In my pursuit to become more literate in the web-development world I recently made a few purchases of technology books that I hope will accelerate my understanding of things like Ajax, DOM, Json, JavaScript, Java…etc. I know that there is a wealth of material available for free on the internets but there’s just something about a good book that makes learning so much easier. Key word there is good!

A good book I’ve just finished reading (and written a review on) is “Head Rush Ajax“by Brett McLaughlin. Thanks to the freaky layout and writing style (it’s definitely not your typical technical resource!) this was a book that I quickly worked through and at least now I have a firmer grasp of concepts that were just acquaintances before.

For instance, I now know:

• AJAX - isn’t a new language. It is simply a “method” of coding (using existing languages - JavaScript primarily) to enable visitors of a web-page interact with a page without having to reload it. Of course, I already knew of AJAXian goodness from using all the various web-apps that apply it - but it’s neat to know that it’s really not that hard to work with - it certainly isn’t as intimidating as I thought it would be.

Okay, I wasn’t going to post about the recent interview Matt Mullenweg did with Blogging Pro but there was an intriguing response to one of the questions asked that led me to leave a comment on Photomatt where Matt posted about his interview. The purpose of my comment was to try and tickle out more information - alas my comment was deleted for some reason and so I find myself writing this little blurb in my blog hoping (I’m not quite at begging yet hehe) that someone might have more information

UPDATE: Mysteriously my comment reappeared on Matt’s site…dunno what happened there hehe

Anyway, in the interview, Matt was asked,

What?s Automattic?s next move? I know you have been focusing on the next versions of WordPress, and your great Anti-spam service Akismet, but with the people in the Automattic now and your great eye for filling a gap in the marketplace, could you give out any hints on what we can expect next?

Tucked in his response was this reply…

We?ve got a few plugins and services we?ve cooked up internally that we?re going to provide to open source, including a little todo/project management app.

As usual there’s been a flurry of activity behind the screen of my computer but it isn’t reflected in blog posts ;). But I just had to put something up to announce the changing of my theme (yet again). My first attempt at creating a theme wasn’t so great (I feel sorry for any who stumbled upon “Eclectic Black”) - I quickly grew tired of it. However, I came across this new theme called “Fresh” and I just loved it! It captures all the design elements I’ve been looking for (along with many of my favorite colors hehe). I spent most of tonight tweaking the theme so I could push it live (added a new logo etc.) Of course, for those of you who know me I won’t be leaving things the way they are for too long as I have a number of other things I’d like to do under the hood with this theme. But for now it works and looks good - and that’s what I want :).

Hopefully I’ll get back to posting more regularly here but no guarantees!

Yeah I know, I haven’t posted in a while. It’s just things have been so busy everytime I visit thinking I’ll post something I’m just so tired - too tired to think let alone type :lol:! Anyway, what have I been up to that’s kept me so busy? Well aside from church stuff I’ve been working on a website for my brother-in-law in the evenings. He’s got a cabinet making business and asked me to design a simple website for him that’s easy to maintain. I just finished most of it last night - when it goes live I’ll post a link.

Another thing that’s been keeping me busy is cutting wood in preparation for winter. My house has a woodstove and it is by far the most economical way of heating our old house. So between cutting/splitting wood and preparing the house for winter I’ve been kept pretty busy outside as well. The upside to this is I’m getting lots of needed excercise and fresh air!
Meanwhile…other things that have been percolating in my brain in the last little while - get ready here comes a list…