30 day challenge of a different flavor

August 29, 2008 · Filed Under Geek Fun · Comments 

Last year my buddy Jason Murphy came up with the idea of doing a 30 day challenge. The challenge was to create a blog post every day for an entire month. Easy you say? Sure, if you don’t have a full time job, wife, two kids and a serious case of A.D.H.D. like both he and I have. So, when Jason asked if I was interested in joining up with him to do it again this year, I of course called him an idiot and then agreed anyway.

Starting September 1st my goal is to post one semi-decent post per day for an entire month. I’m thinking the second half of the month is actually going to be easier as I will be attending the CJU conference and then Blog World Expo within the span of a week. Between the two this should provide enough blog fodder to finish of the rest of the month. But, the first 2 weeks may be a bit spotty. We’ll see, I guess.

“What’s the purpose?” you may ask. It’s simple, really. The idea is to get yourself in to the habit of blogging on a regular basis. Blogging is something I love to do, but always find a reason to put off. If you get yourself in to the habit of collecting ideas during the day and posting in the evening (or whatever your preferred time of day may be), blogging daily shouldn’t become a chore. I tend to use it as a time to clear my head and focus on one simple task, which isn’t something I’m able to do most of the day.

So join us! Leave a comment here or over at TheJasonMurphyShow and let us know that you too have decided to kick the dust off the keyboard and write, write, write! You’ll be glad you did… Or, you’ll never remember being so happy to see October 1st roll around.

 

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WordCamp Las Vegas. You interested?

August 28, 2008 · Filed Under Geek Fun, wordcamp, wordpress · Comments 

I’ve been a long time user of WordPress and could probably be considered a glorified fanboy at this point. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to make it to any of the WordCamp events as they have all taken place a little too far away. I was lucky enough to attend the first Blog World Expo here in Las Vegas and am registered to attend again next month. Even still, I think it would be a great learning experience (not to mention a lot of fun) to hang out with a bunch of WordPress users geeks for a weekend.

After watching Matt Mullenweg’s “State of the Word” speech from WordCamp San Francisco, that got the wheels turning. “Why not organize a WordCamp here in Las Vegas?” I asked myself. I can’t come up with enough compelling reasons not to.

So I ask you, are you interested in coming to a WordCamp held in Las Vegas? Would you be interested in volunteering some time to help organize? Are you interested in being a sponsor? Would you want to be a guest speaker?

Leave me a comment or drop me a line at John [at] JohnHawkinsUnrated.com and let me know what level of involvement you are interested in.

Viva Las Vegas!

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What is on your iPhone?

August 27, 2008 · Filed Under Geek Fun · Comments 

When I first got my iPhone, my first week of use on it was pretty awesome. I checked out youtube, took photos, sent text messages, browsed the internet… oh yeah, and I used it as a phone once in a while. The novelty of it all sorta wears off after a little bit and it goes back to being “just a phone” with a nice interface.

That all changed with the release of the new software and the availability of the App Store. Now everybody and their brother can create applications that you can install on your phone and turn it in to the entertainment system it set out to be. Many of the apps are free. A great many of them are available for under a buck and then you’ll find another tier of apps that cost $4.99 or $9.99. After a couple months had gone by, I had only installed 1 or 2 apps. I figured it was about time to change that, so over the past couple weeks I’ve spent some time going through the App Store checking it all out. Here’s what my iPhone has on it currently:

iphone_1sm iphone_2sm iphone_3sm 

First thing you’ll probably notice is that I replaced the static iPod link along the bottom with Twitterrific. I rarely use the iPod feature, but I use Twitterrific several times each day.

