Where to begin?

August 3, 2004

I decided to start this site to separate my personal site from my technical interests. I’ve been wanting to start blogging for a while but wasn’t sure how best to blog about personal and technical matters in a manner that wouldn’t put off one audience or the other. The best resolution was to create my own site geared towards all the little technical tidbits that are floating around in my head waiting for the appropriate outlet. With this site, I think I’ve finally found it.

I have several primary goals for this site:

First, I want a site that I can contribute back to the developer community and have my name attached to it. I am primarily a lurker and a user when it comes to technical resources, I use it for what I need and then I move on. There have been numerous times when I’ve wanted to contribute back to a site, reply to a post, or contribute to comments, and I have, but I’ve longed for a place to call my own. Someplace where I can provide detailed (or not so detailed) comments on a particular obstacle or solution (like this one) and have it be attributed back to me. With a name like Matt Smith, your comments tend to get lost in the crowd. I hope to eventually provide a brand that people recognize and when they see references to my site, they will know that it is an above-average resource for a variety of information.

My second primary goal for this site is to provide an outlet for the many projects that I start (and then abandon). I have so many little projects that I want to do and so many ideas for them all that I tend to get paralyzed and not work on any. In addition, it’s similar to two familar sayings: “If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?” and “If you build it, they will come.” I say that it is similar because if I work on a little project but have no audience for it, then is it really worth the effort? But, if I have an audience (aka a little traffic and exposure on Google), then people may run across my little projects and decide that they have a use for my little widget.

Last, I want this to be a portfolio of sorts. Why? Well, to make money of course. I’ve successfully moonlighted in the past and that was a great for three+ years but that gig has dried up. I’m pretty busy on the family front so I am a little reluctant to actively pursue something that isn’t as flexible or that gets me in over my head. However, with a family with currently only one income stream, I’m always looking for ways to bring in a little extra. So, in the future you will probably see things like AdSense, DonationWare, begging for money, and resume pushing. However, I am going to make sure that whatever I do, you get the best deal.

It’s a long road and one that probably won’t go too far, too fast. But I needed to take the first step, and this is it. Wish me luck.

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Posted by Matt Smith | Filed Under General 

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One Response to “Where to begin?”

  1. SwoofWare » DynamicImage on September 1st, 2004 5:30 pm

    […] /2004

    DynamicImage
    Filed under: General — Matt @ 11:30 am

    In my initial post for the goals and direction for this site, I mentioned that I wanted this site to be a place […]

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