Hey… I’ve been threatening to reduce posting frequency since November 2009… and that time is now come.

It’s not because there’s nothing to write about. On the contrary, there’s more to write about now than ever before. I have about 60 blog posts of my own in draft. Won’t be finishing all of them, I do have a plan for them though. You’ll see them at some point, in some form.

Instead, the League of Extraordinary Bloggers is taking off. If you want in, Paypal Kelly Diels $150.

Woops. I just got an email from Kelly, I forgot we raised prices: League of Extraordinary Blogger Reviews are $300.

It’s a good deal: you get both of us on the phone for an hour, after we’ve tore into your whole website, blog, information infrastructure, whatever it is you call whatever you do. Testimonials coming shortly.

The economy in Silicon Valley has turned around. I’ve had 4 opportunities land in my email this week alone. One looks really good… won’t say more than that right now. All 4 are with fast-paced, dynamic startups with huge potential in their markets.

Obviously, this cuts into blogging time.

This isn’t a problem for me.

The technical articles I’ve written about WordPress and PHP are a public demonstration of capability.

See, it turns out, you can’t fake or talk your way around software development. You actually have to produce working code. My code works. There’s proof here. Just as obviously, I’m not after site design or graphics design work.

“What’s ahead?” you ask…

Lots:

• Watch for another release of Blog Post Engineering. Soon. No details yet, but likely before the end of July. Sign up for any of the lists hanging around here, or just send me an email, and I’ll get you into the prelaunch loop.

  And get Dave’s ebook. Launches are not going way, we’ve trained customers to only buy during launches (is that what we want, really?), and I’m telling you right now, it’s far, far work than you think it is. At least, if you want to do it right.

• More products and services. Kelly and I are cooking up something new, something the likes of which you haven’t seen in this space. I’ll be applying the launch lessons from Blog Post Engineering to each of what’s coming next (that’s a lot of lessons).
• Better blog posts. I live next to Berkeley, 12 miles from San Francisco (by road, it’s just a few miles across the water), and just up the road from Silicon Valley. You will see more of that in future blog posts. Also, my preferred style of blogging is lengthy articles running 2000 – 3000 words covering a topic in canonical details. This will lose me readers. This will gain me readers. But for me, there’s enough breadth on Website In A Weekend. It’s time to go deep.

If you want a hour of my time for any reason, Paypal me $80, we’ll talk. You know what I can do, there’s like 400,000 words of it on Website In A Weekend. That’s called “proof.” If I end up taking a position at any of these startups, I guarantee my rates are going to $125/hr.

Click!

Speaking of Dave Navarro, head over and read his latest: Your Job is to Help People (So Stop Holding Back). It’s an excellent article, and I suggest you put some thought into determining which group you’re in.

This article really clicked for me.

Did you read it? You should go read it now.

With the League of Extraordinary Bloggers, Kelly and I only deal with Group 1 people. People for whom $300 of our time is a valuable investment. It feels good.

Group 2, I’ve got your back. Keep after it, when you’re ready, hit me up.

Group 3, you are most definitely welcome to learn from all 18 months of the free content posted here on Website In A Weekend. Regard Website In A Weekend as my gift to you. And remember: the fastest way to getting anyone’s attention is to show them some money.

Ok, this was fast, I’ll probably extend it a bit, do some of that Publishing and Polishing later. Right now it’s off to the bank to get some cash for the $#^&^$ Bay Bridge toll, then an afternoon doing due diligence on a startup’s business model.

Post from: Website In A Weekend

*Click*

(Reading time: 2 – 4 minutes)

An acquaintance of mine who makes a fair bit of money from blogging has taken to railing against blogging. Loudly.

I’m not sure why he loathes blogging so much because his blogs catch a fair bit of traffic and he really is making some money at it. And he writes for blogs at least daily. I won’t mention names, that’s not what I do. You may see him around.

But I will say this: it is not possible to succeed at blogging without having everything you do being available for public scrutiny. Good, bad or indifferent. If you fail, it’s public. By definition.

Disclaimer: I loathe word “blogging” with a purple passion.

But I use the word “blogging” because 1. everyone else is using it, and 2. what, exactly, is it we’re doing here, anyway? Blogging, that’s what.

Now there’s a couple of things about bloggers that I have observed over the years.

First, bloggers tend to learn by doing AND writing. Thus we have 10,000 articles on “How To Install WordPress.”

I don’t have a problem with this. People who learn by writing are my kind of people, and being able to read what they wrote gives me some insight into who they are and what they know. I like that.

Second, anyone writing for the internet on a regular basis (blogging by any other name) must surround themselves with the tools of the craft, they must learn the language, and they must practice their craft – however poorly – in public.

