Category Archives: blogging

I blog about blogging sometimes, it seems redundant, but it’s not. Except when it is.

Why Put Your Life on The Internet ?!?

Posted on July 7, 2008 | 1 comment

So the idea of putting your life on the internet came up at work today. It was really more about people putting inappropriate things on-line. But the question was asked and I couldn’t come up with a good answer. I had some answers but I didn’t think I could make someone understand if they didn’t get it just a little bit.

I remembered back into the days when Heather was trying to get me to understand blogging and I just didn’t get it. Partially because I always put my life out there so it wasn’t something new, but the (semi)regular posting and using special software to do it I just didn’t understand. Let alone when she tried to explain trackbacks and pings. And if a geek like me didn’t get it, how can I get other people to?

Now here I am 1800+ posts later (and a million spam comments) and I still don’t have a good answer. Continue reading →

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Understanding Twitter

Posted on March 16, 2008 | 3 comments

So I’ve really been trying to use Twitter more. I read and tweet more at my computer than when I’m out. When I’m out I tweet some but don’t generally read. I do have it set to get a text message on my phone automagically if someone tweets my name. If you don’t know what Twitter is:

  • You can see what I tweet. All my personal blog posts get tweeted automatically.
  • You can see who I follow with twitter.
  • You can “follow me” (but you have to set up a free account with them) and get all my tweets sent to your cell phone so you can see what I’m thinking about an blogging about.
  • There is a nice mobile interface and you can even subscribe via RSS.

    I really got on the blogging boat late because I didn’t get it, but once I started I was hooked immediately. This isn’t working for me yet, but I’m still trying. On GeekBrief I saw the folks at CommonCraft created a video called Twitter in Plain English and it’s a pretty good explanation with interesting animation.

    But it still feels like Instant Messenger (IM) to me, but only 140 characters. It’s definitely more than IM, but it really just feels like the next step in its evolution. The clients feel like IM, and using the web interface at Twitter fells more and more like a web chat client.

    The biggest difference is that you direct your message to everyone in your group, not to a specific person. So occasionally you see a comment directed to someone else that you never saw the preceding comment, so then you can go see what they said and see if it’s someone else that interests you. You can send direct messages, but I don’t think that’s very common and I can never remember the command (it’s “D TwitterUserName TheText“).

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    WordPress vs. Movable Type

    Posted on February 2, 2008 | 1 comment

    I’ve always been a huge fan of Movable Type, but I’ve been playing with WordPress on and off lately and I think it might become my new blogging platform for anything new I create. I’m not sure if I’m willing to export and import my old blog and lose a bunch of Google results because the pages aren’t named the same or because of something else unforeseen.

    Here’s my whole comparison wrapped up in to two sentences –

    I think WordPress is easier to setup and it’s also easier for beginners to do advanced things with WP than Movable Type. From the other side, I think that doing really advanced things is easier with Movable Type, while doing ultra-advanced things are probably equal between the two.

    The biggest thing I don’t like in WordPress is how dynamic things are and if your web host goofs something up, the dynamic stuff chokes which would be your whole site; I’ve seen this happen with several different hosts. In MT I kept my main page and individual page posts static, and the rest dynamic so at least the whole thing didn’t crash. Also, the dynamic-ishness of the pages slows things down a little. But it’s so very easy, I can’t even tell you how easy it was to do an upgrade (one tip: if you modify a default template to use, be sure to rename the folder it’s in and you won’t accidentally over-write it when you upgrade). On the other hand, when I post something to WP it’s very very quick since it’s not rebuilding things. That’s really nice to be done as soon as you post.

    So far it’s also been much easier to do (incremental) upgrades with WordPress. It’s actually so easy, I’m surprised they haven’t added a few other steps which would make it one-click. It’s really disabling the plug-ins, copying the new directories over the old and reactivating the plug-ins; I’m sure this could be made one-click to “halt” the plug-ins, copy from the path that you specify, clear the cache and start the plug-ins back up.

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    Let it Snow!!!

    Posted on December 15, 2007 | 1 comment

    So it’s snowing and we’re supposed to get a lot tonight (the “don’t park in the street” siren already went off). I’m geeked about that since it doesn’t seem like Christmas without it.

    But I’ve noticed I’ve still got a fall theme up on my blog so I’ll be changing that to a Christmas theme that I’ve used before (if I can find all the parts). I’ve been learning WordPress and so far I’ve learned it’s SO much easier to change themes in WP than in Movable Type…

    So it looks funny over the next hour or so, I’m working on getting out the fall colors!

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    It’s been 4 years since I started blogging.

    Posted on December 12, 2007 | 8 comments

    It’s been 4 years today since I started blogging. It wasn’t really a plan. I had just looked into it for a bit and one day I had something to say and kept going…

    I think this will be post number 1677 (that averages to a little more than 1 posts a day) and 2,299 comments.

    Thanks for listening and commenting everyone!!!!! And if you’ve just been listening, speak up and say HI Continue reading →

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    Posted in me + myself + i

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    WordPress for Dummies

    Posted on October 27, 2007 | 1 comment

    WordPress For Dummies, 3rd Edition Lisa Sabin-WilsonWordPress For Dummies is coming out on Monday (a few weeks early), and it looks like it covers most of the new features that are in WordPress. I’ve been reading Lisa Sabin-Wilson’s blog (JustAGirlInTheWorld.com) for a few years, but generally the tech info doesn’t help me since I’m not a WP user. Since I’ve been wanting to try WP for a while now (I’ve just played with it a little bit recently) this will help me on my way. So keep an eye out and pick up a copy (or order it on-line) when you get a chance…

    I just ran up to Border’s to make sure it wasn’t on the shelves already and it wasn’t out, so I’ll leave my pre-order with Amazon (and save 5% since it’s a pre-order and the price is guaranteed if it drops). Continue reading →

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    I Revise My Blog Posts (sometimes).

    Posted on October 1, 2007 | 4 comments

    So I’m always editing my posts. Generally, just in the first hour (or two) but occasionally (rarely) up to a day later. I’ll see little things I want to change/correct or I’ll notice typing errors. Sometimes I’ll remember something I left out and I’ll add it. I’m trying to make the blog post better, more readable and more complete.

    I don’t change the slant or idea of something I had but I’ll firm up the idea sometimes. Sometimes I wonder how that info gets around the ‘net though. I know some people will read me via RSS or Atom or something, but once their software grabs my feed, if I change the article do they get the latest version if I don’t revise the date (and if I do revise the date do they have two copies?)?

    I know sites start to index pages and RSS feeds and update Technorati and other sites like that and I’m not sure what version those end up with in the end, or how often it takes to re-index those files. Continue reading →

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    Jott is So Cool!

    Posted on September 24, 2007 | 2 comments

    So many times I wish I could call someone late at night or early in the day to leave a message without waking them. THere are some services that delay delivery like this, but they’re (at least in the past) costly and slightly difficult.

    Jott BetaEnter Jott: It lets you set up a list of people on-line. You call Jott say who/what you want to Jott (you put yourself in the list too) and then leave a thirty second message and it sends it to their e-mail. Did I leave out that it very accurately transcribes the audio file into text for you too?!? And it’s free?!? And it includes an audio file link too, just in case the transcription is garbled. Think about that before I tell you what else it does…

    It’ll post it to a blog for you too (Blogger, WordPress (even if self-hosted), TypePad, LiveJournal), it’ll Twitter and Jaiku it for you too and post it to a Yahoo! Group and 30 boxes and you can use it to get Zillow (home value) quotes too. And it’ll set up reminders for you too. It’s all hands-free with your phone. And it’s free! Continue reading →

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