For over two years I’ve been using Google’s (free) Hosted Domain service (Google Apps) to manage and host personal email accounts for my forml.com domain. This gives me all the wonderful features of Gmail (and all Google apps, including Google Talk), but with a custom domain name.
There are many benefits of a branded email address. But after much deliberation I have decided to stop using a hosted domain and just go with a regular Google (gmail) account.
My new primary email address is pmayne @ gmail.com (without the spaces) but all mail sent to my paul @ forml.com address will always forward to my new address until I ever decide to not renew that domain (so don’t worry about changing your address books).
The main reason I decided to switch is I want a permanent email address. If in a few years I decided I don’t need the forml domain name anymore, then what? My email address is gone. Now being directly on Gmail, I’m set for life.
A few minor reasons:
Chat can be limited with Jabber services like Twitter.
Updates to the interface are behind the standard Gmail updates.
I finally got up and took advantage of all this amazing snow at Solitude ski resort. The day was epic for as long as my desk jockey legs could handle it. Thanks to my buddy Pat for hooking myself and bcrockett up and giving us the motivation to ride like we like to.
Our country is way over due for a change. A real change. Someone who is open and willing to do the right thing, to stand up for the American people. Someone who will be straight with us, stand by their word and fight for people who need a voice.
In Barack Obama’s first term, he sponsored a bill that required more transparency on government bids and earmarks. It creates a website that documents government contracts, grants, earmarks, and loans and allows them to be searched and openly inspected by the public. Accountability through technology was a key plank of my 2006 campaign and I was pleased to see Senator Obama write this bill and get it passed. He also took responsibility for transparency in his own office by disclosing his own earmark requests.
But I believe that corporate greed and its involvement in policymaking, along with political cronyism, have made it nearly impossible for the people to govern.
So, we fight amongst ourselves over the spin of political slogans and half truths. And so, we are divided. It is time for a change, and that is why I support Barack Obama for President.
I’ve been meaning to move my blog CMS for over a year, since I started using Wordpress on a few other sites. I quickly realized it’s much easier, better, faster and more flexible than Movable Type 3.1. I tried a test install of the latest Movable Type (4.?), but was left unimpressed. It looks like a big improvement, but still a few years behind Wordpress. Especially when it comes to plugins.
Wordpress is written in PHP, and even though I’m very junior when it comes to PHP, with all the documentation it’s easy to customize things how I want. I’m still working on a few customizations with my archive pages. I’m trying to re-create a page I had on MT, a single page with all of my posts, titles only - broken out by months and years. I’m close, expect it to be working in the next year or two.
I’m also working on the design. Currently I’ve tweaked up a template called Grid Focus to get my layout structure going. But I plan to re-design and re-code it all from scratch.
Also, I haven’t really announced my new site, informationdesigner.org, since I’m working on the design and structure there as well. The site focuses on inspiration and educational links regarding Actionscript 3.0, APIs and (interactive) information design. I’m also putting together useful snippets or examples of code using Actionscript APIs and Actionscript based navigation systems.
Oh snap, I just posted on my blog and didn’t include an accompanying image. That was a goal I’m letting go now as I feel it held me back from posting as much as I would have.
Last month Move Networks launched a new and improved website. Now featuring a promo video and HD sample content on the home page (make sure and view “large”) as well as News, Press Release, and soon to go live Blog sections.
I love the holiday season. At this time I reflect on the past year and plans for the new year. Even though 2007 has been a tough one, I still have so much to be thankful for, so much to look forward to and I really feel like 2008 is going to be a great year for everyone.
As for this blog, I seem to average 3 posts per month (since August 2003), though sporadic, I still enjoy posting some goings on from my life. I’m working on another blog, which will be more of a professional site talking about tech stuff, Flash, Design, all the good stuff and also host an updated portfolio of my work (stay tuned for URL). I think this will allow me to post more often to paulmayne.org as I won’t have to worry about it being too full of personal posts. So prepare for this site to become flooded with photography, vids on my cute little ones and less iTunes tips.
The week after my father’s passing felt so surreal, many times I said to myself, I can’t believe I am at my dad’s funeral. That weekend we were at my mom’s house to eat Sunday dinner and watch football and it suddenly felt very real. Things will never be the same and the absence of my father will forever leave a huge void in our lives.
My father was a great man and an amazing father. He was someone that I could always go to and someone I always depended on. He was also my dear friend.
I am so thankful for the time I had with him on this earth and the many memories that I will always cherish. The example he left us with was to live a life full of charity, to love you fellow man. And he always lived that way.
