Recently in GeekMeltdown Category

I find myself, at this point in my geek life, at a cross roads. I like writing for :gm:, and while I do regret allowing my longstanding nickname to be removed from use for the purposes of this site, I do enjoy writing and having one site to post to. I am, however, disheartened by the fact it seems I am the only person writing. Of all active posts on the site, only 2 are not mine. I also do not know how I feel about having to disclaimer what I write, seeing as how I was planning on putting up some very inflammatory articles, but have changed my mind since being read the riot act over my last, anti war one. If one must be worried that something, when put up for editing, which in itself takes awhile due to other obligations by all of us in that position, whether the expression will be the same.

I don't know what the solution is, but at this point I have scaled back my writing to once every two weeks or so, and have noticed myself not handing out my business cards quite as freely. I do have another site I could post articles to, but I want to avoid that at all costs as GM is already well established, and perfectly fine for posting most stuff to. My next geektorial will likely be on Gnomedex, what you need to look into, and my recommendations on what to do for those of you in Des Moines. I have put several of my planned and partially completed articles on the back burner until I know where things stand in regards to articles I tend to post that are a little racier than usual. Articles slamming Microsoft and the US gov. are those that have been suspended.

I worked hard, and while I am exhausted by now, I am happy to have "Dissection of a dedication to war" complete and up on the site. As I wrote to open with, this is my own opinion, and should not be taken to mean my partner's or other writer's in the site agree or disagree, this is simply the attempt by one call center working Geek who cannot express his opinions at work for fear of being called a fascist, and certainly cannot discuss his thoughts of imminent war with the people on the phone for fear of making his clients look bad and anti war. So, here you go, now if you don't mind I will go to bed, I wanna get up early to buy a Dixie Chicks CD. ;=)

Ok, well, the site is up, I have 3 fresh articles up now, and one of the older ones reposted. I do not have the archives of all those articles, sadly, but I will certainly try to locate them and find as many of them as possible and repost with the original dates. Watch this space, and more importantly that one, as the site progresses and as new authors sign on. I guarantee you will not be disappointed.

Well, the first article in the new launch of GeekMeltdown is up, A fond look back. It is a look back at 2002, the year that was, and I hope and expect to have 2 more articles, maybe 3, up tonight still. Yup, with Andrew busy with school, Matt with work and business, and Jim with more work than he seems to have time to complete, the site is back. I hope and expect to have at least one article a week from me, and more from others too. check it out, leave a comment, and let me know you stopped by!

I am stubborn. Ask Jim this, and he will surely give you many examples of times when I pushed things faster and sooner than they were ready. I don't think this is one of those time. The rushing things, not the stubbornness. I want to get this site launched, and visitors in the door. I believe this is possible. In fact, I have told Andrew(Jim has been away lately) that I am posting my currently finished articles today, likely when I get home around 11:30 or so. I currently have 3 articles ready to go, 2 Geektorial's(a series I had planned to post separately) and another one. I have no articles from anyone else. I am not sure if this is personal, maybe I am too pushy, but I understand that everyone is busy.

Matt has not only 2 jobs but a new business, Jim has his design company and the hosting deal, while Andrew has school. I still have hopes to get my business registered, Whig is River City Technology by the way. I just need to figure out how to get it now! All of this going on, all these things on my mind, have made me a poor blogger, but I want to make GM into something, and I won't do that with only a 'we're working on it' entry. I have interested companies, ones considering tossing us a monthly or even semi monthly article on hardware. I can't get them interested in the site if there is nothing there, and no traffic. So, folks, look here for an announcement that the site will be relaunched this evening, or look there tomorrow(Saturday) and I hope you'll find a few entries.

Ok, we plan, so I am told to relaunch the site sometime very soon. I so far have 3 articles of my own that have not been tossed up, as well as one I put up when I thought we were before that I will republish. That means we will start off with 4 articles of mine, and hopefully something from Matt, Andrew, Jim and a few other's I have hinted to about the relaunch. If you want to join the team, please email us and we can discuss the offer. We cannot pay, but we will do out best to make it worthwhile. So far my plans are to do a weekly roundup of the news throughout tech, a bi-monthly or monthly column, Geektorial, and a few other articles here and there throughout the month. So, that said and almost 5 AM later, good night, and watch close.

