Quitting Quiet Quarter
April 3, 2009
It has been a quiet quarter at Lake ChangingWay. In other words, I didn’t post much in Jan/Feb/Mar. Time to get past that, and make Apr/May/Jun more lively – springlike even – round here. Coming soon is a post reviewing what I found interesting (e.g., starred in Google Reader, or started to draft a post on) the 2009 so far.
Georgia on My Blog
October 20, 2008
What does your blog’s font say about you? Drawn! suggests that you should consult Typocalypse.
Given that I’m using the Simpla theme here (modified, but the font stays the same) I am a Georgia (as in font) boy. So what does that say about me? Georgia is not one of the fonts in the photoset, but if you look at the comments on the set, you’ll see a question about Georgia, followed by this excellent answer.
you are always looking for the alternative whenever you can. Georgia instead of Verdana. So you are bluntly neglecting the idyllic state of sans serif conformism.
Yes I am.
Autumn Blog Cleaning
September 24, 2008
It’s autumn: my calendar tells me that the equinox fell on September 22. That’s as good a reason as any to do the blog cleaning I’ve been meaning to get around to for a while.
The screen capture shows the blog as it was before the autumn cleaning. The sidebar is now a lot shorter. Search is now at the top: I used to offer a Google custom search that searched not only this blog, but also some of my older and other blogs, but this has been my main blog for long enough that the simple blog search box will suffice. The tag cloud has gone. And so on.
There are a couple of things I wish I could have changed. There’s that annoying gap at the top right: I’d like to shuffle the sidebar up into it, and perhaps I could if I was willing to wrestle with CSS a little. And, for some reason, WordPress.com has changed the Simpla theme under me and given the post footer more space: I don’t think I could CSS my way out of that one.
This is the latest episode of Simpla Way, as I call my version of the Simpla theme. I considered switching to a different theme, but I’ll stick with Simpla, at least until it’s time to give this blog a spring 2009 clean.
Changing Blog
July 28, 2008
Blogging is changing, as it should. To use a ridiculously broad brush, blogging used to be at the center of Web 2.0. Now the term Web 2.0 has got rather worn round the edges, and we have social media.
Blogging is certainly a player in social media, but it’s not a young trendy player. The young trendy players are less about content, either because they emphasize connection (e.g., Facebook) or because they don’t allow room for much content (e.g., Twitter).
That said, the blogosphere is still rather crowded, especially in the Tech Town area. Looking at Tech Town, it seems to get particularly busy at two points in the week. Monday is usually a hectic day. Them at the end of the week, it’s tech review post time.
I think I’ll set up a stall between those two points. So, starting this week, Changing Way will feature a midweek review. But midweek I mean Wednesday, so don’t be surprised to see the review appear on Thursday, or even Tuesday.
I’m not sure what to call it. A combination of Hump Day and Panorama suggests Humporama, but I suspect that name is already in use at sites less family-friendly than this one.
Visions of TLDs Danced in Their Heads
June 26, 2008
Top level domains (TLDs) such as .com, .org, .uk, .tv, are currently governed by strict rules. Icann just voted to relax those rules. So, all over the world wide web, nerds, organizations, squatters, and others are making lists of the TLDs they’d like.
Forgetting for a moment that I can’t afford it, I would of course like the TLD .way, or at least the URI changing.way. And no.way. I’d give theresmorethanone.way to The Perl Foundation.
If I were a squatter, I’d be after .ono, and would attempt to extort money from Yoko and from B. But I will be a mere spectator as the TLD land grab gets under way. Under.way… now there’s another nicely-URI’d corner of my empire to be…
Two Remarkable Things
May 29, 2008
A platypus called Frankie just left a comment on this blog. I found this so remarkable that I broke my Twitter silence to tell my legions of followers about it.
As to the second remarkable thing, I’ll leave it to you to decide which of the following best qualifies.
- The platy is called Frankie. That’s a very unusual name among duck-billed mammals.
- An Australian (Frankie) complimented a pom (me).
- Twitter was up.
Traffic From the NY Times
April 21, 2008
I noticed that a got a trickle of traffic from a URI @nytimes.com. It turns out that I provide one of their “Headlines around the web” for Massachusetts.
Perhaps I should change the post title to “the headline heard around the web.” Or perhaps I should click on the banner ad, since this blog is certainly not a profitable business.
Long Self-Portrait as About Video
April 15, 2008
The folks at PhotoJojo coined the phrase long portrait, Mashable Stan hailed the long portrait as a use for Flickr video, and Heather Rasley commented about the long self-portrait.
That got me thinking about an About video, in lieu of, or as part of, a blog’s About page. So I made such a video. There’s about a minute of About video.
I’ve Been Heralded
April 10, 2008
That’s the Blog Herald, not the Boston Herald. Lorelle linked to my post on how Automattic is making money from WordPress.com. In the same edition of WordPress Wednesday News, she links to dozens of other places as well, but she doesn’t describe all those other places as “interesting.”
Lorelle does mention the “issues on the WordPress.com support forums over the new Administration Panels interface.” But her emphasis falls on 2.5 features and security issues.
Google Folders, and Categorical Thoughts
June 27, 2007
Hey, there are folders in Google Docs! There aren’t actually any folders in my Google Docs, since I haven’t created any. I think I can live without folders there, or in my Gmail. Tags and search seem to do the job pretty well. Having said that, as Gmail becomes my main email, I may see the case for folders there.
I think that folders or categories are useful for newcomers. That’s why there are seven fairly broad categories on this blog (plus Uncategorized). Those categories and their post counts in the sidebar should give a reasonable idea of the content here.
