Diary of a Network Geek

Seems like everyone is looking for a “side hustle” these days.

Personally, I’ve never felt very comfortable in a real entrepreneurial role, but even I have gone hunting for a side business on occasion, trying to get a leg up. When I was in college, I wrote. I’d always had the idea that I might eventually write a novel or three, which would, of course, sell forever, giving me a slow trickle of income for years and years. Clearly, that never quite happened. I have, on the other hand, done some consulting on the side, to make up for a hit in salary fifteen years ago. And, of course, to occasionally make a little extra when I needed to spend a little more, like when I got my first digital camera. Then, when I first started getting into photography, I thought I might find a way to leverage that into something. Unfortunately, that never quite happened and I decided to just let my photography be a hobby. But, if I had the opportunity to take this free business course for photographers and other creatives, I may have tried to make a go of it.
Well, if you want to give it a try, check out the course, but do it fast, because the course is only free until July 1st.
And, if you do decide to give professional photography a whirl, check out FindMyPhotographer.com, where you can set up an account in a growing directory of photographers. And, yes, that’s my site, too. You can setup a free account, or upload more sample photos and rank higher in local searches by buying an account. Use discount code Startup25 for a 25% discount for new accounts.

And, that’s all the “side hustle” I have time for this week. Come back next week for more free stuff!

This post originally appeared on Use Your Words.

Language is the key to culture, real or imagined.

Regular readers of my blog will know that I am a dyed-in-the-wool geek. I mean, totally hardcore. I started playing Dungeons and Dragons in the Seventh Grade and did, on and off, through college. I still, to this day, have a significant bookshelf of roleplaying games, including some D&D books. These days, I don’t have time to play, and the books are mostly there for theoretical inspiration, if I can ever get writing again. But, way back in the dark ages, before the internet, I had a subscription to Dragon Magazine, which was the official D&D magazine. It was there that I was first exposed to invented languages. Later, as I read more and after the internet became a thing, I discovered a community of like-minded wierdos who created languages, too. “Conlangs”, we called them, short for “constructed languages”. Some of the most famous are Klingon, Dothraki, and Tolkien’s famous Sindarin, more popularly known as “Elvish”, but there are hundreds, if not thousands, of them now.
Most of the results of my peculiar hobby, or “secret vice”, as Tolkein called it, are safely tucked away where no one will ever see them. Though, I did setup a page of resources and links over at my fantastic fiction site, Fantasist.net. I had some tools there that got so popular, they were crashing my webhost’s servers, so I had to take them down. I’d always meant to get back to porting them to a new, more stable and less resource-intensive programming language, but I never did. Now, though, there are so many people sharing things like this, and better than the stuff I made, that I don’t really feel bad about it. And, new tools for creating languages from the ether are springing up all the time.

Recently, someone shared a tool on the newsgroup I’m part of for conlanging, CONLANG-L, that raised quite a ruckus. It was originally shared by Boing Boing, and I saw it there, too. It’s a web-based language generation tool called Vulgar. The page I’ve linked to there is the “free demo”, but that will gin up a pretty decent start for a language, especially if, like me, you’re not a linguist. There are a surprising number of options, if you want to take advantage of them, and even more if you’re willing to cough up $19.95 for the downloadable version. That downloadable version still runs in your web browser, by the way, so there’s not any compatibility issues between Windows, Macintosh or Linux. Now, of course, this isn’t going to get you a fantastic artificial language, but, if you’re a starving fantasy author who wants to whip up something that sounds reasonably okay with a very little effort, this isn’t a terrible start. For me, it’s fun, but probably not more than an amusing toy to play with on a quiet Friday morning.
And, based on the frenzied reactions on that conlang email list, my sharing it and saying that it’s not bad, will irritate some folks. Which is a different kind of fun.

Either way, go, try it and have fun. And enjoy your weekend!

This post originally appeared on Use Your Words

It’s an illusion!

At least, that’s what Doug Henning would say.
Hey, look, it’s been a rough month.  What with the elections, the holiday and NaNoWriMo, you’ve had a lot going on.  I mean, a lot.
No matter who you wanted to win the Presidential Elections this year, the campaign has been brutal.  And, frankly, I think the next four years are going to be chaotic, challenging and a little frightening for a lot of us.  Then, there’s the stress of the Thanksgiving holiday.  I mean, c’mon, dinner with the family is never easy, is it?  And, finally, if you’re participating in National Novel Writing Month, you’ve been churning out words as fast as you can, racing to that deadline.
And, by the way, if you are doing NaNoWriMo then you should be getting near the end of your novel.  I don’t mean to panic you, but there’s really only a couple of days left.  Less than a week, actually.

