Six Month Update: Blogging Away
By James Francis on Jan 4, 2009 in Six Month Update
It’s difficult to believe, but it has now been six full months since I officially launched 21CR.INFO Beta! Although it has not been my only project, I have still made a great deal of progress on the 21CR.INFO network and, what’s more exciting, I have begun to use the 21CR.INFO network to blog!!
I have made a number of small improvements to the blog network which are individually too small to go into in any detail… and I would have to rack my brain to remember them. So, in this update, insofar as the backend and infrastructure of the 21CR.INFO network is concerned, I’m going to talk about the big developments, even though none of them are complete.
To begin, there is the 21CR.INFO Forums. If you click on the “Forums” link at the top of the page you will see that I have installed a bbPress forum as part of the 21CR.INFO network. bbPress is still in Beta, and, at the time I installed it, it had some bugs with regard to integration with WordPress MU (which is what the 21CR.INFO blog network is built on). As a result, I left the installation incomplete. However, I learned a lot about the way bbPress and WordPress MU work in the process, and, when the time is right, will complete the 21CR.INFO Forums installation.
Next is the 21CR.INFO Academy. If you click on the “Academy” link at the top of the page you will find the 21CR.INFO Academy. The current installation of the 21CR.INFO Academy is a MemberSpeed installation. While I like MemberSpeed, I’m not convinced that it is the membership software that I want to use for the 21CR.INFO Academy. However, I wanted to install it so that I could play with it to check it out in more detail. Registration is currently disabled as I am not ready to open up the Academy at this time (and may not be for quite some time). However, the 21CR.INFO Academy is ready to go when the time comes to open its doors.
The final big development is that of BuddyPress. BuddyPress is the set of WordPress MU plugins that turn WordPress MU into a social network. BuddyPress has been in development for some time and the Beta version of BuddyPress was just released a couple weeks ago. Although I have yet to install BuddyPress into the 21CR.INFO network, the release of the Beta version is big news because BuddyPress is the final major component of 21CR.INFO!
As I said at the top, what I’m most excited about at the six month mark is the fact that I have been using the 21CR.INFO blog network to blog! So, let’s get to the frontend of the 21CR.INFO network part of the update.
I reported the launch of P90X.21CR.INFO in the one month update. However, at the time, I had only made one post. I am happy to report that I have now made a total 86 posts to P90X.21CR.INFO! It takes me about 15 minutes to get up each of these posts, which chronicle my experience with Tony Horton’s P90X workout program. I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention that my workouts are going well and that I’m just 14 workouts away from completing my second round of P90X!
Although I am pleased with everything I have mentioned so far, and put in a fair amount of work on these things, the thing with which I am most pleased and the thing on which I have worked the most, is the new WakeUpProductive.21CR.INFO blog. Wake Up Productive is a productivity program designed by Internet business guru Eben Pagan and is geared towards Internet entrepreneurs. I have made a total of 72 posts to WakeUpProductive.21CR.INFO, which is a fair accomplishment in itself, but which is made all the greater when you consider that each of these posts includes recordings of a large chunk of my day and each post takes me an hour to complete!
Finally, I am happy to report that my cousin Dan has started a new blog with his Notre Dame sports-journalism buddies, The Casual Observer. Here’s what Dan says about The Casual Observer: “The Observer is an independent student-run newspaper that has been serving the Fighting Irish for over 40 years. For the first time ever, we are launching a blog for student writers to deliver Notre Dame news with a more personal touch. Get inside the action with a first hand account of all of Notre Dame’s biggest events.” Thus far, the focus of the blog has been Notre Dame football. However, especially now that college football season is over, I suspect they’ll start to branch out a little more.
That’s all for the 21CR.INFO Six Month Update. Remember that the development of 21CR.INFO is ongoing, so make sure you subscribe to the RSS feed (either by feedreader or email) to keep up-to-date.
Happy New Year!
James Francis
CRM (Chief Renaissance Man)
