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Heading to my first WordCamp

Life

So I’ve been using WordPress for a while now, but I’ve never been to a WordCamp. I work for WooThemes, I build stuff in WordPress, but have never been to a WordCamp. I was planning on going to Atlanta 2013 but had some complications with wisdom teeth I had removed. Turns out jagged bone edges under your gums is painful! It was not an enjoyable experience.

Now nothing is getting in the way of this one. WordCamp Austin 2013 here I come! I fly out Friday morning if you consider 11AM still morning. The original goal of heading to Atlanta was to meet up with Daniel – who is the only member of Team WooCommerce I have not met. The silver lining of all this is heading to Austin, Daniel decided he is taking me to The Salt Lick for what I understand to be mind blowing BBQ… and I cannot wait!

I got my refund 8 days after my 4883C verficiation

Life, , , ,

There are a lot of people getting the 4883C “Identity Verification” letter from the IRS like I did this year, and a lot of people are complaining it is delaying their refund. The delay is to be expected since it does require a bit of manual checking, but I did my verification on March 12th and today on the Where’s My Refund site I can see my refund has been approved and will be direct deposited on March 20th! :)

So after my 4883C identity verification call I received my direct deposit date in less than a week, and that date is a whole 8 days. To be fair I did my verification at around 6PM in the evening so we could really call it an even week :P

Original Post: I got a 4883C letter from the IRS

I got a 4883C letter from the IRS

Life, , , ,

Update: I got my refund 8 days after my 4883C verficiation

So yesterday I went out to check the mail and got excited and worried at the same time when I saw a letter from the IRS. See I had filed my taxes in early February yet my return was still processing according to the Where’s My Refund site. I had filed electronically with turbo tax so I should have received my direct deposit by now right?

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Super power WordPress using Nginx

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Nginx is a powerful tool when used properly. WordPress.com is powered completely by Nginx and I am sure they are handling much more traffic than our sites combined – so you can safely assume it can scale extremely well. So let’s jump right into the deep end here, starting the requirements for this post:

  • An Ubuntu VPS running 12.04 LTS (I suggest Rackspace – get started for only ~$15/mo)
  • Basic understanding of SSH

Disclaimer

I am going to assume you know for the most part what you are doing and I am not responsible if you take down your live website while trying to convert Apache to Nginx or any other non-sense.

PS: I am not morally opposed to being bribed into helping you :)

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Relocating to Rackspace Cloud

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So a few months ago I gave WPEngine a try and they are definitely a solid host. I rarely had issues and their support was always quick & knowledgable. Some swear by WPEngine others swear at them – overall my own experience was a good one, but the geek deep inside was just getting a bit too cooped up and I had to stretch those muscles a bit.

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The Final Count Down (at Eyefinity)

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Today happens to be my last day working for Eyefinity. Eyefinity is a part of the vision insurance company VSP where my job is was to provide level 1 support for the practice management software OfficeMate. Even at level 1 though the typical support (outside of “how to’s”) would end up being errors within the program that sometimes did require opening the MS SQL Database, being familiar with Windows Servers and MS SQL already prior to this position definitely did help.

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New iPhone and more!

Life, ,

So recently I just upgraded to the latest and greatest iPhone 4S on Verizon. That is what I am typing this post on right now and it works relatively well. I do occasionally hit the wrong key on the keyboard but that may also be the fact that I don’t slow it down on the mobile keyboard.

Overall I’ve been about as happy with the upgrade as I expected I would be. I have been a bit disappointed in the 3G speeds in my area but it has varied based on where I am at. Surprisingly being in buildings has not had that large of an affect on my speeds.

Cassie and I are in the process of replacing a lot of technology and appliances in our house including computers. So far it has been a fun process! For example one day the cheap toaster we’ve had for the past three years shorted out randomly one day – so we tossed it. Rather than replace it with another cheaply made toasted we finally found an awesome Kitchen Aid one at Sam’s Club. You will see more of it soon!

I plan to blog about all the updates we’ve made and will spend the next few days doing this. Check back often!

Hello World

Hello World!

Life

echo ‘hello world’;

Just like with every hello world intro to programming this post will be short and sweet. A lot is changing for me recently, and in a good way. After dealing with a lot of set backs over the past few years things are starting to look up. I started a new full time job in August, so I’ve been there just over 6 months now and it has been great.

I hope to be able to blog more about this and as a few more opportunities that I’ve been able to take advantage of move forward you will get to join me on this roller coaster ride. I learned most of everything I know myself, thanks to a lot of people blogging and posting in forums. So I’d like to return the favor by helping those who may be starting the same path I went down trying to learn website development.

So keep checking back regularly! Or you could subscribe to my newsletter and I’ll send out semi-regular email blasts with a summary of the important stuff.

// Photo credit: ukaaa