Page 1:
SMS: Yeah, I feel like a 14 year old girl with the amount of text messaging I do. Sheesh.
FastContact: This app is fantastic for finding people in your contact book when you are trying to make a call.
Photos/Camera: The basics for taking snapshots with the phone. I don’t think these are the be-all-end-all for dealing with photos, but they work for now
Evernote: One of my new faves. Allows you to take voice/text/photo notes and syncs them up on your evernote.com account. They can now be accessed from your work/home computers or the iPhone, no matter where the notes originated from.
Notes: no longer used thanks to evernote. Need to move that icon eventually.
Wikipedia: Awesome resource. I use it several times a week.
JHU: Vanity link to my own website.
Google (web link): Quick access link to answer most any question…
Maps: I rarely use this. Needs to be moved to a 4th page, I think.
WordPress: I don’t use this for writing posts, but it’s nice to be able to go in and do minor tweaks to posts when needed. I think this tool will get more powerful in later versions.
Google: I use this for access to my Google Reader account. I read all my RSS feeds on the go this way. Quite handy.

Page 2:
(I use page 2 to store a bunch of the standard buttons that I don’t use all that often. Rather than list them all since you probably already know what they do, I’ll just list the stuff I’ve added.)
Flickup: This lets you take photos and upload them directly to your flickr.com account. I’m not a huge fan of the iPhone’s camera, so I haven’t used app this all that much.
Tip: This is a handy little tool that calculates the tip to leave your server. You enter the amount of the bill, scroll to the % you want to leave and also choose the number of people who are going to split the tip. It will show you how much each person needs to put in.
LinkedIn: Instant access to your LinkedIn account. I don’t use it a ton, but it’s convenient.
IMDB: Instant link to the Internet Movie Database website. The place to answer that age old question, “Who was that dude in that one movie with that chick?”

Page 3:
Facebook: Handy link to your facebook account.
MyLighter: This app is useless, unless you are going to a concert where you may need to hold up a lighter during the power ballad. Then, it’s genius!
Poker: This is the MotionX poker-dice game. Looking for mindless addictive fun? Found it. Love this app!!
AirMe: Lets you take photos on your iPhone and upload them to an airme.com account. I was going to use this instead of uploading my photos to Flickr, but haven’t really messed with it much… yet.
HoldEm: This is a fantastic poker game. Good graphics, decent game play and it lets you play against friends on their iPhones, though I haven’t tried that feature yet.
GarageBay: This is a pretty spiffy app that lets you search eBay, keep tabs on your watched items list and even place a bid directly from your iPhone. Quite handy for those with an addiction to buying goodies on eBay.

So there ya go. That’s what’s on my iPhone. What’s on yours?

Before I go, to answer the question “how did you get the screenshots?”, go to the page you want to take a snapshot of, hold down the home button and then press the power button up top. Your screen will flash and the photo will be saved in your Camera Roll. Super simple.

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Fantasy Football newbie

August 26, 2008 · Filed Under Entertainment, Sports · Comments 

I’ve never been much of a football fan. But just about everybody I know is a big time football nut. So it makes it tough to hang around the water cooler when you don’t know a field goal from a 2 point conversion. OK, I’m not a complete dumbass, I know the rules and scoring of football and I watch enough Sports Center to know the teams and several key players, but if you asked me how a specific team did last year, I’d have no clue. This year, I’ve decided to take a much deeper interest in the game of football. What better way to do that than by joining a Fantasy Football league?

Our draft was set up for today at 4:00 PM. Over the past week I had done some research and even created a spreadsheet with tabs for each position and a ranking system that I had found online somewhere. I cross-checked some names, tried to keep an eye on the news for injuries and basically thought more about football in the past week than I have over the past 10 years.

By random draw, I ended up picking 11th in the first round out of 12 teams. In the second round I’d pick 2nd and then it would be a bit of a wait before I picked again in the 3rd round. As the time was getting close I double-checked that I had everything I needed. Then, it was go-time!

As players were getting picked I’d mark them off my sheet. The big names that I expected to be taken went right away. After a few short minutes I was on the clock and ready to make my first pick. My goal here, don’t make a fool of yourself. Don’t pick somebody that people are going to say “Dude, you could have got him in the 6th round…” Actually, to be honest, that was my goal for the entire draft, not just the first round. Just don’t be a complete idiot.

One thing that I realized I have going for me is that I have no pro team affiliation. I’m not a Chargers fan, I’m not a Raiders fan, I’m not a Patriots fan. As the draft was going on, you’d see certain teams picking guys off their favorite team just because they are on their favorite team. I think this is a huge mistake, but I’m a noob, so what do I know.

