I’ve been building a new network. With NO network switch. Most devices are wireless, communicating with a Cisco card in the ISG, or passing through a wireless access point, for 802.11 N devices. With a guest, internet only, wireless network, with open security, and ruling Captive Portal. The few wired devices are on dedicated NIC’s, with routes and rules established as needed. Here is a basic topology showing the very little physical architecture required for a complex and very secure network.
I’ve tried a few mechanisms for modern web development recently. Including my most previous post about my development of a Apple MobileMe service site developed in iWeb. While I like iWeb for some people, I still find it very immature. It does have one thing I really like, integration with services, nice integrated syndication on a more controlled development platform, and nice podcast integration. It features integration with MobileMe galleries, among the many integrated MobileMe and Apple echosphere features on that platform.
I have found it to still not suit my needs. I think my current platform here, WordPress, has a use for many platforms, and I deploy still and will likely continue to use it for many uses. It has just fell down as I wanted to expand it’s features. I am also increasingly concerned about it’s security. Not so much that I concern myself with being hacked, but that I don’t want to spend the time fixing things.
Most importantly, I’m looking to develop a new site that lets me do things I’ve always wanted to do. Integration with my currently being planned podcast. And I really want a single platform, that lets me have a few blog streams on it. So I can have a personal blog, that I share with my family and friends. A professional blog, with news and links to new things related to my IT career. And allow for a place to view a thread of all my blogs in one thread, including RSS from Twitter and other such services, while allowing people to only keep up with the parts of my life they may have interest in.
So, I’m developing a new site. It is currently unavailable publicly, but it will soon be available at www.andycrawford.me and later this URL, www.andycrawford.info will be pointed there as well. I had originally thought I would move my couple year history of posts from here to my new site, but I now think I’ll take this opportunity to start completely a new. Much of the content, as my Resume, photo galleries, and personal contact info will be implemented on the new site in much the same way. But the posts will likely not be brought over to the new site.
Expect great new things from me with this project. A much newer site design with user accounts, and a working comment system. A site I can and will update much more often. A place I display professional and personal information and keep that sensitive to the people that are interested in particular parts of my life.
This first serious blog of mine has been a moderate success, and has taught me much about what I want to do with it, but expect much more from my new site as it comes available.
I’m developing a site on my MobileMe account. I love my Mac, am a complete convert, a Mac Fanboy for sure. I love the MobileMe service, it’s wonderful and I highly recommend it to anyone with both a Mac and an iPhone. I use many of the features of MobileMe but hadn’t tried out the web hosting functionality. I wanted to try iWeb, the included on all Mac’s website development, editing, and posting tool, it’s really good for a personal site, simple, intuitive, and produces a very good looking site. Currently this is just a toy, but the more I play with it the more I like it, and the more inclined I am to replace this WordPress site with it. It’s not so much about iWeb or MobileMe per se, but about the echosphere, the entirety of a complete and integrated computing experience. So, my MobileMe site is at http://web.me.com/andycrawford, enjoy and let me know what you think. This site is still the address I’ll be giving out, and where all my personal information will stay and be updated until I’m satisfied with my MobileMe site. At such a time as I decide to eliminate this site in favor of my MobileMe site, I’ll just point http://www.andycrawford.info at it, so your bookmarks will all still work.
New Apple MacBook Pro waiting for me at the office. I love being a fanboy, and it’s so easy to justify with such impressive devices. But I’m very excited to get my new machine in my hands. MacBook Pro 15″, which is the perfect size, 2.66Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, 8Gb memory, with a 500Gb 7200rpm hard drive. Such a phenominal machine with every upgrade in it’s class, and very nearly the top of the line MacBook and nearly impossible to outclass from any manufacturer. All this provided by my company of employment. Thank you Voyage!
Yes, it has been a very long time since an update. And it may be time to just redo this site completely. Here’s an update until I decide what to do.
I have moved, to West Kentucky, to the town of Hartford, KY, and took a job with <a href=”http://www.voyagetech.com”>Voyage Technology, Inc.</a> I started as an in house technician, but quickly have moved into a nice position, in Corporate Support, as Senior Project Manager. I have seen a nice raise, and established a long term position here. Recently I have received insurance benefits, and been enrolled in an IRA. This is quickly shaping up to be a career instead of just the improvement of a job I initially suspected.
I had also been taking on more and more web development work, and have now incorporated that business into WestKYDesigns, LLC. And at our current rate of growth, we’ll be moving to a full incorporated business soon. We have 5 contract employees, and as we move into incorporated status as an SCorp, we will likely take on at least one developer as a standard employee.
I recently closed on a purchase of a home here. I bought a 3000 sq ft home originally built in 1890. A two story home with 5 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, a nice large dining room and kitchen, 5 fireplaces, 10 ft ceilings, it’s wonderful and has alot of potential. It has seen renovations through the years of course, and is in need of some work now. It was an exceptional deal, and with that comes the requirement of some effort.
I just wanted to make a quick update on my status, and update a few details on informational pages here. I will bring more updates here, and upload some photos of the new house and place of employment. Or will possibly do a new site to replace this one.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been passed into law. And www.Recovery.gov has gone active for all citizens to peruse the plan for and eventual use of the money provided for in that legislation. What an unprecidented level of transparency in government. How uncommon it is to see our government reporting it’s operating agenda and ongoing proceedures to us. Imagine, knowing where YOUR tax dollars are going. What a novel concept, to take someones money, and tell them what for. Of course you all know I’m zealous about this, that I’m excited about a government working for ME. I would think you would too. Look at www.Recovery.gov and keep up with your government. You now can…
“Someday we can tell our grandchildren about the Election of ’08 when we, the people, turned away from anger, hate and greed and once again embraced the better angels of our nature.” President Barack Obama
We have rebuild the D-vineLogic.org community site. Many lessons were learned on the previous deployment, and much has changed with our personal sites and projects, as well as available technologies. There are many enhancements to mine and friends sites, and many more in the works. Integration with several internet projects. Twitter and OpenID are integrating this site using internet stadards in status and identification. Massivly integrating RSS syndicated feeds with embedded RSS aggregation, as in the D-vineLogic.org Planet site. Much more is to come, to make D-vineLogic.org everything we always hoped we could do. And replace such propriatary sites, like MySpace and Facebook, with profile sites and a community overview. We already have internal email, private instant messaging, shared calenders and documents, all through Google Apps. Integrating all this in Drupal is currently top shelf priority, with improvements all the time.
Barack Obama on the Economic Stimulus and Recovery plan.
His team have created a site Recovery.gov that will go live soon as the recovery bill is signed into law. The link provided will work when that happens. This is exciting, to see government work, actually work for us, in plain sight.
This is a full view of my desktop enviroment. This is a Linux system of course, running the Elive distribution of Debian. The desktop application is the in development version of Enlightenment, what will be release 17. The numerous effects, including the Expo effect you see, are Compiz Fusion effects, that can now be employed using the Ecomorph appliction with Enlightenment. The bars seen on 3 sides of my display are normally not visably, they are all auto-hidden, however for the purposes of a screenshot, I brought them out to see. Many applications that make up my daily computing can be seen, Firefox browser, Thunderbird email client, Pidgin instant messenger, uTorrent downloading (on Windows virtual machine), Nautilus file manager (just until the Enlightenment embedded one is full featured), and a selection of terminals.
Of course you all know I’m zealous about this, that I’m excited about a government working for ME. I would think you would too. Look at 
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