Month: May 2005

I’ve always had a really hard time getting my personal site to a place where it needed to be. Here I am at version 7 (at least) and none of the first 6 was ever complete. I figure, the best way to do it is to treat myself as a client and see how the process works. I developed my own methodology around 2000 that has worked very well, with minimal modifications in the last five years. The most noticeable difference is in the requirements gathering phase (this one) where I’ve clarified, thanks to Keith, the difference of Business, Organizational and User Goals. We’ll explore those this time, and move into brand &ampl identity in the following posts.

Organizational Goals

Organizational Goals are probably the most predominant for a personal website. While I have some business goals, and obviously some user goals, I have some finite goals from an organizational / personal perspective that will make or break this site.

• Give me an outlet for self-publishing articles about topics of interest to me.
• Allow for publishing of a personal portfolio of various projects completed for potential employers, showing off.
• Consolidate various aspects of my life on the web (Flickr, bloglines, etc).
• Simple informal blog (as opposed to articles) for daily-life type stuff.

Business Goals

For my personal site, I don’t have a great deal as far as business goals go, but it would be nice to see something come of the hard work I plan to finally put into this project. As the definition of Business Goals are those that “affect the bottom line” I see them as more than financial. My bottom line as a blogger / website owner is not necessarily to make money from my personal site (thought it would be nice), but to simply have the satisfaction that what I do makes a difference.

Therefore, I’ve developed the following as business goals for this site:

• Allow for a variety of income sources (advertising, donations, etc)
• Provide for user feedback and suggestions (comments, contact forms, suggestion box)

User Goals

User goals are pretty obvious, but I wish to document them here so that I can checkpoint my success / failure at meeting my goals.

• Read my indepent thoughts through informal daily blog.
• Learn and communicate on broader topics through formal self-published articles.
• Communicate with me / other readers via comments and other feedback sources.
• Find new things via linkroll and other things of interest I may post

Conclusion

That’s a good start, I think. It at leasts gets my thoughts on the table and gives me somewhere to work from. As an informal project, pretending to be formal, I think we’ll make some pretty rapid progress having this type of information documented

Next up, Information Architecture, Wireframing and Branding.

Keith wrote a brief rant on themes today. I agree with his comment that its too easy to go with a themed design (look at me), but I have a short rebuttal. Time.

I’m a designer. I’m a developer. I don’t HAVE to be using Kubrik. But until some things change around here (which, they are. trust me. I can’t wait), we’re just going to have to go with the default. It’s not that WP is hard to make a custom design in, though any CMS has its limits, it’s that I just don’t have time to design a new layout, incorporate the 10 or so templates, and have any sort of normal life.

Nothing. NOTHING has made me want to return to the eighties more than this.

NOTHING.

I have an amazon wishlist going, but for all that is Good and Holy, someone PLEASE get me these.

I don’t get how other bloggers out there come up with so much interesting content. imagine its just that I don’t have the time to really sit down and write out a complete thought, much less make it cohesive enough for anyone but myself to understand. Is it really that hard?

My Bloglines roll is up to 79 feeds (and that’s not nearly all that I really read). At least half post at least once a day.

I guess I just don’t have that much to say. Stay tuned. Maybe.

Like I said in the first post on this here new blog, I’m starting over. I’ve gone back to WordPress (the easiest install ever now that I’m on a Unix host) and basically wanted to forget everything that I’ve ever written or not written.

The content just wasn’t there, and the design, well, the design just wasn’t doing it for me anymore. I hadn’t left myself room for any growth. I had taken some elements from a number of influences and just wasn’t pleased. Oh, and don’t mention the fact that it was never really finished anyway.

So here we are with a new WP install, using the default theme. I’m working on a new theme, which I’ll put in place eventually, but for now, enjoy the content. Hopefully that is enough to keep you coming back, regardless of the fact that I’m so lazy I have to use the default setup for now.

It’s pretty simple, really. Incessant Rambling is just as it sounds. It is my personal soapbox, the place where I can ramble on about anything and everything on my mind.

There are other blogs out there that have consolidated their topics into something more specific to their interests, web design, css, music, their dating life. I can’t really do that. I’m interested in so many different things and constantly want to learn new things, that today I may discuss the latest Blackberry app I’ve developed and tomorrow I may write about the microphone placement I used when setting up for the children’s musical at Church. Who knows what you’ll get? I hope that keeps you interested.

I’m doing some soul searching right now. I feel the need to start over in some areas of my life. Again. It’s been a strange past couple of years. I’ve experienced extreme highs, yet at the exact same time, experienced extreme lows.

I think my true soul searching really started somewhere within the year 2000. It wasn’t all that bad. I was in a great job, making great money for a young 23-year-old, and was in a reasonably happy relationship. Then I realized I could fail.

You may think that sounds silly, that I “realized” I could fail, but you have to realize that up to that point, I’d never really had to. I knew my limits were above average (intelligence, abilities, etc) so I knew that if I could just hang out there for a while, I could always impress people without having to try very hard. I got bored way too easily.

Some things happened around the office (I quit school to work full time) and I royally screwed up a very high-profile project I was on. This broke me more than anything had ever before. I cried myself to sleep for a few nights in a row. People around me came to my rescue and helped get the project finished. That helped.

2001 just went all to hell. My relationship made some turns for the worse. My uncle passed away, my mother had a heart-attack (I was living with her at the time) and moved a short month later. I moved into my first place of my own and got laid off in December. There was more, but no sense in boring the few readers that run across this post. I decided to make the next year my turn-around year.

2002 I started getting more involved in Church again (don’t ask, I was very bitter for a number of years due to some circumstances well within my own control). God really changed my world. I could see hope again. I had Faith like I’d never had before. He rewarded me with many more blessings, just as he said He would. Then I got comfortable.

The last 2 years have been a whirlwind of emotion. I married my lovely wife in June, 2003 and we set out on an amzing adventure. Until January, 2004. On a trip home from a volleyball tournament in Kentucky, I tried snoozing while driving down I-64. I don’t advise this. We totaled my Blazer, with 6 months of payments remaining on the loan. My dad died a month later. Throw on top of that my wife dealing with endometriosis, possibly hindering our ability to start a family and just a general life of uncertainty.

Looking back, I can see that I did get comfortable. I thought I deserved the blessings, so I took them for granted. It was about me at that point, not God. So, once again, God had to gut-check me back into Faith in Him. I think I’m back there, but now the patience part comes in.

Where am I supposed to be? Where am I supposed to go? I’ve been asking those questions for years. I think I might be finally listening to what He’s been telling me since the beginning.

That’s what this blog is all about. My search for signifigance. It will contain life stories, technical web development stuff, links to fun things that make me laugh or say “huh.” In any case, you’ll find an eclectic mix of material here.

I hope everyone can find a familiar voice and that we all may learn something from my Incessant Rambling.