Tag Archives: blogging

What is a blog?

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Or, more specifically, what is my blog?

Blog is short for Web log. From the moment I discovered blogging — back in September 2004, I think it was — I’ve always thought of a blog as a sort of online journal. A place to write about the things I think and do. A way of recording them for the future and sharing them with others who might either think or do similar things or find my thoughts and actions interesting.

That’s what my blog is and always has been: an online journal.

Bloggers have been getting a lot of press lately. Especially political bloggers. I just read “Not Just Another Column on Blogging,” by Jack Shafer on Slate.com. In that piece, he discusses several things that have changed the newspaper industry. Blogging, he argues, is one of them.

From his article:

Michael Kinsley made me laugh a decade ago when he argued against Web populists replacing professional writers, saying that when he goes to a restaurant, he wants the chef to cook his entree, not the guy sitting at the next table. I’m not laughing anymore: When there are millions of aspiring chefs in the room willing to make your dinner for free, a least a hundred of them are likely to deal a good meal. Mainstream publishers no longer have a lock on the means of production, making the future of reading and viewing anybody’s game.

The problem, it seems, is finding the 100 capable of making a good meal. Fortunately, I don’t spend enough time surfing the Web to sample the available offerings. (And I hope you don’t, either. There are far better ways to waste time.)

Anyway, this isn’t me that he’s talking about. My blog may state political opinions, but it does not attempt to replace reporters, who I still try to trust to report the truth. Some of my blog entries are rehashings of the “truth” that I’ve heard or read, filtered through my brain, which includes personal experiences and preferences.

Again, from the top: my blog reports the things I think and do. It should not be used as a primary source of information for anything. (Does that sound like a legal disclaimer? Kind of eerie, if you ask me.)

Also, my blog has never been a way to gain popularity with readers or site visitors. In fact, some of my viewpoints are very unpopular with certain subsets of people. But this blog isn’t an entry in some kind of popularity contest. It’s my way to exercise the free speech I’m granted in the U.S. Consitution. (The same Constitution that has been in the news a lot lately.)

I’m also not trying to convince people who don’t agree with me on issues to agree with me. I hope that people will think about the things I write here, even when they don’t agree with me. After all, I think about most things I hear and read. That’s how my opinions come about. I don’t just echo the sentiments of others.

(I also hope that people think. Period. I’m so tired of talking to people who echo the thoughts of others.)

In general, I don’t care if others agree or disagree with me. I’d love to read (and share) rational, well-thought-out arguments from both sides. That’s what the Comments links are for. (Duh.) Just don’t get nasty. Nasty doesn’t get deleted. Nasty remains online to show the world just how immature some people can be.

Anyway, this entry was brought about primarily by reading Mr. Shafer’s article today and thinking about how my blog doesn’t fit into what is quickly becoming the definition of a blog: an amateur’s attempt at serious journalism.

This isn’t journalism. It’s my diary. I just don’t keep it locked up.

And heck, no one is forcing you to read it.

WordPress Power

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I start to tap into the power of WordPress for Web publishing.

WordPress is an Open Source blogging tool. At least that’s how it’s promoted. But it’s so much more than that.

WordPress is a highly customizable Web publishing platform. With WordPress, a server, and a little ingenuity, you can build a Web site with nicely formatted static and dynamic pages. New content can be added by anyone you give access to. Site visitors can add comments — if you allow them to. Best of all, because it’s based on a blog engine, blogging features apply: date-based content display, automatic archiving of content, support for pinging and trackbacks — the list goes on and on.

I started getting a real feel for WordPress when I started rebuilding wickenburg-az.com, a Web site I have been maintaining since 1999 to provide information about the town I live in, Wickenburg, AZ. I started off keeping it simple, choosing a nice looking theme called Connections by Patricia Muller to control the appearance of the site. I immediately started tweaking the theme, changing the link colors and the header image. Then, after I had some content added, I continued tweaking by adding more features: automatic article author images, Webcams, random list of articles on topics pages, random header images, site statistics, weather, donation button, calendar of upcoming events, and Technorati tags. I added some “under the hood” features, too: comment spam protection, automated database backup, and sticky posts (which can glue a post to the top of the Home page until I release it). Right now, I’m trying to add the Users Online feature I have on this site, but I’m running into a page formatting problem and still need to work out the details to get it to work.

Every change I make to the site teaches me something about the way WordPress works. I learn more about HTML, PHP, CSS, MySQL, and Apache every day. For years, I’ve avoided digging deeply into advance Web publishing coding because I knew so little about it. Now I’m forcing myself to learn by working with it daily. I love the challenge. And I love applying the things I learned yesterday to the things I do tomorrow.

I’ll be writing more about WordPress in the weeks to come, so if you’re a WordPress user or are just curious about it, I hope you’ll keep checking in. Together, we’ll learn more about this great Web publishing tool.