Ok, this was a post originally typed on January 3rd heralding the relaunching of :gm:. Unfortunately, this has not proven to have come to pass quite yet. :jim: has grown busy, and Andrew works, as well as my being employed. this has slowed the progress to launch, but hopefully when we are able to relaunch the busy lives the three of us lead will not impact the operations. We have Matt G on board to write, even though he is very busy with his own, new thing, and we hope to hear from more of you looking to do some tech writing in, perhaps as a spring board to bigger, better things. In the meantime, on my day off, I have writing and designing to be done. See ya!

Ok, so the last thing I wrote was the Gnomedex roundup. The :gm: site is honestly looking quite stale. I know this is partially my fault, in fact it is, I suspect, 90% my fault. I like to write, I just cannot seem to write big articles like I used to. It feels to much like work, and forced work to make it worse. I cannot write when under pressure, and my pre launch articles showed it. As well, my articles are not credited. That really isn't a reason, just something I noticed. I feel very much out of the loop. :jim: hosts the site with a friend. Jim inputs the articles. Jim does the layout and does any changes. I don't want to appear to be slamming Jim, or Tarl, the admin, as they both are quite busy trying to live life, and that is something I cannot blame either for.

I like the site. It looks great, and even the sparse content has led to over 1000 hits in the 3 months since it went live. There is a lot of work to do. I need to be able to write more, and find more writers. We need a team of those who are willing to edit the odd article so Jim and :candi: are not the only ones who do that, as Jim is bust now, and Candi will be in a short few months. I have been promised an article on Mandrake from Sitsofe, while Geary from Toronto promised an article on his business/work. I know :josh: is quite busy with work, and :mike: never really promised much beyond the admin management tool he gave us in the beginning. I need writers, and yes, those who wrote last time
I asked, your offers I think are still in review.

A lot needs to be done, I am not sure what needs to be changed. I want to keep writing, but at this rate I will be surprised if that happens in the next year. I am not sure if this is due to my low metabolism, or the fact that not a lot of mentionable quality has happened as of late in tech. Either way, I have much to consider, and many things to worry over. I understand why things are the way they are, now I need to figure out what I can do to fix them to make that site, as great as it's potential is, worthwhile for visitation, and perhaps subscription. I am happy that jim has so many things going on that make him happy. I am happy that he is getting out more. I just miss the guy I used to IM with for hours and discuss grand schemes to do great things. *sigh*

Ok, so I have been a little.... lax in my duties as head writer and managing editor of :gm: lately. In fact, I have been down right horrible about it. I have also had absolutely no luck finding any writers, and those I have been able to find and convince to contribute are all busy. So far, other then one Windows newsletter, my two are the only since the show launched. I have a couple of other articles from people, but life proves more important, obviously, then that little spot on the web. :jim: has done a great site. The server admin designed an excellent PHP interface. Now, well, I need your help. Can you write? Then I need your articles, be it the simplest or most expert of topics in technology. I also need questions.

I long ago agreed to write a little piece regularly called Ask the Geek. Sadly, I can't think up questions that need answering, and every time I do find one, it is answered mid writing by someone like Lockergnome, or on TechTV. This makes it impossible to write a decent Ask the Geek column. Geektorials are sparse, and it seems to me that I rushed too much to get stuff out in time for Gnomedex, that I lost all initiative when it came to writing after that, and that does not do any good for my place in GeekMeltdown, which is as the Head Writer and Managing Editor. I really like to read. I really like being able to motivate people to write as well. This is why I have installed Moveable Type so often, this is why I ask all I know if they want to write. Do you want to write?

Well, I just found out my Gnomedex Roundup is up and online. It looks good, and I hope to have the accompanying albums up in a few short days. I have Thursday done, short as it is, but the hugely massive Friday collection is not nearly done, and there is still Saturday and Sunday. Now, I have to get to work on some more articles now that that one is done and finished, but I am not sure what to write on. Maybe a more detailed summation of the Royal(ty) screw over.

