Still around

Yes, I'm still here. Actually, I've been quite busy. I have a daytime job to attend to, and at night, for the last eight or ten days, I've been doing what I haven't done since college (which, in this specific case, hasn't been as long ago as it may sound): I've been programming.

Honestly. After moving all of my online activities to hosted, easy-to-use venues, I decided that none of the small content management systems I've found so far really meet the needs of an upcoming project. So I started to write my own. And you know what? This is fun!

So far I'm just working with plain Vanilla PHP and a simple MySQL database, and I'm happy as a clown whenever a new function actually works, and hunting bugs is just so much fun, but still...

I know there is much to blog about these days (plagiarism, libertarianism, bellicism, pedophilia in church-run schools, to name just a few...) but hey, I'm having fun doing something useful, so just let me. In a week or so, I might have solved the major challenges and be ready to return to my regular net life. In the meantime, there's still Twitter, Facebook and Google Buzz, and plenty of other blogs that haven't been all but abandoned by their owners.

My SQL, your SQL...

Just to let be known (in the newly-minted tradition of German Tagebuchblogging - diary blogging): Apparently, working with SQL databases is exactly like riding a bicycle: you learned it once, you never forget how to do it.

The last time I have designed and implemented a SQL-based database myself was in 2002 or 2003, in Database 204 or so (we used - shudder - MS Access in class). Since then, I've worked and played a lot with ready-made databases - after all, most weblog systems use MYSQL or similar dbs. But when I designed a small CMS of my own two or three years ago, I settled for a PHP-based solution with all the data stored in the UNIX filesystem - out of plain fear of SQL databases (apparently, those classes had their effects, after all).

Wrong. It turned out the system was rather slow (and not too secure, come to think of it). And, even more revealing, it turned out that designing and implementing a database (I used MySQL Workbench to develop the db) wasn't that big a deal, either. And - even the PHP code now is much shorter and more elegant and flexible (or, to be honest, less un-elegant and unflexible...).

So why am I writing this? Just because I'm happy that it took me but one day to remember what I've learned years ago and have fun at the same time.

And once I'm done, I even may post a link to the finished project.

BTW

Just a month and a half ago, I switched my blogging platform to posterous because it is soo convenient to not have to take care of the innards of a blog system or a server, because everything goes so smooth around here and half of the sociosphere, because of whatever.

I should have seen it coming - the big void where I used to tinker with my weblog engine, be it WordPress, ExpressionEngine, MovableType and what else systems I used to use.

No, I'm not switching back to one of those. I'm still more than satisfied with how blogging works around this corner of the Internet; I'm just working on what may become my own content management system, maybe - in the distant - even a blog system. Turned out this is a lot of work keeping me away from bluelectric.org which is why...

Thank God I don't have to do everything at the same time. So sometimes I'm blogging, sometimes I'm working with PHP and other niceties, and sometimes - believe it or not - I even have a life.

Re-thinking 2.0

Platform switch - check.

Language switch - check.

Decreases in posting frequency and visitor numbers are the palpable results of the changes I made. Now may be the right time to change what really needs to change. Blogging about technology and politics from an bystanding observer's point of view may have supported bluelectric.org and its predecessors for a while; competition from semi-professional or commercial blogs has increased; short status blurbs have moved elsewhere, link lists are on the brink of becoming outdated.

It is time for a new focus. It is time to find a new focus.

Full Disclosure

Before this turns into a "All the Google, all the time" blog: Yes, I like other things, too. Not necessarily all of them (hello, Windows!), but a lot.

Searching...

Rebooting this weblog also created a clean history for bluelectric.org - not that it needed an amnesty. Or did it?

Among the few search queries in the still short server logs are those two:

alternative dns server für fritz!box 7270

(alternative dns server settings for the fritz!box 7270 modem/router which is very popular in Germany) and

amoklauf sprengsätze bastellanleitung

(amuck explosives building instructions) 

Oops? Maybe bluelectric.org does need an amnesty... (no such instructions to be found here, so please proceed!)

The alternative DNS settings info, by the way, is still up to date and - given the local government's approach to reading one's communications - of a certain importance. Which is why I will look the story up in my archive, translate it into this weblog's current language and repost it.

That's why

Translation: Fellow blogger Christian Leu from Switzerland doesn't understand why I moved my blog to Posterous.

All right, here's why: While researching something related to Posterous today, I found (and lost again...) a link to an article where Posterous was called a "lightweight blogging service". This is exactly why I reopened shop here.

Even before the move, bluelectric.org has been a blog with a small (but exquisite!) audience, not necessarily in need of a full-grown CMS or even one of the powerful systems like the ones I've used in the past. Of course, you also can run a small site with just two readers (you and your mom) on MT, WordPress or Expression Engine - but you don't have to. But if you do, you have to take care of the engine and its features yourself, which can be fun - but not for me, after more than nine years of blogging.

On the other hand, Posterous has some of the more important features built right into it, such as syndication, real-time push publication to the sites I happen to use anyway, a very comfortable, albeit somewhat restricted way of publishing and a clean look.

Of course, what I'm running here is a Posterous blog, not a customized one, with little customizing options. But for me and my small audience, I think it's just fine.

What do you think? Discuss.

2010 - The Year in Preview

About two weeks ago, in a blog far, far away (actually, the old, pre-reboot version of bluelectric.org) I've let 2009 pass once more in my personal technical review. In short: Apple lost during my personal 2009 (got rid of MacBook, iPhone and MobileMe-Account), Google won (got an Android phone and revitalized my Google accounts).

Since looking back is more fun when you can check your own predictions (and see how dead wrong you were - even more fun when doing this with other people's predictions, but still...), I'll make some uneducated guesses on what 2010 will bring to my technical world.

• Apple: Hopefully another year with my trustworthy Mac Mini; no iSlate (or whatever name the much-anticipated Apple Tablet will finally bear); no other fancy new lifestyle products; OSX forever, wherever!
• Google: Possibly another Android phone when my cell phone contract is up for renewal - or maybe not; finally a useful application of the still fascinating but rather underused Google Wave concept; possibly (but not very likely) Chrome OS on my netbook; increased, but still uneasy feeling that my data are safer with Google than with any provider under any European authority
• Blogging/net life: Further consolidation of platforms and service; less presence, more quality (I hope!); Increased use of cloud services, data availability from everywhere; Internet usage increasingly over WiFi and UMTS (3G)
• Telecommunication: Even less landline-based phone calls; the cell phone as personal all-purpose communicator 
• Transportation (yes, that is technology, too!): Less personal, more public (not necessarily thanks to, but rather in spite of S-Bahn Berlin GmbH)
• Workplace: Pretty much the same as before. Always good to have constants in your life. No, wait: a PC with more than 512 MB would be nice

Full Time Job

Eight Things