Category: About Me

Starting An IT Help Site

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As part of my plans to create my own company providing IT services and programming, I want to start putting out content on IT topics, programming, or just other technology-related subjects. I wouldn’t mind doing some streaming question and answer type things, but I don’t know if that would always work out.

To start, I want to cover some of the basics of IT and see how that goes. I have written a few lists of topics to cover that would be easy to start with like HTML, C#, Wireless Networking, Network Cabling, Blogging, who knows what else comes to me.

I have two domains I can use, one was an old technology news site I tried to run but found out it was lame just rewriting press releases, and no one wanted another one of those sites. The other would be a tutorial site similar to this, but I now think the name is lame now, and it has no presence online yet.

I hope to have text-based information, real-life photos of examples, and some videos about the topics. That way, it covers the primary way any average person learns new things. I also plan on producing a video just talking about a topic each day (3-5 days a week), Eli The Computer Guy is an excellent example of what I am thinking of basing these videos on.

If I can handle all this, I also want to try making a video every other morning after taking one of my kids to school talking about the news or other things going on around me or in the world not related to technology in particular. I think it will be an excellent way to vent some of my thoughts without having to put too much effort into it, like writing one of these 300+ word posts, not that I won’t be trying to do more of this.

Will see what happens in the next few weeks, it’s hard to get clients for my IT services business with things shut down and people working from home, I would like to get more business either way, but I can only put myself out there and hope people are looking for me. I hope to keep my blog updated on the progress.

PS: I am writing this differently than usual, I started writing this in Grammarly’s editor. I’m hoping it will help me not only spell things better but produce better text. So far, it seems to have helped with some words that make me sound better and see if the premium is worth it now.

What A Year So Far

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Wait its already the end of August? I didn’t even get my 2020 beginning of the year random update post in! What a year so far! So crazy and almost too crazy like there’s an election they need to cause problems with.

Lots has happened with me too, work was great doing managed IT services and working at a wireless ISP, then BOOM world shut down, clients freaked and I was out. Still doing some IT services on my own and was able to spend the summer with the kids. Now its time to get more going.

So what am I working on, well more IT services though my own name, Grand Junction Computers. Next, I am working on computer tutorials for Programming, IT, Computers, Networking, Cabling, and Tech. I have a good list of programming things to keep me busy with them for a while. I also want to start some kind of current events vlog or something will see what that turns into also. Finally I have a few ideas for programs or services, along with a few games that could keep me going.

The goal is to make enough money that just comes in from projects or services I can keep making more. If it goes good enough I would like to find some land and document building a house on it, but that’s the long term goal. Lets see how crazy they get once the elections are over and we can accept that a virus is not the worst thing to happen to us, and most of us have probably all gotten it. Who knows I may actually post thoughts here more, or not.

Welcome to 2019

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It is a new year and I am not going to start off saying, “I should blog more” because well I don’t end up doing that. I will say that in 2018 I nuked my FaceBag account and am done with social media, not that I had much love for it in the first place. When sites like Twitter and Facebook started to get popular I always though of it as being kind of lame. I continue to promote the idea that if you want a place for your content, then have your own website, control what and how that content is posted, and be in control of it.

One cool thing about my current work is that I get to do some traveling around the country. According to my spy device, Google says I have traveled 14,390+ miles ~ 57% around the world. That wasn’t to many trips, just a few back and forth. So for 2019 I do hope work sends me more places, but I want to get out more this summer and do stuff around the Rocky Mountains. That gets us to the next point.

A few years back Steve Gibson from GRC and Security Now podcast, did a lot of research and started living a low carb life. I tried it at the time and felt great, was not hungry, and lost some weight. But because if your doing it alone its hard, and our food system is based around carbs and sweets to the most part it is hard to say on it. I also went to school and gained a lot of weight because I was sitting at a computer a lot. Now the old lady found out about Keto and got hyped, so we are now 1.5 months into eating low carb together, we had some problems during the holidays but carbs make us feel sick now. So already losing 25lb I am planning on keeping up the way of eating and working to get healthy. I hope by summer to have gotten down some more weight and just feeling better so I can get out more.

