Category: The Blog

Not Swamp Thing. Something different.

Moving to WordPress.com

Michael6 Comments

New host today, and I’m testing the interface to see if it connects to Facebook, Twitter, MySocialEgoIsHuge.net (that website is unregistered so you can claim it if you wish) , and so on.

I had been using Blogs-About.com since April 2004.  I setup the original Chasingthewind.net webpage as a place to share my faith in Christ and let me learn HTML.  Well, while the faith in Christ has grown (though my service to Him has not, alas, due to all the travel the last couple of years, my enthusiasm to learn HTML has diminished.  I no longer want to spend time tweaking code.

I’d been happy enough at Blogs-about, even though my WordPress setup has hiccuped once or twice (not their fault!) during an upgrade and I had to ask them for help to fix my blog installation.  Well, several weeks ago I upgrade WordPress again, it hiccupped, and I left a trouble ticket.

It went unanaswered.  I sent a followup, also unanswered, and then an email bounced.

So I spent some time researching where I want my blog hosted, and I’ve moved over to WordPress.com.  I may lose a little flexibility, but the options here do everything I want.  And the reliability will be higher since the upgrades are automatic and I won’t munge them up on my own.

Lisa from Blogs-about : thanks for 7 great years of hosting Chasing the Wind.  If you ever stumble across this blog entry, say hi.

Happy 7th Blogiversary

Michael3 Comments

Yeah, I know. Chasing the Wind has been sleepy for a while. My passion for pithy comments has waned somewhat, Facebook has replaced the blog as the social network, and I’m on hiatus from bible study teaching so there are no lessons to post.

But hey, I still own this domain name. 🙂

This is a Link to a Typical Incendiary Blog Post

MichaelLeave a comment

This sentence contain the actual link to the incendiary post, with or without comment from this post’s author.

This is a quote from that link to illustrate agreement.

This sentence contains a provocative statement that attracts the readers’ attention, but really only has very little to do with the topic of the blog post. This sentence claims to follow logically from the first sentence, though the connection is actually rather tenuous. This sentence claims that very few people are willing to admit the obvious inference of the last two sentences, with an implication that the reader is not one of those very few people. This sentence expresses the unwillingness of the writer to be silenced despite going against the popular wisdom. This sentence is a sort of drum roll, preparing the reader for the shocking truth to be contained in the next sentence.

This sentence contains the thesis of the blog post, a trite and obvious statement cast as a dazzling and controversial insight.

This sentence is an agreement or disagreement to the original thesis with an urging to read the original post in it’s entirety.

That's Enough of Disqus

Michael5 Comments

I’m disabling Disqus today from my blog at http:\\chasingthewind.net . The idea was great – a more open community for comments to posts. The interface was nice, and I liked the fact that individuals “owned” their own comments and could edit them as necessary.

But Disqus was barely used by the community. The only additional comments I got were mostly spam. And there’s a technical hiccup – I use a utility to crosspost comments from Facebook to my blog and back again, and Disqus ignored those comments. It’s like they don’t exist. I can disable Disqus and the WordPress comments appear; renable Disqus and the comments disappear again. I have to manually import, over and over again, for the comments to match.

And since there was no response to my technical inquiry at Disqus, *poof*, it’s deleted.

Disqus

Michael12 Comments
Turillo [Collared Plover] (Charadrius collaris)
Image by barloventomagico via Flickr

Disqus. Pronounced “Discuss.” It’s a new feature I’m trying out, and I’d love your comments.

Really. The whole idea is to encourage better comments. You can see replies to your comments, there’s a discussion page, you can better see other people’s comments. It even links to social sites like Twitter and Facebook.

And for Jo, a long awaited feature. If you “claim” your comments by creating your own Disqus account, you can even edit your comments. Finally.

So drop me a comment. Tell me yay or nay, keep it or junk it?

Happy 5th Birthday

Michael5 Comments

Remember when blogging was new? The word “blog” itself was new. The whole concept of people finding an outlet to express whatever was on their mind in a forum that reached globally was new.

Now it’s ordinary. People create blogs for their pets now. Or maybe the pets themselves do it, it’s so easy.

Today marks the 5th anniversary of the beginning of Chasing the Wind. Happy birthday to us.
🙂

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