That is to say, everyone’s initial foray into blogging is indistinguishable from worshipping at the altar of a blogging cargo cult.

This is no different than painting. If you want to paint, you have to buy paint, brushes and canvas. And practice. A lot.

If you want to be successful at blogging, you have to practice, a lot.

If you want to be successful at anything, you have to practice, a lot.

But don’t let anyone tell you why you should or should not blog.

Art takes time to develop, a lot of time. Blogging being a performance art, you will be scrutinized, criticized, complimented and lauded. Pay little attention to any of it. Just keep doing what you know you need to do, and let the gadflies bite someone else.

And if the word “blog” is offensive to you, substitute “Writing personal, product, marketing, sales or relationship articles on a regular basis on the internet for the purpose of [insert your purpose here].” If that isn’t enough, move off of blogging software completely. In fact, move away from any database-driven web publication and code your web pages up by hand. That will surely remove any temptation to “blog.”

Post from: Website In A Weekend

Cargo Cult and The Art of Blogging

(Reading time: 6 – 9 minutes)

So much of blogging seems so impersonal: SEO this, list post that. So boring. Totally misses the point, too. In the end, without people, blogging is no more interesting than a trip to the vending machine:

“You want Coke or Pepsi?”

Choice!

Yeah, right.

Not being a vending machine (nor a blog resembling a vending machine) Website In A Weekend will continue to shine the spotlight on bloggers making a difference, both large and small.

Before we get started, keep in mind I do have an agenda here. I am setting the stage for a related article running in the near future, and exposing some (possibly lucrative) opportunity.

Here’s the next interview in the Website In A Weekend Pre-writing participant series. Long time readers will recognize Bert Padilla as the Cebu Tech Blogger, who visits (and comments) on an irregular basis (don’t we all!). It turns out Bert is as busy as the rest of us, but I pinned him down for a few questions. I even got a little information about Cebu, an island in the Philippine Republic which, frankly, doesn’t get near the recognition it deserves.

Let’s talk to Bert.

WiaW: When did you first become aware of blogging?

Bert: The first time I heard about blogging was in 2005, the year I started using Friendster. My understanding about blogging during that time was just simply to write stories about yourself, like an online journal where you write everything you think your friends have to know. I read my friend’s blog posts and later on, I published my own article using Friendster’s built-in blogging tools. I become more aware of blogging late 2008, the time I looked for other opportunities since everyone’s job was at risk during the worst recession.

WiaW: How long have you been blogging?

Bert: To be exact, I’ve been blogging for one year and five months already. I first used Blogger as the blogging platform since January 2009, and make use of WordPress when I joined the Cebu Bloggers Society.

WiaW: Cebu is described in Wikipedia as one of the most developed provinces in the Philippine Republic. Is there technical culture in Cebu?

Bert: Being a historical place during the Spanish and American regime, Cebu is also the home for high-ranking politicians in the history of Philippine government. The economy of the province has been developed, making Cebu City as the second most significant center of business in the Philippines. The University of San Carlos, which is located in Cebu City, played a significant role when it became part of the network that first connected to the internet in 1994. Because of the fast growing IT development in Cebu, it become a site for call centers and BPO companies, and also become a software and e-services hub in the Southeast Asian region.

WiaW: What is your main blogging focus right now?

Bert: I can see some opportunities in blogging, but I have no plans of leaving my job yet. I enjoy doing it and I love it on the first place. So the best I can do is by blogging on the niche I’m interested in. Talking about technology and the internet in general is easier for me to do, so this would be my blogging focus right now.

WiaW: Do you have any side projects?

Bert: At work, yes. I always look for opportunities where I can do special projects out of the scope of my “real” day job. In my blogging career, I’ve partnered with a fellow Cebu Bloggers Society member who worked as a SEO specialist at NetCentral Communications, Inc. – but is now working full time as a freelancer. We are currently working on a website, which is my first attempt to do a freelance work. For the Cebu Bloggers Society, I am still active participating several blogging events and business promotions.

WiaW: Where do expect to be with blogging next year? In 5 years?

Bert: I’ve always dreamed of becoming an influential tech blogger even just here in Cebu. I am still developing my writing skills so I can make professional reviews on different products. By next year, you can expect Cebu Tech Blogger blog to be self-hosted and using WordPress platform. There might be regular contributors and the blog itself would be one of the leading sources of tech news in the Philippines. In the next 5 years, I might be working full time in blogging… or it really depends. I am always open for job opportunities abroad, so it’s quite hard for me to figure out what really to expect with this blogging endeavor.

