News – Jeffc.me

BAWLS Is Back Online

April 23, 2010 By Jeffro Leave a Comment

I’ve been following the story of BAWLS ever since I discovered that the parent company had filed bankruptcy and the board members ousted the CEO along with a few other people. According to BevNet which is a great site that covers all aspects of the beverage industry, Bawls is back online and is resuming operations.

The brand had been in limbo since founders Hoby Buppert and Christina Staalstrom were forced out by investors late last year. In January, the company slashed staffing levels and effectively ceased operations as investors sought a buyer for the brand.

My hope is that the Speedway just down the street from me will once again, carry the unique blue bottles with the 16oz cans of an energy drink that is in a class of its own.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: bawls, beverage, drink, energy

One Interview – 25 Things

August 24, 2009 By Jeffro Leave a Comment

Recently, I participated in an interview with Jade Craven for JadeCraven.com. You can check out the interview here which contains juicy information as to why I quit writing for Performancing.com. Jade also did a great job putting together a post called 25 Lessons you can learn from Jeff Chandler which compiles tips, tricks, suggestions based on my previous two years of writing about blogging and related subjects.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: interview, jade, jade craven, jeff chandler

Google Just A Bunch Of Marketing Gimmicks?

February 15, 2009 By Jeffro 1 Comment

Mike Elgan over as ComputerWorld.com let loose on the fact that Google slings around the terms ‘beta‘ and ‘experimental‘ only to get around blame and criticism. I tend to agree.

Just like Microsoft and many other software companies, Google designates a huge number of its many online services as beta, and many features as merely “experimental.”

For example, did you know that Gmail is still in “beta,” and has been in the “beta” stage of development for five years?

I’m pretty sick and tired of seeing the word Beta whether it deals with Google or some other Web 2.0 site. To a point, I think it’s embarrassing to have the word displayed on a product or service for five years. At face value, you would begin to think that the software would never reach a point of completion. However in Google’s case, they can use that term Beta as a defense against criticism considering end users don’t pay a dime to use their products/services. After five years of being in beta, I throw that line of thought out the window.

Mike sums it up pretty well in one of his closing statements:

New rule: If a “product” is attracting eyeballs and making money, if the users don’t know they’re beta testers, if the beta is unlimited in time and in scope, and if the product will never, ever be offered for sale anyway, the words “beta” and “experimental” have no meaning at all. And the products are open to criticism.

So when everyone is wondering why the word ‘beta’ has been devalued to the point where it means nothing, I hope they do a Google search to find the answer.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: beta, devalue, google, marketing

WPTavern Design Almost Done

January 11, 2009 By Jeffro 12 Comments

Wow, been a little while since my last post. Here are a couple of updates for you.

Last week, I sent in my letter to relinquish myself from my duties at BloggerTalks, Problogger, BloggingTips, and other duties to give myself more time for WPTavern.

I thought I came across an awesome theme to use for WPTavern. It’s called Arthemia Premium.. Now, the theme still looks great but it was a pain in the ass for me to mess around with. I thought about using the featured post section from that theme and transferring it to a new theme but it’s deeply integrated within Arthemia and so, I wasted $70.00. However, perhaps at some point down the road, I’ll redesign WPTavern.com again and that will be the design I go with.

So what does WPTavern look like right now? Have a look.

Yes, the WPTavern theme should look familiar as it’s a hacked version of the theme I use on this site. As it stands, I really like a lot of the things as well as the layout of this theme on Jeffro2pt0. I don’t want to hack up another theme to add these features so I decided to just hack up a version I could use for WPTavern. I did add two more widget spots near the footer that I plan on using and I also added the 5 featured posts block along with post thumbnails to give it just a little bit of a magazine look.

Right now, this should hold me over until I gain some momentum and get things going. I’ll worry about a proper/unique identity once the time presents itself.

With the majority of the design out of the way, my focus is now on plugins and the forum. I’m still on track to open the site up for public beta on February 1st. Until then, the site will open with very little content.

Because of this, if anyone is open to writing a guest post to be part of the launch of the site, please send the HTML version of the post to my email address or through the contact form on this site. If you have images that go with the post, label them accordingly in the HTML file and I’ll add them in on my end. Don’t forget to email me the images as well.

