A Chance to Purchase Some of My Best Photography

An original taken in Austin, TX on Congress Ave near 2nd Street.

Posted on: 17 March 2017 | 10:30 am

How to Create Great Night Long Exposure Shots

Recently, I’ve been spending a lot of time taking long exposure photos. I’ll be doing more daytime ones soon, but the easiest are night shots. If you spend enough time with your camera, you’ll quickly find that light is both your best friend and worst enemy. If your shutter exposure is too long, your photo […]

Posted on: 25 April 2016 | 11:34 pm

What Brings Us Together

Photo Credit: Rachael Adams. We are a race divided. We are divided by gender, class, race, geography, politics, and so much more. If you don’t believe me, go take a look at your Facebook news feed. At this time, on my news feed, someone is trolling New England Patriots fans. Someone is arguing about how […]

Posted on: 25 January 2016 | 3:17 pm

How I Rediscovered Purpose

This weekend, my life purpose was reawakened. And it was important. I had the chance to not only attend, but also speak, at the inaugural WordCamp US in Philadelphia. But before we go there, let me share some related feelings. The first WordCamp was held in 2006 in SF and I was one of a few people […]

Posted on: 6 December 2015 | 11:48 pm

Asynchronous WordPress

This morning, at WordCamp US, I will be giving a lightning talk to a room full of WordPress professionals from around the globe. This talk was given earlier this year at WordCamp Baltimore as a full 45 minute talk, but sadly, I don’t have that kind of time today. So I figured I’d provide those […]

Posted on: 5 December 2015 | 6:57 am

Wish Me a Happy Birthday. Give.

Tomorrow is my birthday and I’m going to be 39. That’s one year shy of 40! Yikes! I want you to give to someone else. Read on. This past year has not been the easiest in my life. In fact, it was maybe the hardest. In the past year, I saw myself recovering from unemployment […]

Posted on: 5 September 2015 | 1:02 pm

Letting Perfect Get in the Way

I’ve been contemplating a phrase for a few days now. It applies to writing code, as I do for a living, as well as a whole host of other things… from relationships, to home life, life goals and endeavors… the list goes on. Don’t let perfection stand in the way of progress. I know what […]

Posted on: 31 March 2015 | 2:08 pm

New Adventures with 10up

It’s such a weird feeling. Since I began this blog in 2004, I’ve been able to say I was truly hired exactly one time. That day was Jan 9, 2013. In 2004, I was employed by Northrop Grumman. In 2006, I left NG to pursue the startup world, I took up residence at b5media as […]

Posted on: 22 March 2015 | 4:00 pm

Dishonesty in Digital Marketing

$9.99. We used to look at that number, scratch our heads and rationalize the price as a marketing tactic to make buyers believe a product was cheaper than it was. This is all based on the psychology that $9.99 looks cheaper than $10 visually. $99.99 isn’t $100 because it’s not a 3-figure number. It’s a 2-figure […]

Posted on: 18 March 2015 | 5:48 pm

Adding a Time Start to WordPress Media Embeds

Ever have those times that you'd like to share a piece of media but have it start at a particular time? I did recently, and figured I'd share my solution. It turns out, WordPress does not support this feature out of the box (though you could argue, theoretically, that it should).

Posted on: 9 March 2015 | 4:39 pm

If I Had to do it All Again

As I sit here tonight, at a bar, typing on the WordPress app (which will undoubtedly make my fingers cramp typing long form), I’m thinking about my life. What has made me a man, a developer, a friend, and lover (I can even get in Oxford commas on the app!) In exactly five hundred and […]

Posted on: 27 February 2015 | 6:24 pm

The Internet is About to Become WAY Faster

Earlier this week, the big news in the tech space surrounded the completion of the HTTP/2 Spec. Gibberish, gibberish, gibberish. What does this mean for the internet? The short version is: it’s about to become way faster. Faster is extremely important if you want to make money from traffic to your site. Or, you know, if […]

Posted on: 20 February 2015 | 10:08 am

Public Enemy Number 1 for A Small Development Shop

Net-30, Net-45, Net-60. If you've been working as a freelancer or run your own development shop, you're familiar with these terms. They are the terms that many businesses leverage for paying invoices. They exist because of Accounts Payable.

