I am experiencing quite a few issues with the feedburner syndication of the RSS feed for this site. Unfortunately it is taking longer than expected to fix, so I do not really have an eta for it. I do hope to have the issue corrected within the next 24hrs.

Technorati Tags: olorinpc, jake barnard, rss, feedburner

It’s actually an interesting question to ask yourself. “What does the internet do for me?”

News, entertainment, keeping in touch, games, etc. The potential list goes on for a while. The post about abandoning myspace came after sitting down and asking myself that exact question. “What was I really getting out of the time I was spending online?”

A little bit everywhere, and nothing solid. The plethora of social networking sites has gotten silly. Most of my friends have an account on multiple sites. (For the few who don’t and are on one of the ones I am dropping, sorry but enough is enough.) I discovered that I was spending more time bouncing from site to site than I ever was actually being active on any of those sites.

The reciprocal question is - “What do you do for the internet?” Do you actually contribute any content, and an even more interesting point, is it useful or interesting to others? (Even if it is a small audience.) For me, the answer was no. I had pretty much abandoned blogging all together. When I actually felt I had the time to make a post, it was in the format of a “quick update.” Gone were the times of actually thinking hard enough to make a quality or thought provoking post.

What is the answer? It might be different for everyone. Personally, I have gone with keeping track of only one social networking site. (Facebook was my choice of the main ones.) Next I decided to keep only one personal blog page/site. (Your looking at it ~ Olorinpc.com) Finally, I choice a more solid focus for my online, and offline, energies in finally making use of my deviantART page.

This really is a more in depth post on my post from a couple of days ago. I am working on getting back to my “roots” in the blogging world and force myself to be a more creative person. (The critique of my work on dA has been very personally satisfying.  So has been taking an active part in that site after many years of just watching.) So in conclusion, being a contributing member of this global community we call “the internet” is more personally satisfying than being one of a zillion “friends” on a social networking site. I encourage everyone to think about this topic in relation to their own online activities.

Technorati Tags: olorinpc, jake barnard, deviantart, blogging, facebook, myspace

I have added a page on the right side.  The page will show 5 random deviations, art that I have submitted, and 5 random favorites.  (Other peoples artistic pieces that I have noted.)

Feel free to check out that page ~ or go straight on to my deviantART page.

Technorati Tags: olorinpc, jake barnard, deviantART, da

I will paste below this, my “myspace” post. The gist is however, I would rather upkeep this blog, than the mired mess of other social profiles I have managed to get myself into.

In all reality, I have overbooked myself. I tried to upkeep this site, myspace, facebook, firefigher nation, deviantART, work blogs, (play World of Warcraft) and a couple of others. The net result was - minimal work on all ~ and jack for quality. It has boiled down to a desire to consolidate my effort. I love the blogging community, and the art community, so am going to focus my efforts on just those two for a while.

I hope my below post explains that a little better:

I am thinking of leaving myspace. Why? too many social profiles, so the net result is that I don’t keep any of them up.There are some people that I do have on this site, that aren’t on either Facebook, or another one of my sites. (Dana, Phil, Mike, and Megan are the first ones that come to mind.) That being said… I just do not keep this site up… and if I do… ads pop up and myspace keeps the revenue. I would rather keep a non-ad blog, or a site where I know where the revenue goes. So… pretty soon I think I will be locking down my account here. The below accounts are the only ones I will be keeping track of:

Facebook - I will upkeep this to make sure HS/College/Work friends all have a point of contact for me. (Less messy than myspace as well imo)

Jakebarnard.com - I am going to start blogging only to this. Any ad revenue on said blog goes to me not a corp. (Yea I haven’t ever made any on it yet, but I would rather the potential not go to a major corp.)

olorinpc.deviantart.com ~ I have actually become a fairly active member in this art community. I have been a member for years, and since my dad became an admin… have become not only more involved, but a subscriber, and a contributing artist.

For firefighters, I do have a minor page at Firefigher Nation.com ~ however the upkeep is very minor.

The main goal is to upkeep my personal blog, and my deviant art page… dA probably being the primary goal for a while here.

All of that translates to… I plan on locking down and all but abandoning myspace. (I am going to keep track for a little bit, but I am hoping anyone critical on this site who hasn’t already, shifts to at least facebook.)

Technorati Tags: olorinpc, myspace, facebook, deviantart, firefighter nation, firefigher, jamestown, north dakota

Ok - the code upgrade on olorinpc.com/jakebarnard.com is now finished.

Off to work on the other sites… 3 more to go!

Word of warning, there will be some interruption in this site today.  I am performing a wordpress code upgrade on all of my blogs and doing some other plugin maintenance.

So - during the process, if you are viewing the blog, there will be sometime in the next little while be a 3-5min downtime for the blog, assuming everything goes correctly.