Blogging anniversary – 7 years!

Yesterday marked my 7 year anniversary of this blog. It was in January 2008 I created my TexasSwede blog on BleedYellow.com, and in October 2012 I moved it to my own domain and switched to WordPress hosting.

My blogging frequency have been going up and down, based on what’s been going on in the IBM/Lotus world as well as how busy or motivated I have been. Over the years I have written 404 blog entries (including this one), making it an average of almost 58 entries/year or close to 5 entries/month.

So why am I blogging? I am not sure there is just one simple answer to that. I think it mainly have been a combination of wanting to share information I have gathered over the years , as well as wanting to be seen and/or recognized. The latter was more of a result of my blogging, not a reason in itself to blog, but it encouraged me to continue.

I had started blogging a couple of times earlier using the different Domino based blogs available, but those attempts ended up being just one or two posts. The one exception was in 1995 when I “blogged” during a scuba diving trip to Egypt. I wrote a web diary every day on the IBM Thinkpad 701 laptop I brought with me and also added photos I took with an early Kodak digital camera (DC-40 I believe I used on that trip). I did not have any kind of internet access during the trip, so I uploaded the page and pictures after I got home. Also, as opposed to a modern blog, the oldest/first day was at the top, as in a more traditional narrative/diary. I lost the text of that diary since, but some of the pictures have survived.

In 2008 I started blogging right before Lotusphere. I wrote a couple of entries the first few days, and I got good feedback on them, as well as several hundred views. So I got encouraged and continued. After about a month I got brave enough to start sharing code on my blog, and I also started using it as a way to expand on answers I gave to question in the developerWorks forums.

The next year at Lotusphere more people recognized me from my blog, and that further made me feel like it was worth my time and effort to share information. Eventually my posts became less frequent. One reason was that it was hard to post code on the IBM Connections based blog, and only registered users could comment, limiting the public participation. Those were among the main reasons for my move to WordPress in 2012, together with a desire to use my own domain.

With WordPress it was suddenly much easier to post code and embedded videos, and my blogging started up again. I could now also easily blog from my smartphone. I have been lucky enough that my boss let me blog more or less during work hours, and even publish code and information I generate for work. Usually I do it during lunch or after work, though.

Lately I haven’t been blogging that much, due to things going on in my life. The next few months will be very busy for me, but I hope to be have the energy to continue sharing code and information here. Last year I was so busy at Lotusphere IBM Connect that I did not write very much from there, but I hope to do a better job this year. Especially for my many friends who are not able to go this time.

So to everyone who been reading my blog: Thank you!
And an extra big thanks to everyone who took the time to comment on my ramblings.