Professional

This site started as a place to developement sites and to show the work that I have already done. But it has grown into so much more.

Within the donburnside.com family of sites you will find that I am an avid MINI Cooper enthusiast. I host WhiteRoofRadio, my first venture into podcasting. I also keep a motoring log at dbmini.us. You can also find me at my newest podcasting venture, The Hollywood Car Show with Fireball Tim.

While I’m not podcasting, I’m also [insert important title here] at Motoringfile, the most influential site for the MINI Cooper. That takes up a few more hours of every week.

During the day I’m an IT guy, specializing in Point-of-Sale systems and introducing or upgrading technology to small and mid-sized companies. I am also a professional trainer, and believe that proper, thorough training with adequate documentation is always better than not, and cheaper too.

When I create sites, I prefer to stay away from flashy layouts that are complicated or difficult to manage. I instead focus on a clean, easy-to-read layout with effective navigation and fast load times, even with a dial-up connection.
On the desktop I’m all about usability. That’s the trainer in me kicking in. I will spend hours making a process as easy as possible to the level of user that will be using it.

Personal

In my free time, I love to cook. Besides training, this is one of the only other things I am truly passionate about. If it weren’t for my love of technology, I’m sure I would have been a chef. And with over 12 years in the restaurant business, I was well on my way. When I do cook, I prefer to cook for others, especially large (over 15) groups. I get a great amount of satisfaction in providing a great meal to those I care about. Must be the Italian in me. I am also a single father. When I’m not correcting homework or making sure chores are done, I’m giving cooking lessons to my son. Since age 14 he has been capable of cooking dinner for 4!

Of course, you can’t forget the music. There is always time for music. I have what some have called a large collection and it is extremely varied. Music is with me everywhere I go. For motivation, inspiration or just pure entertainment. This is another of my passions and it is something I definitely could not live without.

w(t)f Video Hour

This was a feature I started on my blog when it previously lived at windthefrog.net. One of my favorite lines from any movie was from Toy Story. The line, of course, was when Woody was in that evil kids bedroom, getting ready to start an elaborate escape plan and he exclaimed “wind the frog!”. In the context it was funny and odd. Out of context it’s even funnier and odder. Bonus? Check the short version.

I try to put up a new episode weekly, but sometimes I don’t. Be sure to sign up for a free Viddler account so you can comment along with everyone else!

Disclaimer

I do try to follow a few rules when writing on my site, especially the blog. I do not talk about where I am working or what I am doing, specifically, unless given express permission to do so in a public forum. If, however, you would like more information about what I might be working on, feel free to contact me for more details.

Technical

Donburnside.com is running the latest version of Wordpress using a custom theme of my own design. Don Burnside logo created by Fireball Tim. All of my sites are hosted by Site 5.

All photos and video are taken with a variety of cameras that include the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3, a Blackberry Storm, a Blackberry Tour, The Flip Ultra, Canon Vixia HF100, an LG EnV or Skitch. Video and photos hosted at Viddler, Vimeo and YouTube and Flickr.

Active Plugins

  Akismet 2.2.7
» Matt Mullenweg (url)
Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. You need a WordPress.com API key to use it. You can review the spam it catches under “Comments.” To show off your Akismet stats just put <?php akismet_counter(); ?> in your template. See also: WP Stats plugin.

  All in One SEO Pack 1.6.10.1
» Michael Torbert (url)
Out-of-the-box SEO for your Wordpress blog. Options configuration panel | Upgrade to Pro Version | Donate | Support | Amazon Wishlist

  Audio player 2.0.4.1
» Martin Laine (url)
Audio Player is a highly configurable but simple mp3 player for all your audio needs. You can customise the player’s colour scheme to match your blog theme, have it automatically show track information from the encoded ID3 tags and more. Go to your Settings page to start configuring it.

  Flickr Photo Album 1.1
» Joe Tan (url)
This plugin will retrieve your Flickr photos and allow you to easily add your photos to your posts. Configure…

  Google XML Sitemaps 3.2.2
» Arne Brachhold (url)
This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask.com to better index your blog.

  Live Comment Preview 1.9
» Brad Touesnard (url)
Supply users with a live comment preview. Use the function <?php live_preview() ?> to display the live preview in a different location. Based on version 1.7 by Jeff Minard.

  Markdown for WordPress and bbPress 1.0
» Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine (url)
Markdown syntax allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format. Based on Markdown Extra by Michel Fortin, in turn based on the original Perl version by John Gruber.

  Redirection 2.1.25
» John Godley (url)
Manage all your 301 redirects and monitor 404 errors

  Subscribe To Comments 2.1.2
» Mark Jaquith (url)
Allows readers to receive notifications of new comments that are posted to an entry. Based on version 1 from Scriptygoddess

  WordPress Database Backup 2.2.2
» Austin Matzko (url)
On-demand backup of your WordPress database. Navigate to Tools → Backup to get started.

  WP-ContactForm: Akismet Edition 1.1
» Blogging Expertise (url)
WP-ContactForm: Akismet Edition is a spam-resistant drop-in contact form. It is derived from Ryan Duff’s WP-ContactForm 1.4.3 with the addition of code from the Akismet plugin. Debugging and improvements graciously contributed by DD32.

  WP-PluginsUsed 1.50
» Lester 'GaMerZ' Chan (url)
Display WordPress plugins that you currently have (both active and inactive) onto a post/page.

  WP-Polls 2.50
» Lester 'GaMerZ' Chan (url)
Adds an AJAX poll system to your WordPress blog. You can easily include a poll into your WordPress’s blog post/page. WP-Polls is extremely customizable via templates and css styles and there are tons of options for you to choose to ensure that WP-Polls runs the way you wanted. It now supports multiple selection of answers.

  WP Super Cache 0.9.9
» Donncha O Caoimh (url)
Very fast caching plugin for WordPress.