WiaW: How does your family feel about all this internet and blogging stuff?

Bert: Honestly, I think my parents have no idea about this. I never told them. My sister found out that I frequently attended blogging events, and I really have a blog. So my sister was the first one to know, and I’m not sure if she told them. My relatives have learned about my blogging through social networking sites like Facebook, and I’m glad that they really like what I’m doing.

WiaW: What else should people know about Cebu?

Bert: There are many wonders of Cebu that remained “undiscovered” or yet not fully known by a lot of people. Hopefully, these wonders will be explored more.

I can count on the Cebu bloggers to help in digging out these wonders bit by bit.

Moreover, people around the world should know about the passion of every “Cebuano” in attaining a common goal.

Let’s take into account, for instance, Cebu Bloggers Society. The thing that I’ve admired about this group is the commonality of its goal to mine which is to promote Cebu. Though its members are into different niches in blogging, there is the denominator that binds them and the keyword here is Cebu.

Cebuanos are proud being Cebuanos and of being in Cebu. However, that may seem a general statement. But so far, I have not heard or known from any Cebuano undermining him or her being a Cebuano. And I think that pride really sets the passion glowing.

For those who really wish to visit Cebu, you may find Cebu worth enough to stay!

And that’s all I could get!

Near as I can tell, Bert lives on a tropical island paradise that has wireless internet. What’s not to love?

Here’s a few more resources:

• Bert’s main cite, Cebu Tech blog.
• The movers and shakers: Cebu Bloggers Society.
• Cultural history: Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral.
• There has to be more, but this is what I found: Natural wonders of Cebu.

It turns out that Google search results for both natural and human history of Cebu returned websites that are, frankly, pretty lame. Just about every single one of you reading these words, right now, could absolutely dominate search results for Cebu, using the blogging strategies you already know. Watch for more information very soon from a colleague of mine – who is planning on doing exactly that – from a tropical island paradise halfway around the planet.

One thing for sure, if I ever visit the Philippines, I’m definitely visiting Cebu.

Post from: Website In A Weekend

Blogging from a Tropical Island Paradise… with Wireless! (Bert Padilla drops in from Cebu)

(Reading time: < 1 minute)

I’m busy hatching the next scheme in my Evil Plan For World Domination (to be announced Sunday).

So, no blog post today.

What are you doing today?

Post from: Website In A Weekend

Definitely up to no good (no blog post today)

(Reading time: 2 – 4 minutes)

I love M.I.A.

Her music defies categorization. Almost defies description.

From Wikipedia (I can’t really do better), we have:

Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam (Tamil: மாதங்கி ‘மாயா’ அருள்பிரகாசம்; born 18 July 1975),[1] better known by her stage name M.I.A., is an English songwriter, record producer, singer, rapper, fashion designer, visual artist, political activist, and artist of Tamil Sri Lankan origin.

M.I.A. has described herself as being musically “homeless,” and her style of music as “other.”

She defies easy categorization, and rejects labels.

I intensely relate to M.I.A. in this way, of being mis-categorized, mis-labeled, misunderstood through my career spanning manual labor in my youth, to teaching laboratory classes at the top ranked engineering school in the world (Singapore ranking). And a lot in between.

How does anyone classify that experience?

How could anyone classify that experience?

Many of you have similar experience, serving a wide range of roles in a wide range of careers or industries or endeavors. Some of you who are younger, I see you about to embark on this path.

You are often labeled “Jack of all trades, master of none.” But it’s not a compliment. You know it, I know it, and so does everyone who says it.

What those people with their snide remarks don’t – won’t – admit: We are – universally – people who just get the job done, no matter what the job.

Many of you don’t have such experiences, but now wonder what you have missed. And while that’s a whole ‘nother conversation, if you are here reading this now, believe me, just by dint of blogging, you are developing such experience right now.

A few weeks ago, I asked you this question:

Most of you replied with various answers… literal answers… but that wasn’t really the question.

Let’s try again: What are you really looking for, and how can I help you find it?

If you’re “homeless” out here on the internet, blogging away in “blogistan” without a clearly defined “niche” (whatever that is), you are not alone.

There’s a whole tribe of us out here. We’re talented, hard-working, productive, creative and absolutely-impossible-to-pigeonhole. We’re going to have to make our own way in the world, together.

I’m leaving you with this: if you don’t know what to blog about (you don’t have one of those niche thingies), but you feel absolutely compelled anyway, stay the course.

It costs you nothing but time, and your writing is yours to keep. In time, meaning and vision will come. I’m sure of it.

And while you may feel you’re homeless, you always have a home here.

