Are you looking for a way to spark your creative fuse?

“Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.”

- E.L. Doctorow

I love to write, and have done so semi-professionally for the past seven years or so.  Sometimes though, a good topic to write about it hard to find, or you might be out of creative muses to inspire you.  That is where the web site Write for Ten comes into play.

This web site serves as a writing sketchbook. Writers from all skill levels and of all types can come any enjoy this resource.  It is handy for a number of reasons.  It can help inspire you with an idea.  It can keep you in writing shape, if you have a hard time finding the time in the day to do so.

Via the Write for Ten web site, here are several ways you can participate:

• Take ten minutes now and write! Grab a notebook, open a text editor, sign up for an account, or post a blog.
• Write a ten-minute post using the Write for Ten site. Your posts are published at http://writeforten.com/users/username.
• Grab a timer and write a blog post for ten minutes. Add our badges to the bottom of your posts.
• Make a habit of writing everyday. Use this site or your favorite blogging platform (e.g., WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, Posterous )
• Tweet your posts with the hash tag #writeforten or #wf10.

This free writing exercise is an excellent way to get over writer’s block.

Want to join in on the fun? Point your browser towards writeforten.com.

I love the classic Atari 2600 games, mainly because with some of the old art they had on them, you can tell somebody spent a lot time on them.  Now you can get your favorite Atari cartridge as a neat (and really geeky) wallet.  You can buy the wallets yourself (although they are a little on the expensive side) from this store.

For all of you I have two very special presents – a couple of my other side projects you may or may not know that much about.  I wanted to take a minute or two of your time so that you could check them out, and if you like them as much as you like Mitchelaneous – feel free to subscribe there too.  Merry Christmas!

The Web Hosting Show

The Web Hosting Show is my weekly podcast on and about the wacky world of web hosting.  From news, to help and even some shopping tips – I like to help people get the most out of their hosting accounts – while having a little fun along the way.

My Favorite Web Hosting Show Posts of the Year:

• 5 Best Ways to Search Rapidshare, Megaupload and More! (plus 4 More Ways)
• Free eBook – Best of the Web Hosting Show Guides
• How to Trace Route (on Windows and Mac) (and the Video Walkthrough)
• Podcast Archives – 175+ Web Hosting Podcasts to Learn From!
• Talking Data Protection with R1Soft – Episode 139

You can subscribe to WebHostingShow.com for free by plugging the RSS feed into your favorite news reader of choice.  Here are a few subscription buttons to help you in that process:

Firefox Facts

Firefox Facts is my daily blog about all things relating to Firefox.  It started out as an e-book project, but has expanded by leaps and bounds since then.  Find reviews for useful extensions, great looking Firefox themes and a whole lot more.  I even toss in an occasional roundup of the best tools for this, that and the other.  If you use Firefox, you need to subscribe.

My Favorite Firefox Facts Posts of the Year:

• Darkest Popular Themes for Firefox 3 (also have the lightest)
• Freshest Top 10 YouTube Greasemonkey Scripts
• Change the Default Search in Firefox
• 25 Tweaks for Your Firefox Statusbar (also 25 more tweaks too)
• Give Firefox 3 Firefox 2′s Address Bar

You can subscribe to FirefoxFacts.com for free by plugging the RSS feed into your favorite news reader of choice.  Here are a few subscription buttons to help you in that process:

Thanks to all my visitors and free RSS feed subscribers for keeping this rambling side project of mine fun to do.  This November was the 5 year anniversary of Mitchelaneous.com, and hopefully we will have many more years to come.

With Scrumy, all you do is point your browser towards scrumy.com/ and then after the / type in any name you want.  For each job you might need to get done, add a new story.  Then you can add the tasks for that job under the “To Do” list.  In addition to the “To Do” list you also have sections for work in progress, that are verified, and that are done.  As the work progresses, you can drag and drop to do list items to other boxes.  The process is simple, yet very effective for organizing your team’s ideas and tracking the progress.

