LessThanHumble.com

I hope everyone had a wonderful Holiday season. Outside of catching the flu this past week (which is like a yearly tradition for me) things have been great, a little family time, lots of productivity - it always makes you feel good. I’ve been meaning to post more often, and as a matter of fact I have some great posts queued up that just need to be proofed more so hopefully I’ll get them out in the coming week.

I didn’t really get myself too much for Christmas besides a new laptop (and a free upgraded cellphone because my other one died - thanks Sprint), so instead I’m heading to CES next week with a good friend for a bit of relaxation and oo-ing and awe-ing at the technology. If you’re going to be there, hit me up, I’d be glad to take you to lunch or something.

I’m also launching a couple projects this week, SophVoice.com (including the customer portal), AZEntertained.com (after something like 2 years - gee whiz), and a project I’m working on with my good buddy Kenneth. As soon as those are up, I’ll post some info about them. Exciting times and I’m poised for a great 2008.

Anyways to reflect on last year a brief bit, and my plans moving forward. I’ve moved a ridiculous amount of times this past year (I think 4 or 5 total times) lots of explanations why, but basically I’m busy. On top of that, I absolutely hate moving, it’s a huge waste of time, it is exhausting, and it’s always more expensive then you think it’s going to be. I’m planning to move back to Tempe, AZ once my brother gets back in town around March (never move in the Phoenix area between April and September - it is wayyy too damn hot).

Though I’ve barely posted on here, I’ve spent tons of time on other web projects, built my own billing/support system for all of my projects (been needing to do this forever!), and launched a few new projects. Fiscally things are better than they’ve ever been, and I’m pretty stoked overall about the future.

Anyways, I wish everyone the best of success in 2008. Hope you get some stuff, make a little money, and have a blast doing it.

So I haven’t quiet slacked off, I have just been beyond busy - but that’s always a horrid excuse. I finally found a more attractive theme for the blog, ended up moving to a new town for what I was expecting would be the summer, but considering I just signed a lease on an apartment, it will be at least a year - then on to San Diego.

Business is great, in fact, better than it’s ever been, getting back in shape, eating better, sleeping more correctly, and feeling better about things in general. Still have those stupid glooming issues, but it’s time to let those rest and get some stuff down.

Business wise I ended up with yet another web hosting company in my hands (I’ll throw a URL out later next week), which I’m pretty excited about, worked out a great deal with a guy I have known for a while that was mutually beneficial. Although it’s not the largest purchase so far, in fact, it’s definitely the smallest, it is pretty old and has a loyal customer base. I’ve also moved off of Tucow’s Platypus billing system - such a horrid product from such a horrid company (don’t believe me, look at their stock, ) - I ended up replacing it with a custom built solution that was built over the summer and so far, with a few kinks here and there, I’ve been quiet happy with the results and cost savings.

In between the time that I last posted, I managed to wreck my motorcycle at about 80mph, which actually turned into a huge blessing, because I can barely walk, I’m bound to my desk all the time, and since I’m not a huge fan of television, all I can do is work, and boy has it helped - though I don’t plan on repeating any attempts to eat pavement, especially in the middle of nowhere at 3am.

Although I’ve been swamped, too swamped to car about a new car, I’m still on the prowl, definitely brand new, and price isn’t really much of an issue anymore, which is definitely a nice thought. I want something big, roomy, comfortable, and quiet. Something like the Lexus LS460, BMW 745, or a Infiniti M35. I need something with four doors and I want something that stands out, even if it’s an old mans car. So we’ll see what happens, hopefully before the end of September.

Anyways, I’m so striving to make an effort to start posting more regularly on here, maybe even several times a day as it is unbelievably relieving. Hope everyone has a great weekend, until next time - take care.

Ya - I’ve been lazy about posting here lately, but I just thought I would drop a quick update to show some activity.

Last week was Spring Break for my local area and I was initially planning on leaving on a short vacation out to the lake to enjoy the warm weather, but I skipped it in favor of getting some work done. With a recent death in the family this week, that all changed because I had to head down to Sierra Vista, AZ (aka Sorry Vista - a boring as hell town) and watch my parents house for 4-5 days, which is now a impromptu vacation. Time to get caught up on work without any distractions.
And of course, what is a vacation without getting any work done. In lue of all of that, we’re moving forward on our co-location up in Phoenix, moving equipment from Tucson, and hopefully acquiring some office space in downtown Phoenix (400-500 square feet) - we’ll see if that all happens in due timing.

Anyways, over the past two weeks I’ve just been doing quiet a bit of development, clean up, re-organizing my backup solution (for our data and customer data), fixing our graphing system. And of course, still pushing forward with my legal bullshit dealing with my former employer, as time goes on it gets more and more exciting.

