As you might have noticed, I have been rather quiet this past week. This is not due to working too much (even though the 40+ hours a week are starting to get a lil’ bit old), but it is rather due to a strategic realignment involving my blog and what I want to do with it.

First big change I am going to make is I am no longer going to focus specifically on tech/social media. It’s too large of a niche, and I feel like I am this tiny voice amongst so many that my opinion really doesn’t matter, and to be fair to myself, I have a much larger voice than many. Another problem is that I don’t feel the passion that many people do about the topic, I am merely interested and enjoy keeping up while throwing in the occasional opinion.

So what will my new focus be?

Since I still thoroughly enjoy reading, participating, and commenting on technology, especially social media, I am going to integrate technology and my career path of choice which is to be a teacher into my writing. Basically, PAS is going to become an EDUTech blog. I am pretty excited about this, and it is an area that I can’t wait to dig into more. I have a passion for education and a deep interest in tech, I can’t see where I could possibly go wrong here.

My second big change I am going to make is disabling comments. It goes against every social fiber in my body, trust me, but I can’t manage the spam/rude/unintelligent comments anymore, and I have decided since I can’t dedicate the proper time to manage it, why bother with it? Instead, I am replacing the comments area with basically a big button that says “e-mail me”. I live and breathe e-mail, and it is something I can efficiently manage. E-mail is also a lot more personal, which makes me that much more inclined to respond to someone. Plus, my content is syndicated on nearly every major platform, many of which allow you to comment, and I know many of my current, and probably future readers are active on. I have no problem jumping into these conversations.

Monday is when this all starts happening. I’m pumped

Since the only thing that people are talking about is Facebook’s privacy issue, or non-issue, for the past week, I have nothing to write about. Personally, the only reason I care about this Facebook debacle is because I can’t really find anything that interesting to write about involving tech. This is why I am going to tell you ten things about me you probably don’t know.

Boredom and lack of opinion will do this to you.

1. I am only on the computer for about thirty minutes a day, most of the time I am on my smart phone (Android). The only time I sit down at a computer for extended periods of time is when I have to do a paper for school or have client work.
2. Lady Gaga is my favorite artist, and I hate country music. I would rather listen to classical music all day long than listen to a second of country music.
3. I don’t really like Twitter.., at all. The only reason I am an active user is because all my nerd friends are on there.
4. I try not to date girls involved in tech in any form or fashion.
5. I am actually a horrible writer, but a great reader. It has taken me years for my writing skills to be where they are at today… and that still isn’t all that great.
6. I used to be skateboarder, I have the scars to prove it. I also made intense fun of kids like me during this large time period of my life. Ironic.
7. I like the fact that all of my friends are not nerdy. They don’t care about Twitter/Facebook/Buzz/FriendFeed and all that other jazz.
8. I don’t enjoy arguing. The only time I really argue is about nerdy stuff, and even then I have a tendency to back out of a lot of debates. Not because I think I am wrong, simply because it is not my personality. I am just a naturally chill person.
9. I don’t want to go too college, I think it is going to be a waste of my time.
10. Contrary to popular belief, I do not suck up to Louis Gray. First time I ever had a conversation with him was a debate over FriendFeed/Twitter and Facebook, and it was a *fun* little debate that Robert Scoble jumped into. I disagreed with him quite a few times after that as well, and still do to this day.

That’s all, folks

I know I have a handful of dedicated readers out there *waves* and I spose’ now is as good time as many to do the thing that for some reason most bloggers dread.

Disclosures.

You see, after nearly three years of blogging at random places (LostTheTech, TechGeist, TheNextWeb, Technorati… whatever), having an assortment of grammar fails, being horrifically wrong on numerous occasions, and getting tore a new one by random commenters on Digg/Reddit/Slashdot/FriendFeed/Twitter or any other social media service you can possibly imagine, it is all finally starting to pay off.

Last week, Sean O’Gwin called me and offered me a freelance job to write about each of the speakers at the Kynetx Impact Conference, specifically what my personal thoughts were on each of them.

Woah.

I have never actually been straight up paid to write blog posts before. Sure, I have earned some advertising money here or there, but to be honest, the money I earn from Cliqset doesn’t even begin to cover hosting, and let’s not bring up Adsense.

Needless to say, I took the job. Which means I now have an official conflict of interest!

My first post will go out today, and I will be cross-posting the post I wrote for the Kynetx blog to mine with links and probably a little graphic pimping Kynetx as well. There will also be the appropriate disclosure at the beginning and end of the post making it very clear I did get paid to write it. Every word written in that post, and future posts, will be 100% what I think about Kynetx and whatever other parties I mentioned. I have been blogging basically unpaid for a few years now, if I didn’t believe in Kynetx, I wouldn’t of taken the job. While the money is nice (the good lord knows I can do with it), I am not willing to compromise the hopeful trust ,and credibility, I have with you readers. I would gladly deny that paycheck if I had to, and I hope you know that…

Y’all are worth more to me.

