<p>ⓒ Richard Levitte</p>
http://journal.richard.levitte.org/tags/blogging/Richard Levitte's journalikiwiki2010-12-23T15:53:39ZAnother bloghttp://journal.richard.levitte.org/entries/another-blog/2010-12-23T15:53:39Z2010-12-23T15:53:39Z
<p>A little while ago, I started <a href=
"http://tycker.richard.levitte.org/">another blog</a>, written in
swedish and focused on Sweden and things that are happening
here.</p>
<p>"tycker" means "to think", as in having an opinion. I use it in
memory of a former girlfriend who sometimes said "jag tycker så
mycket" (my best translation is "I have so many opinions", if
someone has a better translation, I'll be all ears!).</p>
Do you get it all?http://journal.richard.levitte.org/entries/do-you-get-it-all/2009-11-21T12:18:27Z2009-11-21T12:18:27Z
<p>It's been pointed out that this blog doesn't give the full
picture.</p>
<p>Absolutely true!</p>
<p>Don't ever think that just because you've read something here,
you know it all.<br />
Don't ever think that I explain it all (sometimes I do,
but...).</p>
<p>Most entries are fleeting thoughts, moments of emotion, just
what is in the moment.</p>
<p>There's only one way to truly know me and what happens with me;
in person. By getting to know me. The good stuff. The bad stuff.
The stuff in between. Thinking you know me any other way is just a
sure way to stay with an illusion.</p>
Requirements for blogging?http://journal.richard.levitte.org/entries/requirements-for-blogging/2009-04-09T12:43:35Z2009-04-09T12:30:46Z
<p>I've been blogging for a long time... since the mid 90's, I
think... Yeah, some time back in '95 when I just wrote entries
directly in HTML as separate files and then had a script that would
sort them by date and produce an overall index on the <a href=
"http://www.openvms.org/">VMS</a> box I used as a server back then.
That was back in the days when a diary was just a set of entries,
there was no such things like categories, tags or other fluff and
people were just talking about their own daily lives whenever they
felt like, sometimes often, sometimes not.</p>
<p>It's in that spirit that I still write here today. Sure, I've
had categories for a while and then moved on to <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_(metadata)">tags</a> to have some
kind of topical structure, but the basic intent is still the same,
it's just the story of my life through thoughts, things that
concern me one way or the others, things I agree or disagree with,
things I do, and updated as (ir)regularly as before.</p>
<p>When friends talk to me about the thought of starting to blog,
the usual concern are two:</p>
<ol>
<li>What shall I write about?</li>
<li>I've got to update regularly or noone will read/I'll lose
courage.</li>
</ol>
<p>The other concern is which software or hosting service to use,
but that's often a lesser concern compared to the two above.</p>
<p>My usual answer is:</p>
<ol>
<li>Write about yourself, start with something, whatever you like.
Unless you want to write about something very specific that's close
to your heart, but then you wouldn't ask that question, would
you?</li>
<li>This depends on two things:
<ol>
<li>Who are you writing for? Are you writing for an audience that
you think are expecting something or for yourself and the pleasure
of writing in public? For me, it's really the latter, and let me
tell you that although I'm an irregular writer, there is a set of
readers that seem to check out this blog on a semi-regular basis...
