Things That I’ve Learned

I’m Blake. I like to learn stuff.

I like to learn about history, art, culture, sports, and politics. I like learning about what happens when you mix Diet Coke and Mentos. I like learning about Britney’s latest flameup, Beckham’s newest haircut, and how to make little origami gift boxes out a piece of 8.5×11.

I started this blog for me to have a place to write about the things that I’ve learned. I hope that you enjoy reading.

About this Site

I was a web developer for 8 years from 1996-2004. I wrote code manually from scratch, and used a variety of high-end image editing and site hosting tools to build projects for my clients. It’s been several years since I stopped writing code professionally (and have long ago forgotten most of what I once knew), but when I began creating this site in 2006, a major technical goal in this project was to try to build the site using exclusively free/openly available tools. For the many web developers out there like me who often see a website and want to know what infrastructure is behind it, here’s my attempt to share:

• Blogging software: WordPress
• Theme: FreshMedia,  but with a header graphic that I modified from Headsetoptions’ Tree theme
• Plugins - Frontend: del.icio.us widget; NetFlix Queue via RSS; Widgetbox Twitter
• Plugins - Backend: All in One SEO Pack; Bloglines Blogroll; Feedburner Feedsmith; Fotobook; Google search widget; TinyMCE Advanced; Twitter Tools
• HTML editor: Aptana, and yes I still write most of my code manually
• Browser: Firefox
• FTP: FileZilla and FireFTP
• Imaging: Paint.net and Picnik
• Shell/Terminal: Putty
• Web Host: MediaTemple