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10th Anniversary of My Blog!

Yesterday marked the 10 year anniversary of this blog, even though it had two different homes over that time.

I had tried blogging a couple of times earlier. In 1995 I went scuba diving in Egypt for a week, and I documented that on the personal web site I had created. This was done in a diary/blog format using an IBM Thinkpad 701 and pictures taken with a Kodak DC-40 digital camera. All HTML was coded by hand. Some years later I installed the blog templates for Lotus Domino to try it out, but I was never motivated to start blogging for real.

But in 2008 it was the right time. The IBM business partner Lotus911 (later GBS) had registered the domain BleedYellow.com and offered free blog hosting, using IBM Connections. I also felt more confident and wanted to share some code and knowledge as a way to pay back for all the help I had been getting.

I registered an account and started blogging right before Lotusphere 2008. I kept blogging at BleedYellow.com for a number of years, but in October 2012 I moved my blog to WordPress and my own domain. I was able to import all my existing blog entries to WordPress, so you can still view them even though GBS did shut down their US operations in 2015.

I started by blogging mostly about Notes and Domino, with some more personal articles. Eventually I expanded my blogging to cover other technologies, like web development using Javascript and jQuery, but still with an eye towards Domino developers.

Lately I have also started to share code related to NetSuite, a platform I have now been working with for a little over a year. I have been wanting to blog more about NetSuite, but been lacking the time. But don’t expect the content about Notes and Domino to go away. Version 10 is coming later this year, and I expect there will be plenty of new features to write about!

At times I have not been blogging as much as I wanted, due to work as well as some health issues I had in 2016. I apologize about that. I hope to be able to blog more frequently in the future. I have several subjects lined up, I just need the time to write.

Thank you for reading my blog and commenting on my articles. To know that I was able to help someone makes it worth to keep blogging.

3 Comments
January 19, 2018
Blogging / ConnectED / Lotusphere / Personal / WordPress

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.

 

4 Comments
January 19, 2015
Blogging / WordPress

Update: Blog comments working again!

I got the comments working again, all existing comments are being displayed properly.

So feel free to comment again. And just as a reminder, my policy for comments are copied below.

My policy on comments

I require a real name (or well-known handle) and a real email address. If the address sounds bogus or made up, I reserve the right to delete the comment. Same thing for trolls. You can be critical of what I write about, but then you must come with some valid arguments. Just saying “Notes sucks”, “Android sucks”, or anything similar is not constructive. If you think a product I write about is not good, explain why.

 

0 Comments
November 30, 2012
Blogging / WordPress

Blog issues – comments not displaying

After updating the blog to the iFeature Pro 5 theme, comments are not being displayed. The contents is there, but something in the template code prevent them from being displayed. I have contacted their support, and hope to have it working soon.

There are also a couple of other issues that I (as well as other users) experienced and reported, and the makers of the theme are in the process of fixing it. That is why the slider at the top of the main page is gone. The major issue is however that images are not being inserted. They have to be coded by hand using HTML, after being uploaded to the blog. A fix is promised for the next version, due out in a few days.

 

0 Comments
November 28, 2012
Blogging / WordPress

Lightbox Plus – Thanks Bob Balfe!

Earlier today, Bob Balfe wrote a blog post about installing Lightbox Plus on his blog. I decided to test it on this blog as well, and I really like it. I might make the images I post slightly smaller in the future, as the plugin does not scale down the full-size image is it is larger than the browser window.

Installing the plugin was as easy as it could be. I just selected “Add New”, searched for the plugin,clicked the install button and then activated it. There was a warning that the plugin might not work with the newer version of WordPress I am running, but it all worked for me without any issue. I did not even have to configure anything, the images started showing up in the lightbox automatically. There are a few settings, mainly for the style of the lightbox. But you don’t even need to touch that if you don’t want.

Thanks Bob for posting about this!

1 Comment
October 26, 2012

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