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My Thai Sunset Photo got Featured!

Submitted by Evan Lovely on Wed Apr 25, 2012 - 11:18pm
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Wow! One of my photos I took of a sunset in Koh Lipe, Thailand was surprisingly featured in Stuck on Earth, a iPad photo app made by my photography hero @TreyRatcliff! I was browsing the the featured photos section, and came across a photo where I thought "Wow, I took a shot just like that!", and then my eyes drifted down to the photographers name to elatedly discover that is was me! I'm honored and amazed :)

Exploring the Parisian Catacombs

Submitted by Evan Lovely on Sun Apr 15, 2012 - 03:13pm
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I was recently asked what my favorite travel story is, and this is it. I didn't take my camera with me as I was told we'd be getting wet, but I wish I did. Oh well. Makes the memories that much more savored. I did just jump around the webernets and have featured several pictures to share what it was like.

Paris ~ Summer 2006

My travel buddy and I were being shown around Paris by a native friend, and after a standard tour of the standard sites, I look over to my friend and ask: "Well, what do YOU do here? I know you don't go to the Eiffel Tour, hang out on the Champs Elysees, and gaze off the Arch di Triumphe in your spare time. What do you do for fun?" He turns to me, and gives me a sly look and says something I'll never forget in a purely Parisian accent: "Well, we go to the catacombs." He goes on to describe the underground network of caverns, tunnels, and caves that lie underneath Paris. How the tourist destination, the official Catacombs is a mere 5-10% of what is down there. How he has a map of what is called the Carrières de Paris or the Quarries of Paris. How he knows of several illegal entrances. And how it is awesome.

He tells us that we'll start at about 11pm and get done around 7am.

Coding a Better Govermnet

Submitted by Evan Lovely on Sun Apr 15, 2012 - 11:58am
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What a great talk. Really demonstrates a mindset that is very similar to mine about how technology can really, really help and heal a lot of things. Love her line about the digital generation not being a generation of talkers (because every single one can talk, and be heard), but a generation of doers. We don’t want to take credit for it, we just want it done.

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Setting up arrow keys on your home row

Submitted by Evan Lovely on Tue Apr 10, 2012 - 03:34pm
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For Mac, I find this to be AWESOME (seriously): Go into System Preferences > Keyboard > Modifier Keys, then change Caps Lock to Control, which is helpful because Control is hard to hit, then install KeyRemap4MackBook, then enable the Diamond Cursor, which makes it so:

  • Control+J is your left arrow
  • Control+L is your right arrow
  • Control+I is your up arrow
  • Control+K is your down arrow

Basically, you hold caps lock, and then your right hand's default position on the home row is now sitting on your arrow keys. This way, you can use arrow keys without leaving the home row, which greatly increases speed. I'm now to a point where I cannot use another Mac without this installed.

Environmental Neglect in Thailand

Submitted by Evan Lovely on Wed Oct 26, 2011 - 09:35pm
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I just watched 2 construction workers take a payload of glass panes from their site up to the edge of the jungle and toss pane after pane into the jungle. It was really sad to watch. No concern given to the beautiful area they live in, Railay Beach in the gorgeous area of Krabi, Thailand. Or maybe no better way to dispose of it and I just don't understand the way things are. However, I simply refuse to believe that it is OK. It was obviously know as wrong at some level to them since right after I walked up drop jawed and started to pull my camera out, they stopped and took a couple steps back. After I walked on I looked back to see them resume their environmental neglect. I came back about 10 minutes later and took some pictures of the glass landing zone and then another shot of them filling up another payload of glass to be thrown into the "pristine" jungle. Boo!

I love technology

Submitted by Evan Lovely on Thu Sep 08, 2011 - 04:10am
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I love technology. Quite possibly the greatest tool humanity's created, it allows me to learn about my environment as I walk through it, creates the situation where work is something I do not someplace I go, allowed me to teach myself a profession I didn't graduate college for, lets me see my mothers face smile a half-world away, helps me not waste a library's worth of paper, and disperses ignorance through collective wisdom. It's all in how you use it. Use it well.

A Week of Rafting the Salmon River

Submitted by Evan Lovely on Thu Aug 25, 2011 - 12:40pm
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Salmon River Valley, Idaho

I went on a 6 night rafting trip with my Dad on the Main Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho, an 80 miles stretch of river through one of the most remote areas left in the lower US. SO awesome. I've been rafting with my Dad since I was 4, and being able to camp while rafting is truly one of the most enjoyable experiences. Being able to throughly disconnect from the external world is so cleansing and appreciated. I had no idea what time it was most of the time and even lost track what day it was a time or two. This river is called the "River of No Return" as it pretty much is one-way trips from East Idaho to West Idaho only. It is also the 2nd deepest river gorge in the continent, even deeper than the Grand Canyon, although it doesn't feel like it as much since it's a series of false summits. It flows into the deepest river gorge afterwards, the Snake River cutting through Hell's Canyon.

I'm traveling around the World for 6 months. While Working.

