Well, its been a crapshoot for the past two months. I am happy to say though - HMediapro.com will be back up and running by the end of the week.

I am moving over the entire domain/hosting to a Netfirms. Nothing personal - just didn’t really enjoy the last company’s service.

I apologize to all of those that have tried reaching www.hmediapro.com in the past few months. It has been an inconvenience to us all and it will be something I will stand to see doesn’t happen again.

Sometimes work gets boring. Then there are days that break the mold.
Today at work we had an Employee Appreciation day to - you guessed right - show appreciation to our employees.

We brought in a dunking booth and allowed employees to buy throws. Why would we charge them to throw on THEIR appreciation day? The reason - to raise money for charity. I must say it was a fun experience, even yours truly was dunked a few times.

I hope to see more events like this in the near future. It’s an effective tool for improving internal company relations and takes away the norm of sitting in the office!

Granted, for those that know me - I’m about as ANTI ASP.net as it gets.

But.. life happens and you get jobs that require stepping up to the plate.

As you all may know I’ve been working with a very nice company in Southwest VA by the name of Results Galax, apart of the ResultsTel Companies. The site I work at is a call center for our client - XM Radio. Fortunately I have moved through the ranks while there and now will be able to get a taste of the corporate web development life.

What’s the flipside? I gotta use ASP.net. It’s not bad, it will require me to learn. I have the interest at least :).

Just for that, as a PHP programmer, I have posted a link to a ASP / PHP cross reference. Bookmark it guys!

http://www.design215.com/toolbox/asp.php

The quote unquote “real world” is a great instructor in terms of free-time. It has really taught me in some time about how much free time I have had in college and that I never really utilized it. For example, I thought I was almost too busy because I was not only a full-time student, but I was also in a business fraternity, business organization, held part-time jobs, and more.

The beauty of college is that everything is spread out. If you can figure out ways to patch those hours in between your active hours you can really become productive in various ways. Below I have included five suggestions that I have found helpful over the past two years:

• Try waking up before 9am. It adds to your energy and ability to produce. Can’t wake up early? Try going to bed before midnight and maintain a consistent schedule of productivity.

• If you have an hour before class, don’t walk all the way back to your dorm or apartment. Find a productive place near where your class begins next and get to work on some tasks that need completion. Possible suggestions could be computer labs or student dedicated centers.
• Stop spending too much time on certain tasks. A lot of times we study too much for exams or drive the point into the ground in hopes that it will only make us better. Unfortunately, it mostly just wastes useful time.
• Make use of the time you create by implementing these habits. It wouldn’t hurt to use some of the free time to refocus or take a breather from the day’s activities.
• Use a planner! This may sound like a no-brainer, but the effective use of a planner isn’t as simple as you would think. Take a week, log what you use your time for. Adjust it accordingly to see how much you can squeeze out of your time in a given day.