Because we were looking at becoming a start-up, funding was non-existent. So like a lot of people, free sounded good and we decided to use WordPress. So my main thought after making this decision was, “how do we maintain two environments using WordPress?” In this exercise, we won’t use beta as a naming standard, they’re “Production” & “Pre-Production“.

How we differentiated between the two environments was, production was the latest edition of the magazine along with daily posts about x topic. Pre-production was the test page and where we built out the next month’s edition. In the original thought process, this would be two WordPress installs, two DBs, two of everything. In the maturing of this plan, we’re using one singular WordPress install and two sets of information based on the WP-Hive setup. (more on this in a bit)

Now, if I were a decent coder, I could probably have one install and code in a mechanism pulling from a different database, based on the URL. That’s what we do in a lot of instances at work. Like, I said, I’m not a good coder but I do know how to install WP-Hive. With this WordPress plug-in, I can have one DB and one WordPress install, but install lots of independent sites. So for the example above, we could have the templates, graphics, and WP setup equal among the enviroments but have both the prod and pre-prod environments. Moving the latest edition to production would be as easy as using WordPress’ export mechanism, trimming out everything but the recent edition, then importing into the prod server. Not perfect but less complicated.

I’m still investigating improvements for this plan, MovableType (for instance) has a work flow plug-in which could be used to do similar things as well as have user signoffs in the process. But having the ability to have seperate but equal installs, sold me on making WordPress more of my framework than just a blogging engine.

Advertising Age – Wal-Mart Tries to Be MySpace. Seriously – “It’s a quasi-social-networking site for teens designed to allow them to “express their individuality,” yet it screens all content, tells parents their kids have joined and forbids users to e-mail one another. Oh, and it calls users “hubsters” — a twist on hipsters that proves just how painfully uncool it is to try to be cool.” – Via Torez

I think Wal-Mart’s lack of user testing might bite them in the ass on this one. You have to ask teens personally about what they would want, this site looks like it was put together by a late 30-something Mom who could care less about what kids like…or has the entirely wrong view of what kids like.

Then again, if you have the type of money that Wal-Mart has, you can afford to spend $500k on a project that will be used by, what they’ll say are tens of thousands, but more than likely, it will be used by Wal-Mart managers and corporate kiss-asses who have to show company loyalty.

Exclusive leak: Editor says Lycos will shutter Webmonkey – Valleywag -

“now, i’m an employee of wired news, which means that i work on conde nast properties (wired news) as of this week. webmonkey, being a lycos property, is off of my desk now. i’ve asked around about the details, and i just got word that lycos is mothballing webmonkey. no new content, no new employees. they say it’s “just for now”, but considering that they were never willing to spend a dime to provide me with any resources for anything relating to site maintenance or improvement, i can’t imagine they’d start doing so now.

chances are, lycos will do a completely new site at the domain and take all of the old stuff offline. this sounds like a really bad idea, but they’ve already done the same with Cocktail, RGB Gallery, HotWired, Netizen, Suck.com, and Animation Express. so, it’s not that big of a jump to consider that they’ll eventually do the same to Webmonkey. this is the third time webmonkey has “died” (1999, 2004, 2006) and i have a feeling the third time’s a charm. one month short of its tenth birthday!

i advise you all to make PDFs of everything that you’ve written for
webmonkey. it may still be online in six months, but it just as likely
may not. if you take the article and run it on your site or your blog,
lycos might send you a cease and desist letter. but quite frankly, i
really don’t think they have anyone that will be checking. i’ve been
handling the policing of all of the content thieves for the past
couple of years, and i know that nobody else was doing it. just please don’t say i gave you permission to run your webmonkey article somewhere… because (for the record) i never said that.

the gravy train has run off the tracks and the conductor has fled into the woods. if you’re currently working on an article, please lift up your pens and stop writing for Webmonkey right now. the budget is frozen and there’s nobody at lycos who will be able to handle posting the articles. i hang my head in shame as i write this, because i really didn’t want to have to tell assigned authors that their assignments won’t be running. but those is the breaks, as they say.”

While I didn’t use Webmonkey to learn HTML, I use it as a resource as well as directing people there to learn about web design. You could really tell when the site become a second-thought as opposed to a site where the owners cared. That site should have been as popular as A List Apart and pull the community together….but Lycos didn’t give a shite.

I’m seriously asking this question: I wonder how much Lycos would want for the site + content? I wonder if a few people, a small group of investors, would be up for purchasing it and keep it up as a resource and maybe develop the site with new articles….?

