Wriging

I've gone pink for what I think is the third year now. Started out doing it back through 9r and didn't want to skip this year - although today is the fifth already.

I haven't been able to do much in the way of design stuff - just not enough time - but it's the first time I've gone pink on what is my new self-hosted domain and blog: Dotcomslashblog.

I still have to put up the announcement post and see if I can get people to send money of course.

No one else joining this? Used to a big thing the previous years.

No worries. I noticed a bit of that gruffness somehow, but it immediately seemed clear this was due to the frustration of availability and pricing.

But thanks for the compliment on the pics.

You know what, from what I read, I think you should just get the typewriter you want. Get a great model, refurbished and shipped, and pay whatever seems a reasonable enough price - even if it is too much for an old machine. It'll put you at ease, you'll be happy.

Edit: Btw, you seen this?

I can see how electrical doesn't appeal to you indeed. It needs power (obviously), it's more prone to breaking, harder to repair (or, impossible) and it has nothing of the charm of a mechanical machine. Still, it's no computer, not even anywhere near it. The page, the font, the act of typing still is very different.

I'm sorry to hear that they're so hard to come by. And that shipping is such a hassle. Indeed, I could get you one over the weekend but shipping it would make a ten euro purchase ten times as expensive because of it.

That Underwood looks great - it's a classic brand of course - but so does the Royal. Good luck and keep us posted.

I still have one, a 1970s Olympia Splendid 33 that needs a new ribbon however. I used it for writing a diary and love letters up until a few years back, when the digital lifestyle well and truly swamped me. After all, typewriters aren't really easy or functional, but they are lovely.

I definitely would go for a really simple, relatively recent model. The older it is, the worse it works, the harder it will be to find ribbons or indeed parts.

Why haven't you just gone and got one? It isn't a vintage car is it? Maybe they're harder to get by where you are, but over here you could easily find one in any thrift shop or at any flea market. Besides, they cost next to nothing. You could by ten and try them all out to see which works best (but don't tell the wife that).

Also, don't forget, typewriting is hard work, so why not get an electrical one? If it breaks, the above applies: you just get a new one.

Finally, I'd advise you to get a portable model. The office machines of the 1940s aren't something you want to move around because they weigh a ton and the stroke is heavy as hell. Get a small one in a carrying case, preferably one with plastic keys (for weight, noise and, again, because of the force you need to apply with every stroke).

My Olympia is great but you could also look for an icon such as the landmark Olivettis of the 70s and 80s - although those could set you back a couple bucks more.

For completeness, here's mine:

Now get out there, get you some great paper and write your first page. You won't be able to stop looking at it in admiration.

I'm always stuck between businesslike titles that read like a headline and tell you exactly what the post is about (boring), and the more clever ones that often no one understands until they've read it (confusing).

For pix I sometimes do as Dave does and pick something that is simply poetic or popped up in my mind when I took the pic or looked at it afterwards.

Arrington does a great job at titles: professional, to the point and witty. That's great — but that's his job of course ;)

Oh, and while we're on the subject of titles, I really like what Cas from Bright Meadow does with her Sunday Roasts so I hope she'll drop in here and elaborate on that :)

Oops, missed that one Eli. Hope you do have RSS for this note and then read it too ;)

Yep, read it, ages ago and I forgot most of it. It's quite gloomy and confusing and gloomy. Did I say it was confusing? And gloomy?

If you do want to start with Gray, there's his short stories, esp. Letters From an Eastern Empire which is hilarious and breathtakingly beautiful. Must-read as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah, Tyme, I certainly wasn't calling you anal — I didn't did I? :)

I can imagine if the "climate" is in fact a litigious one, you are better off safe than sorry. I'm sure I would. And it wouldn't surprise me if one day it would/could happen here as well.

There is of course a difference between being sued as the author (cease and desist, a libel case from a company that doesn't like what you've written) and encountering an ugly comment from some beast who wants to spoil things.

