Okay… truth be told I can’t help but think of Darth Vader telling Luke Skywalker, “You don’t know the power of the Dark Side.” I mean for a long, long time now I’ve thought of Network Solutions as being the “Dark Side.” They’re the big-bad-corporate of the internet. But, that all being said, we are seriously loving them as our new hosting provider!

We were sort of “forced” to switch because of some horrible down time that our old servers experienced last weekend. Our sites were down for around 5 days, if you hadn’t noticed, and so, Wednesday we decided, “Enough is enough,” and moved our stuff to Network Solutions.

It was our good friend Stephen Parks that suggested them to me. And, when he first suggested it I admittedly made some remark that, in turn, made Stephen ask me, “What’s wrong with Network Solutions?” “They’re the ‘Wal-Mart’ of the internet,” I replied. “Well,” said Stephen, “I’ve never known of Wal-Mart having such good customer support or such high customer reviews.”

He asked me to give them give them a call just to see… and it wasn’t within 3 minutes of being on the phone with them that I knew we were going to be moving our sites over.

Now it’s been 4 days, and I can’t say enough good things about them. We are still very, very sad to have had to leave CWH, whom I had been with for almost 10 years, but it was obviously time… and now I’m not worried that our site may be down for 5 days again… let alone 1 day… let alone 1 hour.

So… that’s the very short (and much less stressful) story of our move to Network Solutions. And, if they are the “Dark Side” (which I would seriously argue against now) then Darth was right… you don’t know the power!

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The old saying, “It’s funny ’cause it’s true,” is certainly true. Things that are often the funniest are things that are often the truest. It’s why sitcoms like Seinfeld do so well and why people like Larry David are such comic geniuses. The shows are based on truth and he knows exactly how to key in on that! So yes, “It’s funny ’cause it’s true,” is true… but, just because something is true doesn’t make it funny.

Take, for example, the cartoon on Freelance Switch. Now don’t misunderstand me (comic creator dude) it is a great comic! Incredibly well drawn, very insightful, even makes me think, “Yep…” sometimes, but, it’s never really funny.

I put this in the same category as The Family Circus (which I honestly hope was never meant to be funny). Both comment on things that are very true about life. One about life in the freelance world, the other about life in a family. Both are very well done. Both even have few frames… never more than 3 on average. But neither of them are really funny.

I think people forget the real reason why things are funny. They’re funny because they’re funny! That’s it. Nothing more. The truth of something is only a side-note. I doubt Larry David tries to think of TRUE things to then write jokes about… he thinks of FUNNY things that also happen to be true. He’s not pigeon holed into one genre of circumstances… the reason so many comics end up failing. He has the whole world to comment on, and he does it wonderfully!

So… next time you think something will be funny because it’s true… stop, sit down, count to ten, then eat some chicken.

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As a web designer the one thing we hear more and more now-a-days is that people want their web sites to be Web 2.0 “enabled”. What does that mean exactly? I’m afraid most people think that means some sort design standard, making their web site “cool” looking, or “flashy” or something. And while that is certainly what we try to do with our web sites, it’s not really what “Web 2.0″means.

Here is a great video from Seth Godin talking about Web 2.0, and even Web 4.0! I think he does such a great job of enumerating its meaning.

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You may notice we have a bit of a new look to our site.  It’s because we’ve switched to WordPress to do our blog.  I know, I know, we’ve switched how we do our blog 3 times now in less than a year… but that’s okay, whatever floats your blog right?

The reason we did it this time is because of WordPress’s ease of use.  It really is a pretty classy little publishing system… if you’re a blogger, and you’ve not looked into it, you might.  Of course, I still say, if you’re on Blogger and enjoy it, keep using them, they’re easy as well.

You’ll have to bear with us for a couple of days while I update all the entries and put them into appropriate categories.  Notice right now “Uncategorized” has like 700+ posts… that will be fixed.  Otherwise, everything else should be pretty much the same for you all who love our blog!  Just keep reading (and watching) and enjoy!

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Well, my younger sister Janelle finally took the plunge and got a blog! And, I’m very happy to say, that it is wonderful!

