Mar 11
How did you get started Blogging or are you planning to?
2004 at 02.47 am posted by Veerle Pieters
I’m not blogging that long, only since September 2003. Before September I didn’t even know what blogging was, so you can say I am a newbie ;-) My dot Mac account got me started, as a member gift I got iBlog . At first it wasn’t that bad but then I updated the program to a newer version and everything went seriously wrong and I lost all my previous entries.
That’s when I decided to switch to a more robust system like pMachine Pro. My main reason behind starting this blog was to use web standards and to get a better understanding of how XHTML and CSS works. The reason that I got into this is pretty cliché. It was after reading about Jeffery Zeldman and he got me convinced that this was the way to go (start using webstandards that is). So how did you get started, and how did you get influenced and what was your motivation behind it all? Just curious here ;-)
What about people who don’t know HTML?
If you know HTML and have some designing skills it’s easier to get such a thing online but what if you don’t have all those? Well now there is another blogging tool called BlogStudio for MacOS X, not available for PC sorry :-( It works together with your dot Mac account and costs $20. From what I’ve seen it is a lot better then iBlog. You can create 5 different types of blog pages. General, Photo, Music, Movie and File Sharing. You can easily create your own navigation based on the included themes. There are some Quicktime movies about it to see it in action. After watching these you’ll get a pretty good idea of the power of the program. It seems to me at least as the perfect tool to get started blogging. Definitely worth checking out.
7served
1
I’ve been pondering about this as well, recently. Main reason behind putting my ramblings and pages on-line was to create an open portal for a small community I am part of. It seems that I didn’t achieve it (and, most probably, I won’t). My weblog history is even shorter than yours.
At the moment, I put my every day thoughts and feelings that are worth noting down. Records I listen too, books I read, pages I visit, activities I focus on. In general, I write it for myself as I don’t expect many folks to bother about my graduation exam; maybe it is just the reasoning since my audience isn’t big (it’s very small, I’d rarther say) and I’d like to be read by a larger amount of people (hopefully, this comes with time and with my English getting better).
The other reason was that I really fancy CSS and XHTML. I got so surprised by the things one can achieve using a simple markup languge. It simply took my breath away. I want my site to become as nice as, say, simplebits.com or asterisk* ([lickspittle mod on]or as yours :-)[and off]). Working on those tiny bits that make your site recognizeable is so much fun!
2
My blog started as a hard-wrapped journal. Back before “blog” was term.
I then added some php to it - no database yet.
Then I added a database.
Then I added multiple user accounts when friends showed an interest.
Then I shut that site down because all they did was use the site to insult each other.
After that fiasco, I redid the blog as something just for me and now I am on revision 504352 of my blog site. And by revision, I mean programming wise - I’ve had maybe 6 designs* total.
You could say my main reason for getting into blogging wasn’t so much for the writing experienence, but to learn to program - as I have now got it hand made a very nice system I think. So I guess that’s it. Some day I hope to release the software . . . . maybe - it’s not up to par anywhere near MT or anything like that - but it does what I want nicely.
* = not that many would count them as a “design” cause I never do much on it. :-/
So ya….
3
I started some time ago…in fact, I dug up an old entry from Feb 29th of 2000. I’d been blogging (Or simply keeping a journal, ‘cause it wasn’t know as blogging then) by simply updating a webpage.
I eventually started using Greymatter, but after two hacks, and lots of archives lost, I moved to pmachine as well. I’ve only been using it for the past 4 months or so, and I don’t enter into my journal as much as I’d like, but I’m slowly getting back into the swing of things.
Oh, and thanks for getting back to me in email so quickly. Your reply helped a bunch :)
4
I started mine a few months ago. I like iBlog a lot, even though I do think it is limited. I actually want more. BUT I do need to master CSS/xml first…
5
are you using pMachine for your site? please confirm. it is so cool
6
@Giovanni: yes I use pMachine for my blog and I love this tool, it’s great! Very flexible and reliable, couldn’t be better.
7
Pretty late answering, but mine started out just two months ago, because of all
the rhymes that keep floating in my head. It helps me in expression, writing and vocabulary too. Discovering blogs like yours adds to aesthetic charm and lyrical beauty.