30-day Geek Challenge | Day 1 - Very First Geek

This post is part of my ‘30-day Geek Challenge‘.  As I stated, the order isn’t important, and I might not do one every day.  Feel free to make your own list, or copy mine and participate.  Should be a lot of fun!

This one is pretty easy for me. My first geek experience was with my neighbor, who just so happened to work for a very large computer company. I apologize, I can't remember his name, but I have never forgotten how he changed my life.

I would say it was 1978 or 1979 (somewhere around there), he introduced me to... wait for it... the TRS-80! I was hooked. I wasn't really in a position to afford one of my own, so I spent as much time as I could hanging out with him and learning what I could.

I remember getting RadioShack catalogs and drooling all over the pages displaying the latest PC's. I would go into the stores, and stand there for what seemed like ever, just playing. I wanted one of my own in a big a way. I don't know what it was, but my brain just clicked. It was my calling.

My Father took my first geek experience to the next level, by coming home one day with a Commodore VIC 20. Far cry from a TRS-80, but it was mine. And I devoured it. Soon I moved to the Commodore 64. A little more power, a lot more fun. And I was on my way. More than 30 years has passed, and I'm still pounding the keyboards.

That was my first geek experience. What was yours?

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30-day Geek Challenge

No, this isn't an April Fools joke, I really am posting. This is going to be fun, a challenge right up my alley. Thanks to my fellow geek Herlo, he's doing a 30-day challenge too.

This challenge may be difficult to do everyday, but I'm going to try. It's April 1st, so I figure one a day would give me 30 new posts. That's a great number. I will probably do them out of order because some of these will need more thought than others.

If you want to take the challenge, please leave a link to your post so I can see who's doing it too. The list below is one I took from Herlo, and it's modified for my taste/needs. You are welcome to do the same.

Day 1 – Very first Geek
Day 2 – Favorite Geek
Day 3 – Your Geek Inspiration
Day 4 – Favorite book / book series
Day 5 – Geek you feel you are most like (or wish you were)
Day 6 – Favorite Web Show / Web Comic
Day 7 – Favorite Board Game
Day 8 – Favorite Shirt/Hat/Shoes (Something you wear)
Day 9 – Saddest geek scene
Day 10 – Favorite TV Show series
Day 11 – Favorite Movie
Day 12 – Best alien /alien race ever
Day 13 – Geekiest quote/phrase
Day 14 – Current (or most recent) geek wallpaper
Day 15 – Favorite OS / Config
Day 16 – Favorite Developer
Day 17 – Favorite Hardware Vendor
Day 18 – Most Undesirable Tech Company
Day 19 – Favorite Gadget
Day 20 – Best! Videogame! Ever!
Day 21 – Favorite Vehicle
Day 22 – Favorite Tech Company
Day 23 – Favorite Language (coding language that is)
Day 24 – Geek Hero
Day 25 – Best Website
Day 26 – Your favorite number
Day 27 – Favorite tv opening theme song
Day 28 – Favorite Comic Book
Day 29 – Favorite Robot
Day 30 – Biggest Geek Wish

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Amazon CloudPlayer Fail On iOS

No luck using Amazons new web based CloudPlayer on iOS. Wants me to use Internet Explorer. Really? Did Microsoft pay for that?

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Exclude Images From WordPress Gallery Display

I wrote this post yesterday which had several images as part of the content. One image was used in a different section of the post, but I wanted to group specific images together to highlight a point I was making.

WordPress adds all images uploaded during post creation to a Gallery. Once all the images have been uploaded, you can select the Gallery tab, and insert the gallery right into the post. However, I wanted to exclude one of the images. But there wasn't anything in the image manager that allowed me to exclude an image. (WordPress guys, please add this feature.)

No worries though, the WordPress Gallery is really short code, and the short code allows for parameters. In this case, I was able to add the exclude parameter with the ID of the image I didn't want in the Gallery, and whala, I was able to display what I wanted. You can get the ID of the image in the Library and hover over the image, you should see a value for attachment_id, make note of it. The short code lookes like this:

[ gallery exclude="123" ]

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Simply Design Your Web Site

I visited the io9.com web site today, after getting there from an external link. I've visited this site before, and mostly read stories they publish via RSS. But today, when I landed on the home page, I was frozen. I had no idea what to do.

Over the past several weeks I've been working on a project where the initial landing page needs to give the visitor enough information about the sites offering, and make it painlessly obvious what options are available. I consider myself an expert web browser, but I must admit when I landed on io9.com today, I had no idea what they wanted me to do.

Experimenting, redefining, shifting, and tossing, has shown us so much can be accomplished through simplicity. Using a sifting method, we have been able to remove the pieces of a web site that shift the focus from the message. Are the elements on your site changing the focus of your message. If they are, remove them, or add elements that speak to the message.

For example, looking at my site, I can see there are several elements that probably distract visitors from my message. Those are things in the side bar. Here are some things that could probably be removed. I wonder if I can find something that would let me track the effectiveness of these sidebar elements.

[gallery link="file" columns="2" orderby="ID" exclude="1556"]

Remember to "simply" design your website.

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