Coming Out In the Strangest of Ways

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For as long as I can remember, I’ve known that I was gay. Growing up in a conservative Christian family that was very active in the Church, this fact was a constant struggle, something I fought tirelessly and endlessly to disguise. I dated girls occasionally, but never for any extended period of time or with any legitimate interest on my part. Instead, it was simply one component of the elaborate facade I built to “protect” myself and hide my secret.

Growing up in an environment where homosexuality was regularly derided as sinful, as a sure path to damnation, the question of whether or not to keep on living was ever-present. The misery that hiding, that being the unwitting target of jokes and ridicule, that lying to everyone around me brought with it was often so overwhelming that suicide seemed the only solution. If I couldn’t be happy with something I had no choice of being in the first place, what was the point in continuing on?

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Five Reasons Why I Love Developing with WordPress

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I’ve been using WordPress for a few years now, and since March, I’ve worked at C. Murray Consulting, where I primarily develop websites on WordPress and BuddyPress. Originally designed for blogging, recent upgrades have transformed WordPress into a full-featured content management system. Thanks largely to its humble roots, WordPress has a number of advantages over its competitors. Below are the top five I’ve identified as both a user and developer:
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The Art of Career Change

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In the years since I began high school, I’ve pursued four distinct career paths, each so very different from the last that most people conclude that I’m insane when I list them.

I began high school set on a career in architecture, and I even took numerous courses that taught hand and computer-aided drafting, architecture terminology, and so on. By the beginning of my senior year, however, it was clear that architecture was the wrong career path for me. For one, I despised the tediousness of creating elevations, and I always seemed to struggle with floor plan layout. I would inevitably end up with some odd space that didn’t quite fit into any of the surrounding rooms, forcing me to call upon a classmate to assist me as I reworked the design. At the same time, thankfully, a hobby had developed into a full-time obsession and thus seemed like a logical career path.

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Introducing WordPress 3, Featuring Custom Post Types, A Native Menu Editor, and More

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The following first appeared on my employer’s site, cmurrayconsulting.com.

Today’s release of WordPress 3.0 brings some exciting enhancements and new features that strengthen the software’s position in the realm of content management systems. For developers such as us, two sets of features in particular should prove invaluable in implementing WordPress-based solutions for our clients.

First, version 3 expands WordPress beyond the traditional blogging constructs of posts and pages by allowing users to specify custom post types. These custom types can function either like posts, organized linearly, or like pages, having a hierarchical structure. This feature builds on the custom taxonomies introduced in WordPress 2.9, which let users expand the organizational options for content beyond just categories and tags. Now, combining custom post types with custom taxonomies, users have complete control over how content is organized and displayed.

Custom post types don’t just let users segregate press releases from product pages, for example, but also simplify the addition of fields specific to each post type. A product post type could include pricing and availability, whereas a press release could hold media contact information. Following this example, separate taxonomies can be assigned to each, reaffirming a clear organization of content.

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iPhone Coming to Verizon on June 26?

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A few weeks ago, I stopped by my local Verizon Wireless store. In the course of conversation, the subject of the iPhone inevitably came up. Rather than the standard “I don’t know” response, the gentleman helping me gave a somewhat cryptic but clear response: “Someone, somewhere, is making an announcement on June 26.” Playing along (albeit a bit taken aback by his forthrightness), I mused that the person making this announcement might be wearing a turtleneck and tight jeans while standing on a starkly-black stage. The Verizon employee nodded affirmatively.

While I understand that rumors appear and disappear regularly on this subject, never before has an employee of Verizon Wireless provided such direct responses when I’ve brought up the iPhone’s availability on the carrier’s network. Some may respond with skepticism founded on doubts that store employees not at a managerial level would have such knowledge, but if the announcement does come on June 26, I can only suspect that Verizon’s preparations for the melee that will ensue include informing its entire staff of its plan for handling the throngs that will turn out for the device. The staff alone needed to process all of those individuals looking to transfer their service from AT&T will likely require a carefully coordinated effort on Verizon’s part.

Come the end of June, I can only hope that this rumor is confirmed as my upgrade eligibility date follows soon thereafter.

Congressional Actions Necessitate Professional Tax Preparers

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With just over one month until individual income taxes must be filed with the IRS, Congress is yet again considering a last-minute change to tax laws that will only further complicate the preparation of 2009 income tax returns.

Following the earthquake in Chile, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee introduced legislation that would allow taxpayers to deduct on their 2009 income tax returns donations made in 2010 for Chilean earthquake relief. Congress took the same action in response to the earthquake that struck Haiti earlier this year.

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Foursquare’s Fail Whale

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Foursquare, the location-based service where users check in and earn badges1, is becoming a victim of its own success. Recently surpassing one million checkins per week, the service has experienced very short, intermittent interruptions.

Twice in the last two weeks, I’ve encountered Foursquare’s version of Twitter’s now-infamous “Fail Whale.” In Foursquare’s case, the outage notice depicts a a mayor2 adorned with a cracked crown accompanied by the message, “Looks like we’ve got some problems on our end. We’re on it though – stay tuned!”

Granted, a short outage once a week is nothing to complain about, but it further confirms the service’s growing popularity.

Foursquare: Looks like we've got some problems on our end. We're on it though - stay tuned!

  1. Badges are awarded based on various accomplishments, such as checking in at 50 different venues or check in to one location with 50 or more people. ↩
  2. Any Foursquare user who checks in to one location the most number of times in a two-month period is labeled the mayor of that location. ↩

Sirius|XM Premium Online Service Comes to BlackBerry

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This past Thursday, Sirius|XM released its Premium Online streaming application for the BlackBerry Curve (8500 & 8900), Bold (9000 & 9700), Storm, Storm2 and Tour. As a longtime subscriber to Sirius (and, in the interest of full disclosure, a shareholder), I must admit I got overly excited about the announcement. My excitement waned, however, when I realized that a separate subscription is needed after the seven-day free trial.

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