Tom Edelson: Blogging

Sigh. Goodbye, Radio.

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 00:35:27 GMT

Quoting this post by Userland Software, in case you haven't heard:

UserLand has decided to close the Radio UserLand and Salon Radio services as of December 31, 2009.

You can continue to use your Radio weblog hosted with UserLand until the end of the year.

If you plan on continuing to use Radio to publish your blog, we would recommend that you look for an alternative web host if your weblog is being published to a UserLand server. You can use the FTP option [1] in Radio to publish to your own server.

The closure of Radio will also mean that the UserLand-hosted comments, trackbacks and stats tracking will be unavailable after the shutdown date.

If you have any questions, please send them to customerservice@userland.com

UserLand Software

[1] http://radio.userland.com/userGuide/prefs/1/5

To see the original post with more context: UserLand Product News: Radio UserLand

Life Goes On, But (Mostly) Not Here

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 19:45:34 GMT

Once again it's been quite a while since I posted anything to this blog. But I haven't lost the blogging habit altogether: I've been posting things somewhere else.

I was faithful for several years to Radio Userland as my blogging venue. (And I will always remember it fondly: it was my first.) But the time came when I could no longer resist the allure of a less familiar pretty face, and I have begun a new relationship ... with LiveJournal.

In case you're not familiar with it, LiveJournal is a hybrid: a combination of blogging and social networking. I rather like it (is this New Relationship Energy talking?).

My new blog can be found here: http://edelsont.livejournal.com. You will follow it avidly.

And has this Radio blog been relegated to the dustbin of history? By no means! It's just become more specialized. This will be (for the foreseeable future) my "geek blog".

In other words, what I will plan to post here, from now on, is computer technical stuff. Even some postings on software might go on LiveJournal, if they are directed at an audience of (potential) users of the software, rather than at the sort of people who program, or otherwise work with computers professionally. So if you're hard core, stick around! Well, visit me at LJ too, but come back here when you have the yen to get down into the bits and bytes.

I did create one post "over there" which some might think, by my own criteria, belonged "over here". It's about my programming language preferences (hint: the title is "In Good Taste: Very Schemely"), and you can find it at http://edelsont.livejournal.com/1038.html. Take a look, and judge for yourself where it belongs.

I myself would say that that that posting actually is in the right place: that it isn't directed at a technical audience. The only reasons it gives for my preferences are non-technical ones. I was trying to give the non-geeks a little taste of what it's like to care about such things.

I hope that you enjoy the new blog. And that you continue to enjoy this one, too ... if you're into that sort of thing.

Categorie(s) for this post: Blogging, Radio Userland, Programming Languages.

Do I need "geek alerts"?

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 20:47:15 GMT

I don't want to scare away non-geeky readers. Does this mean that a post like Monday's "More on Moneydance Extensions" should have some sort of warning notice prefixed to it, something along the lines of:

Caution: computer jargon ahead. Readers who aren't into technical computer stuff may find this post uninteresting and/or incomprehensible.

What do y'all think?

Categorie(s) for this post: Blogging.

It isn't always easy

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 18:19:36 GMT

Yesterday's posting, "On Social Change", was considerably the most ambitious piece of writing I've yet done as an entry for this blog. It wasn't completed in a single sitting. So the temptation to write something quick doesn't always rule; apparently I can put aside the worry which I expressed, over a year ago, in the posting titled "The Trouble with Blogging".

At one point yesterday, I thought I had the opposite problem: that writing something like this would be so time-consuming that I'd end up putting it aside before it was done. I'm relieved to find out that that isn't always the case, either.

Categorie(s) for this post: Blogging.

A Change in the Masthead

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 15:53:36 GMT

Today, I am changing the "description", or subject line, that appears at the top of my blog pages from this:

Sharing thoughts -- well, planning to -- about computer programming and software, being polyamorous in the Triangle area of North Carolina, and whatever else comes to mind.

To this:

Writing about computers, life, and society from the perspective of a "poly Quaker Taoist" living in the Triangle region of North Carolina.

I think this better sums up what I want to write about, and includes more of the major influences on the way I look at the world.

Also, it's less tentative: the "well, planning to" part doesn't fit my current state of resolve.

Categorie(s) for this post: Blogging.

Starting Over, Sort Of

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 15:04:15 GMT

The title of this post refers to the fact that once again, there's been a long gap in my posting.

So what am I up to these days?

The most important answer is, "finding myself". I'm sixty years old, consider myself semi-retired, and am still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.

It's now been a little over eight months since I left my last full-time job, as a developer of installation programs for SAS Institute. ("Last", at least in the sense of most recent; perhaps "last" in the sense of "last regular, full-time job ever".)

But within the last month or so, I've realized that, until then, I'd been suffering from a disorder for which I've coined the name phantom boss syndrome. In other words, I hadn't really let myself believe that I can actually choose what to do. So more recently, I've been in a process of coming more fully into that realization.

This blog entry is one manifestation of that. I've been wanting to write more often, for this and other media, but hadn't been letting myself do it. I am hoping that, now that the log-jam is broken, it won't form up again, at least not to anything like the same extent.

Now, I just have to figure out how to find myself some readers.

Categorie(s) for this post include: Retirement.

Why I chose "radio.weblogs.com" as my first weblog's site

Fri, 17 Feb 2006 19:18:55 GMT

I've only sent the link to this weblog to a couple of people so far. One of them wrote back and [among other things] asked, "Why did you choose the Radio site? Do you know somebody else who uses it, and/or are there features you find especially valuable?" I thought I'd answer here, so if anybody else asks, I can point them to this post.

No, I don't know [or, rather, know that I know] anyone else who uses it.

Features that I [expect to] find valuable? Yes ... not exactly features of the site, but rather features of the software. Unlike most blogging setups, with this one you download (and, after a 30-day free trial, pay for) a software package onto your own computer. You compose your posts there, and then upload them -- which is easy to do with this package -- and a copy is kept on your own computer, so (for example) it's easy to repost some, or all, of the material to another site later.

There's more to it than that; a lot of it is stuff which appeals to the software geek in me. It's a package you can grow into; manage multiple weblogs and/or other websites with; and -- by graduating to a similar, but more expensive, package from the same company -- manage your own site with multiple blogs, forums ... just about any interactive Web feature you can name.

The not-so-expensive package that I'm using now is called Radio Userland. It costs $40 a year. For more information: http://radio.userland.com/.

The Trouble with Blogging

Fri, 17 Feb 2006 16:12:51 GMT

... is that it's too easy. Make that way too easy. You are too tempted to throw something up (so to speak) on the Internet without thinking about it carefully. Will I escape this temptation? Time will tell ....

The Tao of blogging (pt 1)

Fri, 17 Feb 2006 15:03:53 GMT

If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?

Hello, World

Sat, 04 Feb 2006 15:53:06 GMT

[solemn tone indicating something portentous is being announced]

This is my first entry in my first blog.