James D Kirk

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Anyone Have YOURLS Working On an NginX Server?

August 13, 2010 by James Leave a Comment

Started serving static files (images, pdfs, txt files, etc.) from a spare domain I have several months ago. It’s short at 5 letters, so I was thinking this might be a great set up for doing my own URL shortening as well.
Because I run NginX and FastCGI to power my WordPress installs, I often find it a challenge to implement stuff that’s been developed for LAMP stacks. I know the YOURLS instructions has a link to an Nginx fix, however, I was unable to get it to work.
Just wondering if anyone stopping by has any experience or can point me towards some knowledge on how to troubleshoot.
Thanks!

Filed Under: My thoughts Tagged With: Nginx, YOURLS

What Should I Know Before Committing To Freelance Copy Writing?

August 13, 2010 by James Leave a Comment

I’ve been putting a lot of thought of late into moving full steam into the arena of Freelance Copy Writing. I was turned on to the concept a while back, early on in my SEO writing activities and as a result bought into Peter Bowerman’s “The Well-Fed Writer”. I actually was more interested in his “The Well-Fed Self-Publisher” and subsequently got off of the track for pursuing freelance copy writing.
Now, however, I’m thinking that it could be more interesting to pursue some quality writing opportunities. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for the SEO writing that I do. Every now and then some interesting topics are assigned to me, and I find when that happens, I truly enjoy the process.
If you’ve done any of this type of “web writing” you’ll understand just how little it pays. Understandably so. For the most part, and what I believe to be reality, this type of writing isn’t designed to be read by anyone real, living (or dead). Simply put, the search powers that be want “real” content; not words generated by some form of YACG (yet another content generator).
And that’s totally groovy. If you can deal with the lack of passion. If you enjoy putting words together and have them pretty much never read again, SEO can be a super easy way to make a living.  Just not much of a decently paying living. Again, I am grateful to have access to this type of work for the past year or so. I always do the very best I am able to with any given assignment. But I’m at that point of needing more.
More income for sure. More importantly, a real sense that what I’m creating is valuable to someone, will get read (and hopefully appreciated!) by a real, living breathing person (that is not me.) So, I’m now in that mode of contemplating whether or not it might be worth developing the contacts, putting out feelers for clients, dealing with clients when they do come, and generally making a successful go at becoming a Freelance Copy Writer.
While I’m no expert, my belief is that I have the chops to do the writing. I’ve several pieces which I’ll pull together in order to start a portfolio. Some good friends have indicated they enjoy my writing and feel I’d be well suited to pursue a living (at least for a while) in this arena. Of course, you really can’t trust the opinions of your friends. That’s why they’re your friends! 😉
There’s not a whole lot of folks reading this site, but if you are and have any thoughts, ideas or suggestions, it would be lovely to hear them. My biggest concern is that which I just don’t know about going down this road. If you can share your insight or experiences, let’s start a conversation. And thanks for your time and interest. Much appreciated!

Filed Under: Employment Tagged With: freelance copy writing, Peter Bowerman

When Is One At the Bottom of the Barrel?

July 19, 2010 by James Leave a Comment

Image courtesy of Wikepedia

You know life has sunk about as far as possible (from a tech perspective, at least) when you are:

  1. Pet sitting for your mother’s business because you can’t find a decent tech job,
  2. While rushing out to the mailbox to get the Netflix out before the mail truck comes back up the road, you discover that you didn’t notice the dog decided not to indicate she needed to go back outside,
  3. You can no longer figure out how to access the ISP service by plugging straight into their modem,
  4. The speed you get from your bluetooth connection from your netbook to the smart phone is faster than the pet sitting client’s ISP.

These are just some Monday morning thoughts. Nothing too deep here 😉

Filed Under: My thoughts Tagged With: Monday thoughts, state of tech

37 Signals

March 16, 2010 by James Leave a Comment

OMGosh! This is just too funny. Thank goodness we live in a country where artists can create something as fun, interesting AND effective as this little faux ad selling 37 Signals newest book, “Rework”
It’s a quick watch. Enjoy!

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: 37 Signals, Faux Attack Ad, Karl Rove

Eye of a Night Time God?

February 1, 2010 by James Leave a Comment

This is what was available in the sky last night. While I’m sure my pics don’t do it justice, if you saw it you really got the best view. For everyone else, here you go!
[postcasa size=large]http://picasaweb.google.com/data/feed/base/user/jamesdkirk/albumid/5433443413646435793?alt=rss&kind=photo&hl=en_US[/postcasa]

Filed Under: My Photos

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Your Most Important Asset

September 25, 2017 By James

“Success and wealth will be demonstrated by the degree of ‘disconnectedness’ one can achieve while maintaining their ability to earn.”

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