Confessions of an Undercover Geek

Six months ago, I had lunch with one of my pastors. We were talking about the Web and blogging.

After that day, I really started thinking about how beneficial blogging would be for a pastor. These days, they have so many roles to play. You wonder how they have time to teach and write sermons.

Despite all this, they play a key role in a person’s decision whether or not to stay at the church. They need to be able to form that trust and have a relationship with lots and lots of people.

I really think that the conversational aspect of blogging lends itself to this type of communication.

So, I wrote an article for the Godbit Project about it, “Your Pastor Needs A Blog.”

Let me know what you think, either here or on the article comment section.

I playing with ideas for my next article, either CAPTCHA or Microformats.

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I really like all of these job boards that are popping up. The 37 Signals Job Board helped me find my new job.

It seems like there is a new job board starting up every couple of weeks. Cameron Moll just started a new job board, Authentic Jobs.

This joins the list of the 37 Signals Job Board, GigaOm Jobs, The Vitamin Job Board, and Michael Arrington’s Crunch Board. If I missed one, drop it in a comment.

I think we need further development of a microformat for job listings. It’d be great to have a central place to search microformatted job listing data, like the Technorati Microformats search. This would allow me to have one place to look for jobs instead of like five.

Using Technorati Find Related Blog Posts on: jobs, listing, microformats, 37 signals, Cameron Moll, Michael Arrington, GigaOm

Mark Zuckerberg, the 22-year old (my age) founder of Facebook is living the dream. There are rumors floating around that Yahoo! is offering $1,000,000,000 (one billion dollars) to acquire Facebook. This is CRAZY. He is only 22 years old. I am only 22 years old.

Kudos to Mark for being able to put together such a successful product at such an early age.

As a young web developer, with many ideas for new web services, I totally look up to Mark Zuckerberg. Kind of wish it was me…building the great product that Yahoo wants to buy…building a product that has been used by sooooo many people.

I guess it just drives me to keep on building…keep on writing…keep on working. I will put my “ding in the universe.”

Using Technorati Find Related Blog Posts on: Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, social web, Yahoo

@Media, one of the premier web developer conferences, is expanding to San Francisco, Hong Kong, and London for 2007. This is awesome!!!

The San Francisco conference is May 24 - 25th, 2007. The current speakers list is “Andy Clarke, Dan Cederholm, Joe Clark, Cameron Moll, and Jeremy Keith.”

I really want to go to this conference. It will be a great conference and San Francisco is a GREAT city to visit. Who wants to come with me?

I have been really enjoying the podcasts of the speakers at @Media for the last two years: 2005 and 2006.

(Thanks Ian)

Using Technorati Find Related Blog Posts on: conference, www, web, standards, atmedia, @media, San Francisco

I am proud to announce that, after a few weeks of job searching, I have accepted as position a Web Developer Lead for CACI International, a government contractor in Washington D.C.

I am excited about starting this new chapter in my life. Over the next week, I am going to be flying to Washington D.C. to go apartment shopping and figuring out more of the details. I start the new job very soon.

Anybody know of a web developer community in DC? Any cool pubs that the web geeks hang out at? If not, maybe we need start one. Anybody want to do another BarCampWashingtonDC?

I am working on a series of blog posts to give advice about the job search…drawing from some of my recent experiences. Hopefully people will find it helpful.

Using Technorati Find Related Blog Posts on: life, job, Washington D.C., WashDC, web developer, government, career, barcamp

I made dinner tonight for my parents. I originally started with a Martha Stewart recipe for Shrimp and Corn Tacos.

I didn’t have everything in the recipe. I had shrimp and corn. I threw it into a pan with salsa, cucumber, fresh parsley, and a little salt and pepper. I put the mixture with some refried beans on a taco shell that i heated up. It was pretty tasty.

I also cut up some cucumber. I took a melon baller and scooped out the inside of these cucumber chunks. I put salsa inside. I then topped with some mozzarella cheese and corn. I drizzled some taco sauce around the outside as garnish.

This is the finished meal.

I dunno. I really enjoy cooking. :-p

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Unlike Cameron Moll, I am not ready for the switch from designing web sites for the 800×600 pixel resolution to designing for 1024×768 resolution monitors.

I use a 12 inch Apple Powerbook. The maximum resolution on my monitor is 1024×768. I don’t surf the web with the window taking up the full width of the screen. When someone designs a web site for 1024×768, I have to scroll horizontally. That is sooooooo annoying.

I am pretty technically advanced and I can’t imagine that everyone besides me are moving on to getting bigger resolution’d monitors.

We should be using fluid and elastic layouts.

Using Technorati Find Related Blog Posts on: layout, web, design, cameron moll

I have been thinking about Digg.com lately and it seems like everyone seems to be putting in their 2 cents on how to make Digg.com improve. I think Digg.com would be better if there were 25 home page stories a day and not 100+.

What do you think would make Digg.com better?

Using Technorati Find Related Blog Posts on: digg, kevin rose, web, social

For the last while, I have been subscribed to the Digg.com home page RSS feed. It seems like there are a couple hundred new items on the home page everyday. Most stories on the home page are sensatonalisim, random, pointless, or uber-geeky.

Here is a sample from the home page right now:

• sexy, geeky, woman likes to draw the digg guy on her belly.
• Lease a Bugatti Veyron for $24K a month
• Tom Cruise Sent Scientology Goons to Intimidate Paramount Execs

I read a lot of blogs. I have found that I have been missing some blogs that I really depend on because I have been having to wade through everything that Digg.com puts everyday.

Kevin Rose, I think you are a really smart guy but I don’t think Digg at least for the time being is ever going to become a voice of the masses. It is more a voice of the geeky-elite. I just don’t care what the geeky-elite care about.

Diggnation seems to have turned into rawkus fraternity party. Don’t get me wrong, I having nothing against alcohol. I am a beer and wine connoisseur. The show’s tech content is pretty cool but you have to get through them talking about sex all the time and women like they are objects. They take debauchery to a new level. I don’t think Kevin and Alex realize how much young aspiring geeks look up to them.

Then you throw on to the controversy that everyone thinks that Digg is rigged. Digg.com is just not worth it any more.

*Unsubscribes from the RSS Feed*

Other people’s thoughts:

• Naked Conversations - Why I don’t dig Digg
• Sean Kelly - Experiment: 60 Days of Digg
• Michelle Malkin - Digg: Say hello to “fair and balanced”

Using Technorati Find Related Blog Posts on: Digg, Kevin Rose, Alex Albrect, Social Web, News, Alcohol, Debauchery, RSS, Web 2.0

It was really fun to go to Washington D.C. It was a real quick trip. I flew in that morning and flew out that evening.

I really need to sign up for frequent flyer miles. What have people’s experiences been with them? They pretty worth while?

You could see some of the differences in security in Washington D.C. I hadn’t been out there since way before September 11th, 2001. There was way more security everywhere and barriers everywhere. I saw how they were constructing the visitor center at the US Capitol Building. Regardless, everything seemed to be buzzing as usual.

I thought it was cool that, because my flight left and came back in the same day, they let me check in for my return flight when i was checking in for the flight out there.

Overall great trip. I got to meet some really great people.

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