I don’t think it’s worth a million or even a hundred thousand….what would this real estate be worth?

Over the past week, I’ve changed our (work’s) 5 year-old tabbed menu into a css, javascriptless, wonder. The new boss has a good grasp of CSS, but I kinda shocked him when I showed what all I could do by handcoding. Took me most of a day, but instead of 12 graphics, we’re down to 4. 88k to 3k.

I’ve also been going through a vendor’s code, more and more, as I keep finding code that disgusts me. Again, the new site will be tableless and (according to them) all web standards. So my question today was, “with all of this talk about standards, why do we have javascript rendering images and text?”. So, like I did with the menu mentioned above, I tore into their little widget and recreated it with more accessible version of javascript and css. I seriously, feel more sure of myself, as I work with these huge company’s coders and see how much CSS knowledge most of these people use just through Dreamweaver. I have a strong feeling, that if I just opened up the code-side, they would be absolutely lost.

The Sacred Cow Tipping redesign is still upcoming. I have some ideas based on what I showed off about three weeks ago. More based on what I’m doing at work…although I’m on Movable Type and not Teamsite. I’m also looking at redesigning the personal site and even keeping a tiny blog over there for more design-y things….don’t know yet.

I’m doing a bit of blog consulting and wish I could do this full-time. I can’t really be anything but vague about it, but it’s an interesting project. It won’t be “mine” but it will be nice laying the groundwork for someone to have a killer blog. I’m still hashing out details, but it’s nice being an old-school blogger who no one knows. Being on the C-List (hell D-List) has it’s advantages.

I’m still trying to find “my place”. A mindset or a grouping of thoughts. But I have so little time to think about anything but work, that off time is just veg time. I miss music, don’t know if I actually want to play again, honestly. I’m just so burned out on that aspect of it. I’d almost consider being a manager for a band or an artist. I’m *that* much of an asshole and might be actually good in that role.

Ok, enough of this ramblings…..

Students unveil “Trinity,” a 200 mpg SUV at NewFangledGreen

If students can make a plug-in hybrid out of an SUV that already exists, why can’t GM, Ford, and others? Plug-in hybrids make so much sense, I can’t understand why the big auto makers aren’t making them!

I’ve been wondering something similar for a while. If we have all of these technical universities coming up with hybrid engines for years, why aren’t they in full production?

If one oil company said, “We’re going to start migration of our stations to hydrogen (or ethanol) and will be complete by 2010.” I wonder how quick the automobile companies would follow-up with engine development? Imagine if one oil company did that. They would be media darlings about being innovative plus they would have a head start for when we’re really in the pits about a lack of oil production.

We only need gasoline currently, because no one has taken a step forward and said, “hey we know you’re suffering with the high costs of gasoline and we’re going to change that”. Instead, we have everyone from the oil companies to the auto companies and the government, making tiny baby steps….when we should have been doing something for the past 30 years.

This isn’t in my team, department or division, but you will have to deal with me on some level.

If you’re interested please leave a comment. I’ll reply via email and please reply back with your resume and references.

• Spit out your gum.
• lose the water bottle. (or ask if you can leave it with a recruiter)
• don’t sit till asked to do so.
• turn off your cell phone/pda/blackberry/pager…you get the point.
• please have examples of past work (or give a url)
• please have a copy of your resume
• dress nice. funeral clothes….
• **due diligence & research.

Granted, a lot of these seem like common sense. but it’s not. One of the people, who I interviewed as my replacement for the last job, wore cowboy boots and jeans to the interviews. This was for an IT position, not as a ranch-hand for the “back 40″.

**If you don’t know what due dilligance is, then look it up. Know something about the company to which you’re applying. Seriously, go to Google, type the name in.

]]> http://mkelley.net/2006/05/17/advice-to-job-interviewees/feed/ 0 http://mkelley.net/2006/03/29/and-proud/ http://mkelley.net/2006/03/29/and-proud/#comments Wed, 29 Mar 2006 14:30:18 +0000 sacredcowtipping http://assets.ourmusicchattanooga.com/testing/2006/03/29/and-proud/

{Up With Grups – The Ascendant Breed of Grown-Ups Who Are Redefining Adulthood — New York Magazine} – “And it’s been a long time coming. It showed up in the early eighties as “the Peter Pan Syndrome,” then mutated to the yuppie, which, let’s face it, has had a pretty good run. Later, it took the form that David Brooks called “bourgeois bohemians,” or bobos (as in Bobos in Paradise). Over in England, they’re now calling them yindies (that’s yuppie plus indie), and here, the term yupster (you can figure that out) has been gaining some traction of late. And as this movement evolves, something pivotal is happening. This cascade of pioneering immaturity is no longer a case of a generation’s being stuck in its own youth. This generation is now, if you happen to be under 25, more interested in being stuck in your youth.”

