Shawn Gossman

Shawn.Bike

I purchased a premium domain name.

Shawn.bike

it didn’t cost that much, though. It was under $50.00. Shawn.blog was about $1,000. I’ll pass on that one, LOL.

Shawn.bike is going to be my personal cycling blog for my cycling brand. I’m excited about it, too. I wanted a good new TLD domain to play with and this let’s me do that.

I hope to launch it soon.

Do you have any domain names like this?

I write daily but I don’t blog daily.

I didn’t post yesterday.

That’s because I’m not a daily blogger right now. Maybe one day but for now, I’m not too worried about it. 

I’ll try to blog multiple times a week on here because I usually have plenty to say. But I think committing to daily blogging with this blog isn’t needed. It’s a personal blog. It’s not meant to make money or develop an audience. It’s meant for me to write what’s on my mind and share it with the world. I think once you get hung up on “I have to post every day,” it’s no longer a personal blog. It’s a project at that point.

I have enough projects as it is.

However, even though I don’t blog every day, I do write every day. I try to write something each day. I do that to improve my writing skills. I do that so that I can keep enjoying writing. It’s not just a hobby for me, it’s a healthy habit.

Do you write every day?

I want to start a paid community

2025 is coming in hot.

I have a few goals. I mainly have goals focusing on my online projects.

One big goal is: Passive Income

I think creating a paid online community is a great form of passive income. Charge members to get access to great discussions, courses, exclusive articles, webinars, and some one-on-one support. Many paid online communities are successful doing this.

I’m hoping to charge $100 a month for it.

I just need to figure out the niche. I’ve considered it many times but have never decided on a good niche. That’s where I’m struggling. I have a lot of ideas for different paid communities but I need to focus on ONE so I can go all-in and turn it into a money maker. That’s my goal for 2025.

I want to launch it sometime even if it’s December 31, 2025!

I’m going to start researching and deciding on what to do soon.

A bike dilemma

I want to bike from the Ohio River in Metropolis, Illinois, to Chestnut, Illinois.

Why? It’s where the center of the state is said to be. They even have a little monument for it.

I think that would be a great cycling/bikepacking adventure. But as the title says, I have a dilemma…

Should I use my road bike or my gravel bike?

My road bike is made for the pavement and does well, but I can take my gravel bike anywhere I want.

Has anyone ridden long distances on a gravel bike on paved roads? Is it difficult?

vBulletin

I’ve been using vBulletin again after many years of not using it.

A Little History: I used vBulletin back in the day when 3.X was popular. After company changes and 4.X and 5.X, I left and headed over to the newly launched XenForo. I pretty much stayed on XenForo since then.

I saw that vBulletin came out with a new version. For right under $200 (one-time payment), you get all of version 6 downloads for free. So, I gave it a shot to see what it’s like.

Purchasing it was simple. However, I made a mistake on my address and vBulletin delayed the purchase until they confirmed my correct information. I applaud them for doing that because security matters and they were taking it seriously.

Once I got in downloaded – I created OFF TOPIC FORUM with it.

I have to say, so far, I’m pretty impressed with vBulletin 6.0.7 (the only version I’ve used so far).

It’s no XenForo by any means. They need to add more features to get it even close to XenForo. Judging by the tracker, it looks like more features are on the way or at least they are being suggested and upvoted. I even made a suggestion. My suggestion is a feature to allow forum title icons to be created per channel. I think that would be an interesting feature.

Feature-wise, vBulletin has plenty of great ones, including:

  • A modern forum
  • A powerful AdminCP
  • Built-in member blogs
  • Built-in member articles
  • Built-in member social groups

But they’re behind on a lot of things, too, including:

  • Alerts – you get notifications, but you have to go to a separate page to see any information about them.
  • Signatures – The signature is in a really odd spot in terms of editing it. It should be moved into the profile editing location, IMO.
  • Auto-embed – You have to use BB code to embed a YouTube video, and it doesn’t render the title. I think just pasting a link and it auto-embedding would be better.
  • Addons – There is one person making addons for vBulletin 6. There is a lack of addons for the software.
  • Themes – There aren’t a lot of options for this, either.

I hope to see more changes to this particular version of vBulletin. It is very promising and could be a great platform if they continue to make it better.

Support-wise. It almost seems that Wayne Luke is the only guy giving support. I think I saw another guy, too. But they’re still fast about it and friendly. I really try to figure stuff out myself before asking for help.

If you like discussing all topics, please join OFF TOPIC FORUM to help support me and to give vBulletin 6 a test drive as a user.

Comment below and tell me what you think about vBulletin 6 or the platform in general!

Howdy World!

Howdy folks,

Shawn here. This is my new blog. I’ll be posting stuff about life (general), my online projects, and my travel adventures, too.

I won’t be posting daily but I might get into spurts where I do post every day. Just don’t expect it to always be that way.

This is my personal blog. I’m not offering a newsletter or services here. It’s just for posting whatever.

Thanks for checking me out!