Inspiration

So a recent visit from my thesis supervisor (and more specifically, a certain story he told that I'd heard before) has encouraged me to get moving on a project I've been sitting on for a while. I won't go into detail about what the project is but it falls nicely in my niche of spatial data/spatial information management. It was inspired by my job at Waterloo, and its something I hope that, when complete (or at least usable), will be beneficial to my daily workflow.

The Beauty of Free Apps

Thanks to the magic of Google Apps I've been able to completely remove my hosting plan from the equation. I can now host my nameplate website at jamesmccarthy.net using Google Pages, my blog here at Blogger but at the blog.jamesmccarthy.net address, and similarly with my Tumblelog at tumblr.jamesmccarthy.net.

The inspiration for this move was three-fold:
1. DreamHost's boondoggle a few months back where they double-billed all their customers makes me a little leary about trusting them with any important data.
2. Even if I found another host I really don't have a need to pay $100 per month for so few visitors.
3. This article at Lifehacker.com showed me that all of this stuff is possible, as this web hosting thing is unfamiliar to me.