I’ve completed migrating my sites from GoDaddy to Amazon Web Services Comment
My first step in re-familiarizing myself with my technical side was to migrate all my sites from GoDaddy (using their WebSite mgmt for dummies tools) to my own dedicated VM & IP address with AWS EC2 instance. I’m that kind of person that likes to start off with the basics like setting up their owns sites on IIS and being able to support handling most of the issues from the ground up.
Backing up the databases and migrating the files was the easy part, but I did find some challenges in setting up the applications and configuring them properly so that all the proper permissions were set and firewall ports were opened. Most of my apps were WordPress which I found to be fairly simple, but I did find setting up and configuring the mail server to be quite challenging. I setup the mail server called hMail which is free and had a lot of supporting documentation online. When I finally got this sucker working, I was quite please. The only issue I’m having right now is with supporting the PHP mail function. I was able to bypass this in wordpress by forcing all the modules to use SMTP which I successfully configured, but eventually I’d like this functionality to work.
Although at this point I’m having to deal more with technical issues then I did with GoDaddy I do find that having direct access to everything on my server and quickly making changes satisfies me more then the slow delays with the GoDaddy control panel’s and queuing for tasks to completed which sometimes take 15-30 mins.
Is HTML5 the new Hotness? Comment
I started my career out as a developer coding in JAVA, and then onto C# along with getting pretty masterful with HTML & Javascript. I then strayed off that path and into project management from 2005 to 2011. I’ve been wanting to get back into coding again on the side but was not sure yet where to focus my attention. I used to be an expert with Javascript back in 2005 but it’s has evolved a lot since then so I’ll be needing to do a lot of catch up. Recently I’ve been hearing a lot about HTML5 and from what I’m reading it sounds like will be the leading way of the future. Before now dabbling into HTML5 I was pretty dead set on iPhone dev, but from what I’m reading about HTML5 it support multiple platforms so I’ll be able to cover both my web and mobile interests.
I’d love to hear anyone’s thoughts on HTML5. I’ll update my projects tab with my initial experiments. I was thinking of creating a mobile app for my church’s weekly pod casts for my first one.
Finding a Church Comment
Over the past five years my wife and I have gone to a variety of churches looking for the one that most aligned with our beliefs and which we felt could connect with the community. I’d say that we ended up at 4 different churches from traditional Catholic churches to the Church of Religious Science.
After moving to back to Hoboken in 2009, we went to the Catholic church there around Church Square Park. There were plenty of young people so we liked it and the traditional style was tolerable, however we struggled with bringing our daughter there as they didn’t have child care and our visits when from weekly to monthly and then we stopped going altogether. We weren’t committed enough to going and having to deal with the non-child care support and having to rotate shifts with attending mass.
Later, we were recommended to Hoboken Grace by a friend and have now been going weekly the last 6 months with a few exceptions were we’ve missed mass.
Hoboken Grace is a non denominational Church which basically means that the Church establishes it’s own internal means methods of policy and worship without interference from the policies and worship practices of regional, national, or multinational organizations. The people are extremely friendly and warm, the music is excellent and the pastor is extremely effective in delivering God’s word. They also have very good child care which is organized by different age groups with a ton of volunteers helping out. I find myself more present and engaged to the readings than ever before. Also our new apartment is less than a block away. We are extremely happy here and feel God has led us to this church.
Have an idea but don’t know what to do with it? 1 Comment
I have this idea that I’m not sure what to do with. I documented it a fews years ago and rather than tossing it into the trash, I figure I’ll see if it has any merit. After doing some research I stumbled upon http://www.ideas2sell.com/. This site looks pretty legit. I think I’ll give it a shot. If anyone has used this site before, please let me know your experience. I’ll blog more about mine as well.
Mikayla’s First Video Hits the Internet! Comment
First one made? No. First one online, yes! I’ve taken a few with a higher resolution camera but they have yet to be put online. My wife got sick of waiting and took this with her photo camera. Mikayla is my daughter btw.
My First Trip To Vegas! 3 Comments
Trip Period: June 27th – June 30th 2008.
I’ve resisted going here for years because I’ve had my fill of casinos at Atlantic City, NJ. To be honest I probably still would of never gone if it wasn’t for my wife winning a trip to the “I Can Do It” seminar there. Nothing speaks to me better than free airline and hotel.
We stayed at the La Palazzo. It was very clean and spacious hotel. The air smelled good and you could tell they were pumping oxygen into that place 24/7. The accommodations were excellent. We had a huge room which happened to be the first one I’ve ever rented that had not only one wall hanging flat screen but 3!. Yes, even one in the bathroom. Anyway, hotel was great. Enough talk about that.
(Below is a pic of my wife in our bedroom at the Palazzo.)
