smerickson.com the personal website of steven m. erickson

Welcome to the *all new* smerickson.com. It has been over 2 years since I last updated the blog. Not a whole lot has happened since then. I've still been online tumbleblogging and twittering, but I've long wanted to bring back the main hub, smerickson.com. That day has finally come. Let me show you around my new home.

homepage

The homepage is the main hub of what's going on in my life. The homepage consists of four main sections. First, the blog is the main place where I will post longer essays on my life, theology, and technology. The blog probably won't be updated as frequently, but I'm slowly trying to work my way back into a regular routine. Second, the tmblg is the place for short little snippets of interestingness that I find around the internet. These include things like quotes, links, videos and pictures. Third, on the far right is my most recent tweet. Fourth, you can see what books I am currently reading or I have recently purchased and the music that I have been listening to recently.

about

The about section of the site is there you can find out all about me. There is a short biography about me as well as some of the other work around the internet that I have built.

books

I have spent a while cataloging all of the books in my library. For now you can just view them. In the future, I hope to write a few reviews of books that have been particularly influential on me.

music

In addition to the book library, I have also published my entire audio library.

stuff

Finally, there is a link to my stuff. This is a catalog of the significant items that I use on a regular basis. Perhaps you'll find them interesting. Everything I use is highly recommended.

you

The best part about this site isn't me, but you. I'd love it if you were to interact with the different bits on the site. Feel free to leave and comment or send me an email. I'd love to hear from you. Even better would be if you were to start your own site and share some information about yourself.

So, that's about it. Welcome to the new site.

Head on over to the smerickson.com chatroom. There you can see if I’m around or chat with others visiting the site. It should be a fun place. Enjoy.

The chatroom

I have finally fully entered the digital age by purchasing a digital camera. In the past I have not been one to take a lot of pictures, but that is hopefully going to change. Now that I have a digital camera I thought that I should probably sign up for a Flickr account to store my photos online. You can view always view my photos by going to http://flickr.com/photos/smerickson/ or by clicking on the Gallery link at the top of the page. Enjoy being able to see a little of my world.

Welcome to the brand new smerickson.com!! Please reset your bookmarks to point to http://www.smerickson.com I will be at that domain for a long time. I’m really proud of this site and have lots of plans for development in the future. In this post I hope to highlight some of the “features” of the site so that you can better understand how to use it.

About:

The about page tells all about me. If you want to know about the site or the author head over there.

Blog:

The blog is the main part of the site. As I see it the blog serves many purposes. Blogs are great tools for quickly communicating information to lots of people. They allow for discussion and interaction and provide the context for small communities to form. I like all of these things. This is my personal blog and so it is a good representation of who I am. It includes lots of different things – from theology, to computers/technology, to personal updates, it has a little of everything. This blog has an RSS feed which you can subscribe to. RSS feeds are great and I highly recommend them. If you have no clue what they are go here. Each entry also has a comments section, feel free to join the conversation there.

Sidebar:

Recent:

This is a quick list of the most recent posts on the site.

Reading:

This is a short list of the books which I am currently reading. They are linked to Amazon.

Listening:

This is a short list of the music I am currently listening to. Each of the songs are linked to iTunes if you want to hear more.

Library:

This is a short list of objects which have most recently been added to the Library (more below).

Clippings

Clippings are links that I come across around the web. I’m constantly finding little things here and there that I would love to share with people. There are two sections: noteworthy and random. The noteworthy section contains those links which I think are important. The random section is for those links that are funny, silly or just plain weird. Both groups have RSS feeds which you can subscribe to.

Categories:

The categories section is a list of all the categories of posts as well as the number of posts in that category. You can use this to quickly navigate the site.

Meta:

This is all of the meta information about the site.

Archive:

1. Date – find posts by when they were posted
2. Starred – find posts that I have marked as important
3. Weighted Archive – find posts by date where the size of the text indicates how many posts were made during that month.
4. Weighted Categories – this is similar to the above but with a list of categories.
5. Keywords – This is a list of the keywords which can be found in one or many posts.
6. The last way to find things from the past is by searching. There are two ways of searching. a. Live Search – Live searching allows you to perform a search in realtime without having to go to another page. If you start typing your query in the orange search field and wait for a second, a list of the posts which correspond to your search term will appear. You can then arrow down and press enter on the post you would like to select; or you can use your mouse. b. Search – You can also perform a “normal” search by simply entering your text and hitting enter or pressing the search button.

Library:

The other main feature of this site is the Library. The Library is the place where I plan on storing most of my digital resources. There is a wealth of information available on the internet today, but it can often be difficult to find valuable resources. This site is an effort to curb that problem. I am constantly coming across articles, books, and lectures around the web which are significant and I would like to hold on to for future reference. The Library is the place where I will store these and they are all freely available to you. I will keep it updated often you make sure you keep it bookmarked. Some of the features of the Library include livesearching, an RSS feed and a Firefox search plugin.

Well, that’s probably more than you ever wanted to know about a website. I will be making a number of updates to this site in the coming weeks, it is still a work in progress. In the end I hope that this site is a helpful resource for a number of different types of people. Please come back often and feel free to contribute to the site. Take Care.

Recently, I’ve been added to the League of Reformed Bloggers. This is a group of individuals who are committed to the doctrines of the Reformation and who seek to interact with a wide variety of topics from this perspective. The group publishes an XML feed for the posting of all members in the League, which is very helpful. Here’s all the info:

- More information about the League - Aggregated posts and Member list - XML Feed

I’ve added a new section to the image gallery. It contains screenshots of what my current desktop looks like. I’ll update the gallery when I update my desktop. Feel free to ask any questions about things you see in the screenshots. Here’s a preview

[g-85579]

Enjoy.

LINK: Screenshot gallery

As you can see, I’ve updated my site design. I think I’ve finally found something I’m happy with. Thanks to Apple for the inspiration. I’ll be tweaking some things in the coming days, but nothing major. Enjoy the site and come back often.

In celebration of my return to Wheaton, I decided to put up a new site design. I hope you like it.