Blog - Page 16 of 141 - BenandJacq in the Browser

September 17, 2014

Operation Over The River: A Case Study in Flexible Work Perks.

When it comes to flexible work, allow me to recommend a career path: you should aim to be an elementary school gym teacher.

“But wait,” you might say: “Don’t you have to go to the school every day if you are a gym teacher? Doesn’t that make it not flexible? Flexible jobs have drinks with umbrellas on a tropical beach, always with an Apple laptop somehow featured in the selfie. I’ve seen the blog posts!”

And you’d be correct. I’m not describing the job, though—I’m describing the new selfie.

The introduction “I’m a homeschool dad” makes some folks turn their head like a labrador in a whistle factory, but it’s OK.

I don’t do it for them.

I do it so these two boys will always remember our virtual trek across the state.

With the removal of Theodore’s training wheels two weeks behind us, it was time to step it up a notch. We packed the bikes into the back of the van and headed northwest to the new American Tobacco Trail bridge over I-40.

As they rolled over the bridge the first time, we officially tallied our 70th mile since the journey began at the end of July.

You’ll note Benjamin’s flawless use of the Lightning McQueen-esque “Ka-chow!”

Jumping off the corporate ladder (from the bottom rung!) has meant some relatively major sacrifices in the short term, as we’ve fought to make the ends meet. It’s a fight that’s not even over, if I’m honest.

If you’d like to help us in this flexible work venture, there are 3 things you can do:

Hire us or refer us to your friends for web development, plugin design, WordPress optimization, or digital strategy.
Sign up for web hosting through Blue Host (for smaller sites) or Media Temple (for higher traffic needs). (If you use those links, we get paid a small commission for referring you, but it doesn’t cost you any more than it normally would.)
Tell all of your church leader friends about our site Church Web Help, and challenge them to join.

Here’s the bottom line when it comes to work: who do you do it for? For me, I do it for my wife, my kids, and ultimately my God.

And at least for this season of life, I’m pretty sure God’s calling me to be an elementary school gym teacher.

September 12, 2014September 15, 2014

I’m Published!

Jeff Goins famously said to become a writer the first thing you need to do is call yourself a writer.

Not an aspiring writer, not someone who wants to become a writer, but simply a writer. That transition dramatically increases your chances of actually becoming a published writer.

A few months ago I began calling myself a WordPress developer, and today I am officially a published WordPress developer. I wrote a plugin that has been accepted into the official WordPress plugin repository at WordPress.org!

It's Official! I have a Plugin! — It’s Official! I have an official Plugin!

I was caught in the act of the happy-dance when it went live, by a stranger walking past my office window (standup desk = more aggressive happy-dance. I’m not sorry).

Here’s some details:

The plugin spawned from a client need in my work with Socialexis. The client runs a blog that has tons of great content that was written as far back as 2010 and 2011, but remains perfectly relevant today. In the web marketing world they refer to this type of content as “evergreen.”

The only issue with this great content is that their WordPress theme aggressively features the date. It’s the first thing a reader’s eye is drawn to when reading top to bottom, left to right.

This works great when the date is, say, yesterday. A reader sees a recent date and thinks “Oh, this content is applicable to me!”

But the same “feature” works in reverse when the date is, say, 19 months ago. Despite the fact that the content is just as relevant, the date filters the content into the “old news” category for the reader. Engagement goes down, conversion goes down, sad trombones play.

How can we gain the benefit of the prominent date on recent posts without the negative hit on engagement and conversion for older posts?

Im so glad you asked: enter WP Old Post Date Remover, a handy plugin by yours truly.

The plugin magically whisks away the date on any post older than 2 weeks, while keeping it on newer posts.

The secret sauce is a special CSS stylesheet that is loaded on those older posts, hiding the date field.

Published authors throw big parties to announce their new book, and have book signings. The best way I can “sign your copy” would be for you to install and activate my shiny new plugin, rate it 5 stars (or tell me how I can make it 5 stars), and tell a friend or two.

Also, don’t be afraid of the donate button (bottom right under my jumpy avatar) if you find it useful!

August 20, 2014August 20, 2014

Biking across North Carolina with a 1st Grader and a Preschooler.

When you take your almost 4-year-old and your 6-year-old on a biking trip, here are three lessons I’ve learned:

We went out riding in Mud Puddles. Because you only have these two at an age where dad is still cool for so long. — Observe proper mud puddle technique.

