Tonight I decided to switchover to the new photo gallery I started building last month. I still have a ton of golf photos to load (among others) and I haven’t re-written the random photo code in the footer yet, but it’s time.
The old Gallery2-based section is still live for now, but it’s not linked from any of the toolbars. Once I have most of the photos moved over, I’ll take down the Gallery2 code too.
My two month Facebook sabbatical ends tonight. It was a nice, productive break, but the influence of Facebook has expanded so much that you really do miss out on a lot of things now if you don’t have an account. I also needed to get back to being an admin on a few pages, watching out for kid one’s safety and catching up with friends who I only see online via Facebook.
I’m very proud of the changes I’ve made on this site and will continue to post (almost) daily here. My Twitter account is also still very active and automatically feeds the 7 Minute Miles home page.
I reinstalled the iPhone Facebook app, but I’m not sure yet how much I’ll post going forward. I don’t see what all the fuss was about regarding the layout changes, but I think the big stuff talked about at F8 is still yet to come, no?
As posted earlier this week, I finally implemented a few design changes on 7 Minute Miles. I discovered that the updated news feed still has some issues that I need to test out further (thanks Joss Crowcroft), but overall I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.
With the additional of post formats, I should be able to post something almost every day – favorite quotes, links to other sites I like and single images are quick and easy. I also want to write regular posts more often and will focus on my usual food, golf, running and travel stories, along with some personal posts about whatever grabs my fancy on that particular day.
I haven’t decided yet just how personal I want to get here – there is definitely a school of thought that says you need to cultivate your “online brand” and be aware of what a potential future employer might read. Others get all uptight if you swear, become too political or say something that’s out of the ordinary. And it’s much easier to write crazy stuff if you are anonymous (or an idiot).
Online publishing platforms like WordPress create an incredible opportunity for self-expression and wide dissemination of thoughts and ideas. Everyone likes to hold up freedom of speech as an ideal, but the reality is that words have consequences and must be wielded carefully. I hate self-censorship, but I’ve also been burned enough times by things I write to know I need to think twice (or more) before hitting the publish button.
I am who I am, though, and don’t plan to be anonymous or (hopefully) boring. So sit back, relax and enjoy the show…
I’ve spent a fair amount of time this week finally studying up on the latest and greatest features of WordPress, CSS and JavaScript. This was mainly in anticipation of the work I need to finish this month on the new Fortune Bay website, but I also wanted to change up the look and functionality of this site.
The biggest items involved adding post formats to my custom theme (which now supports standard, link, quote and image posts) and integrating a three-column formatting structure based on the jQuery plugin Masonry. I also modified the RSS feed to deal with post formats, tweaked the Twitter section and cleaned up the style sheet.
I’ve also been thinking a lot about how I spend my time online and how I present myself in various venues (I’m currently on a Facebook hiatus, quit Google+ before I really started and came very close to shutting down my LinkedIn profile). The simplicity of Tumblr drove the implementation of post formats and I like the idea of having full control over my content. Also have high hopes for the next version of the WordPress iOS app.
All of these things will hopefully mean I get back to posting more often, but no promises…
The oldest post on 7 Minute Miles was written five years ago tomorrow. I’ll skip the usual “time flies” references and all that – just glad to still be around to publish anything…
A lot has changed in my life during this timeframe, but the look of this site has not. I was kicking around the idea that I should write a new theme and incorporate all of the new features that WordPress has added over the years, but I’m both lazy and a slow learner. In the end, I decided to mostly keep things the way they’ve been, but did tidy up the joint a little:
I’ve been thinking a lot about how personal web sites fit in with the current social media landscape and decided I’ll keep this site as my online home base and have Twitter continue to feed the home page with short updates. When I do write the occasional longer post here, Twitter and Facebook will announce those posts automatically. And I still like the concept of owning the box (and the contents) and not worrying about the (sometimes) arbitrary policy changes of other companies. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn all serve various purposes for me, though, so they will continue to stay in the picture (despite my occasional idiot freakouts).
A few stats as of today: 919 posts, 95 pages, 182 approved comments (78,255 blocked spam comments), 39,194 unique visitors in 2010 (who viewed 400,295 pages).
I know, I know, it’s been more than a month since I wrote a post here, but I’m not dead (yet). I promise I’ll get back to a more regular publishing schedule soon.
