According to my user account, I first logged into this blog three years ago today. The posts have been hit or miss and somewhat unfocused. More often than not I have little to talk about, other times I am unable to organize my thoughts well enough to put them into words. Still, I enjoy having a home base on the web and I see no reason to abandon this project.

I may have some interesting news in the next day or two when the Great Car Project of 2008 finally becomes tangible. Check back, it might just turn out to be interesting.

I am often over at Ben Barden's site checking out his "blogging and website tips without the jargon". Today's post bore the affirming title "I don't make money online. You don't have to either!" Seems these days blogging is all about monetizing and ad placement. I am certainly not against making money with a blog, even though I have no plans in that direction myself. The first thought that entered my head when I read that line was the reaction of the Blogosphere in general to the first advertisement ever spotted on a blog. It seems like only yesterday that everyone was up in arms about their credibility being ruined over a few sellouts. Perhaps the disaster was averted by the majority deciding to accept adverts all at the same time. Looks like I missed a memo.

No doubt the question begging to be answered is why someone would put time into a blog with no hope of a return. Ben Barden states in his post:

"I started this blog simply because I enjoy helping people. I want more people to give blogging a try. I want people to worry less about the technicalities and more about what they're going to write today.
If I can achieve that goal, then that's what counts. Any money I may make from blogging would be a nice bonus, but I'm not going to stop blogging if I never make another cent."

That's a great motivation to me, and I would also be happy if someone found my blog useful. That is not really my focus, however.

The thing is, I am expected to do a lot of writing in my real job. It is important to me to improve my writing skills, and hopefully it will be helpful if I just write as often as possible. It is certain that there are many more opportunites for those who can communicate effectively. I don't know if readers can detect any improvement, but I can tell a big difference, especially in my comfort level.

So folks, I can hope my efforts here will pay off for me even if I never decide to run any ads. Are there ways your blog is useful beyond it's cash value? If so, leave a comment!

Many of the articles offering blogging tips suggest that bloggers choose a topic of interest and then try not to stray too often from the chosen subject. This approach is likely more valuable to those who wish to monetize their blogs, and I have never tried to stick to a single topic or theme on this blog.

On the other hand, Google's opinion of this site seems to imply that I do have a very broad topic going, computer operating systems. I wonder if that will change much as time goes on.

My favorite result is the fourth at the time of this writing, and seems to be unrelated. The blurb reads thusly:

"I am a leader by default, only because nature does not allow a vacuum." Bishop Desmond Tutu.

I wonder what I ever said that would make Google associate that quote with me. Perhaps that is my fortune cookie for the day.

Actually right now, I am doing a little cussing.

I got me an OpenID in order to join Zooomr which is a nice little photo storage system. At the time Zooomr required OpenID in order to set up an account, or maybe I just thought it was a fun thing to do, so I went right out and got me one. Never used it for anything else.

Thing is, if I want to know my OpenID URL maybe to reference this post or if I want to log into Zooomr, I gotta look for the sucker. Not an easy task, either. I suppose a sane person would bookmark it, but we don't do things that way around here. I am going now to attempt to log in to Zooomer with my OpenID, and maybe count how many steps it takes. BRB.

OK. So I went to Zooomr, guessed perhaps correctly which of my many online aliases I had used to set up OpenID, choice of servers was easy because they offer only 3 examples. I am then presented with a screen saying I need to log into OpenID. Boys this is getting complicated here.

So I see they have suggestions as to how I might log in. I (for the love of what is precious) Copy and then PASTE an URL into my browser. Turns out I am right and I am able to sign into OpenID.

So now what? I am signed into my OpenID server. Am I signed into Zooomer too? That was the point of the exercise right? Nope. Zooomr says: Uh-Oh, verification has failed. Please try again. But baby I am really signed in. Really. Would a browser refresh help or do I need a new tab? How did I do this last time?

OK, tried again and I am in baby. I feel good.

Thing is, Drupal has had this sort of thing for years. This frightened me at first, I figured every spammer would set up a Drupal and log in and do their thing. I was wrong. Spammers are too stupid to set up Drupal. It was more like a private club: HAHA I has Drupal ID so I am verified. nice

The Good Old Boys Club is now closed, as the next release of Drupal only supports OpenID. It is for the greater good I am
sure.

There is a writeup of things to come at gigaom have a writeup on one option. Let's hope it does not ultimately become platform specific. I have seen how good it can be. Let's make it universal.

Long time readers will know that I do not celebrate my own birthday, but rather the birthday of my blog. This date is marked by the one that Drupal was first installed, as detailed in last year's post. This date has no bearing on blog posts or lack there of, it is just the date that Drupal gives me on my profile. Actually it was 4 days ago, December 8. Happy belated birthday, antigrammar.com.

This might be a good time for me to give some insight as to why this blog exists. I have had some comments in the past year, and the main theme of the user remarks boils down to "Why is this drivel here at all?" A fair question indeed, let's see what I can do with it.

I feel like I have been working very hard lately. I am glad you are not able to see me as I write this, because sometimes my work does not appear to the onlooker to be all that strenuous, but to me it is pushing the mental envelope. I am in a situation now where I have a large complicated project that is way past due along with many smaller projects that are beginning to be past due. Today I took a break and cruised some personal blogs.

I can take this sort of thing off of my taxes because it is important research into what works on a website and what does not. It is one thing to read about standards on all the fancy websites, but what really drives the lesson home is experiencing frustration or convenience up close and personal. I am going to put a few of today's highlights up lest I fall back into the specter of work at this hour.

I am not too concerned with the design elements of the blogs I visit, I am there for the story. I do very much enjoy attractive designs but I would rather see a poorly executed original design than a stock template. I do know how to turn styles off altogether if a blog is completely unreadable, and if the story is any good I will subscribe in a feed reader. Problem solved. The only possible exception to this may be white text on a black background. This particular design choice tricks me into thinking it is legible, but after a short time my head hurts, my eyes quit focusing, and I need to take a break. I won't debate that maybe I should get up and move around more, but I doubt the designer had my well being in mind when the decision was made. I am able to read a little longer if the contrast is not so strong, say if an almost white is used for the text and a very dark grey is used as a background, but only if the font-weight is set to something a little heavier than the standard issue. This only delays the pain, though. Having said all that, I wonder if my green text is offensive to anyone?