Today marks my sixth year of blogging. I’ve been doing this longer than I’ve worked at any single job, and in the fast moving technology business, six years seems like a long time to be doing anything. During this last year, I saw some very concrete benefits from all that effort. My blog, along with Twitter, was a major factor in helping me find a new job (I had several very good offers). After I arrived at Sun, I have periodically bumped into people (that I didn’t already know) who were readers. That has also been the case during my travels this year. I had the opportunity to attend some conferences that I have never attended before, and meet some readers that way as well.
My posting rate has decreased compared to the early years of the blog, when I was posting almost every day. I spent a lot of time travelling this year, much more than any other year. Travelling is really time consuming, so the amount of time for blogging has gone down. Some content that previously would have turned into a blog post is now going to Twitter instead. My kids are growing up fast, and they need more of my time, so there’s less time for blogging. And as the post before this one shows, I’ve been devoting a good portion of my remaining time to picture making.
Last year I promised to be more active, and didn’t do so well. This year, I will try to have more technology content that is not trip related.
One thing that I have wanted to do is to have a photographic banner for the top of the blog. I’ve finally put one up there, and I’d be interested in people’s thoughts. It’s obviously not causing the level of angst that the original white on black WordPress theme caused.
Ted
Congratulations on the six years of blogging. Quite an accomplishment.
I’d love to hear more about your work within Sun, as well as your (ongoing) take on the projects within Sun on languages (JRuby and Jython support, for example). You’re in a good position both to advocate as well as inform, and I think we’d all love to hear your view on how things are progressing.
Cheers
Patrick
Happy Blogaversay Ted!!=)
I would suggest leaving the title of your blog ‘Ted Leung on the Air—Open Source, Modern Programming Languages, OS X, Photography, and …’ separate from your photo banner. Perhaps placing it smaller in an area below? If I click on your photo banner, I would think I could go to your flickr site to view more of your photos, or a slide show of your latest photos. What do you think?
In future, having the photos generate different photos every time I link to your site would be cool. Of course, that’s a feature for ‘Ted on Air’ 6.1. 😉
Congrats on six years — I’m one of those who knew you through the blog before I knew you in person. I like the photo banner but the blog title is now harder to read.
Hey There,
Well done. Do you have a favorite post? Any advice for the aspiring bloggers in the audience?
Cheers,
C.J.
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C.J. I don’t have a favorite post for the year. As far as aspiring bloggers – I think you need to have good original content, and that you need to keep up a steady rhythm of posting. Not everyday, but not once a month either.
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