Other things for 2019 is that I am starting to get a list of both Blog post ideas, Tutorial ideas, and Projects I want to create. If I can get even half of the posts done by summer that would be cool, like I said at the top, I always say I want to post more but don’t end up doing it.

Anyway, have a good year, work on making yourself, your family, your community, your country, and your world better by focusing on things that can actually help.

If you want to support my site, I never expect anything, I have setup a Bitcoin Wallet as something fun to mess with, the address is on the side or use this 19YduiFxtDh6h4ALG5vgaqkoh1ZBrtjyJm

Broke The Blog

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So I thinking “I haven’t logged in to my blog in a few I should see if it needs updates” then I was getting errors with some cache plugin or the built in one, not really sure but I was also having problems connecting to DreamHost sites at work and then all I could pull up was a white page for everything. Of course WordPress has had many “White Page” errors some have to do with plugins, others with memory, or database problems. Ether way you get no error message even with error reporting on. Finally traced it down to just needing to disable the WordPress cache in the config and everything came back up, with a few problems with my Theme, just had to reinstall it and now its back.

I would love to dump WordPress, but it just kind of works. I did lose some of my interest in blogging, its not the “cool thing” for a lot of people. But I think I want to get back into it. I also have noticed that since most of the “how to sites” no longer link to my post on how to fix handbrake and they just took my steps almost word for word, traffic is way down to the site. So moving the important posts to something new wouldn’t be too bad they would get re-indexed and still show up when people look for them.

This could be a good opportunity for me to take some of my CMS tools I have build for my works site and move them into my site. No more broken WordPress, with its vulnerabilities and slow performance. But its a lot of work getting my system built up and not as just drop in some images and bang out a few paragraphs when I want to add something. The text input isn’t too bad, but I haven’t built a great solution for uploading images and files just things that get a simple job done.

Another thing about building my own solution is that I like using PHP and MySQL, and that is what my CMS starter code is in. But I would like to learn ASP.net Core and build a site with it, but my hosting is LAMP. Anyway I will just leave it like it is and hopefully get motivated sometime to make something new. At least start posting once a week would be good.

Writing Code

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At this point in my degree I have finished all my Computer Science course and am just left with some math and science classes, so close to the end yet a little bit left. I would consider myself a well-rounded coder with experience writing simple console apps, to websites, to complex website content management systems, to Windows apps that use databases. I have participated in robot challenges, startup competitions, added and worked existing code for production applications, converted vital databases, and worked as a group to develop web applications.

All that being said I find the act of writing code for an application fun and exciting at times. You have to figure out the problem, find ways to deal with data, and then output something useful. This can be a challenge at times because there is never any two problems the same, yes there are things you can reuse but almost never has someone written code to do exactly what you are doing. I think that’s part of the reason I enjoy it.

But some times you have to be in the right place to really let things come out, environment can have an effect on distractions, comfort, availability of resources, alertness, and even mood. Another thing that seems to drive some coding is truly having something you want to work on, I have had lots of things that were interesting to me, but I didn’t have the drive to work on them when given the opportunity. I have also found I want to work on something but don’t because other things come up. This doesn’t mean when I need to get things done because I have responsibilities to get it done or there is intensive to do so that I can’t or don’t always find a way to get what I need to do done.

I guess what I am saying there is times when it is easier because I am really interested in something or I want to solve a problem, and I can buckle down and get lots done in a short amount of time. Writing code is a real mental process, you have to think about logic, how things are given to you, the users, the task to solve, and how to get it all done. You can get stuck in your mind working on the problem and it will stick with you night and day until you solve it by writing the code. Sometimes it seems like your avoiding the problem but it will be stirring around in your mind.

