Michael McNamara

technology, networking, virtualization and IP telephony

WordPress – Love It or Hate It!

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I’ve made some significant progress tonight in getting the new WordPress installation up and running. There are still wp-2.0-button some issues with the content from the migration that need to be addressed. We did manage to migrate all the comments so I’m very happy about that. This evening I managed to get AdSense setup and running along with Feedburner. I also setup the Google sitemap and added this site in the Google Webmaster Center.

I still need to redirect visitors from Blogger over to this site. That might take some time and testing.

Cheers!

Update: July 2, 2008

I’ve finally added the redirection code from Blogger to this site. It seems to be working but there are a few URLs that are not redirecting properly so I’ll need to “fix” that. I’ve also submitted changes to Google Webmaster tools and changed the robots.txt file to block the search engines from indexing the old site. I’ll just need to wait for the search engines to index the new site.

Update: July 18, 2008

I’ve added a WordPress plugin called WP-Polls that will allow me to conduct some basic polls. I’ve also had to play with the CSS style sheets to try and clean up some formatting issues. It’s a sure way to learn CSS/XML by getting your hands dirty fast. I’m fairly happy with the current design of the site and the quality of the content. I’m still patiently waiting for some of the more popular search engines to catch up with the fact that I’ve moved.

It’s alive!

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1207509_60357288Yes yet another WordPress installation!

Things are coming along… it’s amazing how someone as simple as a blog can grow so quickly. I’ve got all the content in here, although I desperately need to clean up the tags and categories. I like the ability to puslish “pages” and I think I’ll write up a few FAQs for those high volume questions regarding VoIP.

I still need to make the actual cut, insert the redirection code into blogger, fix Feedburner, fix Adsense, submit the sitemap to Google and the other search engines removing the current search index entries for the old blogger site.

I also need to play with the style sheets… the site is just too “grey” right now… and the article text is hard to read, too light against a white background in my opinion.

Cheers!

It’s time for an upgrade or two…

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I’ve decided to make the jump… to my own domain. I’ll be using GoDaddy for now along with WordPress. I’m currently in the process of migrating the content from Blogger to WordPress. Once I’m happy with the content I’ll setup a redirect from Blogger to my new domain.

If you would like to have a preview try this http://blog.michaelfmcnamara.com.

dell8200 On a different note my trusty Dell 1.4Mhz Pentium 4 8200 (purchased in 2002) appears to be finally on it’s last legs. So I’ll need to either purchase a new machine or build a new machine from scratch. Here are the components I’m thinking of using;

  • Antec Mini P180 Case
  • Antec NeoPower 550 Power Supply
  • ASUS P5Q LGA 775 Intel P45 Motherboard
  • Intel Core 2 Duo Quad Q6600
  • Corsair Dominator 4GB DDR2 1055 (PC2 8500)
  • Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB SATA Hard Disk
  • EVGA 512-P3-N801-AR GeForce 8800GT 512MB Video Card
  • Samsung 20x DVD+-R Burner SATA
  • Microsoft Windows Vista 64-Bit Home Premium

I’ve priced these components on NewEgg and they come in just around $1,000.00. I’m trying to build a machine that isn’t bleeding edge but will last the test of time. I would welcome any thoughts or suggestions.

Cheers!

Is Nortel on the rebound?

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It sure looks that way these past few weeks. I generally try to keep all the posts here very technical and absent of opinion but there’s been a lot of attention lately on how Nortel appears to be starting to emerge from the watery hole it’s been in for the past six years. While their product lines for the enterprise have been fairly successful, Nortel has struggled financially ever since the 2002 dot-com financial bust.

We utilize both Nortel and Motorola at my current place of employment, and have done so for the the past 12 years, ever since I started with the organization. Six months ago I was asked, “what will happen with our data, voice and wireless networks if Nortel and/or Motorola go under?” It was and still is a very valid question from an enterprise standpoint. My answer was simple and straightforward, “we’ll cross that bridge when and if we come to it”.

nortel_energyIt would seem that Nortel has recently decided to take off the gloves and come out swinging with a very big marketing campaign around their lower power consumption.

Larry Dignan posted an article entitled, “Can Nortel pull an AMD on Cisco?”

Jason Hiner posted an entry on his blog entitled, “Nortel claims that it is siphoning network customers away from Cisco“.

While there might be some “inflated” marketing claims in Nortel’s pitch it would appear that the basic claims are true and accurate. There were some interesting videos posted on YouTube from the recent Interop 2008 convention.

I will say that I have been very happy with both Nortel and Motorola. They have provided cost effective, reliable solutions for some very demanding business critical applications.

I would also agree that Cisco makes some really great products. It just seems that they need a few competitors to keep them honest these days with respect to price and service.

You can see “The Nortel Tax Relief Plan” for yourself.

Cheers!

Memorial Day Weekend

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Happy Memorial Day! Please remember to think of the veterans and current day military men and women this weekend. I’ve never personally had the honor to serve in our armed forces but I know many who have and the sacrifices they have endured for all of us.

Cheers!

Image credit to Lipton sale

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