When all was said and done, I’m fairly pleased with my team. Our weekly team consists of 1 quarterback, 3 wide receivers , 2 running backs, 1 tight end, 1 kicker, 1 team defense, 1 defensive back and 1 defensive lineman. We also have 6 bench spots for a total of 17 draft rounds. Here’s who I picked by round:

1. Larry Johnson, RB
2. Clinton Portis, RB
3. Plaxico Burress, WR
4. Matt Hasselbeck, QB
5. Dwayne Bowe, WR
6. Jeremy Shockey, TE
7. Donald Driver, WR
8. Dallas’ Defense
9. Nate Kaeding, K
10. Jeff Garcia, QB
11. DeShaun Foster, RB
12. DeAngelo Williams, RB
13. Jerry Porter, WR
14. Nick Barnett, DL
15. Sammy Knight, DB
16. Deion Branch, WR
17. Arnaz Battle, WR

I’m fairly pleased with my team. Checking the match-ups for the first 3 weeks, Yahoo predicts I’ll have more points than my opponents each week. So that’s a good thing.

So, here we go. My rookie year as a Fantasy Football coach. How do you think I did draft-wise? Of the 17 picks I made, how many of them would you say were “good”, “OK”, “bad” or “horrible”?

Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.

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The Joys of Home Ownership

August 18, 2008 · Filed Under Ranting · Comments 

This past weekend, Chris and I headed off to Los Angeles to go see a couple bands; Reckless Kelly and Micky & the Motorcars. If you follow my blog you may be saying, “didn’t you just see these guys last weekend?” The answer would be “Yes, yes we did.” But that’s for another blog post coming later. For now, let’s get back to the story at hand…

Chris picked me up at work and we head straight to the 15 freeway. We are about 1 hour in to our trip when we get a phone call from Chris’ sister-in-law, Tara, who is staying at our house for a few weeks. It seems the the toilet in the downstairs bathroom has backed up and had continued running while she was upstairs for a while. By the time she found the problem, our downstairs bathroom, hallway, bar area and guest bedroom are soaked. She had turned off the water to the toilet and was in the process of cleaning up the mess with the help of my mother-in-law. Since there wasn’t much we could really do over the weekend anyway, we continued on our trip.

Saturday morning we got another call. My mother-in-law’s garage flooded. Apparently the washing machine overflowed and filled up a portion of the garage with water. Tara went over to help her clear out the boxes and clean up the mess. After she was done helping, she came back to our house and went upstairs to take a shower. When she headed back downstairs, all the water from the shower had come up through the floor drain in the downstairs shower and caused another minor flood. So back they went to cleaning up the mess.

We called the plumbers and set up an appointment for Monday morning. When they arrived, the first thing they did is tried to run the snake down the toilet. The pipes were clear and they found no blockage. They snaked the shower and again found no blockage. The next step was to check the main pipes in the front yard. The started running the snake and couldn’t get too far. Unfortunately it wasn’t a blockage, it was actually a broken pipe.

When they dug out the area, it appears that there was a leak that was keeping the dirt wet. This was causing it to continue to settle and was building up a gap. Then, at some point a piece of concrete slipped and fell on to the PVC pipe below and busting it. This started to let in dirt and rocks. As more and more dirt built up, it started causing the backup and before long, we have a big problem.

It’s weird to say, but we were actually pretty lucky. The broken pipe was real close to wear they started digging. If it hadn’t been, they would have needed to bring in a back-hoe to dig up our front yard until they found the broken pipe before they could even fix it.

Once they had the pipe fixed they had us fill both bath tubs and then drain them at the same time to make sure there was no leaks and that everything was flowing smoothly. When that all turned out OK, they put the dirt they had dug up back in the hole. The only problem is, so much of the dirt has either gone down the drain or been compacted in to the ground, the amount they dug up only filled about half the hole. I need to go to Home Depot and pick up 4 or 5 bags of sand/dirt to fill the hole back up and then deal with the rocks on top, etc…

You can see photos of the mess over at flickr.

ahh, good times.

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