A Blogventuring Saga 


Jim learns to live with the blogging tool iBlog and comes to appreciate blogging. 

You know, I've always been called to new technical advances, especially when they signal a cultural shift in the use of technology. I've been relatively quiet for the past few years, messing around with web publishing and databases, email and spreadsheets. But in the last few months, I've been magnetically drawn to such things as AV chats, podcasts, messenging and, yes, blogging. These things are relatively new on the tech horizon, and do, I believe, signal a quantum leap in technological power and cultural awareness of the implications of the world wide web.

I'm sure a lot has been written on the phenomenon of blogging. I find MYself called to it for a number of reasons. I've always used writing as a way to integrate and get perspective on my experiences. I've been hanging out there on the web, both professionally and personally for ten years. Every since I came out in 1972, I try to have few secrets (which can, oddly, lead you to clean up your act). And all my good friends will tell you what a juvenile ham I am. I do like to show off my piano playing and singing ability. But it's in kind of a nice way, because everyone usually ends up having fun. So blogging was attractive for me.

But I never realized how much I would like it until I started reading up on how to do it. I've shared earlier in this blog how I came to use a tool called iBlog. (See my Oct. 24, 2005 entry Learning New Stuff.) To make a long story short, I was blogging away with twelve or so entries, when, due to my own careless experimentation, I lost all my data. I ended up with a correctly published blogsite, but no way to modify it or continue my entries. I might have just tried another tool like Typepad or Moveable Type from Six Apart or Blogger. But I had just paid my 900 rupies (no kidding!), which amounts to $20 for a key to keep the program working past its free trial period. So I chose to hang in there.

Ever the systematic problem solver, I decided to search for an online support group for the program iBlog. And immediately, I came up with www.ibloggers.net, a truly helpful resource. You have to get a user id and password, I did, and I posted my querry. Shortly thereafter, I got a reply from user "icerabbit," who discussed the problem and suggested I just right Lifli Products (iBlog company) for support. I did that, and here things slowed down.

Actually, as it turns out, we got the whole problem resolved in just one week, and I got help from both iBlog support AND from ibloggers.net. It was, after all, just prior to Thanksgiving Week. I should have just been out buying turkey. But I got impatient. I MISSED my cathartic release!

So I turned back to ibloggers. net and had a long involved conversation with Robert and Amy which ultimately answered all my questions. Plus, I was contacted by Lifli Support within the week, also answering my questions. I was able to restore my blogsite and get up and working again. There is even an upgrade of the program coming out in December.

The next problem I have to solve, which you will be reading about, is that you can in fact get commenting in these blogs. If I get that going, I will try to publish my blog location where people might possibly read it.

And I can get back to baring my soul to my imaginary audience. 

Posted: Fri - November 25, 2005 at 04:44 PM          

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