willie jackson

Blog

  • LessConf 3010—Conference of the Future

    I‘ve known of LessEverything for a little over a year. It’s run by a couple of guys who believe in simple effective software that should be a joy to use. I know Allan personally, and he’s a top-notch dude.

    Anyway, LessEverything put on a pretty legendary conference last year (my friend Celia Dyder over at TechDrawl wrote about it) that I was unable to attend last year because of a last-minute scheduling conflict. I swore I wouldn’t miss the next one, and you better believe I’m looking forward to it.

    LessConf is back, and it’s packed to the brim with speakers that I can’t wait to hear in person. I’m thrilled that the conference is coming to Atlanta this year, and I hope to see many of my friends attending. This is a big year for events in Atlanta, and LessConf 3010 might be the biggest thus far.
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  • The case for personal websites

    When you apply for a job, the first thing a recruiter or HR professional is going to do is Google you. In 2010, you are who Google says you are. For the forward-thinking employee, this represents a chance to get a leg up on (and even eliminate) the competition. There is no better way to impress a prospective employer than to put your best foot forward online without anyone asking you to. Have you registered www.yourname.com? What are you waiting for?

    Since 2005, I’ve maintained a personal website. It has grown from little more than a resume and a few links to what is now the hub of my online strategy and networking. I use it to hone my web development skills, position myself for key opportunities, and optimize the search results for my name. I’ve gotten countless unsolicited compliments, web design inquiries, and even a few job offers as a result of my website. What started with a class project (creating what we called an Interactive Resume) has turned into a service I now provide for clients across the nation.
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  • Enabling mod_rewrite in Apache

    This post is a bit geekier than usual but I have to share it because it’s something that was a bit frustrating until it was resolved.

    I built a simple LAMP server at Linode this week and was testing out a WordPress site on it. Everything worked fine aside from the links, which was more than a minor frustration. My custom permalink structure is as follows:

    I have the same permalink structure on my other servers. Nothing crazy.

    My /var/www/ directives were as follows:

    Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks -MultiViews
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
allow from all

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  • WordPress events in Atlanta

    I had the pleasure of attending two events this week in Atlanta, both centered around how to use WordPress as a marketing platform. The first event was a roundtable discussion organized by Mike Schinkel and hosted by Matter in their gorgeous Midtown studio. In attendance were the following WordPress experts:

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  • Okay, I’m reloaded!

    That’s a Tony Montana Carlito’s Way quote, of course.

    This is just a quick post to announce my much anticipated (joke) redesign! I’ve been working on it for about a day now, and I’m pretty pleased with the results. The new focus is on a static homepage (which will be updated ad nauseum I’m sure) and less on the blog posts (which are visible in the footer). The new design is still built on the Thesis Theme Framework of course, but leverages a modified version of Dave Wilkinson‘s wonderful Osmotic premium skin. It’s actually a limited-edition skin that had sold out, save for a copy that Dave’s wife never used for her site.

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  • Just me

    I have never fit cleanly into any particular category. I’m not a social butterfly, but I’m definitely not a loner. I’m not a designer, developer, or server administrator…but I’m known to be any or all of those things in any given week. When I was younger, it used to bother me that I was so unlike my peers. It was as if I missed the conformity indoctrination growing up—I was just different in hundreds of tiny ways.

    Now that I’m older and growing into the man I’m going to be for the rest of my life, I take comfort in being unapologetically, consistently, and uniquely me. It’s liberating feeling. I’m much more at peace enjoying a meal by myself in a crowded restaurant full of commotion than I used to be. I’m completely ok with not knowing anyone at an event that I’m interested in attending. I’ve become accustomed to people trying to categorize me mentally when meeting me…and failing miserably.

    I take comfort in the fact that I’m uniquely suited to fulfill my destiny here on earth based on the person I am. Not the person that I feel like I should be. Not the person I envisioned myself growing up to be. Just me.

    Just me.

  • Being the best

    For whatever reason, I was gifted with enough confidence to last me two lifetimes. Something I continuously notice when I consult with clients (and friends) my age is that the biggest thing they’re missing is confidence. I know some of the most amazingly talented individuals from just about every creative and technical discipline under the sun. You know what separates many of the hobbyists from the “successful” entrepreneurs who are making money? The fact that the successful ones are making money.

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  • Fail forward

    If at first you don’t succeed, keep failing forward.

    This is my way of remembering that quote. I’m gonna need it this year.

  • Thoughts on Education

    I came across a post by Perry Marshall yesterday entitled, “The gigantic horrible lie about education” (catchy, no?) and I thought I’d pass it along. It touches on some issues very close to my heart, as I come from a “gifted” educational background and recall very well the stigma attached to those who were and were not a part of this hand-selected group of elite learners. Perry touches on this concept of things we should just know by a certain age, and he insightfully addresses the net effect of these expectations on people who are negatively impacted by them:

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  • Making Money

    My interest in web design started many years ago. I started building websites for my friends and things grew from there. The trouble is that I wasn’t making money. Not a lot of it, anyway. I always looked for ways to give people a break and save them money while giving them the site they needed. I worked with client budgets instead of setting prices and sticking to them.

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