Tag: meta

My new tech and software blog

I've launched a new blog where I'll be posting most all of my future technical writing about technology, software and hardware including release announcements and code examples from my various personal projects, reviews of gadgets and services I use, how-to articles and more. If you'd like to know about new posts there, you can subscribe to the RSS feed or sign up for email notifications.

The latest post is about a new WordPress plugin I released today to help consultants, counselors, wellness professionals, attorneys and others who need to sell access to their time online.

Even though a best practice for blogging in general has always been to find a niche or subject area focus and stick to it, I resisted that for a long time with this main personal blog because I wanted it to encompass all of the various things I think about and work on. In the early days of blogging, I found my audience didn't mind too much that I would post one day about something technical and the next day about something personal and non-technical and the next day about something very specific to my local community; it was easy to hit "next" in their RSS feed reader and move on if they weren't interested in the subject.

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My personal website through the years

It's been a few years since I made any big changes to the layout or appearance of this website. So, I took some time recently to make a bunch of updates, and they went live this week. It's now more of a portfolio than just a blog; the new front page does a better job of highlighting the things I'm involved in and have created, and I'll be adding more to that soon.

Mostly I just enjoyed tinkering with it and applying some of the things I've learned recently in creating and supporting WordPress websites for other people. There's some more technical detail below if you're interested.

I also took the time to look back at my personal web presence over the years. I've probably had some kind of "home page" on the Internet and its precursors since the 1980s (BBSes, anyone?) and I know I had a personal site established on the Computer Science department's webserver at my college in 1995, but the earliest archived version I can find is from my 1999 site:

Pretty sparse, but at least it had a forum and a hit counter!

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Getting notifications about my new posts

If you previously followed my writing on ChrisHardie.com via your WordPress.com account, you may have received notifications via email about new posts. I'm turning off that functionality, so you will not receive those emails after this post. If you use the WordPress.com Reader, you may still see new posts appear there. Note that I've also stopped using Facebook to share links to my site.

If you would like to continue to receive email about new posts, or just occasional summary emails, you'll need to subscribe to my mailing list. Follow this link to sign up for email about new content. I'll never share your email with anyone else. And if you've already been getting emails that say "There's a new post from Chris!" then you're all set up on the new list and don't need to do anything else.

Otherwise, you can use a feed reader like Feedly to follow my RSS feed, or just stop by my archives once in a while to see what you're missing.

I write here mostly for fun, but I want to make sure anyone who wants to follow along can do so relatively easily. Contact me if you need more options.

Richmond Matters, a new local blog

I've created RichmondMatters.com, a new site dedicated to commentary about life in Richmond, Indiana.

As I've occasionally done here in the past, I'll be sharing my thoughts about Richmond news, politics, leadership, community life and more. It's a simple site. The name is kind of boring. I've no ambition for it beyond having a place to write with a more narrow focus on a topic that's important to me.

Sometimes I'll cross-post those essays here or tweet out links to them, but usually I won't. I'll continue to post here about all the other random stuff I enjoy writing about, but the posts about local stuff will go in this new site.

So, if you'd like to follow along with my posts about Richmond, I hope you'll use the email or RSS subscription options on Richmond Matters. I'd enjoy having your feedback and comments along the way.

ChrisHardie.com on Facebook

Such a good girrrrrrrlIf you're like many people, you've renounced the joys and complexities of face to face socialization in favor of robotic and impersonal displays of feigned consideration on Facebook.

Wait, that didn't come out quite right.

If you're like many people, Facebook plays some part in your daily engagement with friends, family, coworkers and/or your surrounding community.

That's a little better.

Well, this website now has a public Facebook presence that you can add to that engagement.

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Back home in Richmond

After a long day and a half of travel that took us through the markets of Otavalo, back through the beautiful mountains to Quito, through long lines and paperwork at the airport, and then to Atlanta and Dayton, Kelly and I are back home in Richmond. Ecuador already feels far away, but we'll soon have a chance to revisit it through photos, video and stories.

Thanks so much to everyone who followed along on this blog, and who cheered us on as we traveled. It was an interesting experience to share and get feedback along the way, and we'll certainly look forward to sharing more of our experiences with you in person.

This will likely serve as the final "real" post here, and we'll eventually take this blog down. You can look for more reflections and our photos soon on my personal blog, my Flickr account and maybe even my YouTube account for some videos.

For now, it's time to rest. Take care!

Pause

SwimmingMy blogging has obviously been a bit scarce lately, certainly a long ways off from the target frequency I'd set at the beginning of the year.  I continue to compose blog entries in my head and the list of topics I'd like to cover grows weekly, but I've not made the time to do the most important part, actually sitting down to write.

It will make me feel better to acknowledge that here, so: my blogging is paused right now.

I plan to resume a regular schedule later this summer.   I'm still tweeting, although with less frequency there too.  Make sure you're subscribed to my RSS feed or e-mail subscription so you know when I start up posting again.

Thanks for tuning in!

Shiny things for you to click on

Let's see, how am I doing on my target of blogging three times per week in 2010?  FAIL.  Actually, January and February were pretty good, but March has been sorely lacking.  I will for now use the excuse of "I was busy" and throw in some specifics like "I was planning an open house" and "I was writing a new vacation policy for my staff," but I don't expect you to be any more forgiving as a result.  Let's see if I can start to get back on track.

In the meantime, as a distraction, here are some things you might want to click on and check out:

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Feedback results, a new year of blogging

I HappyWelcome to my first blog post of 2010.  I didn't expect that my hiatus would be over a month long, but here I am in mid-January.

Thanks to those of you who took the time to complete my blog feedback survey at the end of 2009 - it was really helpful in understanding how my regular readers see the blog.  From the responses I received, here are the highlights:

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Give feedback on my blog, win $25

I'm doing some planning for the future of this blog, and I'd like your feedback.  Of course, you're always welcome to leave your comments in the comments section below, but I've also created a survey with some specific questions that I would appreciate your candid responses to.

It's only 10 questions, most are multiple choice, and if you do take it by the end of the year, I'll put you in a drawing to win $25, either for any business in the Center City business district in Richmond, Indiana or for Amazon.com.   (And if you don't want to identify yourself, that's fine too, you just won't be in the drawing.)

Thanks for your feedback.