At his viewing and funeral services, friends and family were able to celebrate his life and remember him and all he has done. The services were beautiful and were such a comfort to my family at this difficult time.
THANK YOU to everyone who came out, sent flowers, called, sent messages, wrote articles or blog posts or comments, the Firefighters and Highway patrol (who guarded his casket), the police escort (for the procession) and the tribute sponsors. It’s been so nice to see how loved this man was and to hear and see again, just how many lives he touched. The past month, I have heard countless stories about my dad and how he helped someone in a crucial time in their lives and helped them become what they are today.
Funeral
After much thought, I decided I needed to speak at the funeral. My mom had suggested I didn’t, that I don’t need any extra stress at this time. But the feeling continued to grow that I needed to speak and pay tribute to my father.
I’m so glad I did. The stories and words just came to me over the few days as I prepared my talk. I was able to recall all the fun times we shared as a family and all the wonderfully unique things about my dad. It was difficult to deliver, as I was very emotional and a touch nervous, speaking in front of 900 people including dignitaries such as Governor Huntsman, The Matheson’s and Senator Orrin Hatch. But once I got up there, a comfort came over me and helped me to express what I wanted to say, how I wanted to say it. And I’m so thankful for that.
Other speakers included Governor Huntsman, my dad’s dear friends, Blaze Wharton and Randy Horiuchi, and my sister Jamie Jennings. A man played “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” on the saxophone and it was so perfect and beautiful.
Tribute
Before my dad found out he had cancer, he had planned on retiring this year. With that, he was planning a retirement dinner “Roast & Toast” to raise some money for the AFL-CIO and for his retirement. After his plans changed, he still wanted to do the dinner, but raise money for cancer research / awareness. It just happened that his dinner date was one week after he passed away. He wasn’t able to make it in person, but he definitely was there in spirit.
That night we shared with 600+ people a fun night at the Grand America hotel with good food, a blues music band, and some fantastic tributes to the life of Ed Mayne. Over 10 people spoke and KSL did a beautiful interview tribute video (which I will post in the near future) and I created a tribute video (the first half is posted above and on Vimeo). It was a party he would have loved.
I will never get over losing him, but all the amazing things that have happened since his death will forever help comfort me and my family.
Last night I trudged through the snowstorm to my first show at Salt Lake’s Kilby Court. And boy was it a good one. I’ve been diggin’ the sound of Vampire Weekend (myspace) since I first heard their EP last Summer. The full length album is not released until January, so I’ve been craving more. I finally got it.
They only played about nine songs. But being able to watch a intimate show like that with only 25 other people is priceless. Almost literally, since it was only seven bucks, and I got to listen to a decent opening band called Grand ‘ol Party.
I posted a few photos on Flickr and a couple videos on Vimeo. The sound quality on the video is awful, either because I had my finger on the camera mic or the sound was too laud for my little point and shoot. Or both. But the video gives you an idea of how these guys jam.
My father, Ed Mayne passed away today after a tough battle with lung cancer. He was not only my dad but my best friend and my hero. I’ve never met a man so full of compassion for his fellow man. He has touched and helped so many people as his mission in life was to help those who were less fortunate. He served in so many capacities including Utah State Senator and President of the Utah State AFL-CIO.
His example and spirit will live on forever and his love for his friends and family will never be forgotten.
My iTunes XML database recently got corrupted and it seemed I had lost all my many hours worth of song ratings. Luckily I was able to re-construct the database through an few month old backup and my iPod. In doing so, my entire iTunes library was duplicated with broken links. Since iTunes does not currently allow you to sort by the broken (’!’ icon), it’s a laborious, manual process to remove all these track listings.
That was until I found this ingenious process somewhere on the Apple forums:
1. Make a smart playlist called “All Files” with this rule: “Artist” is not “123456789″ (or any nonsense name that won’t be in your library).
2. Make a static playlist called “All Live Files”.
3. Make a smart playlist called “Missing Files” with these rules: Match all of the following rules, Playlist is “All Files”, Playlist is not “All Live Files”
4. Select all the files from “All Files” and drag them into “All Live Files”. The dead files marked (!) will not copy over.
5. “Missing Files” will contain all of your dead files. Select all and delete. Voila, a nice clean iTunes library.
I have these three playlists in their own folder. Whenever I gather more than a couple dead tracks for whatever reason, I delete all the tracks in “All Live Files” and repeat steps 4 and 5.
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