LoneWolf has been a busy wolf lately — and not much of it spent writing posts for the blogs. What a bad boy!
So, what have I been up to you ask? Or maybe you don’t — but you’re curious now.
Learning and Experimenting
I love to learn new things and get better a old things, so I spend a lot of my time reading up on different technologies and trying things out. Sometimes I get a little overloaded with it (and that has been the case for the past few months) but I learn some exciting new things. Here are a few of the areas that I’ve been learning about.
AdWords
Where do I start. The last article I posted here was about my AdWords Experiment. I have to write up the results of that experiment and I hope to do so in the next week or two.
E-Mail Lists
I’ve been learning more about e-mail lists. I’m find AWeber to be quite solid as a tool and easy to use. I’ve become an affiliate of the program and have set up 3 newsletters so far. Now I’ve been trying to find solid ways to build my lists and provide some valuable content.
WP Themes
I have a couple static sites (both my own and for clients) that I’m planning to move to WordPress, so I’ve spent some time learning how to create a theme from a static site. I’m documenting my experiences for an e-book. The first site is almost complete. The others may take a bit more work as the sites are older and don’t use CSS. These will require a bit more tweaking.
I’ve also learned quite a bit about WordPress themes in general that I’ll be incorporating into the themes of my sites over time.
Drupal
I’ve also been studying up on Drupal. I’ve decide to use this for the Electronic Fortune Cookie makeover rather than WordPress (Joomla and XOOPS were also considered) since it will handle the forum modules better than WordPress. The way that themes are built in Drupal is quite different than WordPress.
This framework will allow me to incorporate some advanced features into the Electronic Fortune Cookie such as user ratings, sharing and conversations.
I also plan to use Drupal for a couple other sites that are in the works, so this will be good experience. I’m not sure if it is wise to divide my attention between Drupal and WordPress, but each one has its strengths and weaknesses so it will be good to have both in my tool box.
Sony Vegas Movie Studio, YouTube, etc.
I dabbled a bit with Sony Vegas Movie Studio last year to create a cute little video of my daughter cutting down a tree. Just last month I figured that I should share it with the world, so I re-did it to remove the music track and add one that was freely licensed. Then I uploaded it to YouTube and created a whole new site to go with it. You can check it out at Say Hi to Chainsaw.
I plan to use this site to showcase other up-coming video productions. I really love the Movie Studio and creating quirky little videos. I plan on doing some videos to go on Howls as well.
Technical Stuff
I’ve also been doing some work behind the scenes. This always take a lot longer than you expect.
Servers
I’m moving some of the sites that I host from one server to another. I was looking for a server that had more scalability than the one that I’m currently using. While I’ve been pleased with the service that I’ve had, I am hoping to have better response times at the new server. It is also scalable so that a burst of activitiy (oh, to dream 8=) won’t bring things down.
So far I’ve moved 2 of my static sites over and set up a couple new sites on the new server. The blogs will be a bit trickier, but the Electronic Fortune Cookie will take the most work.
New Blogs
In addition to the Say Hi to Chainsaw site, I’m splitting parts of Ramblings off into two new blogs. I’ve been doing a lot of posting on Social Media and Blogging so I’ll split that off into a new blog. I was hoping to set up blogeatblog.com but it was already taken (and not really being used either — it just redirects to another site). My second choice was smorgasblog,com, but alas, it was taken as well. So, I’ve been ruminating about what domain to set up for this and haven’t yet decided.
The other split off of Ramblings is Faith Be the Journey. This blog will focus on faith. It will be an attempt to help people who are questing to find a faith that is their own. While I’ll be writing from the perspective of a Christian and hope to share my faith with my readers, I also want to create an environment that is comfortable for those who don’t share my views.
Salutations
There are many other things that have been taking place in my personal life and I’ve also been doing some work to help support my wife’s business. Between all the things going on I’ve been busier than a 1 armed paper hanger. However, I think that I’ve learned quite a bit and I’m learning to be more focused and organized — there is still a lot to learn about that last one 8=)
Well, thank you for allowing me to share what has been happening in my business life with you. I trust that you are enjoying your life and business as well.
KYSOTI
LoneWolf
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