Archives for March 2010

DotEasy Webhosting

March 31, 2010 by

Are you looking for a web host? Are you happy with the web host you have? Would you like to pay only $7.95 for each .com/.net/.org domain you register? And get one year of free web hosting too?

Then you have got to go over and check out Doteasy. They’ve got all kinds of web hosting packages. If you use their domain registration ($7.95 with coupon code 1003BPM), you get free web hosting!

The free web hosting is actually pretty good compared to some of the free hosting packages I’ve seen around. Here’s what’s included in the package:

  • Host up to 10 Add-on Domains
  • 100MB disk storage
  • 1GB monthly traffic
  • No Ad Banner
  • Free Doteasy Website Creator
  • Free Web Tools
  • Free Doteasy Hosted Applications
  • 10 emails

That’s pretty nice. Biggest points there are the first 4. 10 add-on domains is good. 100MB disk storage is more than you’ll likely use unless you’re storing all kinds of photos and files. Same goes for the 1GB monthly traffic. You’re never gonna use that much up unless you are sending a ton of files across or you get slashdotted. And most importantly, unlike some free hosting, you don’t have to display one of the host’s horribly awful (usually) looking ad banners. That spells a pretty good deal to me.

*Disclaimer: I was paid for this post. Much like any of my paid posts, I was honest about my feelings towards the company. I personally have never used Doteasy, but took a quick look around and they have a pretty good reputation so I felt fine in writing this post. My thoughts on their offerings and the package are mine, not those of the ad folks at Doteasy.

Filed Under: General News

Creating an Online Resume with WordPress

March 30, 2010 by

In the last few days, I have spent some time creating my online resume.  I have owned my name domain name for quite some time, with that intention, but have never actually gone about doing it.  So, I took it upon myself to remedy that situation.  The result can be seen at ShaneEde.com.

In doing this, there were several ways that I felt I could use to create a site that would work.  Aside from basic HTML coding, the only thing that didn’t seem like an enormous overkill was to build the online resume with WordPress as the code base.  Because of this and other blogs, I am very familiar with it and have used it on several occasions as a CMS to create static sites.  The actual install is very basic. There are only a few plugins and the theme is a basic free one from the WordPress.org theme gallery.

Plugins used (as of this post):

  • Akismet (This should just be on by default)
  • All in One SEO Pack
  • Contact Form 7
  • Flickr Widget
  • Google XML Sitemaps
  • Google Analyticator
  • Official Statcounter Plugin
  • WP-DBManager

With the exception of the Flickr Widget, most of those are either semi-necessary or I deemed them to be relevant and useful.

The information proved to be a bit more difficult to come up with.  My main issue began when I realized that your traditional resume is generally one page and merely hits the highlights.  I wanted my online resume to do have much more information than that.  Which meant I couldn’t just copy and paste the contents of my traditional resume.  Once I had that down, typing it in was easy enough.

The information may be the most important part of the whole thing, but it becomes quite cumbersome and rote if it doesn’t have a structure that lends itself to easy browsing.  I managed to stumble upon a great resource (from which I borrowed many ideas) in Jon DiPietro’s online resume.  Jon’s resume fulfills a bit different purpose than mine does in that he is much further along in his career than I.  He wrote a very good piece on another of his blogs on Creating a Compelling Resume Online with WordPress that became the rough outline for what I was trying to accomplish.

Having completed the site, I must admit that it was one of the easier sites I’ve ever built.  It’s entirely static pages that are easy to update and change.  The structure could be easily changed or added on to and if I decided at some point to begin posting semi-regular blog posts, that could be arranged as well.  For the moment, it will stay as a static website.  It’s still an infant as far as websites go, however, so there are likely to be a few fine tunings in it’s near future.

Now, please go check out ShaneEde.com and let me know what you think.  There’s a contact form there if you like, or you can come back here and leave a comment.

Filed Under: General News Tagged With: , , , ,

Testing WordPress for Blackberry App

March 22, 2010 by

I’ve been testing the official app for blackberry phones from automattic for a day or so now. This post serves as a way to test the posting functionality of it as well as to give a preliminary review.

Some initial thoughts. The downloading and installation went very smoothly. Setting up a blog (or blogs) was pretty simple as well. I did run into an issue because the app automatically defaults to use the device memory instead of a memory card. Maybe that’s necessary, but my device memory filled up before I could really do anything of value. Also, once I figured that out, I had to completely redo the setup as the app didn’t move the data over to the media card.
As yet, I haven’t really seen the auto update part work. Whether that’s due to some slow weekend days, or the app is unclear at the moment.

So far, I see the app as something that will likely be sticking around my blackberry. Its nice to have when waiting someplace. I can just type a draft or publish. It also gives me abilities for comment moderation, which could be super handy.

Added/Update: the posting of a post isn’t very intuitive, but I was able to figure it out. Formatting isn’t all that great either. Still worth using though.

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: ,

Social Media Use by Law Enforcement

March 16, 2010 by

As if you needed any further reason to be super careful about what you say and do on any publicly viewable website (sexting is out), the EFF has released some documents that show how law enforcement and other governmental agencies are trained to use social media sites like Facebook and Google Street View to research and investigate people.  And before you get your dander up, it’s all very legal, because all of the information that they are using is publicly available.

The IRS should be commended for its detailed training that clearly prohibits employees from using deception or fake social networking accounts to obtain information. Its policies generally limit employees to using publicly available information. The good example set by the IRS is in stark contrast to the U.S. Marshalls and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Neither organization found any documents on social networking sites in response to EFF’s request suggesting they do not have any written policies or restrictions upon the use of these websites.

So, if you’re going to do something that is possibly illegal, it’s best if you kept your mouth shut about it on social media sites.  Explaining how you exploited a loophole and “found” an extra $10,000 tax return is likely not a very good idea in the first place.  Now, we know Big Brother is watching.

Filed Under: General News Tagged With: , , , , ,
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