Thirty-seven

Birthday

I turn 37 today. I look around and I feel incredibly lucky to be writing this after a topsy-turvy year. I have health. I have friends whom I love. These are all good reasons to feel optimistic about the future. A few unconnected thoughts today:

My father had me when he was exactly 13,300 days old, and this year I passed that number of rotations of the Earth.

It’s hard to plan when so much is changing, so resolutions this year haven’t felt the same. But in times like these it’s even more important to plan for the long-term. A look back, once a year, is enough to remind of what remains.

I’m so thankful for the internet. It’s where I learned and practiced my trade. It’s where I connect every day with the most interesting and eclectic group of people I could imagine, a modern day Florence during the Renaissance. I hope to make a lot more internet and enable others to do the same.

Many years ago I said “Technology is best when it brings people together.” This quote has taken on a life of its own on motivational posters and images. When I first said it I think I had in mind WordCamps and meetups and other physical gatherings; this year it transformed for me seeing how technology brought together those separated by the pandemic. This year has appeared divisive, so it’s easy to overlook how many times people came together. It’s like the old saying, it’s not how many times you fall, it’s how many times you get up. Fall thirty-six times, get up thirty-seven.

All birthday posts: 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41.

23rd Page

Uncategorized

<sheep>bahhhh</sheep>. Here’s the deal:

  1. Grab the nearest book.
  2. Open the book to page 23.
  3. Find the fifth sentence.
  4. Post the text of the sentence on your blog along with these instructions.

Depending on how you count it, my fifth sentence is either “Today they perform strenuous verbal feats to escape that fate.” or “Watch them wriggle through TV interviews without committing themselves.”

A cookie to the first person to guess the book. Hint: the author’s initials are W.Z.

In other news, Dougal hints at a secret. Don’t click. The Zeldmans finally announce their new joy.

MovableType 4 vs. WordPress 2.2

Asides, ,

Mashable compared MovableType 4 and WordPress 2.2. I wouldn’t agree with Byrne that “Movable Type 4.0 is light years ahead of its predecessor not to mention any other blogging tool on the market” but they have caught up to a lot of basic features — pages, WYSIWYG, pagination, user registration — that have been lacking in the platform for a while. That, plus the fact that they support WordPress imports and cloned our pages API does show that they’re gunning for some switchers regardless of what they may say in public. (I’m cool with both of those by the way, it was good of them to adopt existing standards instead of invent new ones. In fact it’d be nice if they could export to WXR as well as it’s pretty semantically rich and the current MT export format leaves a lot of important stuff out, like slugs.)

Whoops!

Asides

Sorry for the interruption in service, things should be back to normal now. *ahem* If you missed it, someone guessed my not-at-all secure password to this blog and posted an entry and changed the “siteurl” setting.

What’s in My Bag, 2014

In My Bag

As the start of a new year’s tradition, I’d like to take inventory of what I carry around in my backpack, which I have with me almost everywhere I go. I’m constantly iterating and changing what I carry around, so I hope it’s interesting to see this vignette of what I’ve found to be the best or most effective items to have with me all the time. With the things in this backpack I can be productive pretty much any place on the planet with a wifi or LTE connection.