Starting to ramble now, I guess what I am saying is that I have found something that can really drive my brain to solve problems, and keep me interested. I just now have to finish up classes and see what opportunities come my way to give me a place to use my abilities and enjoy doing it. I think it is closer than I even know but that wait is what makes it hard. Every thing I get involved with I do see some value in helping me see more of the world both in code and with others. That’s all for now, I shouldn’t blog so late at night…

PS: WOW my number of visitors has dropped over the past year, Handbreak must have passes its usefulness and I really haven’t been adding much content but once every 6 months. I should (like I always say) add more posts, guess I should actually try that with code blog posts.

July 2013 Update

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It’s been more than a few months since I posted anything on this site! I was working on a post every day and that sounded good, but wasn’t working out how I liked and when I started my classes I just didn’t take time to work on any of my websites. In about a month I will be back in school and studying for my classes, but this time I hope how I have my classes organized it won’t be as crazy. But I do plan on doing more studying then I did last semester.

So what am I doing on this site, views are lower than 6 months ago when I was updating things, but I want to post regularly about what I am working on. I hope to write about programs I am making for classes, things I find interesting in my classes and some of the things I do to relax. This may include some projects I was testing doing game play videos with my kids or something like that.

As for Tek4.me I am looking at reviving that site but with a lot of changes to what and how I cover tech news, I was spending too much effort just having a post about some product that was announced each day, and I wanted to be writing about what was really useful and fun. Will see what happens but I need to get something going so expect something to happen with that site.

Expect some updates, I say this every time I don’t do anything with my sites for a while but ya…

Happy New Year 2013

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Just wanted to post a Happy New Year message for 2013, and put out some goals for my websites. This year I have had amazing amounts of traffic to my Handbreake setup guide with almost 600 views in one day to the site the 27th of December 2012. I also started the Tek4.Me site that was starting to get good amounts of traffic but I stopped updating the site the past few months when I change some of my plans, but I am not going to abandon the site more to come on that.

I have been working on building a recipe site for learning and also just for fun, I also have in the works a event listing site that will be my next ground up web project that I hope will become a good place to find events and also post events.

As for WebLuke.Net and Tek4.Me, I have set a goal to blog post every day, my not be on both sites but I should have something. I have set goals like this before but things are changing, this domain is 12 years old, I am starting some new schooling this month and I want to include blogging in my new daily plan.

Hope the year is good for everyone, and we both can work hard to achieve our goals and plans for 2013.

Reflecting on the Past few months of Tek4.me

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tumblr_md39piSaRR1rk9vano1_r1_500A few months ago I started Tek4.me technology blog website, and started to build out content. The problem is during the past few weeks I seem to have neglected the site a bit and my traffic is showing that. When I started it I didn’t expect to get crazy amounts of people going there each day but things were looking good as far as no real promotion other than just wringing articles and some free Facebook ads that didn’t bring anyone to the site. It was fun to read though the list of announcements and find ones that I found interesting, then put together an article about the product or service. Problem was when I had other things take some of my time and there was a slow or lame bunch of news for a week I lost a lot of interest.

The site isn’t dead but it seems that way based on traffic numbers, and number of new posts. That brings me to one problem, most of my content was only relevant for a few weeks and then it’s just old news. I’m sure that is what the big sites have problems with also, that’s why they have so many of those filler posts that are tutorials or things that aren’t news but just fun to read things. I was trying to make this site all news and nothing else. So that’s one thing I will be working on. The other thing is I wasn’t writing about things I didn’t find cool, but what I need to do is still cover those things just don’t worry about getting full details like I did for products or services I thought were real cool or wanted.

