Blogging

WordPress Turns Seven

In early December 2007 I moved over two thousand posts from over four years of blogging from the Blogger blogging platform to WordPress. While it was a bit of a struggle getting all the images and the Haloscan comments over it was worth the effort. Moving to WordPress was the best blogging move I’ve ever made. Blogger was a great platform to start with but WordPress has allowed me so much more flexibility.

I don’t normally write posts about the process of blogging, so you may be wondering why I’m singing the praises of WordPress today. WordPress is turning seven today.

One of the great benefits of WordPress is that it’s Open Source so it’s built by a huge community rather than a company with a small team of designers offering a product. That means that there are literally millions more themes (templates) and usable features than on any other platform.

Since our last birthday we’ve doubled theme downloads to over 10 million, and doubled plugin downloads to 60 million. Most importantly, we continued to grow the development community to 1,528 people active on Trac and 13 committers, both numbers the highest in the history of WordPress.

That’s 1,528 people pouring their hearts and souls into GPL software we all own, we all build on, we can use as we please, we can all make better. We’ve evolved from a simple script to a web platform.

I mentioned that I had a few struggles in the move from Blogger. That was really only because I was using a third party solution for comments. For most people making the switch is absolutely seamless. For the exceptions to the rule, like me, you’ll find, just as I did, that there are countless WordPress enthusiasts ready to lend a hand. In my case a guy named Justin spent a very long time making sure all my comments transferred over. He wasn’t part of WordPress, he was just a fellow blogger who was part of an extremely helpful community.

If you want to move your blogging to the next level maybe it’s time to consider joining the WordPress community. You won’t regret it.

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Reading RodneyOlsen.net made easy

May 25th, 2010

by Rodney Olsen.

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Don’t you love it when you find ways to save time and simplify tasks? Isn’t it even better when it’s free?

Hopefully I can simplify the way you read this blog.

Did you know that you can read RodneyOlsen.net via email each day? Instead of having to visit my blog each day, it can visit you. Just click here, enter your email address, and you’ll never miss a post. You’ll get one email a day with anything I’ve posted on that day. It’s completely free and you can unsubscribe at any time so why not give it a go?

There’s also a link to subscribe to my RSS feed at the top of my right hand sidebar which makes updating easy if you read blogs through Bloglines, Google Reader, Yahoo, NewsGator, MSN or any other service. If you haven’t heard of RSS, Atom or site feeds before you can check out this article at Wikipedia for more information. Basically feeds make it a lot easier to read blogs and other information sources. If you read even a handful of blogs a day you can save a lot of time through feeds.

Can I encourage you to use one of these methods to get your free updates from RodneyOlsen.net? I’d love you to be part of the community that is continuing to grow here and I want to make it as easy as possible for you to stay in touch with every post.

Whichever way you choose to read my blog let me say thank you for doing so. I truly appreciate the fact that you take the time to read my random thoughts and participate in the conversation through your comments.

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Guest Posting at John Finkelde’s Blog

May 10th, 2010

by Rodney Olsen.

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I am honoured to have been given the opportunity to contribute a guest post at John Finkelde – leadership life church today.

John Finkelde’s blog is often an eclectic mix of topics and posts that always provide something of interest. Sometimes it’s a good laugh, at other times it’s something that will get you thinking through life’s big picture issues. I love that variety.

John’s the pastor of C3 Church Hepburn Heights. Here’s a little bit more about John, taken from his bio page at the church website.

Perth born and bred, John grew up with a love for all things water – swimming, surfing, snorkelling, fishing, prawning and crabbing.

Now living in a beach side suburb John still loves the water but prefers to eat fish rather than catch it these days.

Currently completing a Masters in leadership, John leads a vibrant, contemporary C3 church in Perth’s northern suburbs.

He has authored two books, Created for Partnership & Raising Great Kids and is currently writing a third, working title Pain Relief.

Married for over 30 years, he and Dianne have two grown children both married but no grand kids … yet!

He loves big skies, vanilla slices, Coldplay, AFL, laughing, redemption, home made muesli, C3 & coffee.

His current obsession is DLSR photography and he would be happier if he owned multiple Canon L lenses.

Last year, while preparing for my week long ride for Cancer Council WA, I interviewed John about his battle with cancer. It really is a compelling story and you can listen to it by clicking the play buttons on the audio players below.

If you’ve dropped in here after reading my post at John’s blog please let me welcome you and invite you to spend some time reading through a few of the posts on my blog. I’d love to say hello so please leave a comment or two on any of the posts you find of interest.

If you’d like to stay in touch with the posts I publish here, you can receive free email updates or subscribe to my RSS Feed.

John Finkelde’s battle with cancer part one.

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John Finkelde’s battle with cancer part two.

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How very strange

Dec 21st, 2009

by Rodney Olsen.

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Just in case you dropped in here over the past 48 hours and noticed some strange happenings I thought I’d let you know what was going on.

For short periods of time over the last couple of days you may have seen nothing here or perhaps some strange formatting. You may even have wondered who stole all my posts.

The simple explanation is that I changed web and domain hosts and there was a little work that needed to be done to move everything to where it needed to be.

Everything should now be as it needs to be. If, however, you do notice anything that’s out of place, please let me know.

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Turning Six

Nov 3rd, 2009

by Rodney Olsen.

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It’s now been six years to the day since I started blogging.

The first time I ever heard of blogging I thought, “What a stupid idea. Why would you want to share all your most personal thoughts with a bunch of complete strangers?”

Since that time a couple of things have happened. Firstly, I realised that I only had to share what I decided I wanted to share, and secondly, a lot of those ‘complete strangers’ have become good friends, even though I’ve never met many of them face to face.

I’ve really enjoyed the ups and downs of blogging and what you see now is rather different than the original post back on the 3rd of November 2003. I hope you enjoy what you read here and that you’ll stay with me as I enter my seventh year of blogging.

A lot has happened since I last celebrated a blogaversary. The radio station where I worked moved location. Pauline’s sister passed away from cancer. Our children changed schools. I became the father of a teenager when our daughter, Emily, turned thirteen. We’ve sold one house and bought another. We’ve moved across Perth to our new home. I’ve cycled from Perth to Albany, broadcasting from a different town each day. These are just some of the things that stand out from a very busy year.

A whole lot more has happened over the last six years but I won’t even begin to list events, that’s what blog archives are all about. Feel free to go digging through my archives and find an interesting post or two.

If you’re looking to help me celebrate my six year blogaversary there are a few things you might like to do.

I would really appreciate it if you added me to your blogroll or link to any of my posts that you enjoy.
You can get free updates of RodneyOlsen.net by adding your email address to the box in the top of the right hand sidebar or by subscribing to the RSS feed.
If you’re a StumbleUpon user you might like to Stumble a post or two. (Of course you’re welcome to do that at anytime.)
You may also choose to make this blog one of yourTechnorati Favourites.

On my blogaversary over the last couple of years I’ve opened the blog up for questions. I reckon it’s time to give it another go.

Most days of the week my job involves asking a number of different people to tell me more about themselves. I normally sit behind a microphone and ask others to tell me all sorts of things. It’s very safe being the one asking the questions. It’s not always quite so easy being the one on the other end of the questions.

So, are there any questions you want to ask me? Is there something you’ve been wondering about? Is there a particular subject you’d like me to post about? It can be about blogging, radio, cycling or whatever else you choose to ask about.

What do you want to know? Just leave a question or post topic in the comments below and I’ll see what I can do to respond. No promises but I’ll give it a shot.