The Hot Iron

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Launching New Patriots Blog

If you are a regular reader of The Hot Iron, you may have picked up I am a fan of the New England Patriots, as I have mentioned it a few times.  Ok, 18 times, but who’s counting?

Today I am launching a new blog to accompany the Patriots fan Web site I have been involved with for the past 12 years, GoPats.com.  Out In The Loop will features thoughts and opinions from me, a Patriots and Boston sports fan in Chicago.  It will also be the RSS feed for the Web site, with posts on updates to the site and information passed along from our readers, as well as a platform for conversation among fans and readers in the form of comments to posts.

This is my third blog, along with The Hot Iron and sourcegate, where I post technical tips and resources.  Each have a different but unique purpose.  It will take time to write for all of them, but as I am passionate on all of their topics, it will be a labor of love.

Friday, April 11, 2008

Next likemind coffee in Chicago on Friday April 18

The next likemind coffee will be next Friday, April 18 in dozens of cities around the world.  In Chicago, it will be at Gallery 37 Cafe, 66 E. Randolph, at the corner of Wabash in the Loop in the Gallery 37 building.  Note it opens at 8, and is right across the street from where it was last month at Intelligentsia.

I call likemind a gathering of creative-minded people, from various disciplines including Internet, advertising, art, et. al.

We will experiment again with some form of social networking.  You can follow us on Twitter @likemindchicago.  No RSVP is required but is always welcome, and you can by commenting to this post or at the likemind Chicago Facebook group.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Proud To Be An SOB

Congratulations to me and my little blog, The Hot Iron, for being an SOB!  And it’s not what you think – it stands for Successful and Outstanding Blogger.  I recently received this designation by Liz Strauss, a business relationship consultant and blogging expert.  As that description doesn’t begin to do her justice, read her bio at her blog, Successful Blog.

Liz is also the founder of the SOBCon conference, and the second annual event will be held on May 2-4 in Chicago.  Visit the Web site for more information and to register.

Sunday, February 03, 2008

UR Chicago Article on Cigars Featuring Me

A recent article on cigars was published in UR Chicago, a great lifestyle magazine in Chicago by an even greater journalist, Daniel B. Honigman.  Following the statewide smoking ban in Illinois, Daniel introduces cigars to some - reaffirming them to others - and how smoking a stogie adds to an experience, rather than just getting a quick drag on a cigarette in the cold outside of a bar.  He interviewed me for the article, and my quote is at the end of the article.  You can download a PDF of the January 10-30, 2008 edition and read the full article.

I enjoy an occasional cigar, and it usually compliments an event or get-together with friends.  There’s nothing like a cigar during a Patriots game tailgate party!

Thursday, January 10, 2008

We Now Resume Our Regularly Scheduled Broadcast

For the past couple of days my two blogs - The Hot Iron and sourcegate - were broken.  You could bring up the main URL and see the home page, and if you clicked on any link you would get the very same home page.  This happened midday on Tuesday as the hosting company “upgraded” something, causing previous patches to prevent this problem to reoccur.

I am pleased to say both blogs are working.  Special thanks goes to Andy Knight who reached out to me after I posted this issue on the ExpressionEngine support forum.  Today he sent me details of a fix he made and it worked for me as well.  I posted the details of this fix on sourcegate.

Interestingly, over that time period my Feedburner subscribers increased by 5 readers!  I’ll look into that another time, as there’s a little catch-up I need to do.  And thanks to Andy, I have one less thing on my list.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties, Please Stand By

Currently The Hot Iron is experiencing technical difficulties - only the home page will display!  All links redirect to the home page, and I suspect the feeds are impacted as well.

I am, um, “hot” on the trail and will work to resolve this as soon as possible.  As my Feedburner numbers have been increasing, this message means more than just to me.

Thank you for your patience.

Thursday, January 03, 2008

It’s Has Been a The Hot Iron Year

January 2, 2008 marks the 1 year since my first post on The Hot Iron titled Communication and Resolution. Well, my very first post was my test Hello World post a couple days earlier on December 30, 2006, as I set a goal to get the blog setup and running by the end of ’06.  In either case, the world has had the opportunity to read The Hot Iron for a year.

And what a year it has been!  Where I set out to write on topics swirling in my mind on business and technology, I added book takeaways, a focus on domain names and took several tangents, many inspired by surroundings here in the Windy City.  The Hot Iron is my personal blog, though it generously took on the same template as the Web site for my Internet consultancy Dunkirk Systems.  As much as I tried to keep The Hot Iron personal, being an entrepreneur makes that nearly impossible, and I intertwined experiences and anecdotes from my daily work.

So here I am 237 posts later.  Where I have seen many year-end recaps of posts by many bloggers, I chose not to pour through all and rank them.  Some posts that stick out include the one on German domain names, as I received comments with insights from German nationals; the post on the Web sites of my current and former Chicago Alderman as I heard from the sitting Alderman himself (yes, I verified the post was from him!) and the one questioning the rebranding of Delta Airlines, which was quoted on an airline industry blog.  The lesson I learned is if you write it, it is out there, and you never know who will read it.

However I am more intrigued by the 410 comments I received.  Many were by people I knew prior to writing the post, but more and more came from people I did not know at the beginning of 2007, some I have gotten to know outside of the blog and a few I have met in person.  Comments mean more to me than my Feedburner subscriptions, especially when you hear from people who have no idea what the little orange icon means and visit the site on a regular basis.

Now onto 2008.  Thanks for reading, and here’s to more “hot” two-way communication.

Friday, November 23, 2007

Gift Ideas from The Hot Iron

Happy Black Friday!  Today is considered the official start of the holiday shopping season in the US, though from the look of everything from streets to stores you would have thought it started the day after Halloween, or even earlier.

In the spirit of the holidays and in promoting small businesses as I like to do here at The Hot Iron, allow me to suggest gift ideas.  These suggestions will be of products and services from fellow entrepreneurs and businesses.  As the reach of The Hot Iron goes beyond Chicago, I will be writing about gifts you can get here in the Windy City and beyond.  Some are purely online, and others are retail establishments.

Happy Shopping!

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving

To all my readers and their family and friends, a safe, healthy and Happy Thanksgiving day!  If you are traveling, by now – hopefully – you have made it to your destination and are well on your way to spending good times with those around you.

The accompanying picture is of the dining table and centerpiece from last year’s Thanksgiving, made by my lovely wife.  This year I will try to get a picture of the complete feast to share next year.

Don’t eat too much, and a safe return trip!

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

The Hot Iron Goes Back to School at Ashworth University

I am proud to announce you can read selected posts from The Hot Iron on Blogspot, the official blogs of Ashworth University.

Ashworth University, based in Norcross, Georgia, offers distance learning courses and distance education programs for home study career education.  In developing their blogs, Ashworth sought out experts in various disciplines to contribute their content to their blogs to accompany the faculty of the school.  They contacted me and asked me if I would like to join this virtual expert lecture, and I was more than glad to accept this offer.

The Blogspot is a great example of a win-win situation.  For Ashworth and its students, they have the opportunity, in one location, to read a wide variety of information and opinion from real-world experts.  For myself, it is a new venue of readers – not to mention potential customers of Dunkirk Systems!  It is similar to guest blogging, and my posts show up on Google Alerts and Serph, so their blog is getting good reach.

Some of my posts are on their Business and Technology categories.  Even if you are an avid reader of The Hot Iron, check out their feeds and gain some insight from my fellow contributors.