Ok, so I passed the nearly completed article on Gnomedex on to Jim, for his review and editing and I am told now that I may not really like his comments and suggestions. I have not seen it, as he had to head to bed in preparation of his second day of work at his new job, but I expect to have it back son, along with many suggestions on how it can be changed. I will take them all into consideration, and have decided to take his advice on one major part of the article, which will not affect the article or the message(which, by the way, is that it totally rocked), but is more aimed at removing any mentions of controversial topic matters and people.

It will improve, I am sure, the quality of the article. Therefore, since I am not going to write anymore until I have that edit back, I will be working tonight, and Thursday(no, not tonight as I have to go to sleep as soon as I get home in order to get up for the dentist at 7:30 on Thursday morning) on the web albums to get at least the first 2 days ready for generation, if not ready for upload of the albums themselves. Hopefully I will have at least part of it up, though I will ask that linking from sites like Lockergnome and others be to the Blog hosted version, as I am not sure how the GeekMeltdown host will react to the kind of traffic that getting Gnomed can cause. More when it hits the server's, though.

Yup, that's right. Only three more sections/pages left for me to write. The summation of Sunday, my flight out, when it finally occurred, and lastly my final thoughts on the show. I hope to have some reaction, and contributions to my last post by the time I am done, so I can expand on the section about Leo's keynote. Otherwise, the article is shaping up, and it looks like it will be 14 pages, or one really, really, really long page. Like 65 - 70 paragraphs long. Yeah, ok, so I don't know how exactly I turned 4 days into 70 reasonable paragraphs, and it will need a heavy edit by at least two people(anyone know a pro willing to contribute a free edit?) and that will likely cut it down a fair bit, but either way, this will be to date the longest article for me and :gm:. Cool! :-{D>

Ok, so there is good news. No, the Gnomedex isn't done, but I am almost at Leo's keynote, which is almost the end of the day, and only a day from when I took off belatedly. No, instead I have found the key part of the stuff I lost when the former RivenDell drive went spark, which I am now confident that I did not cause, at least not by ESD. I have reflected and it was not working upon plugging it back in, and the spark only finalized the deal. Back to the topic, I found the screen caps I got for the zone and Dream articles, which means that while it looks like the writing I did on the Zone Alarm install article is toast, and will have to be restarted, the screen shots, which took a lot of time and work, will not. Now, to get them off CodeMeister again...

Ok, so I keep mentioning it, and I keep saying they are coming, but I really do promise that my Gnomedex roundup and Gnomedex Photo Album are on their ways. I have to output a bunch of albums, then make a front page for them all. I know I have said this before, and I will be honest that I haven't written much beyond this blog in over a week. :brad: just pointed out that I have been working my ass off, and work isn't going to get any slower as we near this promotion's final date. I have also been coming home and blogging heavily most days. This has led to a very low sleep few weeks, since Gnoemdex really, and a very tired and aggressive geek. If I have bitten anyone's head off, sorry.

He also pointed out I should take a break. Well, no. I can't afford a break from work, and I love blogging too much. It might be beneficial for me to take a break from writing and blogging, but my readers here and on :gm: are way too important to me, and it has become clear that even one day off from blogging will kill my stats. I don't have any advertisers to worry about, but I do like to write and blog. I do like my sleep. If I do not blog I have two options. Gaming, or sleep. If I sleep from 2 AM - 12 PM, while I will get 10 fitful hours of sleep a night, I will have no time for fun, and that will make life boring and useless. There is no use working if I cannot enjoy my life. know what I mean? Therefore, while blogging might be less, it will not stop.

Yeah, you know how I have not had anything new up on GeekMeltdown? Well, other then pointing out I am not the only writer who doesn't have anything new for more then 2 weeks, but I wanted to apologize to Jim and the readers. I think the rush to launch killed any writing bug I had, and caused a major writer's block I am now trying to get over. My current part articles are the next GeekTorial, one that should have been done amore then a week ago, basically a Gnomedex roundup, an article that I want up for 09.11 giving me 3 days and I just started it 25 minutes ago, as well as a computers in comedy article and one on my thoughts on wiring the homes of today for tomorrow and Future Home, who had a booth at the show. Yeah, a lot of balls in the air.