AlwaysOn

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I get a new print magazine about Internet technology when Internet technology is putting print publications out of business.

I got it in the mail yesterday. The regular mail. The kind with the mail truck that puts stuff in my mailbox up on the corner. I like to think of it as analog mail.

The magazine is called AlwaysOn with the subtitles “the insider’s network” and “The blogozine on innovation.” Huh? The cover led me to believe that they’d collected a bunch of blog entries about technology, printed them up on slick paper, threw a few ads in to pay the bills, and mailed them out to people they thought might be stupid enough to buy in at the hefty price of $39 for four issues a year.

Well, that’s pretty much what the magazine is. The “Member Posts” section has short blog-like pieces that end up with the number of posts and comments that I assume are attibutable to that author on the AO Web site. Then there are a few one- to three-page articles about the Internet, blogs, communication technology, and high-tech business. And a couple of interviews. The big feature is “The AO Power List,” summary of a few dozen of the movers and shakers in the high-tech world.

It’s 48 printed pages, 18 of which are full-page ads. That leaves 30 pages of content for a susbcriber per-issue price of $9.75. (There was no cover price on the issue I received, so I don’t know what it would sell for on newstands if it even appeared there.) Is it worth it when you can just go out on the ‘Net and find the same kind of content online for free?

And I wonder how a quarterly publication can keep up with technology anyway. If it includes everything that happened since the last issue, most of that stuff would be sorely out of date. If it included only the latest and greatest info as it went to press, the information would still be stale — considering its editorial content — since it takes at least a few week for the actual production of the print publication. During that time, the same content could be covered to death on the Internet.

What’s interesting to me is that this publication should appear now. Last month, I got a letter from Technology Today, which I subscribe to, saying that because of the boom in Internet publishing and communication, they’d publishing once every two months rather than once a month. And the magazine would be getting slimmer. This, mind you, is a publication that has been in existence for more than 50 years. MIT, the folks that publish Technology Today, will be adding more current, up-to-date content, on its Web site, which has additional content for subscribers. So they expect subscribers to get most of the content they pay for online rather than in the printed magazine.

I also wonder where they got my name and address. From my Macworld Expo registration? Or from the Technology Today folks?

Anyway, in case you haven’t read between the lines, I’m not impressed and I won’t be subscribing to AlwaysOn. I’d be interested in hearing from other folks who have gotten this publication and liked it enough to sign up. Use the Comments link or form for this post to share your thoughts.

Spam Spam Spam Spam

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I get my first spam comment on this site.

One of the features of WordPress is the ability to collect comments on each and every post. The idea here is to foster a sort of community with feedback and additional comments to enhance the original post. I’m looking forward the comments I get on wickenburg-az.com and have already gotten quite a few. I don’t expect to get too many here because no matter how radical the ideas I express are, few people are brave enough to step forward and comment about them. There’s that and the fear that the e-mail address they’re required to enter may be used for spam.

It won’t. I have better things to do with my time than fill other people’s mailbox with junk mail. Heck, I have enough of a time keeping the junk out of mine.

Anyway, comments are commonly used by spammers to insert advertisements and links for something that has little or nothing to do with the post they’re spamming. That’s why I have WordPress set up to require that I review every comment before approving it.

This morning, there was a spam message in there from some kind of online casino. I knew it was spam without clicking the link and I immediately disposed of it. It’s quick and easy: two button clicks and it’s gone.

If spam becomes a problem, there’s a plugin I can install that will prevent it from being automatically entered. The software requires the commenter to enter a code that appears in a graphic onscreen before the comment can be entered. You’ve probably seen things like that on other Web sites; it’s getting more and more common these days. It’s an extra step for the commenter and I’d prefer not to institute it, but I will if I have to.

I think that if we all just ignored all spam and stopped clicking those links they include, spam might go away. But then again, I’m often quite naive about things like this, so I’m probably wrong.

Anyway, please don’t think that I’ll delete a comment that argues a post it’s commenting on. I won’t — unless it’s abusive or libelous. I believe in free speech and this blog is my outlet for exercising mine. You can use it to exercise yours, too. Just don’t get nasty about it, okay?

Welcome to the New Home of Maria’s WebLog

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I combine Maria’s WebLog and the Maria Langer Web site into one site, using WordPress software.

You’re looking at the new home of Maria’s WebLog, which I’m in the process of combining with my personal Web site. If you’ve been following my WebLog, you know that I recently installed Mac OS X server on my old G4 and made the switch to WordPress to rebuild the wickenburg-az.com Web site I host there. This is the second big project for that server, and it’s quite a challenge. Not only do I have to get hundreds of pages of content from both sites together in one central place, but I have to modify the theme on which the appearance of the site is based — without knowing nearly enough CSS or PHP code to get the job done easily.

I do love a challenge.

So bear with me as I get this site put together. Your suggestions and comments are always welcome. Use the Comments link to let me and other visitors know what’s on your mind.