Stupid Sucks!

An article I had written for the ThemeForest.net blog was published today (”Using AWS S3 to Power Your Digital World“) and one of the comments to the article mentioned Mosso’s Cloud Files. I had heard of Cloud Files before but I couldn’t remember if I had really looked into it. Due to the comment I thought it would be a good idea to take a look at Cloud Files and give a quick comparison.

There are a few arguments as to why you should use Cloud Files instead of Amazon’s CloudFront + S3 and Mosso even wrote a blog post with 10 reasons why Cloud Files provides a better experience than CloudFront + S3. They have some really good points but from my perspective it comes down to two things, price and performance. So after taking a look at Cloud Files I’ve come up with a quick comparison.

read more…

I wrote this article for ThemeForest.net

As a designer, web developer and techie-geek I need a versatile and robust data storage solution that I can afford but also use without learning some new language. So far, I’ve only found one service that can handle the large majority of my needs. This article covers how I use the Amazon Web Services Simple Storage Service (AWS S3) to meet most of my needs.

Continue reading at http://blog.themeforest.net/general/using-aws-s3-to-power-your-digital-world/

I personally believe it’s important to take a step back occasionally and take a look at what you’ve done with the last few years of your life and if you’re headed in the right direction. Today I was looking back at my experiences starting out in the freelance world and decided to look back a bit farther and evaluate.

Overall, I am very happy with my accomplishments over the last few years and I feel like I’m really heading in the right direction. It’s been a rocky road and I’ve had to work incredibly hard to achieve some of this but it’s been worth every tear and drop of sweat.

In the last 4 years (from age 19-22) this is what I’ve done. read more…

Lately I’ve been having some issues. Motivation issues. This last week I essentially accomplished nothing and I’ve felt like a total bum yet I just couldn’t bring myself to hunker down and crank out some solid work. Then this morning I read a great blog post by Jeffrey Way, “Not Reliable, Not Hireable“, which was exactly the trigger I needed to get my arse in gear.

As an independent contractor I get paid depending on how much work I accomplish each day. If I decide to work 24/7 I’m going to develop a very comfortable income but as we all know, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. So as you can imagine I have an inner conflict here. read more…

This roundup was written for ThemeForest.net

Getting started with HTML, CSS, PHP or jQuery can seem like a daunting task for many beginners. Some people think you need to go to school for these subjects but as many of you already know, there is an abundance of free resources to get you well on your way to becoming a pro in any of these subjects. Here are some killer tutorials and screencast series which cover the most popular topics (HTML, CSS, PHP and jQuery).

Continue reading at http://blog.themeforest.net/resources/html-css-php-and-jquery-killer-tutorials/

This roundup was written for ThemeForest.net

Part of what makes a web template, website, blog post, etc. really stand out is high quality icons, photos and other graphics. It’s pretty easy to find tons of icons and photos around the web which you can use for your personal projects, but what about those commercial projects? Here is a great list of resources to find just about anything you need for your personal and commercial projects. You’ll even be able to use most of these resources in your themes and templates you plan on selling at ThemeForest.

Continue reading at http://blog.themeforest.net/resources/photos-images-and-icon-resources/