So, what am I doing when I’m not giving the HTML WG a bad time?
I’ve been putting together a Hire-me page, as well as a page for my books. Both are linked in a new sidebar item, along with links to my Amazon Wishlist, and to donate to help defray the costs of my sites via Paypal. I’m also actively looking for ads, but I won’t use the ad services, primarily because I’ve not seen one yet that doesn’t adversely impact on the speed with which pages are loaded.
I don’t expect much activity from some of the links. The Amazon wishlist is mainly for fun; to give you a peek into the inner workings of my capitalist self. However, if anyone would like to get me that new Macbook Pro I have listed, I wouldn’t say no. The same with the Paypal link, which I’ll probably end up removing. I always do.
I’m hoping for static ads, such as those at This Tasmania. For this to succeed, though, I really have to be more active with my other topic-focused sites. Spending my time giving the HTML WG a bad time doesn’t pay the rent.
The books page is long overdue, and I felt the release of the new second edition of Learning JavaScript is a good time to kick it off. I obsessed about the accuracy of the writing and tech in this edition of the book. Luckily my editors supported me in this obsession, so the problems with accuracy and typos that plagued the first edition should be mostly eliminated in the second. I say mostly, because there is no such thing as a completely typo free technical book. Even the best have typos. It’s the nature of the tech book game.
Unfortunately, even with the support I’ve received from some longtime readers, my books aren’t selling as well as I would like. Or need. I’ve had good reviews for Adding Ajax, but sales have been sluggish. I’ve also had good reviews for Painting the Web, but I think the book is having a hard time finding its audience. And I need to spend more time writing on graphics. I get sidetracked so easily. Isn’t that the way it goes?
With all of this, my coffers are shrinking at a rather alarming rate. So, I’m actively looking for other work, including tech reviewing, writing shorter works, such as articles and tutorials, as well as development effort. Currently my hire-me page lists general skills, but I think I’m going to re-purpose it to supporting WordPress (notice the correct use of capitalization?), and Drupal, only. To that end, I’ve installed a new WordPress weblog, which isn’t ready, yet, to go live. I think focusing on just one or the other is unnecessarily limiting, but also believe trying to support additional applications means I wouldn’t be as proficient with both as I would like.
Drupal is a natural, because it is a complex content management system, and still the primary application I use with my sites. However, WordPress now supports Atom 1.0 out of the box, and I think has an improved administration interface. Besides, many of my friends are WordPress users, and I like being able to help them when I can. And, both scratch a different tweaking itch.
(By “both scratch a different itch”, I mean Drupal and WordPress. I have more than 2 online friends. And we live too far apart to scratch each other’s itchy parts.)
Other than all of this activity, nothing much going on. it’s miserably cold this week. Brrr.