jimmitchell.org» Life

Getting Back to Basics

Jim Mitchell — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:49:23 +0000

As some readers may know, I’ve been doing this dual presence thing for the past couple years; the Jim Mitchell Design business where I offer Yasu and FileMaker development services, and the Jim Mitchell dot-org presence where I give a glimpse into my personal life as well as offering my silly little WordPress themes and other whatnot to whoever wanted it.

Last week, I came to the realization that I’m no longer being as productive in my personal life as I’d like because of the “duality” I’ve created with maintaining two online presences, and that each has suffered because of it. So I’ve decided to make the change back to the way I found myself most productive and fulfilled… And that is to simply offer it all under “jimmitchell.org” again. That means one site, one email address, one place to download everything from, etcetera.

The truth is, my day job has changed so dramatically over the last 5 years that I’m not anywhere near where I was when I chose to split my personality. Back then, I was working as an in-house FileMaker developer and Mac systems support specialist. Now, I’m working as a business analyst and handling special projects for my employer — and have found myself busier than I’ve ever been. Trying to keep that many balls in the air at one time has been causing me more stress than I think I was aware of.

So, I’ve decided to get simple again. I have projects I like to dink with. WordPress themes, Yasu, AppleScripts, and even some small FileMaker projects — but I’ve made the choice that they are not going to dictate how my personal life is spent anymore. Family is far more important right now, especially with my youngest son entering the formative teen years.

What does this mean to you, the reader? Probably more “personalized” content, with more of a view into my real life. You’ll see some updates to my WordPress themes (Plane Jane is in bad need of modernization – I’ve got some killer CSS3 ideas for it). You’ll see updates to Yasu (one is “thisclose” to being released), and maybe even a new app this summer (I’ve got a great idea for a freebie app).

Thanks to all who’ve hung around, keeping me in their RSS feeds. I promise there will be more than just twitter updates from this point forward.

On The Slide

Jim Mitchell — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 05:12:58 +0000

I really dig this photo…

Just a quick post to let those who use my Bogart WordPress theme know that it’s close to being released as a final 1.0 version (finally). I’ve updated threaded comments, made the content area a little wider (to accommodate Flickr images), and added jQuery drop down menus for child pages.

I should have everything tidied up by this weekend, with a release Sunday or so.

And you all thought I was dead…

Here’s Proof You Should Be Backing Up!

Jim Mitchell — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:43:02 +0000

So, it finally happened to me (again). A Mac died on me without any kind of backup for it. I couldn’t be more disappointed in myself for letting it happen too.

The family 17″ iMac G5 iSight went belly up after my daughter accidentally shut it down hard. None of the voodoo I’ve learned in my 20 years as a Mac user could get the internal disk to be seen again. Open Firmware resets, SMU resets, PRAM zaps, swift kicks, small animal sacrifices. Nothing even made the drive spin up, which means one of two things. The drive has a bad case of sticksion, or the drive controller on the motherboard is the problem (others have reported the problem with this iMac model). If it’s the latter, it looks like I’ll end up with a stylish doorstop, and I’ll be buying new hardware this weekend. I haven’t decided if I want to tackle tearing the machine apart to replace the drive. Having done it once for someone else, it was about as enjoyable as pulling teeth.

Anyway… If you ever needed proof that you should be backing up your ENTIRE system on a regular basis, let this post be what gets you to make a change. My wife and kids have lost years worth of photos, emails, school projects, music and heaven knows what else. It’s never a matter of IF it will happen, it’s a matter of WHEN. Don’t gamble like I did. Get a backup plan in place and stick to it faithfully. I’m wishing I had…