This is basicially me and a lot of my friends. It goes back to a saying I heard in 2004, that made me really really embrace being 30: “30 is the new 20″.

I think we all remember “thirtysomething”. We’re not like that now. We’re not this boring group of adults, we’re a thriving and living group of people. I’ll tell you, I’ve had more fun in my two and a half years of being in my 30′s, than I ever did in the last decade of being in my twenties.

I’m more social, more fun, I fuck better, I enjoy life more. I’m not as tight-assed in my 30′s and I’m not afraid to let people see the not so straight-laced side of me. I do stay out late, but only really for band-stuff….although, having a vampire’s sleep schedule is really in my family. I’m not a morning person.

Yes, if you’ve know me, you know I’m not a huge fan of yuppies even though I look like one. I’m on the cusps of the quote above, a bohemian. Maybe it’s the “creative” in me or being a musician.

“When I ask Peccini what he sees himself doing in ten years, or at his dad’s age, he gives the typical Grup answer. “That’s a great question,” he says. “I don’t know. But I like my life.”"

The linked article ends with questioning the future and I’m doing that too. I’m wondering how long someone can remain a self-taught web designer, when there are kids out there now who have been designing as long as I have AND can actually get a web design degree? Hopefully, I’ll be in management or on tour before that door closes.

]]> http://mkelley.net/2006/03/29/and-proud/feed/ 0 http://mkelley.net/2006/03/04/losing-money-stalling/ http://mkelley.net/2006/03/04/losing-money-stalling/#comments Sat, 04 Mar 2006 14:54:44 +0000 sacredcowtipping http://assets.ourmusicchattanooga.com/testing/2006/03/04/losing-money-stalling/

{Fort Oglethorpe hospital suffers third straight year of multimillion-dollar losses} – “The Fort Oglethorpe hospital’s loss in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 occurred despite implementing recommendations from the Cambio Health Solutions consulting firm after losses of $3.3 million in 2004 and $3.4 million in 2003. “We had significant losses for the year, but without Cambio being brought in, losses would have been greater,” said Charles Stewart, Hutcheson’s chief executive officer. “You can’t have a total turnaround in one year.”"

I would like to point out, that while I was at HMC, it was profitable. Not to say I was the key, but the group I worked with was. We marketed the hell outta that place, only to have the CFO pull the funding….then they started to lose money and they started losing or (in my case) laying off staff. Less money to run ads, less money to get names in the community, less money to get experienced staff.

Let’s also look at another story about HMC:

{Hutcheson Medical Center Responds to Lawsuit} – “NewsChannel 9 asked the hospital for a copy of the past due notices it sent Walker County. They told us, under Georgia’s Open Records Act, they needed a written request. We’ve done that; now the hospital has three days to respond. “

Open Records Law. If you work with hospitals, public ones, you should know that no matter what you put out there, it’s available by public record. Stalling for three days, is mainly to have lawyers look over the files. Chances are, they’re the ones saying three days, the finance people probably have these files on their desks. Trust me, in my experience, the PR people know what everything says, it’s the lawyers or people who don’t trust PR, who demand they wait.

Asking things in writing and making the media wait three days isn’t proactive media, it’s reactive and makes it look like you have something to hide. For NewsChannel9 to be pushing the “Sunshine Law” angle, makes me think they know the outcome.

]]> http://mkelley.net/2006/03/04/losing-money-stalling/feed/ 0 http://mkelley.net/2006/02/28/briefr/ http://mkelley.net/2006/02/28/briefr/#comments Wed, 01 Mar 2006 01:10:38 +0000 sacredcowtipping http://assets.ourmusicchattanooga.com/testing/2006/02/28/briefr/

{USATODAY.com – Flickr of idea on a gaming project led to photo website} – “Fake scrapped the game. She and her programmer husband, Stewart Butterfield, transformed the project into Flickr. In less than two years, the photo-sharing site — now owned by Internet giant Yahoo — has turned into one of the Web’s fastest-growing properties.”

I remember playing around with the Game Neverending…we’re talking early alphas, and talked with Caterina and Stewart and they were some of the nicest people I ever chatted with online. I was kinda sad when Flickr became the project instead of GNE, but it was for the best.

I finally upgraded my Flickr account and hope to have more on that wonderful site in the coming weeks.

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