Over the past couple days I’ve been working on a portfolio site for myself. I’ve spent hours coming up with the right colors, searching for the best/cheapest hosting company and keeping the site incredibly simple for ease of maintenance and avoidance of clutter.
The last thing I need right now is a couple paragraphs that explain to people what I’m all about and what I can do for them.
Michael Barrish said it best while trying to write his own copy:
I just want to say:
Hire me. I know what Iím doing. I am not a jerk. I will listen to you and probably talk you out of three bad ideas. I will make jokes. When the bill comes, you will feel like you got a great deal.
Hey, look at all the nice promotional copy I had to hold a gun to my own head to make myself write.
This is exactly where I’m at. Trying to explain to people that I’m a nice person and I really will give them great service. It’s just extremely hard - even harder than thinking up an actual company name that you can be happy with
(and find an open domain name for).
I’m really hoping to get my act together and write up a couple good paragraphs this weekend. I’m telling you though, someone needs to hold a gun to my head in order for me to get this done.
posted on January 29, 2004| 10:14 AM EST
Over the past couple days a new virus has sprouted up and is causing quite a bit of people some rather big headaches (i.e. IT groups). I’m telling you guys this because I don’t want you all to get this virus and even if you update your virus software every day, I would suggest doing an update right now.
What does it do?
The virus is called Mydoom (Technical name is W32.Novarg.A@mm) and is a mass-mailing worm that arrives as an attachment with the file extension .bat, .cmd, .exe, .pif, .scr, or .zip. When a computer is infected, the worm will set up a backdoor into your system by opening TCP ports 3127 thru 3198. This can potentially allow an attacker to connect to the computer and use it as a proxy to gain access to its network resources. In addition, the backdoor has the ability to download and execute arbitrary files.
The mass-mailing worm, called “Mydoom” or “Novarg,” arrives with various subject lines and comes with a “.zip” attachment file that, when opened, can pick off e-mail addresses on a computer’s hard drive and fire off infected e-mails to other computers.
A computer is only infected when the attached file is opened — and how many times have we been told not to open attachments we aren’t expecting?
Washington Post
The worm will perform a DoS starting on February 1, 2004. It also has a trigger date to stop spreading on February 12, 2004.
Who’s Affected
If you have Windows 2000, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP - you’re wide open to this attack.
Who’s NOT Affected
Macintosh, DOS, Linux, OS/2, UNIX, Windows 3.x
Help Me!
I would suggest doing some
reading about the virus and then manually download the required tools to either safe-guard your computer or
learn how to remove it if you already have it.
Oh - and if you get an email from me that doesn’t look like something I would send you, just delete it. Don’t click reply, don’t open it up, don’t do anything with it except get ride of it.
If you could however, let me know if you received something like this from me and when you got it. I don’t use Windows computers anymore so my personal computer is safe but email can easily be spoofed and made to look like I sent something to you.
posted on January 27, 2004| 11:55 AM EST
I’ve been working on a couple new projects these past few days and I’m happy to let you know they’ll be going live very soon. So stick close this site and tell your family and friends to stop by as well. The countdown in on.
In the mean time - Can someone explain PHP Sessions to me? They’re pretty much a cookie that only lasts as long as a person’s browsers is open, right?
posted on January 26, 2004| 5:54 PM EST
Growing up I always saw my dad having to shave and I could only imagine the joy he must have had every morning. The whole idea of having to shave amazed me and I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to hold a razor in my own hand.
Over the years I began to learn what shaving was like and getting to do it ever week was a highlight. I was now a man and I had to shave my manly beard to keep clean cut for work and church.
Then I moved out and I began to live on my own. I bought my own Gillette MACH 3 razor and my weekly shaves slowly began to move to daily shaves. After a couple years my amazement turned to duty and duty turned into annoyance. My one time view of shaving has now changed to morning drudgery.
These past couple days I’ve just decided to stop shaving and see what happens. Not only because it’s a pain in the butt, it’s also a small test to see if I can actually grow a beard. I’ve never really tried and those times I’ve not shaved for a couple days I’ve wondered why I have little patches of hair instead of that fuller look.
So I’m growing a beard and unless I have a job interview for another company (yea, I’m looking) I’m going to try to give it a go.
posted on January 20, 2004| 10:59 PM EST
Holland, Michigan is a great city to live in and offers something for almost everyone. For those that are into hiking we have various trails and for those that love the beachside we have some amazing fresh water beaches. Even if you’re a big city folk we have a great downtown and an ever growing chain of big companies going in on the northern side of the city. It’s also rather close to Grand Rapids, which is a good size city that can keep you busy with it’s night life.
It seems that there is something for almost everyone - that is, except the person that wants to have a place to connect his laptop to the Internet (via WIFI or Ethernet).
Holland has been incredibly slow is this area and whereas a couple coffee shops here and there are giving into this idea of free Internet, they (1) don’t know how to keep it up for very long and/or (2) they aren’t open when they say they are open.
As of this writting, 2 shops are currently known to have a good atmosphere and connection. JP’s Coffee and Panere Bread. I agree that there are other places but I (1) don’t know of them, or (2) get pissed when I drive all the way across town to have a nice afternoon of surfing and they aren’t open.
Right now I’m connected via ethernet cord at Hope College’s VanWylen Library. They supposedly have WIFI but I can’t seem to get with because of an annoying password window.
What Holland needs is a WIFI company to just come in here and make a bunch of HotSpots. Allow people to gather together and use technology. It doesn’t all have to be geeky stuff, it can rightfully be used for anyone in a business suit down to kids doing their homework.
To encourage this type of atmosphere many assume coffee shops are the best appointed places. I agree but it could also be a public library, area gym, restaurant/bar or even a local church. Just some place where people can be together and enjoy.
I’m currently trying to come up with ideas in which to move the Holland area closer to technology but haven’t been able to come up with very much. Anything I do get excited about requires me to get a business loan and develop it myself. However, that’s not completely out of question, I just wish the Holland people would understand its value and welcome it as quickly as they do their Tulip Time festivals.
posted on January 17, 2004| 4:10 PM EST
