It can’t seriously be friday already can it? Wow.
OK, a quick recap then.
This morning I sent out the daily mails, scripted, recorded, and set up everything for this week’s DB Podcast, which I will release tomorrow. Then in the afternoon, I put together this week’s Weekly Buddhism PDF Magazine, which took a LOT less time than last week, presumably because I had it all planned out and didn’t decide to redo all the artwork unlike last time.
Much of this week has been spent in getting yet another site set up. http://www.dailyreligious.com is now up and functioning fully on automatic. It should update itself from here on out and all I need to do is recategorize the stories that the software can’t figure out on its own. The site was much more complex than I expected since the software that imported the news feeds didn’t work right; I had to rewrite the php code for that and parts of the Wordpress theme as well. It was… educational. It’s working fine now though, and it’s fun to browse to see what the latest news is.
The other project was getting the http://www.dailychesslesson.com site ready to roll. That was no big deal, as there is no special coding required. I did decide to put off the “Grand Opening” of the site until November 25th though. I want people who don’t know how to play the game to get signed up for the mailings BEFORE things start up, so they don’t miss out on the most basic of the basics. so this gives me a chance to publicize the site a bit before jumping right in.
Both of the new sites have Twitter accounts and Facebook pages as well:
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That leaves me free to spend the weekend writing new articles. I have a series in mind for the DB site next week, and that makes it much easier, since I don’t have to choose a bunch of little topics. I have a bunch of writing to do for the Vegan and Wellness blogs, I neglected them this week. I suspect I’ll be officially “opening” them within another week or two as well, so I’ll have to get my act together on them soon.
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November 14th, 2008 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment
I was tied up most of the day on Saturday with the niece & nephew going to the Newport Aquarium. It was fun, but not a lot of work got done that day. Sunday I wrote ONE SINGLE article, a CD Review ffor the DB site. It was a whole lot more complex than a simpe CD review, as I had to look up and explain “Reiki” and “Koyasan,” and then got side-tracker looking into related topics. Koyasan was easy enough, but Reiki is a fairly big subject. I’ve done music reviews before, but this one was tougher than most. afterwards, I spent way too much time Sunday watching reruns of Battlestar Galactica.
Fortunately, this morning I was able to take some of that research and re-use it to write up a separate article on Reiki for the WND site. I have been making lists of topics for all the blogs, and managed to zip out a quick one for the Vegan site about the use of Soy Cheese. I haven’t made any kind of official notice or done ANY publicity on the Wellness or Vegan sites, so I really don’t have to knock myself cranking out daily articles for them yet. I want to have at least ten articles or so on each before I announce them as “open.” That being said, there are already a few subscribers, so people are finding the sites on their own.
Chess pieces
Somewhere along the line this weekend, I read through a book on chess strategy that I bought last week. I came to the conclusion that the only way I was ever going to make time to improve my game was to blog on the topic. I set up YET ANOTHER new blog, http://www.dailychesslesson.com , and you can probably guess from the domain name how that one is going to work: More daily emails and RSS. I don’t think the podcast format would work very well for that topic, since there’s no way to properly show a board diagram, so there probably won’t be a podcast. Unless it’s a video podcast. Hmmmm…. I’ll have to think about that one.
November 10th, 2008 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment
Yesterday I got an email from someone thanking me for my podcasts, and said she was also a fan of Arcane Tales. Sigh. OK, that’s all it took; I recorded a new episode last night, “The Man-Eating Tree.” It’s actually one of my better readings for the site I think.
Then last night, I got another email, this one is quoted below:
…after a prolonged battle with addiction (cigarettes and marijuana) and much unenlightened behavior, I have recently reengaged in my studies of Buddhism. Besides my Dhammapada, your podcast was the first thing I found. I find myself to be an aural learner. one things I love about Buddhism is the many ways in which the tradition is translated and how accurately that translation seems to be transmitted regardless of medium. I suppose that’s what you get when truth is the subject. I am grateful that your excellent explanations came in to my life at the time that they did and I just wanted to let you know that your efforts are very much appreciated. doubtlessly our other subscribers and listeners are equally grateful. I will definitely be listening.
How cool is that? I get notes all the time saying that people appreciate the show, but it’s rare for someone to go into specifics on how the show actually makes a difference in their lives.
I finished this week’s podcast a little early, and posted it in the afternoon. Podcast Episode 30: Zen Gardens, Home Shrines, Conversion, and Reviews is available now. That gives me some time to put the Weekly Buddhism PDF Magazine together. I’ve got one big idea for this week; I think i’ll cover the Ten Oxherding Pictures. That subject is a little too big for the daily emails, so it seems about right. Then I’ll need to find some recent news to report on as well. The rest is pretty much taken care of already.
November 7th, 2008 | Category: Current Projects | Leave a comment
I just finished spending all morning upgrading all seven websites to Wordpress 2.6.3, the latest version of the software. I also converted Arcane Tales over to use the same template as all the other sites. Yes I use the same template for all seven sites, it makes everything just that much easier to maintain.
I also played around with a bunch of new plugins, but the only one I liked is WP-POLLS, which is now installed on the Tao and Buddhism sites, go and take the polls on the right-side of the screen if you want to see them in action. It’s nothing fancy, but I didn’t have poll capability at all before.
I also went through the archives of the old Daily Buddhism Audio shows, and compiled a list of the URLs where they can all be downloaded. I’ve been wanting to do it for a while now, but kept forgetting when I was actually in front of the computer. I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to do with the list, but I’ll probably post it somewhere soon.
November 6th, 2008 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment
A few weeks ago I asked a few publishers for review copies of their book. I am now knee-deep in stuff to review.
Which is a good thing. It gives me free books to read, it gives me material to write about for the site, and every once in a while as I read, I get new ideas for writing topics.
This morning I wrote a review for a children’s book: Here You Are, which I’ll publish on the site later this week. I’m currently reading through The Kindness Handbook: A Practical Companion, by Sharon Salzberg. If I finish it early this week, I’ll do a review of it later in the week, if not, I’ll do a review of one of the music CDs that were sent in.
November 2nd, 2008 | Tags: book reviews, books, reading | Category: Current Projects | Leave a comment
