Out With Old and In With The New, 2008 Here I Come

2007 has been one hell of a year, and despite the many bad events that took place, 2008 is looking very prosperous at the moment. One of the most valuable skills anyone can have when trying to make money on-line is learning to code. This year alone I’ve moved from Coldfusion, to a little ASP, and now PHP. To this day my most profitable ventures have been sites developed in PHP, and although I’m still learning, the effort is bound to produce lucrative results.

After developing a Coldfusion based custom content management system (blog syndication system) in a couple months, I decided to go out on a limb and break away from shared Windows hosting. Not having to deal with server maintenance was nice, but sometimes the lack of root access became very frustrating, especially when the server administrator wasn’t willing to cooperate with me or cater to specific demands. Dedicated servers are overly expensive, so I opted to go with a Virtual Private Server running Linux, and it’s been an amazing experience so far.

This year I was forced to learn iptables, chroot environments (what a pain), and other essential skills required for server maintenance. Although very rewarding in a certain aspect, I still sometimes wish web-development/advertising/marketing was still my primary roll. Some say you can’t have it all, and they’re right, but the responsibility of maintaining this server brings a certain peace of mind. If something screws up, fails, crashes, gets rm -rf’d, there’s no one to get upset at other than myself. Unless of course the VPS provider decides to migrate the server without providing adequate notification… I’d really like a partner that will put forth as much dedication and work as I have, but finding this partner has been very difficult so far.

The mild success of this blog provides fuel to the fire, so even though I haven’t been paying as much attention to the site, it’s for good reason. But remain hopeful, I’ll continue writing here, despite a few failed linkbaiting attempts. The failed free web-site review offer, along with the guide to making money blogging, were pretty discouraging, but really, I shouldn’t complain. The small group of elite people that read what’s published make the entire process worth the effort - thanks guys and gals. Contributions from outside sources are especially helpful. For example, my younger sister’s Digg front page worthy article, In One Word, Who Are You? How cool is that? Without her, nullamatix.com wouldn’t have had that level of exposure. How awesome would a team of writers like that be?

For those wondering, Christmas was fantastic. There’s really nothing quite like spending time with the family, which is what I believe Christmas should truly exist for - a designated time to spend quality, dedicated time with close friends and loved ones. All this crap about Christ’s birthday and exchanging gifts, it’s all over rated, and if you believe otherwise, your face is crap and you’re permitted to leave my site immediately. People aren’t naturally generous, which is a problem, and one of the reasons I believe Christmas even exists. Anyway, good people, good food, good times - that’s what Christmas was, and what Christmas is, to me anyway.

There’s really no pertinent or informative information in this post other than me saying, “y0h0h0 - I’m still alive.” Recent success in other areas has consumed much of my time, so I’m actually working to continue the uphill progression. You would too if you profited $70 with a measly $15 investment. As they say, rinse and repeat. I’m also working on one of my new years resolutions and developing the on-line community mentioned. I won’t reveal the niche just yet, but it’s definitely going to attract some attention. The process to change your political party affiliation in Florida has become a royal pain in the ass, but in the spirit of Ron Paul and the need for some significant change, I’m determined to get it done (Monday, the 31st is the dead-line). Until next time, over and out. Peace be with you.