A simple way to see it is to decide what is the most important: Fast, Cheap or Good? You can choose 1 or 2, but you cannot have all 3.

I always strive to do a good job with anything I work on, but it is equally important to stay within budget and meet the deadline. Good Fast work is my favorite. That is when I focus all of my attention on the project and get it working. I also appreciate clients who are low budget but give me a lot of time to get it done. In that case I can take on many projects and priorities them accordingly.

DreamHost is an all around good company. They are carbon neutral and allow you to show off your own site as being hosted carbon neutral with the button to the left. They offer free hosting to non-profit Organizations.

DreamHost has an affiliate program that rewards me for each person I refer to them. As an added incentive, I can share the reference money with you in the form of a discount to your service. Below is a link that gives me credit for referring you, and gives you $70 off per year. Which means you would only pay $50 per year for unlimited hosting. The usual cost for unlimited hosting is about $120 per year.

Here is a link to Dream Host with affiliate code and promotion already code included, all you have to do is sign up after clicking on this link:
http://www.dreamhost.com/r.cgi?456711|ripple
(Discount code: ripple.)

DreamHost has an entertaining E-mail newsletter, and a good office environment. They are located in Los Angeles California. Here is a video that is a Day at DreamHost:

Contact me if you have any questions about DreamHost that I can help you with. Or visit their website: www.dreamhost.com

The high end design firm is capable of doing beautiful cutting edge graphic design, as well as robust web application development. It is rare to find a company that is highly skilled in many aspects of web application development, graphic design, and search engine optimization. My specialty within the company is doing the HTML, CSS, JQuery, Ajax and light PHP programming. After one of the graphic designers has polished a website layout, and the customer has approved the style, the image file is then handed to me to turn into a website structure that can be viewed and interacted with in a web browser. Once I have finished, the files are then handed off to one of our PHP Programmers to add functionality and custom code.

As a project manager I am responsible for staying on top of several projects, testing recently completed code, and assigning specific tasks for the programmers to complete. I enjoy working with the programmers, overcoming unexpected problems and learning about their techniques for programming.

Postscript added Nov 2012:
The name of the company and pictures were removed from this blog post by request. After I wrote the blog post, they request that I do not make any reference to them. We are on good terms, it’s just their company policy.

I wrote custom PHP code to interface with a manufacturers database API (Application programming interface) and retrieve product information to be imported into After Market Cycles Magento E-commerce website. I wrote the code so that entire sections from their catalog could be imported all at once. The project took some time to complete because there was so much data to organize. It was very satisfying to see the code work successfully.

I am co-hosting a re-occurring event that has music and socializing. It features networking that is similar to speed dating but for creative projects. It is called a Time Merge. Each person will get to speak 1 on 1 with every other person who takes part, allowing 2 minutes each to pitch an idea and get feedback. The goal is to practice pitching ideas, getting feedback, and finding other creative people to potentially work with.

More about Time Merge:

Share your project or an idea one on one with each person in the group for feedback and to seek out other creative people to work with. Creators and thinkers from all walks of life are welcome to take part.

Time Merge participants pair up and share one on one about a creative project they are working on. It works similar to speed dating. 1 person gets to speak for a few minutes, the other person gives feed back and can highlight what skills or contributions they could make to the project. Make your pitch quick! Everyone will get a new partner every 5 minutes or so until everyone has spoken one on one with everyone else, and all of the projects have been shared.

During the break, participants can take part in the live music jam, or socialize.

Time Sharing:

If two people agree they want to collaborate on each other’s projects, they can work for a set period of time on one project, then rotate and work for the same amount of time on the other project. Collaborators can also come to any other arrangement they agree upon, such as meeting at a future time and location.

4 years have passed, and I have decided to re-design it to more accurately represent my web design ability. The new site launched September 14th 2011 and it is now the official Bulb Media Website. To see the old site visit the Old Bulb Media site

I did make 1 minor mistake that I will learn from: I launched the site by changing the host and DNS (Domain Name Servers). The website transitioned very smoothly, but my E-mail went down for 1 hour! I had to update the MX records on the new DNS servers to get it to work again. In the future I will only change DNS servers late at night, in case something like that goes wrong again.

I have personally tried out the process by buying a retrofit vinyl window, and replacing an old aluminum window at my house. I followed the tutorial, and installed the new window successfully without any previous experience. It looks great, and the temperature difference in the room at nighttime is noticeable. I also felt a sense of accomplishment by doing the work myself. I highly recommend going through this process if you have old aluminum windows in your place or residence. Get started by measuring your old windows.

Discount Door and Window is a great resource for homeowners and contractors who are ready to replace old doors and windows. I will continue to add products and features to improve the overall value of the site.

If you subscribe, you will be E-mailed when we have something to share, or are announcing an up coming event. Each month we should have something new.

To sign up, visit the following site:
http://www.vehicleforthesoul.com/subscribe

As of this week, I am proud to announce the launch of the Agile Business Community. With educational videos, ongoing webcasts, hundreds of articles, forums, a monthly newsletter, and a social networking platform, it is the ultimate resource for software developers who are hungry for knowledge, interactivity, and fresh content.

This website re-design has been my primary focus for the past two months while working at CMC Media. I shared the workload with my co-worker Chris Pratt who is the founder of Metal Tome: Gateway to Shred. We built The Agile Business Community using Joomla 1.5 Content Management System. By holding daily meetings, occasional working late hours, and re-shaping our goals to adapt to unexpected changes and bugs, we incorporated agile techniques to develop a strong and reliable social networking site.

Barcamp LA 6 was great! Props to the hosts for making the un-convention happen. There was a crowd of highly skilled developers using cutting edge technology. A lot of the presentations were very interesting.

There are Un-Conferences happening all over the world, at different times. and they are full of creative, self motivated, highly skilled people.

Barcamp San Diego 4 will be taking place November 15th & 16th 2008. I plan to do a presentation on Oneironauts or Explorers of the Dream World.

I highly recommend Barcamp to people like you, who read my blog. Visit BarCamp.org to see upcoming events around the world.

CMC Media is a web publishing company located in Santa Barbara California. CMC stands for Configuration Management Community. They primarily run two major website on the subject of Configuration Management (www.CMCrossroads.com), and Agile Programming (www.agileJournal.com). These websites are full of current articles, blogs, videos, webcasts, job listings, forums, and valuable resources for programmers, developers, and managers.

My responsibilities as the Online Content Manager is to keep the website updated and maintained, as well as continuously add new features to improve the function of the site. New content is constantly being added by companies and individuals who are promoting or discussing different aspects of Configuration Management. As the site grows, new features are implemented to streamline the work flow, and keep the site working optimally.

We are also working on a new community site called GreenBuildingPro.com. I will post more information about the development of this site, when it is ready.

Video of the segment titled “Control your dreams”:

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=2848169

ABC Good Morning America Article:

“Control Your Dreams with Lucid Dreaming”

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/story?id=2847190&page=1

About 1 week before that segment aired on ABC, I was contacted by the producer of Good Morning America Weekend. She requested to use footage from a documentary I directed called “Explorers of the Lucid Dream World“. Of course I agreed, and some of the footage from the documentary was used during the segment.

“Explorers of the Lucid Dream World” DVD is an excellent resource for learning more about how to have a lucid dream. It includes interviews from world renowned dream researchers, such as Dr. Stephen LaBerge, who was also interviewed on the ABC Good Morning America Special mentioned above. You can obtain a copy of this DVD by visiting the official website:

Explorers of the Lucid Dream World DVD

http://www.LucidDreamExplorers.com