Posted on: 10 February 2015 | 10:35 am

Weekly Blog Post Challenge

Back in 2004, I, like many other people in the WordPress community began blogging. We didn’t, I don’t think, get into WordPress because we wanted to write code or build a career. We got into it because we wanted to write. Our natural talent and curiosity took over, however, and we began writing code. At […]

Posted on: 4 February 2015 | 3:52 pm

My process for Photography Production

I’ve shared a lot of my photography via social networks – Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Flickr. It’s generally unlike other photography that you may see around the web. I generally don’t shoot people, unless the people are part of a greater narrative or scene. Never as the object of focus in the scene. I also […]

Posted on: 15 January 2015 | 12:19 pm

Depression:What it Means

As everyone has most likely heard now, Robin Williams has died. Police have now come out and said he hung himself. Not too long ago, Phillip Seymour Hoffman overdosed on a cocktail of heroin, cocaine and amphetamine, used to treat ADHD. That overdose resulted in his untimely death. These incidents, naturally, shake our culture to […]

Posted on: 12 August 2014 | 3:25 pm

Bad Job Board Titles

Human Resources personnel. You gotta love ’em. They’re the people who make sure you get paid every week, or biweekly or however often you get paid. They’re the ones who you talk to when you have a complaint about another employee. HR personnel are also, generally, responsible for posting job reqs. If you go to […]

Posted on: 25 July 2014 | 8:43 am

Entrepreneurial Priorities if You Don’t Want to Despise Yourself at Age 80

With the exception of a general, “We’re hiring” post a few days ago, my site has been largely neglected for the past year. It’s not that I don’t want to write. I do. And it’s not like I don’t have things to say because, if you know me, I do. I really do. And it’s […]

Posted on: 2 June 2014 | 10:57 am

Looking for a Top Notch WordPress/PHP Developer

If you’re in Baltimore and are a developer, or if you are in Baltimore and know someone who is a developer… Heck, if you’re in DC and are a developer or know a developer, we need you. (You can be to work in under an hour on the MARC train).Some of you know what I […]

Posted on: 21 May 2014 | 5:12 pm

NSA And Chaos Theory

Look, I’m not for 4th Amendment overreach but this PRISM thing. Let’s be honest…. I’m pretty proud of Americans for developing this ingenious piece of engineering. If it does what it claims to do (and not what the hype says it does), it’s nothing short of one of the major wonders of the modern world. […]

Posted on: 15 June 2013 | 11:12 am

9 Years of Blogging: Lessons from the Trenches

It is May 20 today and that means two things. First, it’s the 5 year birthday of this handsome boy. Without a doubt, his day will be filled with belly rubs and snacks… as it should be. But secondly, this is my 9th anniversary of blogging. It’s also the 9th anniversary of me installing WordPress […]

Posted on: 20 May 2013 | 1:46 pm

I hate social networking

I hate social networking. I despise it. All of it. For me it’s a tool (like me, some would say). “But, Aaron. You have 1500 friends on Facebook and nearly 10,000 on Twitter. You’re lying.” Oh but I’m not. I used to love social networking. I used to travel to conferences where other social media […]

Posted on: 1 May 2013 | 7:21 pm

Two-Factor Authentication: What it is and Why You Should be Using it Now

Not too long ago, WordPress sites around the world started getting attacked with automated botnet traffic trying to brute force admin passwords. The other day, the official Twitter account of the Associated Press was hacked. Last year, Wired reporter Mat Honan was hacked when his Amazon account was compromised. That compromise allowed an attacker to […]

Posted on: 26 April 2013 | 10:46 am

WordPress Hacking and Cleanup

There’s a brute force attack underway on a global scale. Massive. The attack vector? Keep attempting user/pass combos in an automated way until a breakin happens. If your WordPress site gets hacked, I am available for cleanup and an audit. Aaron@technosailor.com It absolutely will cost you a minor fortune. That’s the way it goes. Don’t […]

Posted on: 12 April 2013 | 6:34 pm

Abusing Twitter Direct Messages, Spam and Classlessness

This morning I received a Twitter direct message from the official account for I hate JJ Reddick, one of the best Baltimore sports blogs I know of. I like these guys. I read the blog almost every day and follow many of the writers on Twitter. I live in Baltimore, or as we call it… […]

Posted on: 11 April 2013 | 10:01 am