The Chris Gonyea Project

I just found the instructions for automating a WordPress upgrade via Subversion.

This sounds really neat. I think I am going to try it. I know manage three different WordPress sites and finding even that low number is a pain to upgrade easily when new versions come out. This method sounds like it can take a lot of that pain out of the way. Especially as I add more WordPress sites to my maintain list.

What I would really like is figure out how to automate this with AppleScript & Shell Script so I can just double-click an icon, type in what version to upgrade to, and have the whole thing done with no intervention.

Sounds like a good little project to learn UNIX shell commands. For all of my computer knowledge, I know next to nothing about UNIX and shell commands. Might as well start now and expand my knowledge. I will share my experience with this on here in the near future.

I just sent in the payment that will officially pay off my HDTV two years early (I had no interest until 2010 on it). Why pay off something I have no interest on for two more years? Because I am following the Debt Snowball method of reducing debt. It is completely right too: tackling the smallest debts first allows for some really quick/easy wins that add up extremely quickly. Plus it is simply awesome to delete a company from my bill pay list! So far we have been able to payoff/close three credit card accounts completely and pay off one of my wife’s college loans.

Next up is paying off my last credit card with a balance. It still has about $1300 on it due to a car repair bill I am still paying from nearly a year ago (before my wife and I had an emergency fund, plus before the debt snowball started). With the debt snowball, I think I can get it paid off in ~8 months assuming I have no major unexpected bills come up, get a little overtime here and there, and reducing expenses where possible. I think I am going to try calling Comcast and see if I can threaten to switch to satellite over their video quality problems…maybe they will lower their monthly rate for a few months.

I dislike wires with a passion. They take up space, never look neat (well, at least when I am involved in hooking them up), and in most cases completely unnecessary. Especially for home use, there is few times when you really do need to grab that Ethernet cable.

With the recent purchase of my HP Photosmart C7280, I was able to completely remove the 7-port USB hub I had previously attached to my Macbook. That hub at the time had my USB hard drive, iPod sync cable, and digital camera cable plugged in, since I would only need to plug 1 USB cord into my laptop.

Now I neatly wrapped up my iPod and digital camera cables, so they take up little space and put them into my drawer. When needed, I take them out and plug them into my laptop. What the concept!

I leave my USB hard drive unplugged from my Macbook and try to plug it in whenever I am at my desk using the Macbook. That will automatically kick off a Time Machine backup. This is not ideal (I have to remember to plug it in for a backup to start), but it will do until I can afford a Time Capsule.

So right now, the only cords that remain plugged in 100% of time when I am at my home desk are the Macbook power cord and the speaker cable. So in the end, the amount of “wire clutter” (for lack of a better term) has been greatly reduced on my desk, but not completely. I need that Time Capsule to finish the process of moving “wireless.” Anyone want to buy it for me?