Yet another great post by Jerry:

Let’s face it no one really likes pain. In fact, most of us go out of our way to avoid pain.

However, if we are going to accomplish our goals and ”complete the race marked out for us,” we must endure some pain along the way. If we seek to “Fix our eyes on Jesus,” as suggested in Hebrews 12:1-3, then we must look at adversity (pain) the way scriptures looks at it.

Jerry is training for the Ironman (which is insane) although he is also a pastor at my church (he’s in charge of the youth).

While I do like people who encourage (what my senior Pastor is awesome at), I love the blunt talkers, especially those who encourage you to survive the trials, regardless of how bloody it might be.

As an aside, I personally love Jerry blunt sermons (i.e. improve slacker or perish), although I think I’m one of the few who do.

(Image via Endless Cycle)

–Posted from my iPhone

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Yeah, if you recognize that title, then you must have grown up with Dr. Seuss! (I was a fan ever since I could pronounce sentences together)

Out of all of the books that he wrote, my favorite thus far has been “Oh The Places You’ll Go!,” mainly due to its emphasis on exploring the unknown world around you (despite the bumps).

In fact, I just bought it from the app store right now, although for the uninitiated here is it via YouTube (thanks to some brazen user, although you should buy the book).

Anyways the  reason I am writing this is because too often in my life I’ve seen so many people give up their dreams and exploring the world around them due to past disappointments, finances or some immovable obstacle.

Too many people are merely satisfied with only living out their lives day by day instead of striving what is best for them, their family, their ________ (fill in the blank folks!).

It is my firm belief that every child born is assigned a destiny by the Almighty, and the passions within the heart are hints (or indicators) of what your destiny is.

You should never stop short of pursuing that, and should strive towards that goal everyday in every way you can.

While you’ll encounter disappointment along the way (we all do), you should view obstacles as lessons instead of barriers.

To borrow a phrase from one of my favorite quotes:

“And if you keep your vision clear you will see the future. What happens in our future is our own responsibility.” ~Rem Saverem

So stop the pity party friends! The future has yet to be written, and regardless of what lies ahead you can succeed–if you really want it.

(Image and Video Credit: Dr. Seuss)

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Apparently HostMonster went down and took out all of my sites with it (Colony Worlds, IsraGood, Darnell (Concise Opinions) and a dozen others).

Lets just say for the record I was VERY UNHAPPY over the lack of communication regarding the unscheduled downtime, as the company didn’t notify anyone via email or twitter (yes, @HostMonster does have a twitter account, although they have yet to use it).

After hearing rumors of a DDoS attack, HostMonster was able to clarify that they were instead upgrading their site with new hardware (and scanning files for bad data).

During the outage, I was talking to Media Temple on Twitter (@MediaTemple), as well as Rack Space (via chat) in my quest for a new host.

My plan was to simply import my blog from the VaultPress archives and export it into Media Temple. Their service starts at $20/month for 100 GB and 1 terrabyte transfer (which is expensive but you get what you pay for).

Fortunately cooler minds prevailed, HostMonster apologized and my sites are (currently) back online.

However this whole episode has inspired me to transfer my domains from HostMonster to GoDaddy sooner (I was planning to anyways in order to avoid violating the 3 laws of domains).

I still have a few technical details before the process begins, but either way I will probably be exporting most of my sites upon Media Temple by the end of this year (I’d do it sooner, but I have to increase my geek budget as VaultPress isn’t cheap!).

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By now everyone has probably heard about the Verizon iPhone allegedly coming in January (if you haven’t then you’re not a real geek).

Many of my friends are planning on ditching Ma Bell for the red V after suffering many years of horrible signal (at least the urban warriors).

Not even the ETF (aka Early Termination Fee) is enough to scare them away (despite the expense).

So why is this iGeek refusing to leave despite the fact that my ETF is much lower?

Because if I switch to Verizon I will:

• Lose the ability to simultaneously place a call while reading an email attachment, Google Maps, etc.
• Lose roll over minuets which allow me to use the basic call plan without having to pay for unlimited minuets every month
• A faster 3G speed. Verizon’s is much more stable, however it’s very slow when compared to AT&T’s (it reminds me of EDGE sometimes).
• A global phone. Verizon uses CDMA which is as useful as an Old English yard stick in Europe, Asia, etc. (GSM is the “metric” system of the world

While I would love to see a Verizon iPhone (mainly so my siblings & cousins would finally join), I will refrain from joining the masses and defecting towards the red V (the other V for you scifi freaks!).

Oh, and there is one more reason why I wouldn’t leave AT&T:

Once the masses crash Verizon’s network, AT&T will be the party scene as their network will no longer be clogged by data hungry users.

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Note: See update below! (original stat tracked down)

I first came across this “fact” from TechCrunch, and after Googling around the interwebs (apologies to @MattCutts) I finally discovered what appears to be the source of this oft cited statistic.

Some other numbers mentioned by Matt are 150 code committers with 1400 on Trac helping out. 21m downloads of WordPress in 2009 with 70m plugin and themes off wordpress.org, with 35 billion pageviews on wordpress.com and .org + 8.5% of the web is running on WordPress. (WordCamp New Zealand)

Note: Emphasis mine

Truthfully I have serious doubts that this stat is even accurate considering:

1. Google discovered over one trillion unique URL’s on the web two years ago (and they are still finding more content)
2. WordPress has yet to build a search engine to index the web
3. I haven’t seen any official sources (like ICANN who also sports WordPress on their blog) verify this claim
4. No search engine company that I know of has verified this claim, although truth be told I would only trust Google due to their domination of the search market.

Truthfully I think WordPress powers a large portion of the web (my guestimate is around %5 on the high end) but then again even I don’t have any data to verify if WordPress powers more than 1% of the web, let alone 8.5% that is spouted as fact.

So for now, I’m going to put this in the “pseudofact” file and disregard the stat entirely until someone wiser than I can find an official source (and not simply quote hearsay).

(Image Credit: Norebbo)

Update: Raanan from Automattic (creators of WordPress for you non-geeks) informs me that the stat originally came from a Drupal presentation who were comparing the top million sites (of which 8.5% were powered by WordPress compared to Drupal’s ~1%).

Thanks Raanan!

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