Sorry to dissapoint but I need a place to give it a home first besides it’s Google code repository. So please hang tight, I’m hoping to get this show running very soon.

So you’re probably wondering, “Is this going to be one of those personal blogs or something?” Yes, and no. Yes because it is my weblog, portfolio, and design playground. And no because I also will provide valuable design resources amongst the other articles that will clutter the archives in the near future.

I will provide more information on the 2.0 transformation, just bear with me and stay subscribed or follow me on twitter.

This will all be going on after 4:30 PM today (Eastern Time)

To keep yourself updated just follow me on Twitter.

I was literally at a loss for words. It took a while for me to get my muse back, I think it was my sense of randomness that threw me off. I had never blogged on a specific subject, my categories were always hapazardly put together. My website had no structure and many unfinished pages. Maybe it was the fact that I couldn’t finish a thought because I didn’t finishe what I had started.

So I tried a new design and an attempt at serious blogging. That didn’t last too long. I started writing like I was 16 years old, very bad on my part. I eventually took a break from blogging and travelled the web (which honestly depends on connection speed, and since mine was BAD, my “trip” took a while.)

I decided to try to start a new with a new name, well my own name really. I bought my name domain and tried to start from there. That worked well: A new custom built theme, a new purpose, and a new hosting plan

Blogger’s Block Round 2

Honestly my writing block had left me for a good while after my new aquisiton. I had started tweeting again. But then a month after that I started having some issues with my own blog. My MySQL database was jacked up (I’m still trying to fix it), I hit a brick wall with some plugins thanks to that issue, and I started to go back into block.

In an attempt to once again get back in the spirit of blogging I’ve decided to start something that can give me focus. I originally intended on making many different WordPress themes, but thats done everyday. As I was working on my custom theme MonsterGrid (which is currently in revision 6, let’s pray its the last), I was reading about Ian Stewart’s Thematic. “A Theme Framework? That’s a great idea!” I thought. Honestly Thematic is a brilliant idea, and it works so darned well too. It in fact inspired me to make my own Framework, nothing fancy but simply done well. Of course I haven’t finished it yet..so there isn’t anything to brag about >_>

That was going to be part of my blog’s main focus whenever I kick it into version 2. But for now I haven’t had enough time to finish coding the CSS and chopping up the XHTML pages.

Wrap up

I know plenty of people get writer’s block. But am I the only one to get blogger’s block?

The new theme is more content based with 3 loops set on the main page. The first holds 5 blog posts from all categories, except for 2. Those two have their own loops later down the page where they show their most recent post. One is for the MonsterLab category, which is basically projects, themes, etc. The other is Design Pick where I feature a site design with a little review I wrote on it.

The In-Progress Version can be found at michael-springer.net/demo . Feel free to comment on it here, and keep in mind I’m still finishing it so its not all how I have it planned out at the moment.

Wow, today has sure been productive.

I think now is time to redesign myself, I can never decide on the content of my website because I well do everything in an attempt to be the best at anything. I’ve been an artist, illustrator, designer, techie, blogger, clothing maker, copywriter, gamer, game addict, over achiever, wanabe *insert thing here*, newbie, a corporation, failure, freelancer, inventor, innovator, game designer, programmer, comic artist, comedian, logical thinker, random thinker, & not thinking at all. And I always keep trying to express all this into my websites in the last 4 years. I am currently running on Mike v18, I think it is time to make it the best yet. I am going to go to college and become a whole new entity.

I am currently working on perfecting Mike version 18 into being something better than saying “My name is Michael and I am a *thing*”; I am working on getting to this simply “I am Michael Springer.” Less is more, no more titles and gimmicks, just me. And I think it makes things a lot less hectic.

So then we move a little down the road to what is considerably more recent (only cause we got it 4 years ago in my house), a Broadband connection. Now this came in two distinct flavors: DSL and Cable. DSL ran over your phone line like dial-up, however it used “filters” to allow you to make calls on the same line. Speeds were faster than your dial-up service, and you could leave it on 24/7 without fear of a massive phone bill because you were not tying up your phone line. And then we have the Cable connection which obviously runs over a coaxial cable connection to a modem stationed somewhere near your computer. The connection is fast, can’t possibly tie up your cable connection, and your bill simply is added to your current cable bill.

Well we have had the Broadband cable provided to use from our cable company for about 4 years and it works fine, for one computer. The reason I bring this up is because we run 5 computers in my home, and we all want to be online (me more than others) at the same time, but not on the same computer. Solutions? We had figured to utilize WiFi and run a Wireless router from the Modem to the Router, and back to the Main PC. This worked fine when most of the computers were within range and I was still running my notebook. However that failed after my notebook fried and I converted to a desktop. Our network configuration looked something like this:

Point E is the place where the Router is positioned, Point A is my room. As it passes through all those walls the signal becomes weaker and weaker and weaker. Solutions for a WiFi problem on a very small budget? Move modem and router to Point A…but has same effect to the opposite points.. Get an access point? Too costly. And due to much, well, stubbornness we kept it in the configuration as seen above. That is until recently when the signal seemed to kill the Main computer’s connection as well, somehow. So we came up with a solution that works extremely well: The modem and router can run together without a computer, so we set them at Point C at a more centralized location giving everyone WiFi signal, and everyone is happy.

So the moral of this post for Wireless Networking? Don’t build it as you go, sit down and set up a plan to layout how the signal will flow by taking into account obstacles such as furniture, walls, and other computers.