Post from: Website In A Weekend

Are You a Homeless Blogger? (You’re not alone)

(Reading time: 7 – 11 minutes)

I’m excited about Apple’s iPad.

I’m pretty sure the iPad will change everything for me. Hyperbole? Maybe. Before I look forward too much though, I want to look backwards.

Since the birth of the modern internet, software has conformed to hardware. The modern PC has been around a lot longer than the modern internet, and the hardware has remained the same. Yes, it’s gotten faster and better, but we still have the same old screen, keyboard and mouse that has been around as long as I can remember.

On the other end of the spectrum, the iPhone (and other smart phones) is just a variation of the Personal Data Assistant (PDA) theme. It has gotten about as good as PDAs can get, but the idea has been largely the same since the Palm Pilot: handheld, portable, big screen, keyboard optional.

As hardware has evolved, the internet has been conforming to the hardware. Web browsers have been designed to work with the keyboard, mouse, and screen, and websites and web-based applications have to work within those browsers. The software has had to conform to the hardware, and that has fundamentally impacted the design of web technology.

The tablet is the beginning of a new cycle, the hardware is conforming to the software. Instead of asking how to make the internet work with computers, the tablet answers how we can make computers that best work with the internet.

I think this will start a cascade of changes. Hardware will conform to software, then software will conform to new hardware, and the cycle repeats and repeats, flip flopping up a ladder of progress. The result will be that the internet will not be confined to the PC-style computer.

For the most part, the internet has only been useable with a computer. The connection between these two is so strong that computers and internet are almost synonymous. This tablet however, is not a computing device, it is a connecting device. It is designed to use the internet, and to be a device that makes using the internet a lot more useful.

Here are jsut a couple simple examples off the top of my head:

• I’ll look up a recipe and reference it while cooking. I’ll just prop up a tablet on my counter as I cook. No need to print a recipe or walk back and forth fromt eh kitchen to my computer screen.
• I’ll sit in my bed and read comics without buying a single piece of paper. I’ll store those comics on the device (or maybe even online) instead of filling my closet with boxes of comic books.
• I’ll read your blog and drink my coffee on a couch every morning, without the pain of balancing a labtop on my lap.

I’m pretty sure that there are dozens of super simple, super practical ways that this will be immediately useful. I also imagine that there will be a whole lot more really complex ways that this will be useful. I believe in few years we will use tablets and think, “how did I ever do this on a laptop or on my iphone?”

All those reasons above are certainly cool.

I won’t be buying this because it is cool, but because it will make every other computer I have a more useful and productive tool. The reason for this goes back to how this device seperates computing from connecting.

I don’t need an iPad.

I’ve got an iPhone, 2 laptops (PCs), a desktop (also PC), and an xbox (if you want to count that). Everything the iPad will do can be done on one of my other devices.

But for many things, it can’t be done better.

For most tasks, my iPhone is too small, and my laptop is needlessly big and clumsy. Checking email, posting to twitter, quick blog updates, facebook, reading RSS feeds, and commenting on other blogs is a touch difficult on the iPhone because of its size. My labtops are powerful enough to do all of this, but they are not easily portable. I have to lug it around, plug in a mouse, wait for it to boot, and the battery runs out after 2 hours.

iPad the casual computer

The iPad tablet will be my “casual” computing device. The screen is big enough to be usable and useful, and the device is small and portable enough that I can lounge about at my coffee table, or sit in bed while I use it. I have a feeling that for all of these casual computing and internet tasks, this tablet will be the baby bear device: not too big, not too small, but just right.

I’ll quickly check my email, post to twitter, read some articles, or anything else that has to do with interaction, connection, personal contact, and media consumption. As soon as I get my hands on one of these tablets, I am uninstalling Feeddemon and Tweetdeck, and deleting my browser quick launch buttons from my laptops.

I am convinced that for the iPad does, it will do best.

Right now, my laptops are be-all, do-all devices. My laptop can be used for everything, and because of that, I focus less on the one thing I have to do right now.

Other devices, other uses

The real beauty of using the iPad for connection and consumption is my other devices will be free to do what they do best.

My iPhone will still be a phone, ipod, and on-the-go internet device. I’ll be able to look up restaurants, post to twitter, update foursquare, and check my email on the bus, walking to work, or anywhere else.

My laptops will be movable work stations, and I’ll be able to use them for what they do best, writing code, creating written content, and editing audio media. My desktop will be my primary media storage device, and my image and video editor.

The biggest challenge for me is that computers do too much. For someone that has trouble focusing on anything that isn’t edible (yours truly), it is a bit overwhelming to be connected to email, RSS, music, twitter, and websites, when I am just trying to edit an article I wrote. Even when I don’t have these applications fired up, the fact that email is just 2 mouse clicks away is a distraction.

