Blogging is Fun!
I’ve set up this site a couple of years ago, primarily to put my photos online. My gallery is still there at gallery.adriankok.org, but I’ve hardly touched this blog. Until now, I find its growing on me!
Why blog? Actually, its more like: why do I keep a journal? A blog is nothing more than a time-honoured habit of keeping a journal.
I used to keep a diary of happenings in my life. Its always been a fickle habit - I would write for a year, then stop for ages. When I reread the old entries, my interest is picqued again, and I resolve to continue writing. Its a habit that I’ve struggled to maintain in the face of countless distractions, but with varying success.
OK, so here’s some of the reasons I keep a journal:
- To discover ideas. There’s nothing like expressing one’s thoughts in words to help shape and mold ideas that percolate. Do I really know anything if I cannot express them adequately?
- To understand myself. When I peruse through my old writings, I touch a hidden self that is removed by years of experience. I can connect to my anima through a distant eye and perhaps chart a better course for myself, knowing where I have been. This is the most important of all reasons for writing.
- To share my story. There’s a strong egotistic reason why many people write - they feel that they have something valuable to share - and I am not excepted. Perhaps my thoughts are worth less than I deem, but I will let the reader be the judge of that. Perhaps I will even enjoy them when my memory fades.
My current tools are Wordpress and a new desktop client I found called w.bloggar. Wordpress runs on PHP and MySQL, and provides a feature-rich and easy-to-install system for a single user like me. OK, it has much more features than that, but you’ll have to explore them yourself. w.bloggar is a desktop client that lets me post articles through a rich client, instead of through the Web interface. Even in this age when everyone is extolling the virturs of Web-based user interfaces, there’s nothing like a rich local client interface. OK, enough of the software - my webhost, Lunarpages, generously provides 1GB of space for a cheap US$8/month. This includes PHP, MySQL and an active user community. I’ve seen my fair share of bad hosting companies, but Lunarpages isn’t one of those!