The Becoming Project - An Online Portfolio

Another workshop that I attended at the web 2.0 expo was on search engine marketing and optimization. There is a lot of useless information out there on how to supposedly improve your ranking on the major search engines, but I found this one to make the most sense. It was great to hear from Todd Friesen and Greg Boser about the history of SEO from their point of view. Both of them have been in the field for quick some time now and worked with some pretty notable clients. Between their workshop and how to improve the performance of the webpages, I had a pretty motivating day!

One of the workshops at the conference that I found to be very useful was by Steve Souders from Yahoo! He outlined several steps to improve the speed your web pages.  It is amazing how much time is spent loading the images and scripts on your page while your visitors wait for the main content to show up. Some of the rules are more obvious than others, but overall it I think it is worth consideration.

I have been wandering around in San Francisco for the last three days and I am still amazed at this city. Being from the big city of Chicago I am not used to the Europe flair, the degree of social interaction, and the auto commercials in which a woman is complaining about having to balance mortgage payments and managing her startup leaving her with no time to look for a new car. For someone who is passionate about the web and technology, this is definitely the perfect city. If there was only a way to facilitate a community in Chicago.

For the last two days I have been attending O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 expo. At first I was a bit cautious of a conference that highlighted a two year old buzzword, but I am found the conference useful nonetheless. I sat in on session from Jeremy Keith, Todd Friesen, Greg Boser, and Chris Messina. All gave great talks that really helped me. I look forward to what is to come in the next two days of the conference.

I haven’t been able to write too much up on it because I have been experiencing problems with Wordpress after I migrated to a new server at Media Temple. After a bit of troubleshooting it seems that all the primary keys stopped their auto increment. It was very strange. I also noticed the same thing on my Mint database. The problem is resolved now show I can post again.

There have been a lot of great links past around the conference that I will be sharing shortly on this site. Just so you know.

Seeing as it is now cold again, I decide to post some photos of a weekend Joellen and I spend in Wisconsin a month or two ago. It was very cold and it was just a few days after they got a ton of snow. It was a brief trip, but I still had time to mess around with a new toy.

On Friday I turned 24 years old, which was quite an experience that seemed to mess with my head a bit. I realized that I am no longer a kid and it has been a few years since I could call myself a teenager. At the same time, I work in an office where I am pretty young in comparison. One of the guys who works on the same floor as me found out it was my birthday and asked me how it felt to be 13. It is a strange feeling older than the way of life you are used to and still be a “newbie” in your professional career. Is it not something new. I have felt like this for the last 3 years or so, but the birthday brought it to the front of my thoughts. It is just the gray part of life I guess.

Friday night I went out to Pappadeux with my family which was a lot of fun. I think since I was 12 every major accomplishment has resulted in a dinner at Pappdeux. There is something about the place that makes it always feels like we are really celebrating when we go there.

On Saturday my girlfriend and I experienced the world of relaxation with a couples Swedish massage. I was the first time either of us had a professional massage. Truly wonderful.

Afterwards, we saw Blades of Glory which was the funniest movie I have seen in a long time. Will Farrell was awesome in this movie. It had some of the best quotes. It is a movie I definitely recommend.

Sunday morning we had the opportunity to celebrate the only sun that was available. It was great! We also got cross several things off of our to-do list which always feels great.

Now if I could only get the song Old Man by Neil Young out of my head…

I forgot how much I love this movie…

After speaking with my co-worker about apartments and Housing Maps I started looking for myself and my girlfriend. Last weekend we found a great place in Lincoln Park and we decided to go for it. We are both really excited about it. It is a far better place than any apartment we have lived in.

We are moving tomorrow and the we weather forecast is currently a wet one. Hopefully I can keep my furniture dry.

It is official. I am going to O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 Expo 2007!! This is the first time I will be in San Francisco so I am extremely excited. In fact, I have never been further west than South Dakota.

San Francisco here I come!

To my surprise, when I walked out for lunch in my hat, hoodie-sweatshirt, and winter jacket the first strong gust of wind was not freezing cold, but rather nice an warm. It is nice to get a break from the freeze Chicago winter. The entire feeling in the city seemed to change after that. Now I find myself thinking about what I could do outdoors, which led me to a site that lists all outdoor beer gardens in Chicago.

Chicago beer gardens

Sweet home Chicago!

I recently realized how much I needed a scanner. I have a pretty large slide and negative collection that has never been digitized. Also over the summer my grandfather let me use the family slide collection to show everyone what a real slide show was like.  While looking through all the slides  I realized how important it is to have digital copies of these slides. I think it is a common realization.

Anyways, this let me to do a great deal of research to find the greatest bang for the buck. In the end I ordered the Epson 750 M-Pro scanner. I should be getting it soon and I will gladly let you know how the process goes.