Archive for June, 2009

VectorDefector Gates are Flooding!

Saturday, June 27th, 2009

I’m proud to say business is booming this summer! I know I’ve addressed this topic before, but now is the time to be a freelancer. Its nice to have that “busy but not overworked” feeling again. Moreover, its even nicer to be busy and not have the general stress that goes along with working in an office (even though I miss the water-cooler talk).

I’m collaborating with a number of friends and agencies over the next couple of months and, quite honestly, they all kick butt! I’m working with my associates CustomChannels.net to establish some rockin’ home-grown Flash-based radio stations, my buddies at Mindflint and I are cookin’ up some fun and creative web projects, the folks at GraphikCreative and I knocked out some simple quizzes for Sleep Center of the Rockies, the crew at Barnaby and Associates and  I are about to produce one of my most ambitious WordPress sites, B-Squared Design and I are collaborating on a nice new portfolio site, and my buddy Doug Koke and I have landed some team design projects.

Whew! I’ll have specific updates on each of these projects as soon as they’re to go. Stay tuned!

Also, if you’re looking to contact me for work, I’m probably going to be busy until the middle of July at least- but that doesn’t mean we can’t chat about a future project!

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Posted in Graphic Design, Web Development, business development

CIA Utilizes Open-Source for Searching

Sunday, June 21st, 2009

An article posted on Yahoo! tech news sparked my attention today, outlining some information indicating that the CIA is likely to use an open-source software for some of their search indexing. While they did not detail specifics about what would be searched, they did say they would utilize Lucene and Solr search platforms developed by the good folks at Apache (a very popular free platform for web servers).

I’m pleased to see more and more open-source softwares being used in a wider range of applications. Given the largest hold-out for big corporations and government entities is that open-source is lacking in big-business level support, but I think more companies are going to find the flexibility totally out-weighs that aspect.

Way to go, Apache!

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Posted in IT & Tech, Random

Iranians Using Internet to Subvert Gov’t

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

As you may know from reading some of my other postings, I’m always a huge fan of people who use the internet to stand up for their beliefs. In an interesting article posted on CNN, reports show a large scale Iranian resistance to the latest political “election” over the internet.

I think its fantastic to hear people standing up against this crazy theocracy they call a government, and moreso great to hear of more middle-eastern countries using the internet as a protest tool.

While the government is doing a good job of cracking down on political discourse, online Iranians are holding to their convictions strongly. I support them – Iran could really show its colors in the middle-east right now!

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Posted in IT & Tech, Recommended Reading

Cheers to Freelancers

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

As you may know, I recently restarted my web design & development business, VectorDefector.com, and couldn’t be happier about it. I don’t think I could’ve picked a better time either. Many of my new freelance friends have agreed- business is good. It seems like with the economy the way it is, freelance / contract workers are more popular than ever.

It makes sense, too. When times are down, hiring a contract employee has great benefits to a company: you don’t have to pay them full time, you don’t have to pay them benefits, and you get the same level of expertise. Additionally, what better time to invest in an inexpensive marketing solution? Websites and online advertising are longer term than print ads, are equally effective, and typically cost less.

There’s plenty of bonuses for us contractors too! I get to sleep late and set my own hours, work with a wide variety of businesses to keep my mind fresh, and have a number of agencies who keep me on retainer as a temporary employee to work as needed.

Yep- cheers to freelancers!

Interested in hearing more tales of freelancers?
Check out IndieArsenal.com.

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Posted in Case Studies, Random, business development

Microsoft Bing! Survives the Week

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

Microsoft released their new search engine, Bing, earlier this month and has seen some small improvements as a result. Built off their existing LiveSearch functionality, Bing is essentially a face-lift to their previous search technology (a component of  MSN). This article on Yahoo! Tech gives some statistical breakdowns of the search engine shares. En-brief: Google 60%, Yahoo! 20%, Microsoft 10%.

At this point, I’m not sure how anyone could compete with Google on a reasonable level. Setting a company upon the task of essentially reading and ranking every single piece of written literature on the internet is an amazing task, not to mention the efforts of attacking the extremely solid Google brand. I feel like Google is to the point where its like Coke is to soda- its synonymous with search.

Good luck with that Microsoft, I’m stickin’ with Google.

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Posted in IT & Tech, Recommended Reading

Web Hosting Through VectorDefector

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009

Today I wanted to make sure to officially announce that I offer quality affordable web hosting as a reseller to 15+ year veteran host ICDSoft. I have offered ICDSoft accounts for a number of years, but have recently decided to draw more attention to it as it really is a great service at a great price. Each package comes with top-notch customer support and a customized control panel that is yours to command. I’ve posted details on pricing and features on this blog.

To check out the details regarding my available hosting packages, and why you’d want to purchase one through me, please review my web hosting page.

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Posted in IT & Tech, business development