In the meantime, here’s a nice relaxing photo from God’s Country to liven up the 7 Minute Miles home page.
Yesterday was the fourth anniversary of the first post on 7minutemiles.com. An update on stats:
These numbers reflect the integration of the old golfing, hockey, run and skiing in Minnesota sites.
I’ve been thinking about new designs and features lately – stay tuned!
As some of you may have noticed, there have been a few changes here at 7minutemiles.com:
Speaking of the LLC, I decided at the end of the summer it was time to start a new company. With the help of Doug Podolak and attorney Kevin Johnson, I founded 7 Minute Miles, LLC, on August 28, 2009.
The legal framework is now in place and I opened new business checking and savings accounts with U.S. Bank earlier this week. A former co-worker from Northwest Airlines, Mumtaz Walli-Ware, will be providing small business accounting and tax services and I will be purchasing business insurance from Tapemark Charity Pro-Am presenting sponsor, Anderson Agency.
The new company is a technology consultancy that specializes in WordPress web publishing and Apple system administration and management. Our first two new clients are the Tapemark Charity Pro-Am and the Macalester College Relations department. With are in negotiations with several other organizations and hope to have more news to announce soon.
Please take a look at the services we offer and contact us for a free initial consultation today!
Today is the third anniversary of the first post on 7 Minute Miles. Wow, how time flies…
The Dashboard reports:
We hit a new high for number of pages displayed last month (21,955) and visits this month (5,371). On an average day this month, almost 180 people dropped in to read my ramblings. Crazy.
Note: Due to server maintenance, this site will be off-line from approximately midnight tomorrow until around 8AM Wednesday morning.
Today I decided to upload all of the old photos I scanned a few months ago to the photo gallery here on 7 Minute Miles. Most of them had already been uploaded to Facebook, but I only allow people on my Facebook friend list to view photos on that site. These are available for all to view and have the added benefit of a link below each photo to download the original, full-sized file.
Lots of great memories in there…
I’ve finished some site maintenance the past few days:
Seems like the new version of WordPress is allowing much more comment spam than before (despite using Akismet)…
I’ve been a member of the Amazon Associates program for a long time. I publish special links to items in their online store and when people follow those links and buy something, I get a small commission from the sale. This has never been a big revenue source on any of my sites, but it was easy to set up, so why not.
A few weeks ago, I found out that Amazon started offering a new feature called aStores. Associate members can basically build their own custom store: custom look and feel, hand-picked items and a localized shopping cart.
I’ve built a new aStore I’m calling the DK Depot. It’s linked from the banners on this site and all of my MN sports sites (golfing.mn, hockey.mn, run.mn and skiing.mn). There are sections for each of those sports, along with areas of interest such as iPods, laptops, music, movies and cameras. All of the items listed are things I either own, have used or would like to buy.
Visit the DK Depot today for all of your last minute holiday shopping. Cheers!
Last Sunday was the second anniversary of the first post on 7 Minute Miles. My how time flies.
A few stats:
Thanks for visiting!
UPDATE: Here’s a graph of page views and unique visitors since the beginning:
This week I am on the road for spring break and will have limited posts, as the only Internet access I have is on my phone (I sound like Russo).
One quick note, though. I was riding the train west just south of Edmonton yesterday night and I could just feel the bad vibes coming from Canada when I read Butch and Demitra were out.
The final score didn’t surprise me, but it’s still disappointing…
Spent some time this weekend working on the first day cover archive project. I realized it’s been almost 30 years of collecting for me now, so I’d really like to get all of them photographed and added to the database.
This weekend I finished 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984 and 1985.
Still a long ways to go, but it’s a start.
The past few weeks I’ve been inspired by the TV show (and the ad campaign) that talk about things to do before you die. I’ve been very privileged to do the things I’ve done up to this point and would die a happy man right now, but it’s been fun thinking up new things to do.
I’ve added a new box to the top of the home page that displays a random list item each time the page is loaded. Also, the sidebar now lists my personal best times at various running distances. I plan to work on lowering these in the next few years as I pursue the list item “Qualify for Boston.”
Maybe I’ll make that namesake goal of seven minutes miles after all…
This weekend I finally got back to working on my first day cover project. I uploaded about 100 new covers and decided to re-work the structure of the collection online. Instead of a huge text listing on one page, I’ve divided it into yearly pages with thumbnail pictures that can be clicked to view a close-up of the stamp.