I’ve been working like mad between the two podcasts I produce and getting things set for WPTavern. However, It’s been exciting and my head is continuously overflowing with ideas for the site once it launches. Stay tuned for more info as I get time to publish it.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: arthemia, design, theme, wptavern

WPTavern Updates

January 4, 2009 By Jeffro 9 Comments

Just wanted to pass along a few updates for those wondering about the progression of WPTavern.

The domain is up and running with a fresh install of WordPress 2.7. The first plugin I installed was Maintenance Mode so that I can work on the site in public without the dust getting in everyones eyes. Next up, I tried my best to install PHPBB3 but for whatever reason, I couldn’t get the installation to accept my Database credentials. I tried every combination known to man. After 30 minutes of trying to figure it out, I went and installed Simple Press which was recommend to me via Steve Hodson of WinExtra.com.

The installation was flawless and I’m going to give this a go. Now, I have to go through and configure the WordPress installation to my liking and then the next thing on my list is to work on the design for the site. Once I get the design finished which is going to be a variation of the one used on this site, I will incorporate the site design into the forums. Once that is finished, I will look at installing plugins for the site and getting the functionality I want up to snuff. During this time, I will also be trying to get my hands on OIO Publisher to manage advertising on the site. I’m hoping to have WPTavern publicly launched in *BETA* form by February 1st. Time will tell though if I’ll be able to make that deadline.

Last but not least, I have created a Twitter account for the site. Please follow @wptavern on Twitter as that will my method of communication to fans of the site. I’ll also be setting up the RSS feed to publish to Twitter for all articles published on the site.

Again, I’d like to thank everyone for their continued support. At this time, if anyone feels like they will be able to contribute some of their time to help me manage the WPTavern community via the forum, let me know as I want a few moderators already in place before the site launches.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: project, simplepress, twitter, Wordpress, wptavern

Podango Might Fold Is Talkshoe Next?

December 28, 2008 By Jeffro 9 Comments

Podango Logo PodcastingNews.com has has a report out regarding the recent announcement made my Podango regarding their future. Based on the announcement, things don’t look very good for the company:

We at Podango believe that you, our customers, are our most valuable asset. Given this belief, we have always done our best to be honest and forthright in our dealings with you. The current uncertainties of the financial market has affected many of us in this nation. As of this morning, Podango is no longer immune to it’s effects. Our ability to continue operations past the end of this year (2008) is in question. We do not want any of you, or any of your shows to be negatively affected by this uncertainty and so we are encouraging you to begin taking all necessary steps to secure your data or begin moving to another hosting provider. On Monday we will have a more definitive direction. As of today, the last day to move or secure your data is December 31st. RSS feeds will need to be redirected by this date as well. It is our hope that the events of the next few days will allow us to continue providing you a service based upon a subscription fee. Again, we will know more on Monday and you will be notified of any changes to the above plan as soon as we are made aware of them.

We will have a link in the My Podango section of the Podcasters login page by Monday which will allow you to redirect your RSS feed off of the Podango feed to a new feed. Instructions will accompany that tool. Also on Monday we will provide you with alternatives for show hosting.

Inactive accounts, those without recent uploads or downloads, may be already been deleted from the system. If you need to contact us, please use info@podango.com.

Again I personally apologize for this notice of caution. We truly appreciate your business.

With Podango possibly going down the tubes, I am now wondering how well Talkshoe.com is doing. I host two podcasts through Talkshoe.com, one called Perfcast which deals with all things blogging and the other, WordPress Weekly which is a WordPress centric podcast.

At this point, I pretty much have a vested interest in Talkshoe.com surviving. There are many things which can be improved upon within Talkshoe but overall, I’ve been very happy using the service for my podcasting needs. My worry is, Talkshoe.com does not offer any type of (PRO) account or package. In terms of monetizing, I know they have a few Google ads on the Talkshoe site and you can also pay to be featured on the front page but that is about it. I also know based on what a representative of Talkshoe told me, they make money whenever someone calls into the site.