When working on my computer, I don’t get so distracted by doing dishes, folding laundry, or reading a book. There is a hardware separation between those activities, this helps me separate these in my mind.

(Sure, it may be funny to think of a laptop and a dish sponge as separate hardware, but it works for me)

Separate hardware, better focus

Here’s an example: I don’t have a hardware separation between twitter and Notepad++.

Interacting on twitter and writing PHP code are very different tasks, they require different skills,a nd very different parts of my brain. They are abotu as different as checking email and doing dishes. Having one machine that does both keeps me a little distracted all the time, even when I’m not consciously aware of it. I may not know that this happens, but I feel that this happens.

I am a poster child for Constant Partial Attention

In the future, I’ll fire up my laptop when I want to write code, or write a blog post, edit images, or upload a podcast. I won’t need to turn on my laptop to check email or twitter, log onto facebook, or read my RSS feed. My computer will be a content creation device, and I will (hopefully) be able to break the distractions from content consumption.

My computers will once again be tools for getting work done.

I could write another 500 to 1000 words about how this tablet will change how media is consumed, create a new platform for media production, blah blah blah, and it probably will. The iPad will have an impact on the arts, media, and all sorts of cool stuff.

But really, having a device for consuming content separate from a device to produce content will make me more productive.

That alone sold me.

What do you think?

Is the iPad the future?

Are you gonna be in line at the Apple store? Why or why not? Leave a comment, let’s discuss.

Sean Neprud operates Bad Deacon Design under the moniker Deacon (surprise!), where he works in a range of mediums from wood block to web design.

Post from: Website In A Weekend

Why the Apple iPad Will Make Me More Productive

(Reading time: 2 – 4 minutes)

As you know,* it’s been raining cats-n-dogs around the San Francisco Bay area last few days.

Makes for good working-on-the-computer weather.

After pounding on blog posts all morning, roundabout noon Wed (20 Jan 2010), I’m getting hungry. I could stay in and create some dude food, got plenty of raw materials for that, but I decide to step out to the grocery store instead.

Down the stairs and splash, I step out into the huge puddle resulting every time we get a big rain. The drain is clogged and the water pools 4 to 5 inches deep at the base of my stairs.

Nice!

Around the corner, Jerry the Plumber is parked in the drive. Jerry’s out at the curb in front, rooting out the drain. After all these years, Esteemed Landlord is Doing Something About It.

I watch Jerry work. The rooter is grinding away in the drain: “grrr grrr grrr grrr.”

It’s pretty cool. All you dudes know what I mean.

Plumbing.

I like it. You show up, you do your work, you’re done. Drains drain, toilets flush, faucets flow, how satisfying.

Unlike anything to do with blogs. Blogs are never done. There’s always more to do: more articles, more linking, more security, more plugins, more design, more More MORE! Even when you think you’re done, there’s some bloodthirsty parasite or lurking predator attempting to crack your blog to use for a phishing scam, serve pr0n or something equally reprehensible.

I had a sudden flash of envy: I want to do something that gets done. At least once this year.

So I stand there and watch Jerry work. The little rooter isn’t doing it. Miles of palm root emerges, but it’s not enough.

Fine. Switch to the big rooter. Grind away with that for a while.

Nothing.

Change bits on the big rooter head.

Grrr grrr grrr grrr grrr.

Still more nothing.

I left for the store at this point, confident that as soon as I pulled away, Jerry would be drenched as a half acre foot of water (I’m being hyperbolic. A little.) comes spurting out the cleared drain.

That’s always how these things turn out, right? Nothing happens until you aren’t looking, then you miss everything.

Jerry is still at it when I get back. The “pond” hasn’t dropped an inch. He’s changed bits again, still kneeling in front of the stupid drain, still feeding the stupid rooter into the hole. He says the drain is probably broken and it won’t clear, it will have to be dug up. Looks like the next storm is about to blow in. Scratch that, the squall just hit; it’s really pouring out there.

Grrrr grrrr grrrr grrrrr.

And I’m back on couch, kicking back with some hot tea and (very) dark chocolate, knocking out articles and writing you this little story.

It’s hours later. Jerry never succeeded in rooting the drain. Last I saw, he had a sump pump running, and it’s just pouring again. Bummer.

(I find out a few days later the yard will have to be ripped up and the drain replaced.)

So, how’s your day going in Blogistan?

*San Francisco Bay being the center of the Universe after all.

Post from: Website In A Weekend

Saturday Morning Surfing: Jerry the Plumber and His Bad Day