Dear Blog,
Wow! It’s been 3 years since we met! Remember way back in May 2004 when I had that n00b-ish online journal “From The Mind of a Webmaster?”. I wasn’t using WordPress back then (I was still amazed by the power of CuteNews), so you may not remember back that far. I blogged about such things as General Hospital, school, and the movie The Day After Tomorrow (about which I was very excited! I blogged before and after I saw it for about a week). I was quite new to the whole Web 2.0 scene back then, and I just could not grasp why nobody read my blog!
Perhaps it was because I announced the URL to nobody, however I am not completely sure.
But I digress. We had a lot of fun frolicking around the Internet for those first few months. I posted several times a day, recalling anything and everything notable I had seen that day; blogging brought me great joy and was a fun, exciting creative medium. The blogosphere was alive and buzzing by the time I had decided to enter it, and I enjoyed every minute of my existence there.
Then, on August 22, 2004 (the date that I have been celebrating as my blogging birthday up until now), I decided to switch to WordPress after learning about it from Ryan. The upgrade went smoothly, however I decided not to try and import all of my old entries to the new blog. My first impression of WordPress: amazing. WordPress was much more suitable to use as a blogging platform that Cutenews, and I have been WordPressing for two and a half years!
Still being a technical idiot, I lost five months of archives in February 2005 because I had screwed up my database. I was very disappointed because there were some exemplary examples of my writing in those five months. Not many, but enough. I started fresh that February with a brand new blog, and I have complete archives from then on.
From my initial switch to WordPress and up until December 2006, I was crazy. When it came to themes, I was like a little kid in a candy store; I changed my theme probably weekly, possibly even more frequently. My URL often changed, in addition, which detracted from my traffic. I also went through one of those horrible phases when I wRoTe alL 0F My pOsTs liKe thi$. That was short-lived.
I was also a traffic/comment/stats monkey. I frequently checked for more comments, hits, etc., something that many new bloggers suffer from. I checked my stats every time that I sat down at the computer, and I was usually somewhat disappointed. I was bogged down by my lack of comments and hits, but I am proud to say that I have overcome that ailment; I barely every check stats nowadays. When I do check them, it’s usually to see how much bandwidth that I’m using and to determine whether or not paying for hosting is worth it (and it is!). I still don’t receive an abundance of comments, but it doesn’t bother me anymore.
One thing that I am particularly ashamed about was my abuse of blog power that sometimes occurred…when I was upset or frustrated, I would sometimes use my blog to get back at other people or try to tarnish their reputation. This is not a political blog, and such posts have no place here. I apologize if I have ever done that to you before.
The height of my blog popularity was probably during late 2005, when I was still hosted at http://danny.meorrr.com (Ryan was my gracious host for more than a year). Then, however, he decided not to renew his hosting since he didn’t blog that much anymore, and, being the cheap-o that I was, I was forced to use a free blogging service. I used Blogger until I received an invitation to beta test WordPress.com. I was happy to be back at WordPress, and stayed there until January of this year.
This January, I decided to buy actual hosting and a domain name, something I had wanted since I had begun to blog. I purchased the-madness.net and, with the help of Vasiliy (awesome web designer, check him out!), I set up a hosting account with PolurNet. They have exceptionally low prices and their service is great (no, I’m not being paid to say that).
For five months, I have been happily blogging on my own domain, and I’m proud to celebrate my three-year blogiversary this month. Blogging has helped me to become a better writer, designer, friend. I don’t know where I would be without it! Thank you for three great years, and here’s to many more! Happy birthday!
Sincerely,
Danny
Post #1 in a series of who-knows-how-many in my May 2007 Blogiversary series.