I just wanted to post a quick update about the status of the theme for this site, since the current theme is an eyesore.
I am just finishing up some of the final details – search results, 404, and making the site easy to manage from the WordPress backend. A few sections of the site will not be finished in time for the launch – Zine, Portfolio, and Concepts :cry:. So I’m shooting to launch the new theme this weekend (May 29 – 31), to comply with my self set deadline.
So keep an eye out for the new theme sometime after the Memorial Day Weekend 😀
In this age of hyper- and inter- connected networks one would say the the Internet is a utility. While others would argue that the Internet couldn’t be a utility, because you don’t need the Internet to live. But to those people I ask, when was the last time they applied for a job at major chain stores?, do you not price compare?, do you get all your news from your local newscasters or newspapers?, do you buy all your stuff from a handful of stores, do you still use a pen and paper for correspondents? and so on. Most people when faced with these questions will start reviewing how they use the Internet. I ask of you the following question:
Is the Internet “just another service”, or has it become a integral part of our society and “now is a utility”?
But before you post your response, ask yourself could you go 7-days (168 hours, 10,080 minutes, 604,800 seconds) without using anything that uses the Internet or Internet backbones. The list of items includes:
- The World Wide Web
- Email
- Instant Messaging
- Telephone Networks
- Cell Phones
- The iPhone or iPad
- Voice over IP – Skype, Vonage, etc
- Text Messaging
- Access the web from your Phone
- Television – AT&T UVerse, Verizon FIOS
- YouTube
- Facebook
- Twitter
- RSS Feeds
- GPS
A long shot to say that the Internet is used for GPS, but the maps come from the web. Either way.
- LOL Pictures
- The list is nearly endless…
So I put the question to you, the entire Internet – could you go one week without the Internet and based upon the answer to that question is the Internet a service or a utility.
My Answers:
I will be the first to admit, I have a bias since I work in the computer and networking industry, so my vote is: No I couldn’t go a week without the Internet and I feel the Internet is a utility now. Aside from my previous mentioned bias, the main reason I couldn’t go a week without the Net is that I would literally be isolated from the world. That is because the part of the world I live in (Midwest United States > Illinois – 100+ Miles from any major city) is so backwards, one would think they had fallen into a time riff back to the 50’s however modern devices are still available. Also, since I run a technology company, I need to live online for technology news, communicating with clients, pricing hardware, research, etc.
So it’s your turn… Could you live without the Internet and is the Internet a Utility or a Service.
Disclosure: The reason I brought up this question is shortly before I posted the previous article my Internet service went out for about 45 minutes. I had to call and report the problem to my ISP (which I strongly dislike – it isn’t a major ISP). After it came back, I ran over to there status page and found the following:
Which, I’m 90% sure they, posted that shortly after I called, since I reported the problem at near 11:30, but the problem appeared at 11:12. What made it worst I was working on an email to a client that I was about to send before it went out. Anyway, back to the above question.
I feel that most of the responses will result in the Utility tag, due to the fact that most people that comment on blogs and websites in general are people that use the web on constant basis and since this site has little to no SEO.
Well after working for a few days in Photoshop and Dreamweaver, I have a somewhat final mockup of my new WordPress theme for this site.
Mad9Scientist.com v0.0.1-ohm Mockup
I know having an image of a mockup is all nice and dandy, but I know that a picture isn’t as good as a true mockup in code, so I went ahead and uploaded a working mockup of the theme. There is still some functionality I’m still working on, so keep an eye out for the launch version of the site. The mockup requires a “Modern Browser” for all the niceties, and if your running Internet Explorer 6 – forget about it.
Feel free to take a look around the mockup, if you have any feedback on the design just drop a line in the comments.
By the way, I should be launching the final theme sometime before the end of May 🙂
Welcome to the future home of Mad9Scientist! My name is Chris Holbrook aka Mad9Scientist, and I am a computer scientist, web developer, and so much more. Over the next few days or weeks I will be creating my personal web site here, which is powered by WordPress.
This site is “technically” in the pre-alpha stages of development, but when has that stopped anyone from seeing what is actually happening on the web :). Until I get my custom theme finished, I will be using the default WordPress theme. Which I’m glad to hear that the fine people over at WordPress have plans to replace the default theme with the next major release of WordPress – WordPress 3.
So in the mean time you will not find a lot of useful information on this site, but I will still post whatever pops into my mind. Since that is the purpose of a blog. However, the official release version of the site will include – this blog (well obviously), my portfolio, links to find me on social networking sites, my concepts or experiments I conduct, and most importantly – my other projects I’m involved in.
Chris Holbrook
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