So in short, yup, I am getting paid, and in essence, I truly believe it shouldn’t affect you at all.

BUT

If you feel it is, you know where to get a hold of me, private or public, it doesn’t matter.

Until then, I really do hope you enjoy

Note: There is a slight possibility that this job with Kynetx could turn into a more permanent position. If it does, I will write a whole new post addressing that issue. Until then, I am not concerned about it, and neither should y’all.

I have decided that I have invested enough of myself into this domain/blog that I am going to take a leap of faith and transfer my main means of communication from holdenpage@gmail.com to holdenpage@pagesaresocial.com.

I thought this would be a quick and painless process. After all, I am still going to use Google Apps for all of this, transition should be simple, right?

Wrong.

Turns out there is no nice “migrate” or “transfer” button to move your Gmail data (contacts, filters, e-mails, and all that jazz) to your Google Apps account. Instead, you need to go through all of this. So what I thought would take a max of 24 hours, mostly due to my host/Google recognizing MX record changes, the process is going to take about a week. This will also include transferring my Google Documents, Reader settings, and other data to this “new identity”.

You don’t realize how much data Google has under your Gmail identity until you need to move it.

Now, don’t lecture me on how many ways I can get around this. In short, I am anal, and I want all my data under this new identity. I am completely aware of the options I have. Just so happens what I thought was the easy option, and the option I wanted, is a bit harder and more time consuming then I originally believed.

Bummer.

I just find it fascinating that Google hasn’t created a syncing tool for situations like these. After all, it doesn’t seem that uncommon to do, plenty of searches and threads are open on the matter.

It will be an interesting week transferring my data, and I am sure I will tweet all about.

I am sitting here writing this post, about four hours before my 9 hour shift, dreading the fact that most of my time is going to be spent straightening items and doing returns for most of the day, with the occasional elderly customer asking where the ironing boards are at.

To be honest, I hate it.

I sit there and wonder during many of my shifts what I could be doing. For example, if I didn’t work 25 hours this week stuck in a building, I would’ve had time to write on my blog. Or, I could have been working on my latest short-term job for Philip Hotchkiss, instead of only working in 2 hour stints because by the time I get off work I have to worry about school work.

I could also be spending my time finding jobs that pay just as good, or better, then what I am doing for Philip.

Instead, I am straightening items, and walking people to various products around the store for a good majority of my time.

So should I quit?

I want to, dearly, and the thought to do so has been eating at my brain. But, I have to keep in perspective my responsibilities, and one of those responsibilities is paying my various bills on time. Sure, if I quit today, I could quite easily pay my bills based off of the current work I am doing for Philip. The problem is, this work is short-term, and I have long term bills. I am not sure if I am confident enough to keep finding jobs to pay these bills, and with my current job, there is a sense of security that I can.

Also, if I quit my job, it is virtually a done deal. Most people around here are holding on to their jobs tight, and that means no one is hiring, and if someone is, you’re competing with at least 20+ people to get one position. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have been one of the twenty before, and I know I can be one of the twenty again. But damn people, can that take a toll on your mental health.

Still, at some point in time, I need to take that risk. Only people who take risks succeed.

Is now the right time to take that risk?

I’m not sure, and I will continue debating.

3 hours.

So next week is the Kynetx Impact Conference and by tomorrow night I will have airplane tickets purchased. I would have purchased them tonight but Wells Fargo and I had a disagreement over my Credit Card usage, so I am really hoping that prices don’t jump over night.

That aside, I do have a lot of school work to do. Teachers are not very thrilled about the fact I am missing four days of school, and cutting me very little slack. I guess going to a speech meet in Boston grated on their nerves a bit too much. All I can say is that this is my senior year, and they’ll get over it.

As for Utah, Jessie Morris, an employee of Kynetx and a dude I regularly keep up with, and his family are graciously letting me stay at their place to avoid hotel costs. This is extremely appreciated, or else even with the $500 dollars Kynetx is covering in travel costs for me, I would not be able to make it.  Hell, I just found out you have to be 21 to rent a car, and I am going to be pushing my spending limit in a taxi ride to Jessie’s place and back to the airport. Not very thrilled about that, but I will take the hit.

I also need to start shelling out some money for prom soon. I am really hoping that I can manage a deal on a tux via a friend I know and pay $80 bucks for the attendance expense.

All of this basically needs to be figured out this week.

Wish me luck!

Tyler Romeo, Daniel Bru and I share one very vocal thing in common.

We dislike school.

I think it is interesting that all three of us, and many other teens that blog, dislike school. So I decided to delve deeper into the reasons why, and I have come up with three common reasons why.

1. Education is important, but repetitiveness is not

I can’t tell you how much redundancy there is in High School. A great example though is are lovely history classes. I have probably gone over everything before World War 1 at least seven times since my days in elementary school. After a while, you get it, and if there is a student who doesn’t get it by now, then they never will. It is a waste of time. Either teach us something new, or don’t teach us anything at all. It is sad when I can honestly sleep from the beginning to the end of a classroom period and take a test a week later and get a 90% or above.

