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Earlier this year I started a comic podcast over at www.professorsexinthetoiletwiththelawnmower.com. I got a couple episodes out but the time it took to produce and the fact it was no fun doing it alone, I kinda stepped back from it until I can devote the time and resources needed. Right now the site is being used as a starting ground for stuff I would want to do in the future but thats about.

In the meantime, to satisfy my comic blog itch, I’ve signed on to be a regular contributor over at www.comicspoilers.net. I have 5 posts up already and plan on at least 1 new post a week but most likely more depending on the given week.

I started a tumblelog to post stuff thats interesting but don’t really warrant an entire blog post or I just don’t have the time.

Visit me at http://the8thsign.tumblr.com/ and subscribe to the RSS feed at http://the8thsign.tumblr.com/rss

This site, like many others, is powered by Wordpress. Today Wordpress 2.1 was finally released.

New features include:

• Autosave makes sure you never lose a post again.
• Our new tabbed editor allows you to switch between WYSIWYG and code editing instantly while writing a post.
• The lossless XML import and export makes it easy for you to move your content between WordPress blogs.
• Our completely redone visual editor also now includes spell checking.
• New search engine privacy option allows you take you to indicate your blog shouldn�t ping or be indexed by search engines like Google.
• You can set any �page� to be the front page of your site, and put the latest posts somewhere else, making it much easier to use WordPress as a content management system.
• Much more efficient database code, faster than previous versions. Domas Mituzas from MySQL went over all our queries with a fine-toothed comb.
• Links in your blogroll now support sub-categories and you can add categories on the fly.
• Redesigned login screen from the Shuttle project.
• More AJAX to make custom fields, moderation, deletions, and more all faster. My favorite is the comments page, which new lets you approve or unapprove things instantly.
• Pages can now be drafts, or private.
• Our admin has been refreshed to load faster and be more visually consistent.
• The dashboard now instantly and brings RSS feeds asynchronously in the background.
• Comment feeds now include all the comments, not just the last 10.
• Better internationalization and support for right-to-left languages.
• The upload manager lets you easily manage all your uploads pictures, video, and audio.
• A new version of the Akismet plugin is bundled.

Unfortunately, I will not be upgrading to 2.1 anytime soon as my host is still running on MySQL 3.23 and has yet to upgrade to version 4.0 which is required. I’ve been happy with my host but I may look for a more high profile web-host that supports wordpress in the future so I can avoid stuff like this. So for the time being it looks like I’ll be stuck with 2.0.x.

[10 Things You should Know About WordPress 2.1]
[Download Wordpress 2.1]

January - started using Mac OS X

February - built dedicated computer to run Mac OS X on

March - Starting using iTunes to manager my media

April - stopped using Bloglines, switched from Exchange to Google Mail and Google Calendar, bought a Jimi wallet

May - switched Layout, Skype is free for the rest of the year, started a new job, Macbook’s released, went to grand opening of Apple 5th Ave store, bought my Macbook

June - joined valleyshwag, MC360 released for XBMC, bought a Nintendo DS Lite, canceled my Final Fantasy XI account after 3 years

July - switched to Flock, Macbook got hit with discoloration, started running using the Nike+iPod kit, Macbook Random Reboots started

August - switched from del.icio.us to Shadows, started using OpenDNS, got hard to find Trauma Center and Phoenix Wright for the DS, new mc chris and Evanescence albums, bought the Timbuk2 blogger bag

September - started new full-time job, fall TV season starts, bought a Xbox360 after Guitar Hero 2 is announced with new controller, canceled my Myspace account

October - got tickets for macworld 2007, Xbox360 troubles, 300 trailer, Macbook RSS fixed, bought my first Blackberry, my Xbox360 has its own blog

November - interviewed for MacNewsWorld, Gears of War, Guitar Hero II and Elite Beat Agents all released on same day, turned 28, XBL Video Marketplace released, subscribed to Netflix and Gamefly, bought an HD DVD

December - Geekdrome dead, started reading comics again, finally found out what all the hype about Battlestar Galactica, Veronica Mars and Greys Anatomy was all about

Its been a whole week and not one Xbox 360 problem yet. I may have a winner here folks. I did get a extended 1 year warranty with this one so it figures it will work flawlessly. To celebrate this stunning achievement, I’ve set up a blog for my Xbox 360 over at 360Voice. Stop by to see what my 360 has been up too.

[the8thsign's Xbox 360 blog]

I’m here at Panera Bread having a Iced Green Tea trying to get some work done because my power is off at the house and can’t get online. I had a bright idea of coming down here to get some lunch and leech me some bandwidth. What a mistake that was. While lunch was good, their free WiFi sucks. I’m connected but can hardly pull up any webpages, update RSS feeds or even see if i have emails. I wrote a blog post for another blog of mine and it wont even post so I doubt your going to see this one. I might head down the road and hit Starbucks but you have to pay for that. I’ll be in work in an hour so thats probably a waste of time and money at this point. *sigh*

Ecto, my favorite blog editor, has FINALLY released a Intel build of 2.4.1. I have been waiting for almost a year for this. While the PPC build worked under Rosetta, it was painfully slow. I have been popping around between ecto, Flock’s builtin blog tool and surprisingly Windows Live Writer. I can now happily say ecto is back in my dock. Now if only ecto 3.0 would hit the inter-tubes before the end of the year.