It’s not only funny, but well written, and includes “her voice” so much that even if you don’t know her you will very quickly know what she’s like!

With the few posts that are on there already give such a great picture of her and Maxx, their relationship, their sense of humor, and their daily life, that it should almost be the thing they give people when they first meet them instead of a name or business card…

“Hi, I’m Maxx, this is my wife Janelle, here… read our blog…“

If she keeps posting, or even if she doesn’t, it is quickly becoming one of my new favorites to look at daily hoping for updates.

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I thought this was so funny (because it’s true) that I simply had to post a link to it on here.

It comes from Seth Godin’s blog… one of my new favorite authors, and it is spot on.

Here’s the link… it’s called “Letting off steam.”

My favorite thing a client ever called us about was that their phones weren’t working. They said they were all having to use their cell phones and couldn’t get online, and wondered if I could look into it. I told them that it would probably be better if they called the phone company. They said, “Oh… we thought you might know something.”

For those of you who don’t know… I design websites. Apparently, since they couldn’t get on their website they thought I could fix it.

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I love Barnes & Noble… going, hanging out, working, reading, drinking coffee, it’s great fun. However, I find that I’m increasingly skeptical of 93.7% of their new books. Most of it is Oprah’s fault, but even without her it seems that most of the books that are coming out now-a-days shouldn’t have been written in the first place. Things like, “The Secret” for instance. Seriously… you won’t put your faith in God, but you will put it in your own ability to make things happen? Yeah… that’s logical.

Anyway, I admittedly had this “fear” that the book I was picking up was, yet another, one of these waste of good paper… but then… I started reading it.

Within the first paragraph I knew this was my “coffee” book for the night and within the first 3 pages I knew I wanted to buy it. It was about page 8 that I was already making a mental list of friends and family I wanted to share it with. By the time my coffee was gone and we were ready to leave I was finished with a 1/4 of it (it’s a fast read) and couldn’t stop telling Celeste all about it.

So, I bought it, obviously, and want to simply point it out to all of you.

The book is, The Dip by Seth Godin and it is, in short, a book about how to quit, when to quit, why to quit, and when NOT to do all of the following and push through the “dips” that happen in every aspect of life.

I could keep typing here for much longer… but, I am going to quit.

If you’re not interested already then that’s fine.
If you are interested, then go buy it and let me know what you think!

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I was lying in bed last night thinking of all the great friends I have… some go back a long way, some are relatively new… some I may have just met and don’t yet realize how great of friends we’ll be. But really, there have always only been a handful of people that I consider real, true friends. That’s the same now as it always has been.

I was then thinking that “time spent” with friends isn’t really an issue. Real friends are those people who you can “pick up” with as if not a day has gone by. Your life can change drastically in between seeing them, but yet, when they’re with you everything is just as it’s always been… you’re friends. There are friends you see a lot, friends you talk to a lot, friends you spend a lot of quality time with, and “fluff” friends who are just fun to be around. It doesn’t even matter if they’re with you in person, or on the phone… or… even on email. This made me think of a fairly new class, or category, of friends that I seem to have developed over the past few years; my “Blends.”

A “Blend” is simply a friend with whom my relationship and interaction is based almost solely on blogging. Most of these “Blends” were “in person friends” to begin with and have, because of distance, time, or other variables, simply became a “Blend” to me out of some sort of convenience. Some of them I have never really known in a “face-to-face” relationship, but only and ever online. But no matter the circumstances surrounding our “Blendship” I sincerely care about every one of them as true people.

Of course there are “MySpace friends” (which we have none-of because we don’t do MySpace), there are iChat friends, there are website, message board, email, and phone call friends. All of these may overlap, and many of them certainly contain “face-to-face” friends as well… but a “Blend” is a special breed for sure. It’s someone who 1) has a blog, and 2) has my attention on said blog. I will most likely comment on their blog once a week and certainly look at it every day.

So… in this world of every changing relationships, I’d like to know… am I your “Blend?”

(WARNING: COMMENTS CONTAIN LOST SPOILERS)

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