A Geek Apart

I have been experimenting with working from home for one of my jobs. My reasons are pretty selfish:

• I’m tired of paying over $3.00 a gallon for gas.
• I’m tired of paying vending machine prices for coffee and soda while at work.
• I’m more comfortable at home, thus I am more productive, sort of.
• I am on my own equipment, which has been customized and tweaked for efficiency to no end.
• I see it as a total waste to spend a total of 2 hours from eyes opening to sitting at my desk working when I can just get up and get to work within 20 minutes by staying at home.
• I hate traffic. Unfortunately, I am in the “bubble” of rush hour twice a day, and I cant really adjust my schedule to avoid it.

Now, after this past Friday, I have also noticed some downsides:
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Just got a notice today from my domain name registrar that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) just agreed to lower its Registrar Transaction Fee from $.25 to $.22.

So I was given a credited refund of $.03 per year per domain name I had registered through them…retroactive back to July 1st, 2006.

Not a big amount of money, mind you, but this is a company sending me an email, telling me they’re giving me money back. How many companies do you know that would do that without you having to call and inquire?

Technorati Tags: consumer, money, godaddy, domain, webhosting

As I peruse through my newsreader, I find I am subscribed to an abnormally large amount of blogs that specialize in the subject of blogging.

From software to hosting, platforms, design, RSS feeds, SEO optimization, link-bait techniques, spam filters, reader relationship-building, ad placement, affiliate programs, tagging plugins, etc, my head is starting to hurt.

The “pro” blogging realm has become so boring, I can barely stand it. I’d much rather see which star has recently embarrassed themselves in public than read about the latest money-making “strategy” out there. Sure, the prospect of a large audience, monthly checks from ads, and the like are appealing. But seriously, is it worth the time? For every blog that earns enough money to support it’s hosting, let alone a decent living wage for the author, there is a wheel-barrow full of blogs that no one reads.
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Today, Indiana University officials sent a letter to Virginia Tech President Charles Steger on behalf of the Indiana University family expressing condolences and offering support to those in need.

While not directly tied to Virginia Tech, many faculty members at Indiana University are former Virginia Tech faculty, and many faculty and students have friends and relatives who attend Virginia Tech.

In addition to the “small world” relations, IU officials also recognize their membership in a “university family.” Both universities are focused on the pursuit of knowledge, and it’s great to see separate universities come together in a time of need.

While the reaction from many at IU I work with was more utter shock and disbelief than sorrow or anger, many were quite quick to jump on the phone to find out if anyone they knew was affected by the incident, my dean included.

I strongly encourage anyone, at any university, to offer support to Virginia Tech, and take a moment to reflect on the events. While I’ll not get preachy here (leave that to the other blogs out there), I will note that this event has spurred me to think about my relationships with people at my university and how important it is to build stronger ones.

Technorati Tags: news, virginia, puppy, school, society

Over at The Blog Herald, J. Racoma discusses linking strategies and citing original sources. The discussion revolves around the question of whether you link to the site where you found the information, or the original source of the information, which are often two different sites. I have an opinion on that, and I want you to hear it.

We can all agree that blogging is writing, hopefully. Despite absolutely gorgeous CSS designed sites, amazing graphics, and high quality embedded media, we still live in the world of text.

Given this fact, I would like to flash back to an idea I learned directly from a writing course. Writing is about conversation. And linking (or citing your sources) is about more than “giving credit where credit is due.”
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