The service is totally free, but if you want a few more features – I suggest you shell out for Scrumy Pro.  With Scrumy Pro, you can password protect your project. You get the Dashboard to help you manage multiple sprints. You get Burndown Charts to help you schedule. You can rename your project at any time. Your project will never be deleted for inactivity. Ever.

If you need help organizing your next big project, give Scrumy a shot.

Who says this Internet thing isn’t a great learning device? This made it easy to pick up pointers on how to link inside of the document, and then how to export to PDF and secure the document up some so that it could not be edited. I would suggest anybody bookmark this video and play it again if you ever want to get into the basics of digital publishing yourself.

A wiki is software that allows users to create, edit, and link web pages easily. Wikis are often used to create collaborative web sites and to power community web sites.

So here you can pickup something like yoursite.wikidot.com and get tons of awesome features. Some of them are:

• easy, clean and powerful
• allow creating interactive sites (not just static pages)
• concentrate on tools to build communities and to communicate
• no unnecessary fanciness but use modern solutions
• design to scale well up to millions of users

To see some of the sites with wikis already hosted, be sure to browse through the site too. Lots of good information is only a search away. Wikidot.com is an awesome free solution if all you need is a place to park your wiki of any shape, form or topic.

Hosting Shock and Awe – Episode 136

Here are just a few topics from this week’s episode of the Web Hosting Show.

• How can RegisterFly keep registering domain names?
• Tip on how to use Google Calender to organize your hosting mess!
• Mitch’s web hosting new year resolutions!
• Learn how to create a static web site using WordPress!
• What is the price you pay for your cheap hosting plan?
• No midgets and/or fairies were harmed in the production of this podcast!

Moving from Web Host to Web Host – Episode 137

Special! – When moving from house to house, you have to pack up all of your belongings in the old house before you can move, right? The same could be said when you are moving from web host to web host.

Shiny Happy Hosting – Episode 138

Here are just a few topics from this week’s episode of the Web Hosting Show.

• GoDaddy, Beavers and the .ME Domain Extension
• Network Solution and Sneaky Domain Name Registrations
• Pingdom Tools – Ping, Traceroutes, and Page Loading Tools
• Beginner’s Guide to Overselling your Hosting Services
• Webnode – Free Hosting with a Kick (and great perks!)

Talking Data Protection with R1Soft – Episode 139

Here are just a few topics from this week’s episode of the Web Hosting Show.

• Why you should be using R1Soft for your server backups!
• Who is DJ Netizen and what does he have to do with Mario?
• How Personal and Work Lives in Hosting Merge Together
• What does a “server backup” company really do?

Want to tune into the Web Hosting Show podcast each week? Subscribe!

Covering topics like learning the basics of HTML might be shunned some places, but due to the nature of being a helpful resource for both hosting experts and novices, I have a better and bigger chance to write for a wider range of subjects.

Now don’t get me wrong – I highly doubt I am a really huge factor either way for it’s slowly growing success, I am just happy to be along for the ride and helping people who need it.

Lunarpages customer or not, I would highly suggest subscribing to the RSS feed for Lunartics and if you have any feedback, suggestions, thoughts or anything else – you know me I am an open book and easy to get a hold of.

Has the hosting business seen any others? Shh.. don’t steal my thunder.

I’ll be putting up links there on a day to day basis, combing through the press releases and neat web development resources to find the best of the best for all of you. With each link I pass your way I’ll give you a quick description and let you sort of know my feelings about it. I guess you could say it is a kind of extension from the Web Hosting Show podcast. Just think of it like WebHostingShow.com but without all the text and podcasts getting in the way.

Of course you can subscribe via the RSS feed or even get daily e-mail updates. Don’t forget the mobile device friendly version of the Hosting Hoopla link list as well. Many ways to take in the hosting goodness.

Feel free to let me know what you like, what you don’t like, what you need and what you want. I am totally open to suggestions, just send them my way.

Any guesses? Oh yeah, its also bigger than a shoe box and smells nothing like pepto bismol. I gave away the answer to my Pownce friends, so “mums the word” if you know.