In the first case, the law is the law and I don't suppose any policy page you have on your blog would change things for you, in the latter case I remain convinced that simple jurisprudence will protect you from the real nasty stuff — insofar that the law can protect people when others have it in for them.

Never had one, never needed one, never gonna use one.

Seriously, it's the internet, it's a blog. People can say what they like and make themselves look like a fool if they like. If the comment is clearly brutally vulgar, insulting or harassing I'd simply delete it — but like I said, I've never had to do that.

As for legal issues, what's that all about? There are laws (about libel, threats) already in place. If someone calls me a name, that's their right, if they threaten to beat me up, I'll report it. We don't live in such a litigious country over here anyways and I'd love to see the look on any judge's face when he had to deal with someone whimpering over a blog comment. He'd probably say: "Golly, you know this isn't America, right? Now go on and play".

Just two novels that I love:

Solaris, Stanislav Lem
Inter Ice Age IV, Kobo Abe

Some good pointers here to check out guys, thanks.

That last book is Lanark by Alasdair Gray. It's awesome. It has a list of all the plagiarisms the author confesses to have used to various degrees. It's hilarious. The other ones looked pretty cool too. Good find.

But as I turn away from the window, even the endless slomo repeats of some lion pouncing on a gazelle on the new 70" Sony KDL-70X3500 can't distract me from the notion that I may or may not have slept with my mother — so, losing the mansion in the fire that still rages outside doesn't mean all that much to me.

Nils Geylen
NDNL

Great stuff. And,hey, it is one sentence right?

To be honest, haven't had one in years. Blogrolls, to me at least, have long been surpassed by streams and tumblelogs.

On the other hand, I have been thinking about a fast-moving, quickly changing and (especially that) hand-picked "recommended" section, where I'd put stuff I really thought was worthwhile. But I'd have to have some authority first, of course, to say that.

I don't know if we're good, but we are da bomb!

Welcome too :)

Thanks for that. That post and the others mentioned sure make some good points. Excellent reminders.

Also, I'll probably try and track the Dutch blog awards to some extent. I'm looking forward to see who wins and who you think is worthwhile. Make sure you get us a list of blogging goodness we need to check out.

Okay, now that would make sense.

I wonder how I'd geotag a post about web 2.0 though. Anyone know where that is exactly?

;)

I suppose this is great for people who post on the go a lot. When you're at an event, on a trip, on the train, a geotag might have some meaning. But don't most people still just post from home (or work, *cough*)? There, a geotag, I think, adds little value.

Oh, well, as soon as it becomes readily available and hassle-free, I'll probably just jump the bandwagon straightaway as well.

That is good. Nice to see someone write poetry the, shall I say, classic way. These words sway, it's passionate. I do like contemporary poetry, but sometimes it just looks like someone reading a boarding pass out loud. This is nice. Good ending too, exactly what you promised you delivered.

Well, I asked a similar question here only a short while back: what are people's thoughts on a static home page for a blog. Yeah, static! I have one now, with just titles of my 10 latest posts or something.

Personally, I try to de-clutter all the time, so preferably I'd have just as little as possible on there. Okay, not as little as possible maybe, because then you'd end up with an empty page that just says "enter" and that sets us back a decade but you know what I mean.

I suppose it depends, as always, on what your blog is about, who your audience is, and perhaps most of all, on how often you post. If you post every day (or even multiple times a day) I could imagine you'd need easy access to "older" posts through some sort of titles only list.

In that respect I really like Eric Rice's blog My Infocalypse which seems to find a great balance between a very clean design and lots of access to content.

I don't know. I suppose there's all sorts of "rules" and "usages" that go with this, but in the end, equally classically, you should just present your content the way you want to. No?

Because people in my country are morons.

Because it's a lingua franca - a shared, common language - not just because of the US/Canada/UK influence on tech and blogging (although that plays a part).

