The World Hasn’t ended… Yet

31 Dec
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It has been a long while since I’ve written here,  I’m sorry!

Keyboard Work

Most of my time was spent at work, and after working on websites all day it is a bit annoying and hard to get on a computer again.  Mostly my eyes don’t like to keep up with it.  Sure there was the distraction of friends and family a bit in there too, but I do take full responsibility of the lack of writing.

I’m still working in the same place as my last post (Yes April… oops).  I really do enjoy what I am able to do, and the people who I work with.  There is a lot of talent that will help the company grow as we go forward.

So the game plan going forward is to get my self writing here more often.  I can’t promise that it will be a long post, but something much more often that what I am doing now.

A bit of a background.  I’ve finally pushed my old domain’s to this one,  so Freekie.net, old.freekie.net and old.coreyrants all point here.  I’ve taken the content from old.coreyrants.com(Which I had no idea I even left them behind, not sure why I did this…) and have imported it into WordPress.  So yay for some new old content that I wrote mostly during Winter of 2010.   Content is better than emptiness right?

I am pondering the idea of setting up my other website,  CoreyMaertz.com as more of a professional site,  maybe writings that relate more to work, or have more professional touches.  Who knows.  A not so fancy coming soon page maybe there as I work on trying to get something rocking there.

That will do it for now.

Happy New Years!

 

Auld Lang Syne,

-C

 

Starting over.

01 Apr
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So,

This is me starting from scratch, as I clearly lost interest in my old blog(s) and they fell along the way of the phonograph(Small round things that when you used a needle on them, they played music or something? :p )

What is new?

Well.  For starters, a new theme that I’ve been tweaking.  Going to be a work in progress, but you know that’s what life is all about.  I originally started this post a few days ago while I was on vacation, but decided that spending more time with the person I was with was much more important.

Note to self, road trips are fun. :)

Anyways, back on topic.  A little short of a year ago, I graduated from the University of Wisconsin — Stevens Point, with a degree in Web and Digital Media development.  Since i graduated, I’ve been working at the rubber-band-ball place, as a technology supervisor.  While this was great experience for the resume, it was exhausting, and just not something that left me happy at the end of the day.  I had a short stint going tech support for a phone company in there, but that was even worse.  Nothing like having customers calling just to yell at you.

Around February, my brother told me about a web design place that his friend worked at, and that they were looking for a developer.  I applied, and got a very quick interview.  As part of the interview process, they asked me to design a mock-up for them.  Working where I did, I couldn’t finish it in the time allowed.   It was a major bummer, and I felt pretty crummy that my chance slipped thru my fingers.

In early March, I was blessed to spend a week off of work,(getting paid even) with one of my best friends, and now girl friend.  Was very relaxing not having to think about work or anything but having fun.  Around the end of the vacation, I got a call from my brother, saying that he had heard they were still looking for someone.  I quickly gave their HR person an e-mail, and she sent me a test to do.  A few days later, with the test in, I got called in for an interview, and two weeks later I started my job.  That day is today.

My Desk at work with dual monitors and a window!I have a nice desk, even with a dark picture from my phone, two monitors and even get a window to look out of.  I’m not sure how the window will help  or hurt with productivity, but it wasn’t bad the first day.

I’m hoping now that I have more time, that I can actually use this to share more of my rants and raves about life, and some cool stuff about web design and computers.

 

Thanks for reading…

 

– C

 

 

Hey, I’m alive and stuff like that. :)

10 Mar
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Wow,

It’s hard to believe it’s been almost a month since I have last updated this blog.  Not really sure, its crossed my mind a few times, and I’ve even logged into wordpress and done some plug-in updates.  Oh well I guess. Its life in some way shape or form

What’s new you might ask?

Not that much really.  I’ve been spending my time slowly but diligently working on my class projects, mostly for WDMD 480.

We are starting to get a handle on what all needs to be done. One client’s site is almost ready to go, waiting on a module that we are building to make the site look cleaner, and then fix the content up a bit and it should be ready to go.

The other site is a little bit of a nightmare.  We are converting a Joomla! 1.0.x site to a 1.5.x site.  It’s not a very easy change, and on top of that we are redesigning the site.  I’m still trying to decide the best upgrade path from taking their data, and or just starting from scratch.

Ironically that is where I am now, Sitting in the computer lab working on some prototype designs and what ever else is on my to-do list that never ends.

I guess I should be off to work on that some more.

If you want more of a snapshot of what is going on with me, and my never-ending rants, be sure to check me out on twitter.com/freekie

Cheers for now,

Corey

P.S.

Things should start picking up soon on here for postings I hope :)

Relaxation

11 Feb
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Tonight I did something I haven’t done in a long time.  The netbook, Macbook, and even the cell phone were turned off.  This is pretty rare for me, and it was amazing to curl up and watch a movie in the dark, with it being quiet, and no worries in the world to deal with.  Sadly it was short-lived, and the real world stresses and requirements come flying back very quickly.

I think I am going to start taking at least a few hours a week to unplug from the matrix.  I am so easily reached and check so many sites and subscriptions all the time,  some time for my self can’t be a bad thing can it?  School has challenges this term and they make the aspect of getting my degree and a job in the industry even more amazing sounding.

It does help knowing that I am not alone in the world going though this mixture.  The past few days I’ve been chatting with some classmates and it’s just a fun experience to look back and look forward and wonder where we will be in a few years.  Who will be apart of the next googles, or Godaddys?  Only time will tell.

Joomla!1.6 Alpha2

10 Feb
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I spent a few seconds tonight(Ok maybe half an hour) playing with the early Alpha version,

My first impressions are that it’s still an alpha, and thus not a polished product, but it does show some great potential.  The access lists need a bit of work globally.  Drupal has a great example of how to do this correctly.

I’ll try to write a more thoughtful posting and review of it in the near future.

Corey's Rants

A Web Developer's rants, raves and randomness.