Construction: Final Releases and Waiver of Lien (free forms)

If you ever do any construction in California, you are likely to get some “Preliminary 20-Day Notice“. Basically a way for contractors and their sub contractors to get money from you by pulling a lien on your property.

It can be especially surprising if you get the notice from a supplier or subcontractor that you are not even aware off. Anyway, when you get one and you have paid the contractor, make sure you have them sign a “Waiver of Lien”. I am using this form “FULL UNCONDITIONAL WAIVER“.

Once you have completed the project, I have also started to have contractors sign a “FINAL RELEASE AND WAIVER OF LIEN” form.  Please use these forms at your own risk - you may want to have a layer review the forms; but a bad form is still better than none at all.

Good luck, and I hope you never have to use these forms ….

June 15, 2008 | Filed Under Thoughts |  

“Post to Twitter” from every page of your blog

I just saw a link on a site that asked me to spread the word via twitter about a signup I just completed and I immediately thought that this would be a nice addition to any blog.

Here is the WP code I added to the bottom of the post template.  Replace the thomask with your twitter alias and feel free to use it.

<a href=”http://twitter.com/home?status=Reading%20%40thomask: <?php the_title(); ?>%20%3E%20<?php the_permalink() ?>”>Post to Twitter</a>

To try it out click on the link below “Post to Twitter”.

May 31, 2008 | Filed Under Thoughts |  

2007 in Review

January 10, 2008 | Filed Under Thoughts |  

2006 in Review

January 3, 2007 | Filed Under Thoughts |  

Testing Performancing

Performancing for Firefox | Performancing.com

Performancing for Firefox is a full featured blog editor that sits right within Firefox

* Works with all major blog software
* Easy WYSIWYG Editing
* Trackback, Technorati and Del.icio.us support

May 15, 2006 | Filed Under Thoughts |  

I am switching to Wordpress

After 3 years on MT, I have decided to switch to WP!

The reasons are similar to why I switched from Blogger to MT back in 2003. It appears to me that MT is just not keeping up with development in the same way WP does.
For example, the plugin management of WP is so much easier and painless.
WP allows me to create non-blog “pages” like my new about me page. In MT I had to go into the template to add the same information.

But I think the real reason is more subjective: MT (or better Six Apart) starts to look like a real company, and I like open-source and non-commercial applications.

March 7, 2006 | Filed Under Thoughts |  

Private: Google Sitemap Code for Movable Type

How to add Google Sitemap XML to MT ….

Add this to “Manage” >> “Templates” >> “New Template”:
name the file sitemap.xml and have it rebuild on every posting, then
submit to https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/showaddsitemap?hl=en_US

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>

<urlset xmlns=”http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap/0.84″>

<url>

<loc><$MTBlogURL encode_xml=”1″$></loc>

<priority>0.5</priority>

</url>

<MTEntries lastn=”9999″>

<url>

<loc><$MTEntryPermalink encode_xml=”1″$></loc>

<lastmod><$MTEntryModifiedDate utc=”1″ format=”%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ”$></lastmod>

</url>

</MTEntries>

</urlset>

June 4, 2005 | Filed Under Thoughts |  

Gmail Cheat Sheet

Gmail shortcuts are an easy way to navigate and operate Gmail without having to use your mouse (it is much faster)! One Minute Tip - a Podcast with quick tips - has a good Gmail Shortcuts introduction

I have taped a Gmail cheat sheet to my laptop to learn thoseshortcuts and have since been asked about it a few times.

Here is a pdf version of my Gmail Cheat Sheet with a few options >> print >> cut >> glue to laptop or desk.

If you want a gmail account, you can ask anyone how as one to invite you.

May 1, 2005 | Filed Under Thoughts |  

What is on my mind

Technology helped me to find out what I am really thinking about - or at least what I am writing about on my blog: Thomas Korte’s Mind Map
I added my “Mind Map” with the help of a piece of code from Dan and Sherree: Building a Weighted Keyword List.

But what I really want is to correlate my ‘Mind Map’ to that of
others. Presumably, I would have a good conversation with people who
have a reasonable overlap.
This all started while thinking about ‘tagging’ of documents and how it
could help organisation to a) find and retrieve information and b)
connect people working on similar projects.

…. I will post something about this soon.

March 15, 2005 | Filed Under Thoughts |  

Website Promotion with RSS Feeds - four tips

Four tips how to promote your weblog with feeds and :

1. Submit your RSS feed to RSS aggregators.
You can use this RSS Submission Service I created or do it manually. A good list of sites to submit is at Master New Media.

2. Add ping servers to your ping list
To tell multiple services that your site has been updated, submit your RSS URL to Ping-O matic (every time you have post) or add these ping servers to your blogging application. Technorati explains how.

3. Add My Yahoo, Feedster, Newsgator and other personal RSS reader links to your site.

RSS readers are becoming increasingly popular. The old ‘bookmark
this’ link should be replaced with links to common RSS reader. Below is
a list you can use - I know, there are more (tell me about them). Don’t
forget to replace my URL with yours.

Bloglines
http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://www.thomaskorte.com/index.rdf

My Yahoo
http://e.my.yahoo.com/config/promo_content?.module=ycontent&.url=http://www.thomaskorte.com/index.rdf

Newsgator
http://www.newsgator.com/ngs/subscriber/subext.aspx?url=http://www.thomaskorte.com/index.rdf

Feedster
http://www.feedster.com/myfeedster.php?action=addrss&confirm=no&rssurl=http://www.thomaskorte.com/index.rdf

Kinja
http://kinja.com/checksiteform.knj?pop=y&add=http://www.thomaskorte.com/index.rdf

4. Trackback as many posts as possible
To increase the number of relevant links to your site use Trackback.

I use Google to search for similar posts and add the Trackback URL to the post.
For example, I searched for ‘blog promotion trackback’
to find posts that are relevant to this posting and have trackback
enabled. Once I find a good site, I also follow the other trackback
links to see if I can use them.

January 3, 2005 | Filed Under Thoughts |  

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