My wife and I were only in Vegas for 3 nights and we spent the majority of the time at the “I Can Do It” seminar. We did have a few late nights out in Vegas though. Being that I work in NYC, I’m always up for a good walk. We ended up walking the full strip 2-3 times. I have no clue how long it is, but I swear it must be at least 1.5 miles. Plus the heat was unbearable around 102 degrees…… We kept walking though, we had lots of great but fatty meals to work off 
We went through all the big name casinos – Bellagio, Excalibur, Luxor, Venetian, New York, France and some others. I was very impressed to say the least. I was expecting the themes to be as done up in Atlantic City and what I saw was in Vegas was quite beautiful. There were no fake plastic looking constructions use but highly quality well made themes. Go Vegas!
Shows – I was not interested in seeing any shows initially. That was until walking through Excalibur I saw the sign for “Tournament of Kings”. I’ve never heard of this show before but being a big medieval fan I had to check it out. My wife and I thoroughly enjoy this show. The fighting was choreographed better, there was a larger variety of talent (acrobats, storyline, fighting, horse riding feats.. etc.). We walked out of the show very satisfied. The same feeling you get from watch a great movie in the theater. Before seeing the show I read some bad reviews about the show but still wanted to give it a chance and I was very happy I did so. After seeing such a great show, I don’ t think I’d be able to go back to Medieval times.
Most annoying thing about Las Vegas – the people covering the streets trying to hand out fliers for “Girls to You in 20 Minutes!”. They were lined up one after another trying to hand these things out. They were trying to hand them out to couples, father’s with their daughters by them etc.. Ah well, I guess everyone has to make a living somehow.
All in all, Vegas was a lot of fun. I think I may have to go back in 10 years or so. They’ll probably have like another 10 buildings up by then!! I swear, they had 4 new ones under construction while we were just there. I believe MGM owns most of Vegas, go MGM.. you are doing a great job!!
Sword Of Truth Mini-Series 2 Comments
The best fantasy book series I ever read was the “Sword of Truth” series by Terry Goodkind. My obsession with the series started 5 years ago while at Barnes and Noble. I was looking for a fantasy series to get into but there were too many options too choose from. Seeing me struggle to find something a stranger pointed it out to me telling me it was some of the greatest books he’s ever read. I’ve always liked referrals and now I had it and that was that.
Terry Goodkind has selected Sam Raimi (Director of Spider Man) to direct mini-series for each of the books in the series. This decision was made by Terry Goodkind after refusing tons of other offers that wouldn’t do his story justice. He wouldn’t of been my choice but I trust Terry Goodkind knows what he’s doing.
Being more than anxious for this series to come out now I’ve been doing some search to see if anyone has made any “Sword of Truth” related movies. Lo and behold they have! People have been making movies on YouTube of what they the cast of mini-series might be. There may not be a trailer out yet but this might hold you over for a day!
Best Online Radio Comment
I’ve only tried a few online players. First I started out with shoutcast, as it was probably one of the first online radio station sites ever made. Unfortunately now, 5 years later it still looks and functions exactly the same. It’s hasn’t evolved and much better is now available. I then tried Yahoo for a brief time. I thought Yahoo was great, but nothing special.
I then finally found the best player ever, Pandora. To get started, you specify a song you like. In most cases they will have the song in their database of songs. They’ll then create a never-ending playlist of music simliar to the one you specified. I still can’t believe how accurate their analysis of music is. Groups that I never thought had a another of it’s equal are now appearing out of the woodwork! Pandora has this project called the “Music Genome” project where they actually listen to ten of thousands of songs and group them in a multitude of ways in order to match music and sounds wth one another.
It’s a crazy concept and probably has taken an unbelieve amount of man hours to do, but the end product is very impressive and I’m sure this site will do nothing but get more and more popular.
You can check out the site here – http://www.pandora.com
My Landmark Education Review 5 Comments
Landmark is an educational center that is typically either bashed by people and praised. You really don’t see anything between there. You either get it or you don’t, is the way I take it.
Landmark Education shows you through people’s life experiences and empowering lessons that you can be whoever you want to be in life. You can start anew at any time that you choose. Even at your lowest, all you have to do is change your thinking and you can become someone else.
Below are words of wisdom I picked up through the courses I took that help me on my journey of life.
The context that you create for your life, will shape your life. You have the power to create the context of the life you wish to live. ie The way you feel about yourself, the things you think about, the things you tell yourself about yourself.
In life there will be problems. You need to accept that there will be problems in order to be with them.
Focus on the amazing things you are to do with your life. Focus on the problems that are worthy of your life. The problem that will cause you to make a difference in the world. ie Focus on the fact that there people starving in the world rather than the jerk who beeped at you on the road, or that co-worker who said something nasty about you.
You are probably thinking you could read that in any self-growth book right? That may be true. However, what those books won’t have is you being a room with people share their experiences in life. Things that are on their mind, things that are keeping them from falling asleep at night, things that have shaped who they are. AND then seeing your landmark group help that person figure out what deep down inside is really causes he/she to feel that way. Once you get down to the bottom of it you’ll be able to release the emotion that making you feel the way you were.
One thing that I find odd is that the people I find that could most benefit from the Landmark experience are usually the ones who bash it or are against it the most.
Ok, I could type about this for a while longer, but I’m tired and need some rest. I’ll write an easier blog now.