Submitted by Evan Lovely on Sat Jul 16, 2011 - 06:10pm
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Have you ever had something big you've always wanted to do? Something that seems improbable but undeniably alluring? Something that you could look back upon much later in life and smile deeply knowing you didn't let chances pass you by?

For me, it's been the idea of traveling while working part-time in a location independent career. I taught myself how to be a front end web developer and have emphasized learning how to do it in a way that the where does not matter. Most of the time that just means being able to enjoy working at my house part of the week and being able to make visits back home easier to swing. After reading the world altering 4 Hour Work Week and seeing that many concepts about work and life were outdated and unnecessary, and seeing that other people, like Sean Ogle and Cody McKibben, were pulling this off, I've realized that it could be taken so much further.

I realized that I could outsource myself and save money if I could be in a country where the cost of living was less than in US cities, while still earning US city wages by working on a laptop abroad, a form of Geo-Arbitrage.

10 Fundamentals of being a Front End Web Developer

Submitted by Evan Lovely on Wed Jul 06, 2011 - 03:22pm
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  1. Know how to use a computer - very well. Seriously, not just turning it on and launching a browser, then going to Facebook. Learn the tricks, tweak it, break it, fix it. Know your tools well.
  2. Keyboard Shortcuts - Every chance you get to use a keyboard shortcut over a mouse click a kitten somewhere has it's life spared. Tell yourself that. What I do is use my mouse to go into the menu for what I want to do and look at the keyboard shortcut for that menu item, then I don't click on it, close the menu, then pull the command out of my short term memory and use it. This works wonders for memorizing these. It's almost impossible to read a big list and then have them stick. Work on learning 3 or so at a time then add more when you can use them without thinking.
  3. Understand the file system - both on your machine and the server. Google 'absolute path' & 'relative path'. Better yet, just read the Wikipedia article on Paths. Also read up on FTP - It's how you'll move files from your computer to a server.
  4. Learn how to learn - get good at researching what you're stuck on. Google obviously, but also go to physical bookstores and flip through books. Buy new ones that call to you often.

Learning Front End Web Development

Submitted by Evan Lovely on Wed Jun 22, 2011 - 01:12pm
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I am a self-taught Front End Web Developer who writes a lot of CSS, HTML, & jQuery Javascript and pushes pixels in Photoshop from my laptop with flexible location and time restraints. I love my job. I want to share how to get started in this field. I feel that if you're reasonably tech-savvy and persistently driven, you can learn this. If you're not tech-savvy, then just double up on the persistence. First I'll cover the tools needed, next I'll go over the fundamentals, and then share my favorite resources.

Tools

  • Mac - Not saying you can't do this on a Windows or Linux machine, just that if you want to, you're learning from the wrong guy. That being said 95% of the people I know that do design, development, or production, do it on a Mac. You don't need a fast one as web work is pretty nimble (most files are really small). I'd suggest getting the low-end MacBook for the basics, or the low-end MacBook Pro if you've got a little extra. Portability is nice. If you know you'll only be working at home, then go for the iMac. That thing kicks ass and you get a huge screen (super helpful to have lots of screen space). If you go laptop, eventually get a second monitor.
  • Coda - Skip Dreamweaver. You need to learn the code.

How I use Facebook Lists

Submitted by Evan Lovely on Sun Mar 06, 2011 - 03:24pm
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I think Facebook Lists can be really helpful, especially when friend count gets higher. I'd recommend creating these lists: Inner Circle, Family, Outer Rim, & then for each era of your life: High School, College, Oregon Buddies, etc. I mainly use these to view updates from all those people collectively. If I haven't been checking FB often, the "Inner Circle" list is a great one for catching up on lots of the updates I don't want to miss.

You can also use these lists to filter who sees your updates as well. Ever clicked the little lock next to the Share button in the update box? Hit Customize. It has a section to be able to specifically show it to a list or specifically hide it from a list. It says people, but the box will accept list names. So you can post an update and hide it from the entire Family list for example.

Finally, the Privacy settings allows for quite a bit of control on who sees what on your profile. So, you can set it up to have a heavy filter on your profile info (sincerely personal stuff), for anybody on the Outer Rim list. This might sound harsh, but these are the people that would of just goten deleted before.

People can also be on multiple lists too. Lots is possible.

Forms of Communication

Submitted by Evan Lovely on Sun Jan 09, 2011 - 01:48pm
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When you go from face to face communication to phone calls, we lose the deep, unconscious story that body language tells, and gain the ability to discuss with another, irrelevant of distances between.

When you go from verbal communication to written, the intonation and emphasis that the voice places upon the words chosen is lost, but the ability to respond at any time is gained.

When you go from written communications sent to a single addressee to broad social networks, the ability to tailor your message to your specific audience, the context, is lost, and the ability to loosely address a vast array of friends, family, acquaintances, co-workers, and others it gained, while opening up potential for discussion between them as well.

All of these have specific advantages and disadvantages, and I believe you shouldn't get stuck using only one. Bounce between them as needed. Start a conversation on Facebook, finish it on a phone call, and follow up with a text message. Choose the form that best suites the situation.

Just a few thoughts.

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