So what’s going to happen, in January I will start going to University for Computer Science (don’t waste your money like I did with ITT-Tech schools don’t transfer your credits and employers don’t think its good enough) so my focus will be on doing well in my classes, but I hope I can pull myself back to daily posts on Tek4.me. I plan on working to add more content starting this week and get things going again. Also on WebLuke.net I hope I can use this as more of a place to put my experience of school and things. I have wanted also to do more tutorials like my popular Handbrake for Windows 64-bit article. Some other things of note are I have been reading up on how to use PHP again and coding in HTML, I kind of lost my love for things like that a number of years ago and just kind of lost the feeling of how you do things, but I will need to get that all back in my head because I at some point want to build out a recipe site I had once built but lost and also an Events listing website that I have prototype in Drupal but doesn’t work like I would like it to, so if I can get to it that is a long-term project I will work on.

I think this post is me telling myself I need to get things going again and I can do it. With school coming it may make things harder but I have the opportunity to go to school, build my websites, take care of my kids, and learn new things. If only I could monetize this all better things would be a little nicer!

Tek4.ME My New Technology Blog

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A few weeks ago I quit my normal crummy job that wasn’t helping me with my goal of working with computers, technology, or the internet. I had gotten my degree as an Information System Administrator but the job market for IT workers is very hard because there aren’t that many jobs where I live, but I had a few ideas on how I can still have an income.

First I have done some service calls for a company installing Internet, and those pay good for the work, I also have some friends that has been offering to get me doing the service calls they do but in my area. Because these calls aren’t consistent I plan to do some other stuff with my time when I’m not just taking care of my kids.

So my plan is to write on my Technology and Gadget blog Tek4.ME as much as I can. It will have topics such as news about upcoming Apple, Microsoft, Google, and other Companies new products and services. The blog will also have tips and tricks for best using your technology and online services. Some of the articles already up include my Hands on Review of the Nexus 7, information on why YouTube won’t be part of iOS 6, and what’s new in Windows Essentials 2012.

Finally I would also like to start building a few websites a month; this would be things like setting up and building a site using WordPress or Drupal for any type of business or organization. If interested check out more information at Grand Junction Computers web site.

Please follow us on RSS, Google+, Twitter, or Facebook for all the updates!

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Learning to DJ

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A few months ago after going to a family members wedding and talking with the DJ and asking him a few questions I decided that I would give DJing a try. So I played with some open source software out there called MIXX and found that it was fun to do. I also have done sound work with my Dad since I was in middle school, there has been some time though that I have done none but I still know what I’m doing with sound equipment. I also have some equipment from my podcast setup.

I looked around for what I would need, and since I didn’t have much money to spend on stuff I got a basic Hercules DJ Console MK4, Harbringer 15″ powered speakers, Bringer Eurorack mixer package. Console was didn’t come in the package, and it came with stands, cables, and some cheap mics.

On the mics though I did get a email after saying they would give me a $50 credit for select items, but it didn’t work and when I talked with them on the phone they just asked me what I wanted and I got a Shure SM48 for free.

Anyways I played with my equipment and acquired more music, and a guy from work’s daughter was getting married so I was testing my speakers in the gym at work and I offered to do the wedding for free so I could get experience.

Things went good, learned a lot such as even though you talk with the people you are playing for, they may have other plans so you may need to get more information on what songs are if they give you a disk of things they like. I wasn’t informed of what some of the songs were for and played them but later they wanted them for dances that the bride and maids were doing oops. Also found out that I had my speakers up too high and the patio covering was blocking the sound to the people in the back. It may have also been that I was trying to keep the volume to a point that if you were in the back it wouldn’t be all that loud but on the patio were people were dancing I think it was loud enough.

So Friday I am going to do the music for my cousin’s second local wedding reception, not sure what I will play but have some music that will be good for the audience. They said they didn’t want to dance so not sure how good some of the songs will be that normally get danced too. I have just spend a few hours going though music to get an idea of what I have again since it’s been a few months since I did the first wedding.

The more I learn and get experience it should get more fun to do, just need to get more people to pay me to do things for them and more then once every three months.

—DJ WebLuke