What's so hard?

Three years ago I jumped on the personal webspace wagon. Before all that I was happily ignorant to the fact that a lot of people spend heaps of time fuddling around with web-publishing technologies.

Having spent weeks researching the best and cheapest provider of such a facility, I picked a U.S. firm mainly for its .NET capability and very cheap price. I then proceeded to design a website – menu structure, look and feel etc – and started to upload some photos too. I soon realised that I need automation, because it was taking too long to do something simple and repetitive. I moved to Microsoft FrontPage because it is almost intuitive (provided you have a convoluted mind) and clever enough to only publish the changes.

But it all started to get too hard.

So a few months ago (and having written a year’s worth of hosting off) I jumped on the blog wagon. And I am proud to point the finger to a ‘power’ blogger, ex-colleague of mine (see sidebar for link!). I was shown a free solution, a no-fuss no-frills interface and the ability to blog from anywhere, including work (sorry to rub it in Moshe!).

So I started blogging – venting off, showing off, stating the obvious etc. The thrill of it is the fact that you can say whatever you want and the gratification of receiving replies. And I can still post pictures if I want to in a not-so-direct way – but I don’t have power-user requirements any more.

But it all started to get too hard.

I found that it is a matter of free time. It seems that, no matter what, I manage to find time to start a new thing up. But it somehow tapers off. Not because something else comes up, but because I find myself saying “where’s the day gone” and choosing to pick up a book rather than pick up the keyboard and blog. The other factor is that I spend hours on the keyboard as part of my work (emailing, writing, drawing and happily not coding), so being faced with a keyboard late at night gives me the chills.

The subject of this blog has partly to do with the title of my blog space – “too hard to get”:

- I knew that at some point blogging would get “too hard”

- It was hard finding a catchy and well as available blog space name, so I made that frustration obvious in the title

- Friends often remark that I am really hard to get. I am famous for ‘deep dives’. People lose me for months and all of a sudden here I am again – either in person or in a blog.

But the truth of the matter is that I am a big fan of blogging. I love the sense of freedom that’s available to us. Sending a letter to newspapers or magazines often suffer from editorial freedom to sensor. This leads to more frustration.

My next research task is around mobile blogging. Because I spend a few hours a week on a train or a plane, I would like to use some of that time to read blogs rather than books. I am also looking for a new gadget and a music player… but that’s another blog coming up.

Have a good weekend, wherever you are.