This applies to homework as well. There is absolutely no need for me to copy directly from the book to a piece of paper what I read. Jesus, it is annoying as hell. I read it, no need to rewrite it.

2. Music, Art, and plenty of Gym classes… do I care?

I am not a very artistic person, I like music and play guitar, but have no interest in studying it, and while I am active, I do not have the competitive determination in a game of basketball that would make Gym remotely interesting to me.

In short, there are no classes that interest us.

I would love to take a class in journalism, or a class that taught web design. Very few schools offer such specialized classes, and if they do, often times the students that are interested in such classes know more than the teacher (which brings us back to repetitiveness as well).

3. There is no need to have school 7 hours a day, 5 days a week

A lot of what makes up my day, and many other students day, is sitting down and monotonously working on homework that was given to us to make up for “spare time”, and depending on the teacher, a 20 minute rant on politics is not uncommon either. Honest to god, every class I am taking right now can easily be reduced to 40 minutes a day, easy. This is frustrating because people like Tyler, Daniel and I know we could be doing something better with our time, and many other students feel the same way.

Any other teens out there have thoughts on the matter of school?

This post is going to be short, simply because I have a lot of homework, and just got home from a very long speech meet.

That aside, I am very grateful for the responses I have gotten from NUMEROUS people on the topic of releasing an aggregator for personal blogs based on Techmeme.

Also, I would like to make a dedicated thanks to Mark Nielsen and Tyler Romeo who wrote very detailed posts about the idea, which you can find right here!

Hearing Tiny Voices: The Hidden Next Layer in a Noisy Mainstream Cloud – Techyell/Mark Nielsen

Stepping on the Little Guy in Blogging – TechLayers/Tyler Romeo

Also, after this weekend every thursday I will be making a video + post dedicated to this new project.

I am dead serious about this project, and as some pointed out, doing this is going to be hard, especially the whole coding bit.

That won’t stop me, and I am already making a timeline More details soon!

Techmeme is really good at one thing, discovering and ranking important breaking news fast. While I may at times bitch about Techmeme (as many others have) they are my first destination to find out the latest breaking news in the tech world, and obviously what Gabe Rivera is doing is working. Techmeme now has a full-time editorial staff and is one of the few aggregators out there making a profit and not getting bitched at about “stealing” content.

With all that said, I do have one major issue with Techmeme, and that is many times posts that are breaking news contain very little substance, and many of the same blogs are making headlines on a daily basis. This is not Techmeme’s fault persay, after all, only so many tech blogs can break news, but I feel smaller/personal blogs who contribute a lot more thought and analysis to these stories are getting the short end of the stick just because there post is an hour after the fact. These smaller bloggers are the ones, IMO, who need to be listened to.

So, I have a proposal.

I want to turn what is currently a blog called Layered Byte into an aggregator that aggregates the latest opinions from personal blogs based off of what Techmeme deems important at that time. Like I said, Techmeme is good at what it does, and it makes no sense for us to not use them as the basis for the personal blog articles we should highlight on this new aggregator.

Now, the real question, why am I telling you this?

Because I know a lot of people reading this right now write on their own blog, and many of them write great posts on the latest hot topics that don’t get the attention they deserve. The idea right now is still in the incubation stage, but I am very dead set on getting the ball rolling, and I need suggestions from personal bloggers on what they would like to see. Also, if any of the Techmeme peeps want to chime in, feel free, I know two of you out there occasionally stop by

So take the time to email me your thoughts (holdenpage@gmail.com) or comment. I would love to hear them before I get started.

P.S. I know that Techmeme has a discussion link. If I am going to be blunt, it blows. I have been on the discussion end of things NUMEROUS times, traffic is low and your name is not put out there at all, especially when your swimming in the sea of other discussions on a particularly important/controversial piece of breaking news.

I am actually very upset about this, and I really don’t want to do it, but my blogging and various social networking activities are going to have to be put on the back burner this week.

Why?

I am working a 30 hour week, two tests, another AP Psych exam for college credit, sections for speech, and a college english paper that is due Friday. After today, I am basically screwed for time.

While it may not seem like that big of a deal to you, it is to me. Blogging is one thing in my very hectic life that I control. It makes me happy knowing that I have a pattern, and it helps me calm down when I am feeling irritated. It also helps that I know I am relatively good at this whole blogging thing, and that writing is something I am passionate about (even if my grammar does blow).

Sadly though, when it comes right down to it, writing articles on PAS does take time, and this week break is needed while I try to catch up with my life. I am hoping, honestly hoping, that I can get back on track by next week.

With that said, you can always get a hold of me via email (holdenpage@gmail.com). I also will probably remain somewhat active on Buzz, don’t quote me on that though.

Much love, readers, and hope y’all understand