Hello, everyone.
Greeting and salutations! This is the first post for TipsFor.us in 6.5 years, and it's my personal first post in 7.5 years. Times have changed, that's for certain. What makes me create this post? I can't say for sure. While the site has effectively been dead for several years, I can't seem to let go of it. Perhaps I'm more tenacious than others.
Since 2013, the time of the last posting, the world is a radically different place, for the website as well as for its authors. From what I can tell, Everett is working full time as a programmer/developer. James is working a career as a lighting designer, and I (Brian), have been expending my efforts as a Professor of Music Theory and Composition.
As far as I know, Everett in living in Los Angeles, CA. James - to my knowledge - is living in Lawrence, KS, and I am living in San Antonio, TX. I can't speak for James, but I know that Everett has had two children, and I have had three children since our last significant posting. That's what ultimately led to the demise of the site: who had time to maintain a hobby website, once full-time careers and children came into the picture?
In the last few days, I've mustered the effort to move the site from WordPress to Bludit, a flat-file content management system. I've also removed all comments, as they're either now entirely obsolete or utterly irrelevant. I've long held an attraction to flat-file CMSs, as their lack of database appeals to me, while still maintaining many of the features of a program like WordPress, such as autosave, blogging capacities, and the ability to schedule content. Bludit seems to fit that bill, and I hope to stick with it for years to come.
Over the last several days, I have either updated or deleted 678 "dead" links on TipsFor.us. Much of that is due to the ever-changing nature of the Internet, and some of that is due to the migration to Bludit. RSS should stay the same, if I've configured that correctly. We'll see.
(With apologies to Yogi Berra) It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future. I put in a large number of hours updating this site, switching CMS platforms and updating broken links, and I dont' want that effort to go to waste. As you hopefully read above, I work a full-time career and now have three children, so I don't imagine I'll be able to dedicate the time to this site as I did in 2007-2009. And speaking of which, it occurs to me that TipsFor.us is now a museum of sorts. It's a reflection of the state of the Internet in 2007-2009, which also explains why many of the links from a decade ago are now broken. I spent some time updating my content from a decade ago, or deleting that which is now utterly irrelevant.
All of this is to say that I'm not ready to let go of TipsFor.us just yet. I'm still doggedly hanging on to it. I don't think I'll be able to put a huge amount of effort into it, but I'm also not ready to let it die. This site has always been about one thing: providing simple, easy-to-follow tech tips for everyone to follow. Sometimes that manifests itself as a short tutorial on how to accomplish something, preferably for free, or occasionally it appears as a rant, but regardless, we hope you've learned something, and that you will continue to do so in the coming days.
My own interests in the last several years have centered around the Linux operating system, which I've been using as my primary OS since 2015, online storage, selfhosting (particularly Nextcloud and its associated ecosystem), and audio/MIDI, especially the free/OSS offerings. Assuming that I keep the momentum that I've mustered going, you can expect some posts in the near future regarding these interests.
I don't know if my former co-authors (Everett and James) are interested in continuing this venture, or if they have moved on to bigger and better things, but I would welcome any assistance in keeping TipsFor.us active. Please contact me if you are willing to join me, and we can discuss compensation.
No matter where you are in life, and if you're a long-time reader or someone new to the site, I wish you a beautiful and productive 2020 and beyond.
-- Brian Bondari