I may not have net, at least for a couple days, but I still have a lot to do. First off, I am currently(in another window to be exact) writing my next GeekTorial, which is a review of the show on the weekend. It has the promise to be a long one, but it will be worth it I think. The weekend rocked, and while that is the summation, the article will say a lot more. As well, I still need to polish off my Zone Alarm tutorial, and the comparison, which may end up in one article if they work that well, and also I have to start, write and finish the Dream articles, which will be long and extensive, even though I temporarily removed Dream for the purposes of Diablo II, and will bring it back when I get the 13 GB drive into my PC, along with a lot of other apps that have been tossed out due to space constraints. Yeah, I have lots to keep me busy, but not enough that I won't miss the net, as I have too much to do that needs online.

Ok, so I mentioned earlier I have a few articles to write, and I do. The first of these is finishing up the Zone Alarm install and use tutorial, as well as the comparison of the free and Pro editions of that award winning firewall software. Those need to be done by 3 on Friday for Steve Gibson's speech on security. Next up is the tutorial on Dreamweaver's 4 and MX, which I want done in time for the 10:30 talk by Phil Kaplan, or at the very least the following speech by Mark "Analog X" Thompson. I want at least part of the MT tutorial on the site for the Evan Williams speech later Saturday, though I will reserve most of that for a GnomeTome or Geek book.

I am told that we will have a column or two starting up at the show, including :candi:'s very funny opening article on living with a geek, and while we are not sure the frequency of any of the columns(including possibly one of my own, though not topic specific), but I hope to have some at a weekly, some at a biweekly, and some at a monthly rate pf publishing. I want to thank all the writer's who, while they mentioned the site, have kept the URL quite and for even those few who are writing a limited number of articles, I thank you for the contribution. A lot of things are coming together nicely in the last 2 weeks since I got back online, and I am eager to get reaction.

So, that's that. We have a lot to offer, and we have a lot we are giving away for 3 or 4 days. We have decided to not aggravate the planners and official advertisers of the show by trying to do any flashy advertising, but we will be spreading news of the site by word of mouth and blog, so keep tuned to those blogs in my network, you never know who will announce their participation next! That's all for me tonight, I hope I will see you all at the show in 3 days, and take care of you and your computers, as a good portion of the American goodwill tech support infrastructure will be in Des Moines!

Wow, after a couple of weeks offline, and almost nothing towards the TSGS getting done it seemed, things are moving along nicely. :jim and I have got a layout picked out, and he is, I hope, busily working towards making it more like what we want for the site, making a logo, and doing what we have to do to put everything together. As well, I have contacted a few good blogger's and most have agreed to help, some now and some when things settle in their lives. I am told that several columnists are working towards their premiere articles, and while there is no set publish frequency, I know one is looking at once a week, as well as myself and hopefully Jim doing regular stuff.

We still don't know what the cost will be, but it is possible we can work something top make it free to Gnomedex attendees for the length of the show(maybe, only an idea, not a guarantee), or at least one or two articles from it, but for sure the ebook I am writing won't be free. That will likely be like $5 or $10, and will be for sure available though the TSGS, and hopefully also as a Gnome Tome, if it gets the approval I hope for. We also will, or hope to release our own series of ebooks, while hopefully Chris and the LG staff don't get mad. either way, find me at Gnomedex for the URL!

Well, I have a number of the screen shots I wanted for two of the articles I am writing, the how to install and use Zone Alarm Pro and Dreamweaver 4. I know that you can already get a GnomeTome on how to use Dreamweaver(not sure if it is 4 or MX) but I decided to write my own, and will stick to that. These screen shots and the article will also allow me to have a basis for the comparison between Dream 4 and MX, which will happen next week I think, after I have a chance to install and run MX for screen shots and a little experimentation. I also plan to download and install Zone Alarm Free, but first I need to snag a few more screen shots from Pro, after it gets online(I need to get screen shots of allowing programs access to the net, attacker's, and other pop ups from the system tray), and then need to remove Pro and hope I have everything before trying for free. I am using the Win 2K install on CodeMeister for all of this, by the way. I plan to begin writing the two install and use articles tonight.