  1. Kensington international adapter, I like this one because it has two USB ports, but every adapter I’ve used seems a little janky.
  2. Plantronics BackBeat GO 2 with charging case, as I mentioned in my headphones post.
  3. Kindle Voyage. Love love love.
  4. 64gb USB stick.
  5. Lockpick set.
  6. Apple Thunderbolt / VGA adapter. (I can probably stop carrying this around.)
  7. Samsung Level Over, as I mentioned in my headphones post.
  8. Macbook power adapter, and Moto Hint bluetooth headset.
  9. Audrey Hepburn deck of playing cards, and business card holder. The last few items are on a Gridit holder, which I like but seems to drop items as I walk around.
  10. Macally double USB charger, which I like because the plug pivots, and it can charge an iPad at full speed.
  11. Thunderbolt to thunderbolt cable, which is great for transferring between computers, and Belkin audio cable splitter, with an old Beats cable wrapped around which I use with the Samsung headphones.
  12. Retractable HMDI cable.
  13. Garmin chest strap heart rate monitor, for running.
  14. Miscellaneous retractable cables: Jawbone UP24 charger (not using the UP at the moment, just the Basis), 1/8th inch audio cable, ethernet CAT5e, USB mini type B.
  15. Ultimate Ears 18 Pro Custom, with a gold cord taco.
  16. Jetpack notebook for taking analog notes.
  17. Some bag balm in a little plastic holder, an Aveda Blue Oil that I find relaxing, and some Advil for when ouches happen.
  18. TP-LINK TL-WR702N Wireless N150 Travel Router, which works so-so.
  19. Chargers for the two watches.
  20. Mpow Streambot Mini Wireless Bluetooth 4.0 Audio Music Streaming Receiver Adapter.
  21. Apple Magic Mouse, still the best.
  22. Moto X second generation, with walnut back and orange highlights.
  23. Not pictured, iPhone 6+, because it took the picture, space grey of course.
  24. Miscellaneous swag and trinkets, and a T-mobile SIM card.
  25. Maison Bonnet sunglasses and cleaning cloth.
  26. Lamy Pico Pocket Ballpoint pen.
  27. Brand new passport! No stamps in it yet. Unfortunately picture was taken when I was still in the mustache competition.
  28. Basis Peak watch, which I like a lot overall.
  29. Garmin Forerunner 620, for quantifying running along with the chest strap in #13.
  30. Westone ES49 custom earplugs, for if I go to concerts or anyplace overly loud.
  31. Bucky eye shades, like an eye mask but has a curve so it doesn’t touch your eyes. I don’t use this often but when I do it’s a life-saver.
  32. Retina Macbook Pro, 15 inch, with a few stickers and the custom W light cut-out.
  33. The bag that holds everything pictured: Old School Laptop Rucksack. I wish it had a few more interior pockets for organizing things. It’s starting to get pretty worn, I probably need to treat the leather on the bottom.
  34. Not pictured: Incase dual USB 2.4 amp car charger, a Belkin car mount, and a retractable lightning cable. (They were in the car when I took this.)

So if you add it all up, there are about 53 unique items I’m carrying around all the time. I’m curious how this total number changes over time as well. If you have any recommendations for a better, lighter, or more functional item than what I’m carrying please leave it in the comments!

WordPress CrazyEgg

Asides

CrazyEgg is a pretty cool service that tells you where people are clicking on your web page. By far, the coolest feature is the “heatmap” doppler view of your page, which they overlay over a snapshot taken when you start the click tracking session. I’ve been running it for a few days on the front page of WordPress.com, here is a screenshot of the results. Next I’m going to try it on our signup form. And wouldn’t it be cool for the WP write page?

Subversioning WordPress Upgrades

Asides

Here is the simple script I use to upgrade all the WordPress sites I run on a single server in one fell swoop. Each site is a Subversion checkout of the WordPress trunk so getting the latest changes and merging them with my version is a simple command, however remembering to do each site was a pain. It also helped me figure out exactly how many WordPress installation I’m responsible for upgrading. (Twenty-seven.) Just fill out the array with the site roots of each install (use locate wp-login.php to find them) and run the script on the command like php upgrade-sites.php. I also like to put the time command in front to see how long things take.

Matt is turning 28 I’m turning 28 next week on January 11th. My friends and family always complain that I’m impossible to buy for, and it’s true, I don’t need any more stuff. (Exception is a mixtape / playlist, I eat those up.) The most important luxuries in my life are time, friends, and time with friends. The thing I covet is impact. So this year going to try something different: I’m giving up my birthday to raise money for charity: water and provide clean water to people that need it. 100% of money donated goes directly to projects in the field. Please donate — let’s build some wells. 🙂