Mon, 10 Mar 2003

One month blogging ....

Well, it's been a month since this blog got started. I haven't checked any logs at all, so I'm not sure if anyone is reading this or not. But it has surely been a worthy experiment for me, one that will probably continue long into the future.

When I started investigating the blogging phenomenon, my main goal was to learn about RSS and other syndication technologies. I had no real intention of beginning an "online diary" or anything of the sort. But ofttimes research leads in strange directions ....

I had originally bought my Commodore 64 to write the Great American Novel. But, of course, I soon discovered video games, and basically I taught myself 6502 assembler in order to beat Baghdad.

Now I find myself writing every day - something I have longed to find the motivation to do for years. This blog business has provided that motivating factor, and so, despite it's lack of popularity amidst the masses, it's serving it's purpose for me.

This is truly the first personal web technology - I've had a homepage for years but only rarely (less than once per month, certainly) update it because it's such a pain in the ass to do so. With blogging, I can update a site hourly or even minute by minute should I so desire.

There are a lot of new things happening in my life right now - we've just finished the rehab on the house and are getting back into active farming, my kids are having kids and I'm grappling with middle age. This is perfect fodder for a journal - hence, since I'm a geek, perfect blog material.

The other thing that blogging has done for me is to open my eyes to the potential of personal web servers. It’s inspired me to fire up Apache on the Mac, and run several household tasks (coordinating mail and bookmarks for all our machines, etc.). I’ve gotten a book on Mozilla and started learning XUL and XML. And syndication still intrigues me, as I feel there are several nascent possibilities lurking there.

Blogging has even crept into my professional life. Interestingly enough, some of the products I’ve developed over the years would be perfect for audio blogging via the telephone. Some interesting possibilities in that area as well ….

Well, one month down, and many, many more to come.

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