Mike's Thoughts

The day has come. The new mikebruckner.com is here. Although everything is not completely up and running, the main page is up, along with my schedule and all of the links, so you will know what to look forward to. With this new site, I’m shifting focus to the website itself, with will include computing technologies, cooking, and photography. I should have the the meat of these sections up in the next few days, and will then be adding content as normal.

Oh, and one more thing. In moving to a new server (and actually having blog.mikebruckner.com be blog.mikebruckner.com ) WordPress did not migrate the old users from my old server, so if you are a registered user, you will need to re register for this site. Sorry for the inconvenience!

UPDATE: I’ve now updated the teaser page to give viewers a date to mark on their calendars. The official launch date is Sunday, April 12th. See you then!

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So, I’ve been thinking… I’ve got CS4, I go to RIT and am surrounded by graphic artists and other people with epic websites. Yet mine is based off of a template. What’s more, the main focus of my site has been my blog. Well, it’s time for change. I’m working on my brand new site. You can check out the teaser page at http://mikebruckner.com. The best part? Once all is said and done, my site will actually BE mikebruckner.com, and not merely a redirect to some other site!

Ok, so I’m sure you know by now, that I thought, for some reason, it would be fun to host my own server, on my own laptop, in my house. This presented several problems:

• Low power from the laptop
• Limited manageability, especially while I’m away at RIT
• Unreliability the likes of which I have never seen

To remedy the situation, I switched my website hosting (the stuff I pay for) from Microsoft (why I ever did that in the first place, I don’t know), to Linux. This allowed me to transition everything over to a reliable host with more power than I had had before. This means that my blog should run quicker and smoother, and shouldn’t go down every other week! >:|

In short, I’m back! I’m going to continue to write as much as I can, about everything I can. As I mentioned on my blog’s home page, I have encorporated better PHP support, so if you would like to comment on my blog, please register by following the link on the right side of any page in my blog. It’s quick and painless, and you only have to do it once!

Everything is up and running, thought I am still transitioning over a couple of minor things that didn’t come over so nicely (blog tags, images, etc). But everything should be in working order in the next few days. To celebrate, I applied a new theme, which I have found to be my favorite so far, along with Wordpress 2.7 Beta 3. I will be posting about Wordpress 2.7 in the coming days as I have a chance to play with it, but first impressions are good. Very good!

Until then…

Just thought I’d point something out…

It doesn’t matter if you have dirty cloths up to the ceiling of your dorm room, or if you have more empty pizza boxes than shirts.

No, if you’ve got the right stuff in your room, you’re set.

As a “hero” of the Colbert Nation, I give you a perfect example

So, I have officially completed my first month of service with Verizon. Let me tell you, I have never been so impressed over a phone, and believe me, I’ve had my share of phones. Having used Virgin Mobile for years (along with Boost Mobile, but don’t get me started with them…WORST CELL SERVICE EVER!!!), making the switch to Verizon was like going from having needles in your eyes to being pampered like a king.

The call quality with Verizon is second to none. With my previous Virgin Mobile phone, I could only get a pocket of service while at work, and of course, the pocket wasn’t at my desk! With Verizon, I can literally use my phone anywhere. The data is lightning fast, though I have opted to block the mobile web.

To check your usage, you can either register on the MyVerizon site, via the site on your phone, or by calling one of three numbers depending on the information you want. After calling one of the numbers, you receive a free text message with the information that was just read to you. The nice thing about the usage statistics, is that the data is updated within minutes of the completion of a call or text message.

Despite what I have heard about their customer service, I have had nothing but exceptional service. After looking at the “MyVerizon” site, I noticed data usage on my bill. Now, keep in mind, the charge was only nominal. I merely wanted to understand WHY I was charged. After sending an email over to Verizon, I received a response the next day. The rep sent me a copy of their data usage guidelines, and told me that even “accidentally” navigating to the mobile web home page, will yield a charge. So, I guess that that could be an inconvenience, but you do have the option to turn off, or add, remove or upgrade your plan and features at any time during the month via the MyVerizon site, all without extending your contract. The rep even went ahead and gave me a credit for the usage. Now that’s service!

Now, yes, I’ve only had the phone for a month, but as of now, I am absolutely loving this phone and the service. The coverage, combined with the ability to change my plan (or my features) in the middle of the month, is a deal that is all too sweet. My phone, by the way, is the new LG Dare. I plan on posting some info about it in the next week or so, but in the mean time, you can check it out here on Verizon’s site.