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"In General"
I’ve typed some variation of this sentence dozens of times over the past few hours, yet typing it again still feels very odd: Today is my last day at Laptop Magazine. Yep, I’m leaving my post as News Editor after almost exactly two years in that position. No, I am not going to This Is My Next like all the other cool kids.
I’ll be writing for Notebooks.com/GottabeMobile as well as Android Central and some other media outlets as the opportunity arises. Still covering the same stuff: mobile technology, accessories, apps, all that. Not going far, really. I’m really excited about these new opportunities and can’t wait to get to know the communities around these sites even better.
Moving on from Laptop wasn’t an easy decision. Over the past 3+ years I’ve had the chance to meet and work with some wonderful people. And I’ve learned so much about writing and what it means to be a journalist from my editors and fellow writers.
When I started there back in 2008 I thought I had the best job in the world: creating and producing web content all day? Blogging for a living? Getting to try out every new laptop, phone, and other mobile gadget that came through the office? Sweet! What I didn’t realize at the time was that I would get the chance to do so much more, with constant encouragement from everyone around me. I will forever be grateful to the folks at Laptop for giving me the opportunity to grow, particularly Editor in Chief Mark Spoonauer and Online Editorial Director Avram Piltch. Thanks for all the fish :)
Today I turn in my final review and write my last blog post. Tonight I party with my friends. Tomorrow I sleep in. Next week I move on to the next big thing. See you there.
I know that I’ve neglected this blog for a long time. It’s mostly due to being so busy at work. But since it was time to dump my old theme — which was pretty, but a complete mess code-wise — I decided to reinvigorate the blog and get a new design going.
I can’t take credit for all of this as I’m using a pre-made theme, but I’ve added some of my own flourishes to it and brought over a few elements from the old theme. I think this is much cleaner, though, and more readable. The last thing I need to do is get the front page sorted so it’s static, then move the blog part to it’s own section. A friend is helping me set that up now.
I also added a new theme to my Tumblr blog (yep, back to using that again, too). It doesn’t match what’s here, but I think it’s spiffy enough. I’m also going to start crossposting between Tumblr and the blog again now that I understand better how Tumblr works. I won’t crosspost everything, though. Just a few posts that I want to highlight. I still wish there was a decent Tumblr crossposting plugin.
Other than that, I’ve got my Twitter all set, my Facebook in order, and even a profile over at GDGT. Once the front page of this site is done I think I can stop with the fiddling and finally get down to posting some content.
Web design is hard.
I was having a conversation with a co-worker recently about different kinds of laptop roundups we might do in the future similar to what we did here for web designers. One of the roundups I suggested was Laptops for Writers, which was met with some skepticism. What would make one laptop or another better for a writer? she asked. The first thing that came to mind was portability. I only bought my first netbook because I wanted something I could write with that didn’t weigh too much so I could carry it around all day.
Beyond that, what other attributes does the perfect writing laptop have? Good keyboard is a given. Anything else?
This Christmas I gave my niece a netbook[1] and talked to her about how to care for it and online safety and stuff. What I forgot to mentioned was how to sit while using one. I’d completely forgotten about this post on GottaBeMobile about these 9 bad netbook postures. In fact, I think we were both doing that first one while chilling on the sofa and watching Animaniacs[2]. I’m a bad example, just like always.
I wish this study came with 9 good postures for using netbooks, as it would be helpful to know.
Notes
It’s Friday. Have a meta picture of me holding a laptop with a picture of me holding a laptop with a picture of me holding…
And no, Photoshop was not involved. Well, except for cropping.
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