Coffee and Code

While out on the web looking for blog-authoring tips, I came across this: The Top 10 Blogs for Writers (copyblogger.com). There are some good, helpful articles linked there that give some pretty good tips on the craft of blogging. And, don’t kid yourself: Blogging is a craft, and the best bloggers are artisans in their own right.

I happen to know at least a couple of people who run compelling, successful blogs that enjoy high readership. One factor to the success of these blogs, in my opinion, is the fact that the authors in these cases are literature geeks or professional journalists, which implies that the authors have actual formal training in writing. Posts by these authors tend to be interesting to read, thought-provoking or controversial, and encourage reader feedback.

Or, the blogger has a lot of cute LOLCat pictures. Whatever.

From a techie standpoint, I love the convenience of the weblog format: I can publish content to my site with nothing other than a web browser. Using tags, I can categorize my content and generate a neato tag cloud thingie (right). Syndication via RSS allows for really cool possibilites, too: for example, my parents will probably never remember my weird website address. They sure like Yahoo though, and I can plug my RSS feed into their My Yahoo pages, and they are instantly up-to-date on what I’m writing (or not writing.... ummm....)

After three-ish years of maintaining this weblog, I feel comfortable saying that I will not be a super-star blogger. For one, I usually only feel like writing blog entries when I’ve been drinking. I don’t have a set frequency to my posts; I just write "when the spirit moves me". If I feel pressured to hammer out a blog post every week, the end result is worthless. Really, this entire website is a hobby, and hobbies should be fun, not tedious.

Secondly, I enjoy reading blogs a lot more than writing them.

Thirdly, I had much more fun creating the machinery that hosts and runs this blog than I’ve ever had writing a blog post. I guess that’s why I’m a developer and not a novelist.

Just so you know, I’m not giving up blogging. I simply have more respect for good bloggers these days, and am taking any and all pressure off of myself to post anything truly thought-provoking or noteworthy. I’ll keep this blog going as place to post general updates, thoughts, opinions, and photos. And - in case you’re wondering - I will probably continue to write most posts after I’ve been drinking.

I received my first issue of Make magazine this week(thanks for the subscription, Claudia!). Pretty cool stuff - It seems to cover do-it-yourself tech projects running the gamut from building your own electrical circuits to home automation. I haven't had time to read the magazine in depth, but it's a good hefty size and looks promising!

I've pretty much got a working prototype of what my new weblogger will be!!! I made the decision today to go ahead with the final project, which will be forthcoming very soon (Now that I've got all of the architectural quandries sorted out....).

Whew! I will be glad do be done with that and moving on to something else. I think it's ironic that I've spent all of this time writing a weblogger for this site when, in actuality, I'm not that in to blogging, per se. It's a convenient way of updating the website content but I'm not that into online culture and I'm not a very compelling blogger, he he. Anyway, I'm prattling on, so I'll say good day!

Now: Coding, drinking coffee.

Later: SOCOM 3, Tekken 5, gyro sandwich.

Well, first I'll have to say that my new weblogger is much closer to completion now, with mad props to the folks over at Interface Technical Training (Phoenix, AZ). I attended their ASP.Net class here in Santa Fe last week. Aside from the normal course materials (which were excellent), both instructors helped me out with some architectural issues I had with the weblogger application.

Anyway, the class got me totally pumped to code, so I've been up late all week doing that stuff. I's tired today...

Peace out to anonymousrobot (congrats on the new machine!) and impoverishedcook (Congrats on the new job!)

So this teenage kid and his mammy were standin' in front of me in line at Walgr**ns. He says to his mom, 'I gotta start shaving. Clean-shaven men get all the best jobs.'

And here I am, lookin' all haggard with 3 days worth of stubble and camo pants on.... wild-ass hair... so I say to the mammy: 'Well, I guess I'm outta luck!' And the mom says - I love this part - 'Oh, you see, my son means a STRAIGHT job.'

Ho ho.

Anyway, I found this link at leftslipper's website while searching for how to bind an ObjectDataSource to an object factory. The article not only told me what I needed to keep my new weblogger project rolling, but offers an alternative way to handle objects: namely acquiring them rather than constantly creating and destroying them.

Okay, SOMEBODY sent me a link to the Fish Heads video on YouTube.com this morning, with the expressed intention that I view the video before I had coffee this morning. EVIL! I must admit that the video is quite delightfully twisted, though.

Note to spammerz: F*** off! It looks like I'm going to have to expedite the production of my new blogger... The current one, which I wrote before actually learning about blog programs and what they're supposed to do, doesn't allow me to moderate comments, or delete them for that matter! Bleh. I am stupid like that sometimes. My new blogger will be much better!

Now: writing code, drinking coffee. Later: writing code, drinking whiskey.

Author's Footnote: Four days after I posted this entry, the post got spammed, bad. Like 39 spam comments in 24 hours bad. Hence the mysterious absence of the comment form. There's one comment left that LOOKS like spam, but I think it's from my brother instead, ha ha.