So, no matter what’s been going on, you deserve a little break.  A chance to just veg out a little and sit like a stupid lump and stare at something cool.  Good news!  I’ve got just the thing!  Ten optical illusions that will blow your mind over at the Huffington Post.  Seriously, these are pretty cool and a great way to let your brain slip into neutral for a little bit so you can recharge before getting back to that big project of yours, NaNoWriMo manuscript or whatever you might be working on.

Go ahead and take a break.  It’s a holiday and you deserve it!

This post originally appeared on Use Your Words.

Browse classic photographic artists and be inspired.

Or, just waste time.
Whichever suits you, it doesn’t matter to me, unless you’re wasting time at my office. And, really, even then I don’t care as long as you’re not wasting my time.  In any case, browsing photography is one of my favorite ways to kill a little Friday-afternoon-and-I-don’t-want-to-do-real-work time, so I thought I’d share this.  It comes to us via DIY Photography and they got it from Reddit.  It’s the Red List’s historical…
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That’s right, today is Friday the Thirteenth.

As I’ve said before, I’m not really a superstitious kind of guy. Not really. But, I’ve known a lot of people who are. When I worked in the hotel industry, I actually had sold room 666 to someone not from a Judeo-Christian background, until a co-worker saw it and made a face. Then, I had to explain to the nice gentleman that some people found 666 to be an “unlucky” number. But, man, if…
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So, here we are, the day after Christmas and just around the corner is New Year’s Eve.

I don’t put much stock in New Year’s Resolutions any more, since 40+ years of experience tells me that they’re almost never kept.  But, that still doesn’t mean I won’t encourage you, gentle readers, to make some resolutions of your own!  And, naturally, I have a free tool to help you when you get stuck.  Granted, it’s a tool I made myself when I…
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Yes, today is Friday the Thirteenth.

I’m not really a superstitious kind of guy.  Not really.  But, I’ve known a lot of people who are.  When I worked in the hotel industry, I once managed to “sell” room 666 to someone not from a Judeo-Christian background, until a co-worker saw it and made a face.  Then, I had to explain to the nice gentleman that some people found 666 to be an “unlucky” number.  But, man, if I had pulled that…
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Christmas is over and the New Year looms near!

Traditionally, this time of year is when we review our lives and find fault with everything we didn’t accomplish in the preceding year, then make ridiculous promises to ourselves about how we’re going to do better in the coming year.  We call them “New Year’s Resolutions”, but most of them don’t last more than a month.  At least, mine almost never have, with few exceptions.  So, here’s an idea for you; this…
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So, those of you familiar with my blog will recognize my annual New Year’s Resolutions post.

Yes, I’m pretty shameless about it, but, well, it was one of the earlier things I programmed and I still find it amusing and the New Year will fast be upon us.   Besides, this is fun and so many people take their New Year’s Resolutions too seriously.  Not to mention how serious it seems like  this year has been for people with the elections and the worries about the economy and all.  So, rather than be serious, why not try something more fun this year and generate your resolution randomly with the Diary of a Network Geek’s New Year’s Resolution Generator!
It’s fun! It’s FREE! And, I have to admit, it tends to lean toward resolutions that involve hard liquor and inappropriate behavior, especially with strangers.
Trust me, you’ll love it. Be sure to share it with all your drunk friends this weekend at your parties!
See you next year!

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Any jackass can kick a barn down, but it takes a carpenter to build it."
   --Sam Rayburn

What do  you wear under your Halloween costumes?

So, yeah, Halloween is just around the corner and that has me thinking about costumes.  Well, to be honest, costumes for adults, because, let’s face it, in all our repressed, Puritanical, American, adult bodies, live crazy hedonists that just want to dress up in silly, or sexy, costumes and parade around like the goofballs we all pretend we are NOT.  And, maybe because I have a girlfriend for the first time in ages, I’ve been thinking about what one wears underneath that superhero costume.

As it turns out, DC Comics has just the thing for that; sexy, adult superhero underwear and swimwear.  (And, if the number of times “adult” has appeared so far in this post isn’t a clue, some links here may not be completely safe for work, if you work in a repressive enough environment.)  And, yes, there are options for the guys as well as the ladies there.
For you Marvel fans, they have something more along the lines of sleepwear.  (And, apparently, only for the ladies to wear.  Sorry!)

So, now you have something to think about this weekend.  And, hopefully share with your significant other without getting into trouble!