and I'm absolutely fine with that!</li>
<li>There are some blog hosts that require regular updates, like at
least once a week, or you will lose your account. Me, I wouldn't go
near such a service for the life of me, but I have a friend who
does (that's how I know this).</li>
</ol>
</li>
</ol>
<p>Really, a simple solution is to start writing.<br />
Just stop worrying and start! After a while, you will notice on
your own what you write about, if there's a specific topic through
the majority of all the entries. If you write about many topics,
I'm sure it won't take too long before you start using tags (I
think all blogging software have them today).<br />
Just start!</p>
Feeds vs. tabitishttp://journal.richard.levitte.org/entries/feeds-vs-tabitis/2009-04-03T08:26:01Z2009-04-03T08:26:01Z
<p>or <em>Feeds as medication for tabitis</em></p>
<p>I "suffer" from <a href=
"http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tabitis">tabitis</a>
(although for me, it's in Opera, not in Firefox. Opera was first
;-)), and have looked for different solutions.</p>
<p>One of them is, of course, <a href=
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/web%20feed">web feed</a>s. Quite a
lot of the tabs I've had up were for all kinds of blogs and comics
I follow, and most of those went away when I started subscribing to
the feeds that are provided by most.</p>
<p>I feel liberated, and I find myself falling in love with feeds,
more and more.</p>
New colorshttp://journal.richard.levitte.org/entries/new-colors/2009-03-08T17:44:30Z2009-03-08T17:44:30Z
<p>Played around with colors quite a bit, got a lot of help from
<a href="http://journal.richard.levitte.org/people/ChH/" rel=
'friend ex-sweetheart met'>Charlie</a>... actually, the whole color
scheme is really hers, all I did was to whine about not wanting too
much contrast in the background image ;-), and she already knew I
like "earthy" colors. Either way, I like it. Do you?</p>
Earning money on blogging?http://journal.richard.levitte.org/entries/earning-on-blogging/2008-09-04T08:50:02Z2008-09-04T08:44:03Z
<p>There's a phenomenon with blogging that has passed me
completely; earning money on blogging...</p>
<p>No, not really completely, I've heard it but payed about as much
attention to it as a whisper i the wind... none at all.</p>
<p>It's stopped being a whisper, lately, and I've become acquainted
with blog sites that will pay for exposure of whatever you write,
based on how many actually read it.<br />
... or simply putting something like <a href=
"http://www.google.se/intl/sv/ads/">Google's AdSense</a> somewhere
in it.</p>
<p>It got me thinking that maybe ... but then, my blog can be quite
personal, and I shy away from making money from something like
this...</p>
<p>I'll have to ponder this over a few more times, me thinks...</p>
Pretty much done tagginghttp://journal.richard.levitte.org/entries/pretty-much-done-tagging/2008-07-06T23:21:28Z2008-05-28T10:41:04Z
<p>It's actually kinda fun going through old entries and figuring
out how they should be tagged. The "life" tag is now gone as all I
write is about life in all its different parts and all its glory,
and that allowed for the rest of the tags to get better
representation in the tag cloud I use.</p>
<p>I'm pretty much done with it, but I can't say it's wnritely
done, as there may be some entries that aren't entirely correctly
tagged. It will happen as I discover them, no need to stress
it...</p>
It ain't always easy...http://journal.richard.levitte.org/entries/moving-to-ikiwiki_2/2008-07-06T23:21:28Z2008-05-16T10:30:17Z
<p>... to move to new software. New habits an' all, so you'll have
to forgive the little glitches such as a sudden <code>[[meta
title="..."]]</code> for a moment or that kind of stuff, at least
for a little bit...</p>
<p><img src="http://journal.richard.levitte.org/smileys/smile.png" alt=":-)" /></p>
Moving to ikiwikihttp://journal.richard.levitte.org/entries/moving-to-ikiwiki/2008-07-06T23:21:28Z2008-05-14T14:46:50Z
<p>Since I <a href="http://journal.richard.levitte.org/entries/moving-to-pyblosxom/">moved to
PyBlosxom</a>, I've realised that it wasn't good enough for me. I
used it in conjunction with <a href=
"http://monotone.ca/"><tt>monotone</tt></a>, but it was a pain,
mostly PyBlosxom doesn't have an easy way to pick out the creation
time of the entries.</p>
<p>So, in the mean time, I've discovered <a href=
"http://ikiwiki.info/"><img src="http://journal.richard.levitte.org/images/ikiwiki.png" /></a>, which
comes with a <a href="http://monotone.ca/"><tt>monotone</tt></a>
interface that does exactly what I want!</p>
<p>Now, I'll have to see how smoothly I can integrate a photo
gallery as well, and this blog will be a dream to work with... but
that's still just a dream. Still, what I have now is still damn
good.</p>
<p>As part of this move, I'm tossing the subcategory structure I
had and am using tags instead, including a "state of the art" tag
cloud.</p>
I hate blogging memes too, but...http://journal.richard.levitte.org/entries/blogger-code/2008-07-06T23:21:28Z2007-05-22T13:25:12Z
<p>Just like my <a href=
"http://digitalmathom.blogspot.com/">friend</a>, I couldn't resist
this one...</p>
<p><a href="http://www.leatheregg.com/bloggercode/">B9 d++ t+ k-
s-- u- f- i- o++ x e l- c--</a></p>