The Online Rant

Five questions about me and my blog

Heidi over at Virushead tagged me in a post about blogging. I don’t normally do the blog meme thing, but I was bored. So I thought I would make an exception this time. So here goes.

1. How long have you been blogging?
Not that long. About a year. I started blogging with a blogger account, and only recently purchased a hosting account with Dreamhost. Domains are cheap, but hosting isn’t quite as cheap. But Dreamhost isn’t bad.

2. What inspired you to start a blog and who are your mentors?
Well, I started blogging for two reasons. First I just wanted a place I could post things that I found interesting or funny. That way my friends and family could see the things I found. That was my first blog, and I still run that blog and post to it on a regular basis. My posts there have gotten a little more professional as I’ve gotten more writing experience, but the basic theme is still the same.

I started this blog as a place where I could post my thoughts and ideas. A good friend of mine suggested that I start writing as a way to let off some stress. Of course, the suggestion was for me to be writing in a journal. I don’t think I could do a paper based journal. I’m too much of a digital person. So this is what I got.

I guess that kind of answers the mentors portion of the question as well.

3. Are you trying to make money online, or just doing it for fun?
Well, I’m certainly not trying to make money off this. I don’t have any adds or sponsors on either of my blogs. I post for fun and my own personal development. As long as I can afford to keep paying for the hosting, both blogs will probably stay ad free.

4. Tell me 3 things you LOVE about being online.

The sheer wealth of knowledge. Anything I ever want to know or am even curious about is online and available with a simple search. Before the internet, the only way I could have satisfied my curiosity would have been to go to a library. Then I had to hope that the library would have a book on the subject. Now within five minutes I can have all the info I could ever want.

The communication aspects of the internet. I have friends all over the world that I correspond with daily. Without the Internet, I would never be able to keep up with them. I would be limited to only those who are within telephone access. I know that snail mail exists, but the long turn around would just make any real communication not possible. And telephone costs for overseas calls would be totally impractical. The Internet makes that possible.

The ability to create and publish my own ideas and thoughts. Basically blogging like this. The internet has made it possible for people who don’t have access to expensive equipment or traditional publishing resources, to publish their own words. That is something that has never been possible before. And it’s an exciting thing to see and experience.

5. Tell me 3 things you STRUGGLE with in the online world.
Keeping focus. The sheer number of distractions and calls on my attention when I’m online can be really overwhelming. I’ll go on with a purpose, and discover an hour later that I have forgotten what I was looking for because I spent the whole hour looking at cats with inane text captions.

Feeling inadequate. The internet is a big place and it makes you realize what a small fish you are. For every thing I know, it is really obvious that I don’t know much. There is so much knowledge and information out there. And no matter how much I ever learn about any particular subject, I will always know so little compared to how much there is to know about it.

Keeping up with people. Instant communication is great, but you can get really overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of messages you get. It’s really easy to let someone fall through the cracks. Or to let a message go unanswered by accident.

At the end of this, I’m supposed to tag some other bloggers, but I don’t think I will. Not because I’m stingy with my links, but because I normally hate being tagged in one of these things myself. So I don’t think I’ll do it to anyone else. Hope you enjoyed my answers to the questions above.

Image citation
good question from e-magic’s photostream.