There are still literally hundreds left to enter, but I like the framework much better now.
Check out the new pages here:
The photo section of 7 Minute Miles embeds an open source photo management application called Gallery 2. It’s worked well for me, but it’s pretty complex and somewhat hard to customize. There are a lot of hidden features and some that don’t work so well. It also supports custom themes, which I’ve done on this site.
This weekend, my sister and my wife both asked if there is a way to view a slideshow. I had experimented with that in the past and didn’t really like it. I just turned the latest slideshow version on and it’s not bad. The full-screen option is clunky, but the regular option is OK. Here are the steps to use it:
I also enabled simple RSS feeds for albums, so if you use a newsreader, you can subscribe to an album to find out when new photos are added. My favorite reader for Mac OS X is still NetNewsWire Lite, now offered by NewsGator.
Two final photo tips: when navigating single photos, you can click on the right side of the photo to go to the next one and the left side for the previous one. Lastly, if you are on page 2 of a multi-page album, you can change the page number in the URL and hit return to jump right to that new page.
It’s been a long time coming, but I finally found the time to research my validation errors and have resolved them all. So now I’m proud to add the W3C logo to the sidebar:
It’s a nerd thing, but web standards are a good thing. Happy to finally join the club…
My wife says this website was turning into a golf blog and looking at the post count, she was right. So I have decided to limit golf posts on 7 Minute Miles and started posting on a new golf-only site:
Not all of the sub-sections are ready, but the posting mechanism is in place and I have moved all of the old golf category posts from 7 Minute Miles to the new site (they remain in the archives here as well).
We own several Minnesota sports-related domains and are working on potential business models for a new Minnesota sports blog network. Golfing in Minnesota is our first foot in the water to explore what’s possible and we welcome feedback and suggestions…DK
I’ve added two quick links in the sidebar under the Random Photo section. One goes directly to my golf scores database and the other links to the new first day cover database I’m building. I have a huge backlog of first day covers to photograph and catalog, so that project will take a while. There is also a new fetish page for those, in case you are wondering what the heck first day covers are…DK
Today 7 Minute Miles was named the “Minnesota Blog of the Day” by City Pages newspaper. I don’t publish this site with an intent to have a large audience, but it’s always nice to get recognized. For the record, my goal is not to run the Boston Marathon–that’s more of a wish. My times are so slow that I’d have to be about 70 years old to qualify, but I’ll keep trying to get better.
Last week, City Pages published their annual “Best of the Twin Cities” issue. The controversy over “Best Cheap Thrill” was dumb, but I always enjoy that issue because it gives me ideas of new places to eat. Like most people who grew up in Saint Paul, I don’t know much about what’s good on the other side of the river. City Pages seems to favor Minneapolis establishments, so this works out well for me (but why no “Best Wild Player” category?).
Locally-owned restaurants are sometimes more expensive, but they are also more unique and often have better quality food and service. This week I tried two of the winners at lunchtime: Matt’s Bar for best burger and Cafe Barbette for best fries. I had been to the latter once before for dinner and the sirloin burger special with fries didn’t disappoint. I had a Jucy Lucy at Matt’s and got burned by the cheese (despite the warning from our server). It was very good, though, and you can’t beat the atmosphere…DK
Based on feedback, I’ve made some changes to the site since the launch. There are several new sections in the fetishes area:
I’ve also added some iTunes functionality to the footer area and the music page and added a webcam image to the contact page. I appreciate the feedback and will continue to make improvements down the road…DK
Welcome to 7 Minute Miles!
Today is the official site launch of 7 Minute Miles–my personal site for sharing news with family and friends, improving my writing skills (hopefully), testing new web technologies and discussing various topics I find interesting. Sort of like a virtual Speaker’s Corner, but hopefully not as crazy…
I’m using a wide array of technologies here, with an effort to become as standards compliant as I can so that the experience is the same across platforms. Windows visitors–give the Firefox web browser a try if you can. It is more secure and conforms to web standards better than Internet Explorer. Click on the Firefox button in the sidebar to learn more.
This site is the most I’ve ever published about myself, so please browse around and let me know what you think. Some areas will be private and password protected and some things are better left unsaid. Click on the register link in the sidebar to get a subscriber account that allows you to post comments, if you desire…DK
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