Tag Archives: About Useless Nexus

“Useless Nexus” Remodeled

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I’ve spent the last week remodeling, UselessNexus.com. I haven’t blogged much in the last year. But I really want to. And I’d like to try podcasting again as well. Time as been the problem in the past and although that has not entirely changed. I’m hoping I can work it out.

Working a full time job, a 40 minute commute one-way, and keeping up with an active daughter, plus meet all the requirements of daily living has been tough for me. I’m exhausted when I get home and by the time I unwind at night, I’m falling asleep.

Useless Nexus is just a place for me to talk about everything I’m interested in. History, living history, technology, Maine, my personal travels, family activities and general rants. You never know what I might write about here. Feel free to ask me questions, if you like.

Except for the logos of companies I mention in my posts, all the photos are mine. I’ll change the picture above occasionally. If you see something you like then please let me know.

Changing hosting companies

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My wife has been working very hard at getting our credit card debt eliminated. I’ve been doing my part and we are now down to one card with any balance. Soon that will be gone and then it is house shopping.

Since Christmas, we have been looking at all our bills and looking for ways to reduce them. Since I never really got the idea of selling my service and hosting websites for people, I’ve decided to go to a less expensive hosting company. So I’m in the process of moving all my websites, my church website and a family website to the new host. It will take some more time but once I cancel the old account then we will have a few more pennies to through at the credit card company.

We are also thinking of dropping our house phone. We use Vonage’s 500 minute plan, so our bill is as low as it can get already. We rarely exceed 200 minutes in a month. Well within our cell phone plan minutes.

And we are also thinking of reducing our cable service and using Hulu, Boxee and other online entertainment offerings more. With the Wii and Netflix, we frankly are not watching as much TV anymore anyway.

So anyway, before I ramble on more, If you notice a change or problem on one of my websites then consider it a move-in-progress. Email me if you like. It will all clear up soon.

Feedback wanted on Shared Item Post

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I’ve been using a WordPress plugin called Shared Items Post for almost two months now. The plugin automatically inserts items I’ve shared from Google Reader into my blog. Recently, I started using the Share with Note feature in Google Reader which allows me to make a comment on the article I’m sharing. You can see a good example of how this appears on my blog in today’s post, Items I’ve Read and Liked – January 15, 2009. There is a link to an article and then a comment from me beneath it.

So my question is, does anyone like it?

I like it because it is an easy and clean way for me to share some stories that struck me as interesting. I definately need to use the “Share with Note” feature on each item as I feel like it looks nicer and I don’t feel like I am cheating on my blog as much. It’s more “me”, I guess.

I currently title these starting with “Items I’ve Read and Liked” then end with the date. This happens automatically. But I’m not sure I like the phrase “Items I’ve Read and Liked”. “Shared News”? “In the News”? “Stuff from away”? What would be a better title phrase to explain what these are to me?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and opinions on these posts. I’m looking forward to reading your comments.