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I missed it … again

For the second year in a row I’ve missed my ‘blogaversary’ or anniversary of blogging. I used to mark the 3rd of November each year with a blog post but with the busyness of life, especially at this time of year, the day has slipped past unnoticed.

I’ve now been blogging for over eight years.

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 ninth year of blogging.

If you’re looking to help me celebrate my eight years of blogging there are a few things you might like to do.

  • I would really appreciate it if you linked to my blog or to any of my posts that you enjoy.
  • 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 can use the sharing buttons at the bottom of any of my posts. You can share my posts on your Facebook wall, via Twitter, email or any other way you choose.
  • You may also choose to support my upcoming ride to raise funds for Compassion by clicking this link.

When I have remembered my blogaversary over the last several 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.

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Christian Carnival Returns

christian_carnival_lion.jpgWould you like the opportunity to have your blog promoted? Have you published a post that you’d like read by a wider audience?

I’m having some friends drop in to my faith blog, Beyond Belief, this week for the next Christian Carnival. They’ll be visiting from all over the world and you’re invited to join us.

The weekly Christian Carnival is an opportunity for Christian blog writers to share their best posts from the previous week. The topic of the post doesn’t necessarily have to focus on Christianity but it must reflect a Christian worldview, and the writer must be Christian to qualify. You may wish to consider that the readership of the Christian Carnival will be more varied than your usual readership, and you might do better contributing a post with broad appeal.

I’ve already received a number of contributions and I’m looking forward to offering readers of Beyond Belief some great links when the carnival is published.

If you’re a Christian and you’ve never contributed before, or if it’s been a while since you have, how about having a look through your posts for this week and choosing something to contribute. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece, just a post that outlines your point of view or is designed to get others thinking. Being part of the carnival could be a great way to gain a little extra traffic at your blog.

The easiest way to get involved is to submit your article through the Blog Carnival Submission Form. Otherwise, you can email the submission address.

The deadline for submissions is Tuesday evening at midnight, Eastern (US) Standard Time. That means it’s midday Wednesday here in Perth, Western Australia.

I’ll let you now when the carnival is published at Beyond Belief.

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Happy New Year 2011

It’s my first post for the new year so I wanted to do something a little different and chat face to face.

Check out the video and then feel free to leave your comments below.

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Christian Carnival Here Next Week

christian_carnival_lion.jpgWould you like the opportunity to have your blog promoted? Have you published a post that you’d like read by a wider audience?

I’m having some friends drop in next week. They’ll be visiting from all over the world and you’re invited to join us. The next Christian Carnival is being hosted here at RodneyOlsen.net.

The weekly Christian Carnival is an opportunity for Christian blog writers to share their best posts from the previous week. The topic of the post doesn’t necessarily have to focus on Christianity but it must reflect a Christian worldview, and the writer must be Christian to qualify. You may wish to consider that the readership of the Christian Carnival will be more varied than your usual readership, and you might do better contributing a post with broad appeal.

I’ve already received a number of contributions and I’m looking forward to offering readers of this blog some great links when the carnival is published.

If you’re a Christian and you’ve never contributed before, or if it’s been a while since you have, how about having a look through your posts for this week and choosing something to contribute. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece, just a post that outlines your point of view or is designed to get others thinking. Being part of the carnival could be a great way to gain a little extra traffic at your blog.

The easiest way to get involved is to submit your article through the Blog Carnival Submission Form. Otherwise, you can email the submission address.

The deadline for submissions is Tuesday evening at midnight, Eastern (US) Standard Time. That means it’s midday Wednesday here in Perth, Western Australia.

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WordPress Turns Seven

WordPressIn 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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