I’d hate to see Talkshoe fall from the wayside and honestly, I’m willing to shell out some cash to continue using Talkshoe if the opportunity pops up. I hope that Dave Nelson who is the CEO of Talkshoe takes this opportunity depending on the final outcome of Podango to come out and make an announcement regarding the future of Talkshoe and put the minds of its users at ease. Hell, it would also be a nice time for Dave to capitalize on the fall of Podango to see if he can’t reel in some users from that service to Talkshoe.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: podango, podcasting, talkshoe

Simple Yet Overlooked Speed Cam Prank

December 27, 2008 By Jeffro 4 Comments

I had one of those “Duh, why didn’t I think of that” moments this morning when I read a news story about how some teenagers have found out how to spoof license plates of their enemies and for performing pranks overall. So how does the prank work?

students duplicate the license plates by printing plate numbers on glossy photo paper, using fonts that are similar to those on Maryland license plates. They then run by a speed camera, so that those they feel have “wronged them” receive a citation in the mail.

I know speed cameras were not a welcomed edition to busy streets in and around Cleveland, Ohio but I can’t believe this prank is that easy to do. However, as was noted at the bottom of the article, someone with the technical know how created a Google Earth KML file mapping out the speed cams. Using technology to fight technology!

Filed Under: News Tagged With: police, pranks, speedcams, students, teenagers

All Ready For The New Year

December 23, 2008 By Jeffro 1 Comment

Just wanted to take a moment to update everyone regarding some changes I’ve made to the site. For starters, I’m almost finished with managing my sidebars. I’ve been assigning widgets to specific areas of the site where I think it makes sense to display them. Speaking of sidebars and widgets, you should be able to see the Jeffro2pt0 poll back on the front page. I’ve also added my link blog which is nothing more than a list of shared items from my feed reader. Last but not least, I’ve added a text widget on the about page which allows me to cut the length of the page in half.

As for the About Jeffro2pt0 and WordPress Weekly pages, I have gone through and updated them with relevant information. For the WordPress Weekly page, I have included special notes regarding where to find show notes for episodes 1-22 and 23-current. This was mentioned by Andrew Rickmann and so I’ve included directions on how to obtain those show notes. As for the About Page, I’ve revamped it keeping most of the history in tact while adding personal information to the sidebar. At the bottom of the about page, I’ve included a list of sites and podcasts for which I am working with or for. I’ll be updating the page as necessary to keep everyone up to date.

Last but not least, I’ve fixed the styling issues for the Page-Navi plugin. When you update Lester’s Page-Navi plugin, the CSS files are overwritten and thus, I lost my changes. Thank goodness for backups. I’ve also changed the header from my favorite forest look to a Winter look as we are now officially in the Winter season.

In Closing:

It’s these types of changes that if left undone for a period of time, end up amounting to a ton of grunt work. It’s usually the easiest, simplest things which are left undone. At any rate, I should be all set to start off the new year fresh on this blog. I have no idea what will happen but I do know that I plan on continuing this journey I’m on. I’ve made some incredible pit stops along the way to what I hope will be a successful career in podcasting/writing. I’ve still got plenty to learn and much to improve upon but that will come in due time. One things for sure, I know that there is a core group of people out there that really support my work and what I do. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your support (even though I’m trying to right now) but it means a lot to me.

With that said, I wish everyone a safe and happy holiday! P.S., I’m 25 years of age now, woot!

Filed Under: News Tagged With: about, christmas, holidays, jeffro2pt0, thankful

Six Apart Kills Pownce

December 1, 2008 By Jeffro 1 Comment

In surprising news today, Six Apart has announced that they will be acquiring Pownce for an undisclosed amount of money but Pownce will cease to exist come December 15th. As VentureBeat points out, this looks like a move to acquire skills and people rather than the service. A quick look at the Pownce timeline showcases some unhappy users which is to be expected.

Pownce Users Not Happy

The official Pownce blog contains instructions on how to export data from a Pownce account. The tool will create an export file that can then be imported into Vox, TypePad, or WordPress. As for those who purchased pro accounts, looks like they will be receiving an email with additional information within the coming days.

I have no idea what Six Apart has in mind for the Pownce team members but it could be interesting. Also, this signifies that Twitter is the cream of the crop in terms of microblogging services. What will happen to Jaiku or Plurk? This situation is also a good opportunity to think about what would happen if Twitter ended up with the same fate. Hopefully, they would also provide export tools but considering their size, their userbase, etc. I doubt we’ll be seeing Twitter going away anytime soon.

As I conversed about this story with PatrickD on Twitter, he made a great point:
patrickd88@jeffr0 Twitter had the advantage of being first. Nobody could touch it. The only service to almost take it down was itself!

Filed Under: News Tagged With: microblogging, Pownce, six apart, twitter