I hope you are well and thriving!

Life continues to be a wondrous adventure here on the Big Island, with two hurricanes passing by us last week, and lava dumping into the ocean right down the road.  What a crazy awesome place we live in!

Meanwhile, I’ve been spending too much time in front of my computer instead of out in the sun!  But I appreciate every minute of it.  I could be sitting in a cubicle!  And I’m just a 30 minute ride away from breaktime with a snorkel in my mouth!

So anyway, part of what’s been keeping me in front of the screen lately is the huge amount of website construction I’ve been doing.  I’m currently building nearly a half dozen websites at the same time!

And that will be the tech topic for today: building websites.

Buildin’ Websites

It wasn’t that long ago when I was building my very first website, sitting in front of my 486 computer at the dining room table, writing code line by line in HTML.

My, how things have changed!

The current tools available for website construction are the equivalent of the nail gun and Skillsaw as compared to a hammer and handsaw.  It’s a totally different game.  One I’m happy to say, that makes building a website within the reach of anyone with some spare time on their hands… Ok, maybe a LOT of spare time.

If you want a website at this point, the options are almost endless, and nearly, (or completely) free.

My platform of choice is WordPress.  It’s free.  It’s easy.  And finally, after years of maturation, it’s powerful enough to do almost anything you could possibly want.  It’s no wonder over 75 MILLION websites are built on WordPress.

The key to making WordPress really deliver is the use of a good theme.  With WordPress alone you can cobble together a very basic website.  But with the addition of a nice theme (usually about $50) you can really make a site shine.

I now spend almost zero time writing code.  Almost all of the development time goes straight into customizing the layout, style, and feel of the sites I build – almost completely with drag-and-drop ease.  If you want to put up a website, this is the way to go.

I’ve used quite a few website platforms, from Weebly and Wix, to Shopify and Joomla – and under certain circumstances, these options may be the best fit – but generally speaking, WordPress is both powerful enough, and easy enough to be the best option.

Ok, so enough about that – if you want to hear more about websites and really geek out, just give me a shout.

 

Instant Gratification

Speaking of instant gratification, I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot lately.

Personally, I’m completely spoiled.  I want my music now.  I want my shows and movies now.  I want my internet to pull up on my phone now.  I want a satellite image of my location now.  Now, now now!

It’s funny that we live in an age where we can get irked by not having high speed data instantly available to us the second we want it.  Netflix is down?!  You’ve gotta be KIDDING me!!!  I don’t have 4G? – what are we in, the dark ages?!

So on one hand, technology has made us richer than the royalty of just a few years ago.  And yet, on the other hand, we’ve all become totally spoiled.

Now this may not sound so bad, except that I fear much of our society is losing touch with some critical necessities – namely; patience, perseverance, critical thinking, work ethic, and so forth.

We’re raising a generation who’s idea of critical thinking is “Googling it”.  A generation who accepts what comes down the broadband pipe without really considering it, putting it into proper context, understanding it.  Someone posted it on Facebook – it must be true!

I’m not going to harp on this point, but I think we should consider what our kids are learning from a society that seems to promise instant gratification everywhere we turn – particularly from our technology.  As my physics teacher used to say; “Hard work, done well, feels good.”  How true.

 

Movie Recommendation

Ok, so this week I’m going to make a movie recommendation, with a word of caution attached.  The movie is called ‘The Mask You Live In’, and it’s on Netflix.  I’m recommending this movie specifically to men, and to parents of children.

The word of caution is this: it’s intense.

It’s about what it’s like to grow up as a boy in our society – and how our society is shaping the next generation – through technological means and otherwise.  Like I said; intense.  As a parent, I would want to be aware of what’s going on, no matter the difficulty in the digestive process.  But that’s just me.

If you’re looking for something more fun, try “Outsourced”.