Nerd.
Just seeing if some things are still working.
Testing for MarkDown
Yeap. Looks like everything checks out.
The move to another dreamhost account is complete. I guess that’s one thing crossed off on the list of things to do.
Next: Streamline the blogging process.
Starting in a couple of minutes, some things might not work as planned.
Basically, for the next 24 hours. I guarantee nothing.
Which might be a good thing for a change.
Sidenote: Pfft. Regularly. I’m funny. Oh, and this post took me like a week to write. I don’t know why I got so slow at this…
Not sure why I haven’t really thought this through before… I’ve listed things in the past to help me track down what I wanted this blog to be… but I might have to redefine what Josh Kim dot Org is about again.
It has become very obvious to me now that I write about two very disparate topics. The funny thing is, I probably wouldn’t have come to this conclusion if I just sat there with my blank sheets of paper, creating diagrams about what categories should go where. (Which I’ve done before) Another lesson in doing, and not planning.
1. Technology & the Internet: The recent post about Mint.com is a great example of this topic. I love to talk about Web Applications, Web Development, Gadgets, Apple, User Interface Design, Content & Media… Whatever that tickles my fancy born out of 0’s and 1’s. Somehow, I’ve managed to categorize them… hopefully, this system continues to make sense in the long run.
2. Personal/Relationships/Random: Not necessarily mutually exclusive from the first topic (how social networks define “friends” is one post I’ve been working on for months…), but rather not as exciting for most people. I tend to talk a lot about lessons I get out of living life. Man… the amount of relational crap I’m going through… and how much I’m learning about myself and the people around me… it’s almost too much at times. I have to start writing… but I end up trashing it, or pushing it aside, or posting it privately, thinking it doesn’t really fit with anything else. But it’s all too interesting, and I want people to read it: At least, the people it applies to anyway.
I also have tons of little random things I learn that I want to share. My desire to solidify my grasp on that topic could have been materialized as a post about that topic. Just recently there was a story on the difference between credit and debit cards, and how they charge different fees on which one is being used and how they affect the merchants. Also, just recently, I was hit in the face with some good poetry… another area I want to get acquainted with. Movie reviews, cooking tips, recent music choices…
One of my favorite words in high school… lovely.
What kind of person has favorite words anyway?
See, that? Right there? That kind of stuff would make it to Topic #2.
And so, in efforts to keep this site a bit more structured, I will be diving into WordPress to break this blog into two. One feed will include just the first topic, while a second feed will include both the tech and the personal. Those that are subscribed right now will be getting all the items. If you’d like to opt out of my non-geek drivel, I’ll keep you posted in the weeks to come.
I’d like to leave with a quote that really started this line of thinking to begin with from Stephen, a highly quotable guy:
If you want to talk about something generally and cathartically, do. It’s not wasting anybody’s time. If they don’t want to read it they won’t. If they do, they’ll at least have a general idea what’s going on in your life.
A lot of my issues I will tend to hide, thinking I’ll seem weak to others. But I feel like if it’ll help others that are going through the same types of issues, then I will post publicly on it. Heck, it’ll help me get over it, too… whatever it is.
Hopefully, this will clear up a few posts that are coming up… cuz… they have nothing to do with topic #1.
Dashalytics, the dashboard widget for the Google Analytics Service came out a couple days ago. Looks and functions a lot better.
One big issue I had with the previous version was that the height was variable based on the data you would open up. For example, if you wanted to see the data for the past 24 hours, you would be met with a drop down menu that would stretch for half the screen describing the visitor stats per hour. Yeah, it’s kinda hard without a visual, but just trust me, it wasn’t pretty.
Now, it’s a little bit clearer, but… it’s less granular. I can only get data for the last three months; no more, no less.
If you look closely at the screenshot… you’ll notice something. And no, not that “josh kim” search on technorati. I do it from time to time to see what’s going on with the rankings and so forth.
I didn’t know that How to Hack Xanga, Kinda was such a visited link. I guess I should write a follow-up. Seems like plenty of people want something like it.
Which brings me to another realization about this blog: I need to reach a balance. In the early days of… whatever blogging platform I was on (be it my own, Xanga, or WordPress)… I used my “journal” to write a lot of personal things. Back in those days, I was learning more and more about web development, so it would have been a perfect time to bring about a more technical blog. But I decided exploring more deeply the inner workings of Josh Kim was more important.
To this day, I feel like I want to keep writing about thing that interest me, and somehow apply it to the general field of computing. From relational issues to philosophical debates to oddly-misshapen clouds… I want to write it all down and share it. Heck, I want to write about why I haven’t posted in the past two weeks. I want to write about what I’m doing. But you see, all this… isn’t very useful to the whole lot of you. So instead, I’ll try to make my daily posts worthwhile. And no, it won’t just be all nerdy.
Why do I make this point again? It’s because I lost sight of some things again.
It’s quite difficult, if you think about it… to set aside at least an hour of writing and editing per post (if it’s a good lengthy one), or even multiple short bursts of writing. TextMate Blogging Bundle does make the overhead cost less, but it’s still amazingly painful to actually think about the structure and the flow of a post.
As with a lot of things I trivialized, writing on my blog is another. Of course, saying it’s the hardest thing ever and never doing it again… that’s wrong, too.
Ah, balance, why do you elude me?
I’m going to try and go back to my daily posting schedule starting tomorrow. Hopefully, with pictures… need to go find a good stock photograph site. Wait, that could be a post all in itself.
You know, it took me long enough… seeing as how much I read the feeds on a daily basis:
From your 179 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 13,522 items, starred 296 items, and shared 0 items.
Finally, the site has list of the most recent starred items I found to be interesting. I’ve always wanted to share my recent feed links with the rest of the world. Think of it as a JK filter.
I thought that this was available through a Wordpress Plug-in (I think it was called “hacks” back in the day), but actually, it’s just two script tags that you can add to any page on the Internet.
Just go to settings, and click on “add a clip to your site”. Whoo hoo!
Now, get to reading all those lovely posts on the iPhone and Facebook’s platform.