Shiny Bits of Life

Today is my blog-iversary… five years of blogging!

It has been fun. And I trust you have enjoyed my ride.

(Yes, that’s two old marquee photos in a row. However, this one is fully in use – the Boulder Theater is a living venue.) What a great community Boulder/Denver is – that they could fill such a place with geeks interested in blogging! (WordCamp Boulder was Saturday July 10th.)

The event was great. All the sessions were interesting. It was a big contrast to DrupalCamp Colorado, last month, which was much more on the coding/geekiness end of the spectrum.

There were seminars on why it’s good to test your website before launching it, led by Steve Martin of CleverCubed. Another session included ideas like following a criticism with a suggestion on how to improve the problem. (That’s not applicable to just blogging!)

Finally, lots of freebies were thrown in the mix. I loved that iced coffee from Atlas Purveyors. Lunch was a $10 gift card to use at any one of many many restaurants in downtown Boulder.

I compare the Drupal community to those who prefer Linux – and the WordPress community to those who prefer Macs. Both have their time and place.

Tumblr is a website platform that is sort of between a blog and Twitter.

Mine is over at shinybits. I use that space to put things that aren’t worthy of this blog. (Mostly I don’t want to clutter this space with that stuff.) And it’s a bit quicker to post.

Hope you enjoy it. And if you create your own, leave the link as a comment here on this blog, so others may enjoy your quick thoughts!

…stays together.

(I couldn’t resist that headline. And no, we don’t blog together. I’m the only blogging person in the family.)

Yes, that’s the back of our minivan.

What other blogging tool would automatically generate such a message?!

I’ll be at WordCamp Boulder tomorrow. I’ll join hundreds of other faithful WordPress followers to hear testimonies of changed lives. (Well, not really. But it will be interesting to those of us so geekily inclined.)

Plinky is a service WordPress just bought. Go there to get a question that will give you ideas for your next blog post.

(And my answer to that question? A way for all of the villages in Africa to have clean water within a year.)

When I visit a rockstar’s blog, in the back of my head is the thought, “Is it worth blogging for the small audience who read my blog?”

The big names have their ideas broadcast to maybe millions. They actually get some revenue from their ads. Some of them even maintain authenticity in the process.

Since I know that a few of my readers really enjoy my blog, I continue. I picture being in the same room with them and hearing their chuckle at one of my observations. And I know that hearing a room of 5,000 laugh at the same observation would not bring me any more pleasure than that single friend enjoying my thought.

…is that you can put up something that does not have to be com-
mercially viable… like this (ugly) photo.

This one’s for self-hosted WordPress users only. (Apologies to the rest of my readers.)

Ever since I started using WordPress for this blog in February 2009, I have been unable to automatically upgrade my WordPress software. (Manual upgrades worked – but they were a pain.) Then I switched to a real theme by WooThemes. Volia! The upgrade worked ultra-fast and with great perfection!

So if you are facing that problem, just change your theme to a more professionally coded theme.