Yet another anniversary of my time on the internet has passed. And by quite a bit.

Turns out, I have now, officially, been putting words to screen (and it’s verifiable) for just a bit over 7 years! If you were to go back through the archives here, you will find my first post, at what was windthefrog.net, happened on November 5th, 2003. Of course, I’ve been doing for a bit longer, but those were posts that were eaten by Blogger or vaporized by Greymatter when I switched over.

7 years and change. Anyone curious what that means? According to the handy dandy Wordpress Dashboard it means

• 1,428 posts contained within 41 categories
• There have been 1,927 comments made, 1,911 approved
• I’ve used 642 tags

I’m not really sure what the word count is, but figure that each of the posts that I make here is usually around 300, than means that I’ve typed out over 400,000 words. Staggering. And that’s just here.

To get the full look back, I need to include the posts from dbmini.us, which started September, 2002, those stats would look something like this.

• 2,491 posts contained within 68 categories
• There have been 3,760 comments made
• I’ve used 721 tags

Using the same math as above, but assuming an average word count of 200 per post, that gives me a grand total over the past 7 years of almost 500,000 words that I have put to screen.

And that doesn’t even count the 6,657 posts on Twitter or the 2,591 posts on Tumblr. It also doesn’t count the hundreds of posts at Motoringfile that I have my name of them, or the 658 posts at White Roof Radio. If I had to guess, that’s got to be close to 750,000 words that I have put to screen in the last 7 years (and change).

Amazing.

I have decided to go back to the “I wonder who will find me” model of personal publishing, instead of forcing it onto your screens. I’ve been pushing stuff to Twitter long enough, so you know it’s all here. Now to see if you keep coming back.

To be a little more clear, anything that I post here, on dbmini, w(t)f, Vimeo or Viddler will no longer automatically get posted to Twitter, which also no longer automatically posts to Facebook.

I will be putting everything back into Friend Feed if you want a one-stop-shopping experience for everything I share online, but that’s as far as it goes.

If you are one of my Facebook or Twitter followers and want to be able to keep up with my shit, might I recommend taking the time now to discover the absolute brilliance that is RSS and Google Reader. Everything I do has an RSS feed and it’s a great way to keep up. Bonus is that there are a ton of sites out there that also have RSS feeds, so you can easily subscribe to them to get the latest updates.

If you are one of my Twitter or Facebook followers that is tired of reading duplicate posts or seeing links from me, you won’t any longer. You’re welcome.

Finally, I will be removing FB Connect from donburnside.com and reset the Wordpress comment rules appropriately.

As always, thank you for your time.

To start, the Personnel Directory page has been newly created for 2009. Much like the old Cast of Characters page at w(t)f, it’s a list of the regular players her in the Solutioneering Empire.

Would you like a position here at donburnside.com? It’s not an actual job, which means there isn’t actual money to pay you or provide benefits, but it is fun. If you check out the list you will see that it is the people that play along here more than the rest, mostly in the comments of the posts or in the video. That’s it. I would like to add more, but that depends entirely on you. So get to commenting!

Did you make the list but don’t want to be on it? Let me know. Have a funnier photo I could use? Let me know. Want to re-write your description? If it’s funny and short, let me know!.

After thinking about it all day yesterday and the day before and getting feedback from some you, I have decided to do a complete reorg of all my sites. You see the new nav starting above. Not the final draft, of course, more proof of concept. It will be something like that.

Here is my current plan.

• Move dbmini to it’s own Wordpress installation under db.com/mini. dbmini will remain online in it’s current form and place indefinitely. It’s still my primary email address (which is easy to change) and there are a ton of inbound links to that site. I will put up a page say that’s it’s moved and not updated there any more.
• Incorporate w(t)f into db.com as the blog portion of the site. w(t)f will continue until the domain name expires, at which point I will let it go.
• Create a new section called video. All videos will go here, MINI and not MINI related.
• Create a new section called audio. Try to find a way that posts from WRR and THCS will import automatically. If not, I will figure something else out. Maybe at the very least post links from the feeds.
• Create a new section called pressd. This will live in it’s own WP install and database.

Mechanically, this will work. The real trick is going to be in the integration which I will talk more about after the jump.

Coming up with a way to tie all of this together visually is going to be tricky because while I want there to be some consistency, I also want to be able to keep the design of each section as unique as possible. Plus keep the navigation uniform, or as uniform I can.

Then there will be issue of the feeds and getting people to resubscribe. I think I will setup feedburner feeds for dbmini and here soon and point you to those at your earliest convenience. Watch this space for more info. Otherwise, each section will have it’s own feed.

So, when it’s done, the sitemap would look something like this.

• donburnside.com – Will still contain what it does now, for the most part.
• donburnside.com/mini – dbmini will live here
• donburnside.com/wtf – regular blog posts will live here
• donburnside.com/video
• donburnside.com/pressd – For Random links
• donburnside.com/audio – for the audio shows

While the priority for this is high, it is a non-paying gig so I will be able to work on it when time allows. And it’s also a fairly involved project. I say if I can get it done before the end of September I’ll be in pretty good shape.

Keep an eye on this space for updates as they happen. You know, like changes to the feed.

I haven’t had that. Not since my PC died in early ‘07, shortly after I got the MacBook. And, while the MacBook is a great little mobile machine, it just doesn’t have the horsepower I need for doing other things. As it turns out, there are a few other issues I have with it as well.

So I’ve been watching the refurb shop at the Apple store for a 20″ iMac (the good one, not the low-end model), a 24″ iMac and a 15″ MacBook Pro. After my last trip, I’ve made my decision.

15″ MacBook Pro.

This came to me as I was trying to edit video on the road on the 13″ MB screen and watching as iMovie brought the machine to a smoking, screeching halt and declared 200+ minutes to export a 15 minute long video. No good that. Also I got the chance to check one out in person at that ginormous Apple store in Boston. If you ever get the chance, I highly recommend it.

So, when the time comes, I will get a 15″ MBP for my desk. Run it off the juice with the battery removed (if I can) and use it mobile when I need the extra power.

Something else that I discovered after last week was just how cool the iPhone was. Every day during MTTS it saved our asses no less than twice, and some days more often than that. Whether it was finding the nearest Starbucks or giving us directions from point a to point b, just have access to Google Maps, even as slow as it is over EDGE, was a godsend!

Now, I’m not going to do anything foolish like drop Verizon and go to AT&T. Besides not liking AT&T, the coverage, where I spend most of my time, is crap. And, since it’s the only phone I carry, I like it to work all the time.

What I’m actually hoping to be able to do is get my MBP sometime before Apple stops that student special so I can also get an iPod Touch. Um, sure, it’s, um, for teh lad. Yea, that’s the ticket!

All of which hinges, directly or not, on my getting work. Don’t forget, I am for hire! Feel free to pass along my contact info and whatnot to anyone that you think could benefit from my skills.

Ok, back to processing one more video. Then, and only then, will this round of MTTS be done!