For those of you in the Phoenix metro area, or for that matter, any person that has ever been to Scottsdale, might appreciate the following website:
ScottsdaleSucks.com

Pretty humorous, considering it appears to be fairly true and worth taking a look at if you have time. Basically the guy (a best selling author) lived in Scottsdale for quiet some time, and got sick of the unbelievable arrogance, fakeness, and poor driving that all plaques the town of Scottsdale. I’m not to big of a fan mainly because of their bullshit Freeway Traffic Cameras that they use to ticket people on the 101 freeway (which they don’t even maintain, the state does).
And of course, here’s a few great blog posts from blogs I frequent on a nearly daily basis:
blog.

DanGrossman.info - Whoa. Authorize.Net has a reoccuring billing API?

Dan Grossman is a pretty interesting guy and at first when reading his blog, thought he projected a huge sense of arrogance which I think is pretty damn annoying (like TylerCruz.com), but the guy is super-intelligent, appears to know what he’s talking about and of course, always has a sensible outlook on things. He’s got several decent websites and a pretty active blog.

None the less, when I get back to Phoenix this weekend I’ll be launching one of our new sites, enjoying the weather before it gets too damn hot (it’s around 85F now, but in less than a month it will be around 105F) and hopefully taking care of the car situation, although at this point that is at the bottom of my agenda.

Anyways, hope everyone has a outstanding weekend, take care and good luck.

” There are a lot of things that go into creating success. I don’t like to do just the things I like to do. I like to do things that cause the company to succeed. I don’t spend a lot of time doing my favorite activities.” - Michael Dell

You know what is funny, it happens all to often. In the technology world people have an ungodly amount of loyalty to specific brands, specific products, specific applications & operating systems. You’ve got the Linux loyalists, the Window loyalists, the Mac loyalists, the Intel loyalists, the Corel Draw loyalists (okay…maybe these don’t exist). I find it pretty annoying. I’m a huge fan of technology, but I am always willing to try something new, even several times, and more important than anything else, I am a preacher of it always being about the application.

A funny example of this is the ISP I used to work for. It’s a Windows only “shop” that thinks their success is based on this - even though that isn’t the case let alone if you could even consider them successful. They run a Windows-based mail server called ModusMail, which in my humble opinion, is the opitimy of a mail server. No real scalability, no real load balancing solution, and way too many features that the developers have buried themselves alive. Every release brings back past bugs, memory leaks, and so much more. What I find funny is that this ISP has such arrogance about it, they think their running the best mail platform in the world, and in fact I find their attitude really annoying. What is even funnier, is that fact that I’m running Exim & MailScanner, and although it isn’t the best thing out there, I have no problems with nealry 1,200 active domains and over 8,000 mailboxes. It is roughly the same size as this ISP, yet the hardware I have under it is probably a 1/10th of what they have and yet I have absolutely no problems (I will however take this chance to knock on wood…knock knock).

My biggest frustration is that I really hate seeing people make stupid decisions, no matter how much I might like or dislike a person. People literally bring their businesses down because of ill-founded loyalties and alliances like these, this seems to be even truer in the technology world.

Anyways, I spent another day working with a partner on AZEntertained.com. It is coming along nicely and I’m really excited about the launch, which will hopefully be soon. We have had one guy literally spending the last three months combing directories to generate a accurate list of restaurants, hotels, nightclubs, and the like. It’s probably one of the top “hit-it-big” projects that I have going, so I definitely have my fingers crossed.

Bryan-Baker.com had a great blog post on Confrontations. I literally love confrontations, I am not the type to ignore a person because I like either diffusing a situation or coming up with some sort of resolution to it, it is a huge adrenaline rush and a constant challenge that never get’s old. But none the less, check out his article and his blog if you’ve got a moment.

For those of you who have previously seen my blog, you may have noticed it went through a bit of a face lift. I felt like it needed a different feel and I was definitely ready for something different. What are your guys thoughts?

In other news, I discovered MyBlogLog.com, which I might add is totally badass. You’d have to check it out to understand if you haven’t already, but from my assumptions, it is basically a blogging commuting that automatically tracks viewers (take a look at the box to the right), stats, and quiet a bit more.

For those of you that know me, you know how I used to profess to WellsFargo, I’ve now changed that mind and absolutely hate them. I don’t care to go into the story, but let’s just say I’m not longer a customer, pulled all 5 accounts and 5 digit balances away from their crap-ass bank - and of course I suggest avoiding them now. I’ve moved back to Chase, more than likely permanently. We’ve been a customer for a long time (since back when they were Bank One) and haven’t had too much to complain about, especially since we do merchant services indirectly through them.

I am also still moving forward with moving my equipment into a new datacenter, which I’m totally psyched about. We’re also looking at getting a DS3 ATM from Qwest so we can offer DSL Services in the greater Phoenix area, because we’ve got a great angle on it.

Because of the first of the month, I have been busy as hell with the financial end of things and never got a chance to do some more test driving, but I’m looking at either a Acura TL, Infiniti G35 Coupe, Lexus IS250, or something along those lines. For some reason, I’ve been ungodly indecisive about it just because it’s not a huge priority, but something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time (literally I’ve been driving the same car since the first day of driving).

But anyways, sorry for the short post, I’ll drop in again through the weekend.