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Cranking Widgets Theme Updated!

I hope everybody is doing well, and thanks for hanging in there during the last few weeks.

Just wanted to invite everybody (especially those of you reading this via your favorite RSS reader) to come by and take a gander at the new look. I’ve completely redone the layout for this site, the goal being simplicity and a more minimalist feel.

At any rate, I will be posting soon - I promise. For now, I’d love to hear what you guys think of the new theme!

April 17, 2008 | Filed Under Administrivia, Off-Topic | 6 Comments

Happy Monday: Odds, Ends and other Minutiae

I hope everybody had a fantastic weekend! I’ll start by apologizing (again - seems like I’m doing this an awful lot lately) for the slowdown in posting over the last week - some personal events had most of my attention during non-work hours. Thanks for hanging in there, I’ll be posting new and exciting crap this week, cross my heart.
But this post is just to let you know about a couple other exciting things happening in the world of old CW. First, I’m honored to have been included in the Lifehacks section of Guy Kawasaki’s newest venture, Alltop.com. The idea is that it takes the last few headlines from all of the top blogs/personalities on the web and gives you a birds-eye view of what everybody is up to. Check it out at alltop.com, it’s pretty sweet.

I got a chance to chat with Dustin Wax of lifehack.org over Skype last week for their Lifehack Live podcast, which was released into the wild today! Though, I must warn you, I tend to ramble a little bit when I get nervous, thanks for understanding

You can listen to the episode here, and I highly recommend adding the podcast to your favorite podcatcher - definitely some great stuff happening over there.

That’s all for today, kids. Have a happy St. Patrick’s Day, and we’ll meet again sometime this week for more fun, forest and fantasy. Cheers!

March 17, 2008 | Filed Under Administrivia, Etc. | Leave a Comment

Coming Up: Somebody Interviews Me

I thought this might be a cool thing to mention, especially since I haven’t ever been interviewed for this productivity stuff. This weekend, my new buddy Mike from Effing the Dog and I will be having a friendly conversation that will go out on his podcast at some point in the near future. Should be a good time, hopefully you all will enjoy listening!

Oh, and just because I like being straight with you folks, I’ve made Mike promise to pull the plug on the audio bit if I feel like I’m sounding like a tool But don’t worry - in that event, we’ll still do a print interview for your reading pleasure.

The next post should be a doosey - I got an iPhone for Christmas and it’s turned my notion of “digital” GTD upside down. Stay tuned!

Technorati Tags: gtd, interview, etd, productivity

February 6, 2008 | Filed Under Administrivia, GTD | Leave a Comment

Site Update - Recent Silence Explained

I wanted to drop a quick one to keep everybody informed as to the dramatic (well, ok, maybe “noticeable” is a better word) drop-off in posts here. Due to a looming deadline, all of my time has been occupied with my job - 14+ hour days, weekends, the whole nine.

Trying to find time to rest and be with my family has been tough, which means that time for blogging has evaporated entirely (for the time being). I’m going to try to get something written tonight, but I can’t make any promises

Just know that I haven’t forgotten about good old CW and I’ll be back in the saddle in a few days, at the latest. Thanks for understanding!

January 16, 2008 | Filed Under Administrivia, Etc. | 2 Comments

Celebrating Cranking Widgets’ First Birthday

Sure doesn’t seem like it, but today marks the one year anniversary of the first post on this here blog. Wow.

I must admit, this blog is doing better than I would’ve imagined way back then. We’re doing a respectable 3K+ subscribers and roughly a thousand pageviews per day. And while that’s child’s play for some blogs, it’s certainly nothing to sneeze at.

Thanks to all of the regular readers and to those who consistently leave thoughtful, intelligent comments. You guys make this blog what it is and I’m in your debt.

I enjoy writing for and maintaining this blog, it does come at a price. And while I’ll never, ever charge anybody to read what’s posted here, I will occasionally ask for donations (like now).

If you enjoy reading my ramblings and such, might I suggest making a donation (as large or small as you like) to help offset the costs (both monetary and otherwise) of keeping this site up and humming. We’re moving to a new hosting facility soon that will offer faster load times and a generally snappier user experience, but at a greater cost than the current host. If you could spare a few bucks, I would be most appreciative

Anyway, thanks again for reading and here’s to another year of productivity, parenting, my oddball sense of humor - and rabbits with pancakes on their heads.

Cheers,
Brett

December 7, 2007 | Filed Under Administrivia, News, Off-Topic | 3 Comments

Back Online After the Digg Assault

Just a quick one - the previous post (The Definitive Guide to Covering Your Ass) hit the digg homepage 2 days ago, which promptly brought this little blog to it’s knees. After several go-rounds with my webhost’s support staff, things seem to be back to normal.

Anyway, apologies for those who tried to get here over the last 48 hours or so, we should be good to go for awhile (or, at least, until I get ‘dugg’ again)

Have a great weekend, everybody!

November 2, 2007 | Filed Under Administrivia | 2 Comments

State of the Blog

When I started this blog all those months ago, I really had no idea it would do as well as it has. We have a pretty respectable number of feed subscribers and page views and consistently high-quality comments. Among all of the fantastic productivity-themed blogs out there, I like to think we’ve carved out a nice little niche for ourselves here at CW.

So, what’s to come? Well, I’ve got several things in the works…

New Look - (one that I’ll be designing and implementing from scratch). Much of my discretionary time is currently occupied with other obligations, primarily my family, so this will be done reasonably soon (but not tomorrow). But I’m definitely going to clear up some of the clutter that has worked it’s way into the nooks and crannies of the current layout.

October 10, 2007 | Filed Under Administrivia, News | 2 Comments

Blog Review Contest Winner!

Well, better late than never, I suppose

Thanks to all of you folks who submitted reviews for the contest. The response wasn’t as overwhelming as I’d hoped, but that’s just good news for the people who did participate!

As promised, the winner would be chosen completely at random using a home-grown program that I said I’d post. Most of you can safely skip this next bit, and any programmers reading this should know that I was pretty tired when I wrote it

October 9, 2007 | Filed Under Administrivia, Etc. | 3 Comments

We’re Back!

For a reasons I don’t know, I decided to upgrade Wordpress (the software the drives this here blog) yesterday. Anybody in the software business knows that you don’t make any large changes (like big upgrades) on Friday because you don’t want to spend all weekend fixing it if (read ‘when’) it breaks.

Well, it broke. The site was down for quite some time (around 24 hours, I’d guess) due to a small glitch with the new Wordpress and my webhost’s environment. Because of the nature of the error, it wasn’t something I could easily or effective debug. I was actually unsure how to proceed when it was magically fixed (presumably by my webhost’s staff).

So, all that is to say that we’re back up and running. Apologies to anybody who tried to get here, but couldn’t. See you soon!

September 29, 2007 | Filed Under Administrivia | 4 Comments

You Know, I’m a Terribly Interesting Guy…

And for that reason, I know all of you are just itching to chew the fat with yours truly.

So, being the benevolent, emotionally available blogger that I am, I’ve added a couple Meebo widgets to this here blog that give you, my dear reader, immediate access to me. Check the left hand side of all the pages on this site, or you can use the big boy on the contact page.

Please feel free to say “hi”, “you suck” or whatever you’d like. I’m typically on during business hours (Pacific Time), but you can leave me a message even if I’m not on.

Cheers!

September 13, 2007 | Filed Under Administrivia, Cool, Distractions | 1 Comment

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