I’ve had a few projects sitting around for a few months that I am working on this week trying to finish up. Here is one that is nearing completion. There are a few main things that still need to be accomplished, but I am confident that it will be done this week.
Also, this week.
I often have been in some kind of situation where I felt like there was little to no hope and somehow God created something wonderful through it. I’ve been in the middle of a situation like that right now. I am on the backend where God is putting things in place to show me how He can work to create something amazing; something I never saw the possibility for. I’ll be able to share more very soon, but not yet.
If you’ve checked the tech blogs lately, they’ve been buzzing about a next generation iphone that came to light after an Apple employee lost the prototype at a bar. Tech blog, Gizmodo apparently bought the device for $10,000 to take it apart and break the news on it for the sake of a few advertising dollars and a spotlight for a few days on the other tech blogs.
It’s an issue of morality & integrity that I think is unfortunately lost on a lot of our culture. Apparently Gizmodo is also on the bandwagon of moral degradation too. But I am curious what would have happened if Gizmodo had just given the device back to Apple instead of knowingly purchase stolen property to exploit?
Now, I have a lot of respect for Apple over their decision to ban porn applications on their app store. A decision that I think actually embodies the philosophy of Google’s to “not be evil” better than Google has done themselves. In this they have proven a moral stronghold when they could have easily chosen otherwise.
I am not sure what would have actually happened if Gizmodo had just given the device back, but I am sure that bridges would have been been built instead of torn down. Now you have Cupertino upset over the issue. Not because their device was leaked, but because of the lack of respect that has been shown them on behalf of the tech blogs in the face of the massive security measures usually taken by Apple to keep things under wraps till a launch date or press conference.
I will admit I am an idealist. I think a person or company should be respected in regards to information like this.
If the device had been given back, Apple would have taken notice. I do not think that they would have been left out in the cold either when the device was actually launched. Apple likes to do things differently which is well-known. An uncommon company like them would have also probably been uncommonly grateful as well.
Gizmodo hasn’t always been the giant tech blog that it is today. Now it sits in the ranks of TechCrunch, Engadget and Lifehacker with millions of page views every month. But Gizmodo has made it clear that they are the same caliber of journalists that made us hate printed media, blood-sucking journalists that are out to exploit anyone and anything for the bottom line. Of course that’s what makes the page views. That’s what pulls in the advertising dollars. That’s how you make a name for yourself. Exploitation.
It’s also why Gizmodo has been deleted from my feedreader as of late as well as other blogs that have done the same thing.
There are a lot of news organizations out there. There are some really good tech blogs that I still enjoy reading, ones that haven’t “sold out” to get ahead of the game through buying stolen property. I hope Apple shows grace to you. I hope forgiveness is a part of their language. The fact that this was a knowingly unreleased product, any judge in their right mind would rule in their favor, regardless of whether a police report was filed or not.
My wife made an interesting observation today. I write like I am working on some kind of cumulative research project meticulously gathering data and facts ultimately working toward the encyclopedia entry for who I am as a person. She didn’t quite say it in so many words but that’s the way I heard it. I think I initially wanted to argue otherwise and defend it. I have come to the conclusion that she was correct in her assessment. The whole conversation revolved around my frustration that so many other people that I have helped blog and coached somewhere along the way were succeeding where I was failing. I can write day in and out, but actually saying something that is particular to me has become a chore. I felt over the last year or two that I’ve been having some kind of extended out of body experience objectively qualifying everything I write with the filter of bland factual analysis.
I am trying a different tack. Yes, the sharp pointy things that you used to put on your teacher’s chair but now you would probably get expelled from school for doing because in our culture you were trying to kill the teacher with tetanus instead of a mere tack. Tact. Yeah that word too.
A simple journal. This is a deliberate effort to be more real. Be more myself. Something like that. I think the other voice was me too, but it was a critical, self-absorbed version of myself trying to shoot myself with the same gun I was trying to aim. Maybe it’s all a bad analogy… maybe I should just shut up my critical self and write more?
