Whilst I wasn’t tagged, I saw Matt Haughey’s ‘Answering the blog questions challenge‘ and decided to give it a go. It’s been a while since I did one of these.
Why did you start blogging in the first place?
I started blogging in 2002 as I could see people that I followed also starting to write blogs. I used to read Chris Pirillo‘s Lockergnome email newsletters, and saw that he and his then wife had both started blogs. Whilst I had run various web sites on Geocities and the like, having a blog that was easy to update quickly seemed like a good idea.
What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it?
Like most of the blogiverse, I use WordPress. In my case, it’s the open source self-hosted version, running on a virtual server that a third party hosts for me. It’s the most popular platform and highly customisable, with many plugins and themes available and lots of guides for how to do things. For now, it continues to suit my needs.
Have you blogged on other platforms before?
Yes. I started on Blogger, using some free hosting – I started blogging at age 17 when I didn’t have a bank account or was allowed to sign contracts for hosting. Within 9 months I’d switched to Movable Type, as I was 18 and could pay for things online myself.
I continued to use Movable Type until 2011, when I switched to a fork called Melody. However, Melody never really took off, and so I moved to WordPress the same year. I’ve used it ever since.
On other blogs, I’ve used ExpressionEngine before, and my final year project for my Computing degree in 2005 was to write a simple blogging system in Perl and PHP, to compare the two.
How do you write your posts? For example, in a local editing tool, or in a panel/dashboard that’s part of your blog?
Just using the standard WordPress web interface. Years ago, I used w.bloggar, a Windows app which is still available on GitHub and is now open source. I have the WordPress app on my phone but mostly just use this to upload images.
When do you feel most inspired to write?
Most of my writing is done at weekends – this is being written on Saturday evening. During the week, I don’t really have the time, but if I’m sufficiently inspired then I may write the occasional post on my lunch break from work. Generally though, I write the blog posts for the forthcoming week at the weekend. If I know I’m going to be busy then I’ll try to write more in advance.
Do you publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?
It’s rare that a blog post will go live on the same day that it’s written. Generally, I write in bulk and then schedule the posts to go live every other day throughout the forthcoming week. However, if something urgent comes up, I may shift things around.
I don’t have any drafts saved – generally, I write and then schedule each blog post in one session. Of course, I have the opportunity to tinker with each post before it goes live. I also have a note in Simplenote with blog post ideas, but these are usually single bullet points.
What are you generally interested in writing about?
I like to share interesting places that we’ve been, and, if I’ve recently solved a problem, writing about how I solved it. I also write quite a bit about home automation and occasionally about transport.
Who are you writing for?
I know there are a few regular readers, but also for myself – on more than one occasion, I’ve followed my own guide to solving a problem when it has happened again.
What’s your favourite post on your blog?
I remember A new dawn for trains in the North taking quite some time to write, as did Is the Waterloo & City Line Step Free? It’s Complicated. Both required some research and I’d consider them to be almost journalism.
Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, a move to another platform, or adding a new feature?
Just to keep it going. I may change the theme at some point but only to another simple and lightweight one. I quite like the fact that it’s quick to load.
I imagine I will stick with WordPress for the foreseeable future, unless a better fork comes along.
Who else do you want to tag?
I’ll tag Kevin and Dave2, since I read their blogs and I’m pretty sure they read mine too.
As I was writing this, I saw that Ben Tasker had done so too. Ben notably uses a static site generator called Nikola for his blog, rather a dynamic system like WordPress.