I have been doing a ton of work on techgear007.net lately. I am pretty proud of some of the things i have accomplished with the site. I feel it is the best it has ever been as far as functionality. I wish I could find a better niche for the site. It’s a real shame that it’s not utilized more than it is. My hope is to turn the site into a more community based resource site. I still plan to keep the chat stuff as a lot of people still expect to find it there. I want to take more of a behind the scenes role and let the people that are interested take more of the day to day forum stuff. I have a hard time trusting people to give them total access so instead i try to build things for them to use that will allow them to more easily do what they need to but at the same time ensuring the security of the site. Maybe I haven’t developed the friendships and contacts that I should to help the site grow. I tend to keep to myself. A precious few people know much about me online. Most of the people I talk with either want my opinion or help on something. My personal life doesn’t get discussed. I guess I could go out and kiss ass and give everyone staff positions on tg but that’s not what I want the site to be about. I like to watch and reward the people that provide a service to tg. I’ve said before I do not really ask people if they want a position. I sort of appoint them. I think that came from the old msn days when I went to the extreme team forum one day and noticed JJ had added me to the team. It was a pretty good feeling and I do the same in hopes that it gives others that same feeling. It’s really kewl to be acknowledged for what you do when you aren’t expecting to.
As for some of the coding I realized that I still have a lot to learn about securing things such as php forms. There are so many things you have to watch out for. Some security based and some functionality based. Fortunately for me the people that work on php provide functions to help with most of it. Many times it’s hard to look at something from a newbies view. I build something based on how i would use it and then find out it will mess up if it’s not done correctly. So then i have to go back and make it as idiot proof as possible. Then I have to secure it from the people that know more than I do lol. It’s really tough to do sometimes. But I am not easily defeated. Very rarely have I run into something I couldn’t do. I am pretty relentless when it comes to that sort of thing. Another very rare occurrence is me asking for help. The joy I get out of coding is figuring it out for myself. I am proud of tg and I think it’s really awesome that it has put me into contact with so many people. I’ve watched a lot of users actual grow up using the site. Fresh faced teens now heading off to college. While there are other sites out there that do what tg does I don’t think any of them have the history or the reputation of tg. I know I am very biased but I think tg provided a lot of people not only a place to get help but a community to share with their peers. Regardless of how many people use the site now or in the future tg has been a very good life experience for me and many others.