If you write a lot like I tend to do, sometimes you find yourself in a niche. It’s not a bad thing, but when you find yourself here, it’s really hard to just be yourself from time to time. The blog that used to have an objective now feels like a place you have to be someone you aren’t really. For me, it happened on my personal site and I felt like I couldn’t be myself on my personal blog. I started to give myself excuses. I redesigned the site probably 300 times now over the course of eight years. Why? To better show the person behind the site. Some of the excuses were legitimate. Some were just plain dumb. Truth is, I used a domain I had bought, that meant something to me back in college. Since then, I’ve changed. My identity is different than it was then.
I can’t promise I will write more. I’m done with promising that and not living up to my own expectations.
I will promise to be more authentic though.
For those of you who don’t know, I also do website design on the side for other people and companies. I just finished this site for PhageVax. I just thought I’d share it since this is one of the many things that has been taking up my time while my family is sick with the flu.
About the Theme
It is a wordpress-based, minimalistic theme with a rotating transparent header image overlay. I didn’t need comments, so I axed that element along with trackbacks to keep the site more manageable and user friendly. Using the background for the search box was a really nice touch I thought to make it look like a cutout area. I also added a widget area and used the image widget plugin to make the logo one that I could update easily without playing with css.
If you are interested in a wordpress-based design for your site, leave a comment and we can arrange a call to go over the details.
I am working today on a new wordpress theme for churches and ministries. There’s really not too much to see just yet, lots of editing of css. I will say that it’s more graphically oriented than many of my projects… I may actually be able to release it this afternoon if I keep at it. Who knows? Between a baby and a puppy, I might get something done.
Christian Music has always been a part of my life. So a few weeks ago when I was talking with a friend from back in my b5media days he asked me if I would be willing to write a bit about Christian Music on his site, Mission Notes. Also, Jason (www.bnpositive.com) should keep me accountable with writing a bit more frequently even around here. It’s hard to talk to a guy who writes around 1000 words a day on 5-6 different blogs and not feel like you should come up with something to write about.
Here it is and enjoy. If you would like to change the footer information, go ahead, but I would appreciate (not require) a link back to http://www.williamlehman.net as a gesture of goodwill. 
Download “am-i-in-sync-v1.1″ WordPress Theme Here (updated as of 10/14/2009)
Image Widget – This handles all images including the logo and the top three placements. Alternatively, you can just drop html for images into a text widget, but this makes it a little easier. Images are handled via a image upload script – just be sure to remove the title of the image when uploading to the ad placements at the top.
All in One Adsense and YPN – for adsense placements under posts. The top adsense area in the header is added via widget.
PixoPoint Menu Plugin – This is the plugin for the menu at the top of the header area. Without it, the theme just displays a black bar up there. I like it and thought it looked classy while offering some great functionality to the theme. If you want your menu to look like mine here, you can download this text file, and copy and paste it into the “advanced settings” main menu css editor in the options panel for this plugin. UPDATED in v1.1 – Now you can just disable the default css in the plugin options as I have written in the css into the main style.css file.
Simple Post Thumbnails – This theme is set up to use this plugin optionally. This makes it nice to add thumbnails to posts without having to use custom fields to do it. I hate working with custom fields so I avoid it at all costs.
TweetMeme Retweet Button – For that handy little retweet button in post headers. Make sure you specify the compact size.
I spent the evening tweaking decloned to add a few new features and set it up more professionally than it has been in the past. Natively, it is set up to use several different plugins, but I may go ahead and release it into the public if there is enough interest.
I originally based the theme off of the Gluttony Theme by wpdesigner but it got a bit more altered in my take of it. The theme has 6 different widget locations… including the logo, the header ad placement, the three featured areas as well as the sidebar. I may add some to the footer as well. We’ll see…
Anyway, it was inspired by Hugh’s new theme (http://www.gapingvoid.com) after David Hayward told me about how he liked it and possibly wanted something like it for nakedpastor.