And because I feel so at ease with it. It's been my second language and my favourite since I was a little kid.

Btw, @auburn:

You just have to know and accept your child is likely already blogging

Shame on you for not even knowing what your child is doing

Where does that come from? Sounds a bit harsh, doesn't it?

Now here's a note where it would not be amiss to link to the article, or at least give us a few quotes.

When you say "met a 12-year old girl" what exactly does that mean?

Anyway, I don't have kids so anything I say would be theoretical. But if they're allowed on the web, it'll be hard to stop them. If they express an interest in blogging, I'd say: help them start one, read it, and discuss anything you don't agree with.

And your readers, well, block them I'd say. Sounds like they're wankers.

I wonder: any bloggers here that have kids who blog or have shown an interest?

Sorry I didn't have time to make this shorter.

LOL, that's usually the other way round. Think: 1-page school paper, 10-line proposal for boss ... :)

I disagree :)

Well, in a way at least. I suppose for fiction writing, exercises can be useful. Learning how to write in different voices, styles, and with different constraints may help you discover new techniques.

There used to be an entire literary movement doing just that.

I suppose Gnorb and the likes will know more about that.

As for more business-like writing (journalism, how-to books, guides, blogging) I suppose you get the most out of just writing and reading - a lot. And, as I mentioned in the spelling note, read usage guides and books that offer serious writing tips (not the sort that are called: Write A Best-Seller In 10 Days And Make A Million).

But I doubt you'd have to care about that for the book: plenty of editors will cover that and annoy you with their incessant nagging and suggestions for changes :)

Just tell your story best you can.

Just want to chime in and say I agree wholeheartedly with Kami (btw, K. nice to see you back).

We wouldn't be pros, and we wouldn't be human beings, if we didn't learn - like you point out yourself.

Obviously, always repeating yourself, always making up for mistakes, isn't the way to go. But writing a good follow up post, referencing to it in the earlier one, and giving your readers some insight into what happened, why you changed your mind and how they can benefit from that... sounds great in fact.

Good on you. As you can tell from the replies here, 100 definitely isn't bad at all!

It's probably more than Pownce gets these days :-)

Wow, Dave, you read all that? Thanks.

Looks good. You know, I read your blog (or at least, I try to keep up) but I've never commented or perused old entries yet. I should try that now.

I think blog...will be no more blog.

It'll become a tumblelog.

All depends on what you're looking for, indeed.

But it's true: we take a lot of things for granted. A blog must have comments! Or must it?

It's always Wikipedia and CC for me too.

Creative commons have their own search engine that lets you search for CC images on various sites.

Stock photography results I've always found somewhat disappointing. But I have a couple links on my del.icio.us that you can take a look at.

I was surprised to see I'd bookmarked (and forgot about) Getty Images' Royalty Free Image Search which is actually quite good.

Like some here have said already: do check the licences. Of course, there's always something like fair use, but I'm far from an expert on that matter.

What on earth is this traffic you talk about? There's a couple people who seem to appreciate some of the stuff I write.. That it?

Who's Glenn Wolsey? That the guy who has a leaf ten miles down his site and who I never saw anywhere?

Translation: I'm really not sure I care.

Answer: I wouldn't go far at all. Obviously.

Sorry, this is my honestest answer. Would have been the same back when I was 14 too.

very few people really make money off ads. It's a scam.

I always thought so too. Funnily enough, it seems viable. Google seems to do well.

But, true: I don't understand who clicks adverts and why companies keep paying for them.

I'm glad they do, because 95% of the internet runs on them.

Admittedly, I do click adverts sometimes. Like here on 9r, just to show my support...

Sorry we disappointed you there, Deeter.

I thought one of our rules (yes, they really exist) was: work hard, play hard.

Now excuse the rest of us while we go back to being immature. We won't trouble you with our little unthoughtful and inexperienced jokes in otherwise well-meant comments again.