Avoid gravel paths, unless point 2 applies.
Repeat after me: “Incline first. Then long, slow decline back to the car.”
Muddy puddles are mandatory.

Our goal for the year is to bike the distance from Cary to Greenwood, SC in 3-6 mile chunks as a part of our home school curriculum. It’s recess, science (hello, fun insects), and geography all rolled into one!

School started on July 25th (3.5 weeks ago), and so far we have logged a total of 31.7 miles worth of the Town of Cary’s greenways. Our best day was 6.9 miles in and around North Cary Park (love the Black Creek Greenway!)

Shout out to Cycling Spoken Here in Cary for keeping our bikes in tip-top shape for the journey. And no, they didn’t pay me to say that (though I wouldn’t object).

Google Maps tells me that it’s 101 miles door to door from our house to our nearest grandparents. So, that’s the first goal. I’m calling it Operation: Over The River.

We're about a third of the way to our first goal! — We’re about a third of the way to our first goal!

Once we “arrive” at the first set of grandparents’ house, we’ll set our sites on the other ones. The Total milage to get to Greenwood (by way of Winston-Salem) is 289 miles.

Think we can make it by the end of the school year in June 2015?

Post your encouragements to Benjamin and Theodore in the comments, and I’ll make sure to let them know how many of you are cheering them on! Also, stay tuned for video updates and milestones!

July 28, 2014

It’s Break-even Month for Republic Wireless!

I support Republic with the "eyebrow" on the back of my bike. Shout-out to the Bike Commuters! — I support Republic with the “eyebrow” on the back of my bike. Shout-out to the Bike Commuters!

I switched to Republic Wireless from AT&T back in January, and laid out a hefty sum to do so ($300 each for two no-contract Moto X phones) but now, in late July, I’ve already broken even.

I was spending $140 per month on two phones with AT&T. One of those was not even a smart phone.

I am currently spending on average $40 per month on Republic wireless: I’m on the $25 plan for two phones, and people keep using my referral link that gets them (and me) $20 off of service. (Interested? it’s http://benlikes.us/republic )

So, even with dropping $600 on the top-end phones, I’m already making money from switching to Republic.

When I initially switched I was having some mild annoyances and dropped calls. That hasn’t happened in the last few months (I suspect the Android Kit Kat firmware update fixed most of the issues.)

If you are interested in joining the party, I’d appreciate you using my referral link, and saving us both some coin! Also, you no longer have to drop $300 on your phone to switch, because they released the capable Moto G as a $150 alternative.

To be clear, I’d still go with the Moto X if I were switching today: it’s worth an extra one-time fee for a better phone for me. But as a bargain-basement smartphone, the Moto G is nothing to slouch about.

Viva Republic!

July 7, 2014July 7, 2014

The Myth of the Unemployment Rate

Unemployment is a myth.

The highly publicized “unemployment rate” is a 50 year old yardstick with the numbers sand-blasted all the way off, and we are using it to gather intelligence that affects public policy?

In the information economy, what use is it to measure how many people are dead weight?

Before, when the only way a person worked was on a factory assembly line, and their only hope for income was continued clocking-in and widget-making, to measure the economy by unemployment made sense.

Now, a $25 webcam, hours of practice, and a free YouTube account is all that stands between you and an income. Or a $15 used power saw and an etsy shop to sell hand-made crafts made from used (free) pallets. In 25 minutes you can take what you are already good at, and make $1 doing it.

I get it (I’ve been there), there’s still no quick way (other than getting a job) to a reliable paycheck. To say that I’ve oversimplified making money online is itself an understatement.

But my point remains. Why are we measuring the health of the economy using a 50 year old broken yard stick?

Because there’s no better way to measure it, and the news cycle depends on reporting to make their money. So they have to say something.

Do we have to listen?

Please, do yourself a favor and filter everything you hear about the unemployment rate through the lens of “is this helpful?”

Using a broken yardstick to manufacture fake handwringing about an overblown non-problem doesn’t fix anything.

Worse, the handwringers are not actually concerned with fixing the problem. They’re likely more concerned with the number of pageviews they can muster in favor of the problem, or how many votes it’ll pick up to promise to fix the problem, or how they can spin the numbers to indicate that the have fixed the problem.

But that doesn’t mean I have to participate. I choose to be a part of the solution. I’m going to put in the hours of work to make the money to create some jobs (by hiring others to help me).

My current project? ChurchWebHelp.com

Tell a friend. Save the economy.