Without me actually realising it at the time, this blog passed the 2,000 published articles mark. I’m a bit boggled by that figure.
It was in August 2012 that I reached the 1,000 published posts mark – and that took some three years to achieve. So doubling it in just over a year tends to tell me two things: 1) the volume of my blogging has dramatically increased; 2) I really need to spend more time away from the computer screen! :D.
I’m actually not a great one for blog numbers; however, when I passed through the 1,000 published posts mark, I noted that this blog had some 250,000 hits in the 12-months between August 2011 and July 2012, so I thought it would be interesting to run a comparison for the same period in 2012/2013. I was not a little stunned to see that figure had increased by over 100,000. That so many so read and continue to find this blog interesting and look to it for information really does amaze and humble me.
It is the level of feedback that is given which encourages me to keep on writing and to make sure I make time on a daily basis to do so.
Another distinct pleasure I’ve had from all of this is being able to get out into SL and wander “the highlands and islands”, discovering some remarkable places and builds and meeting a huge number of creative and fun people. This in turn has helped put SL into a better perspective for me and remind me that, warts and all, it’s still an amazing place in which to spend time, and I’m again flattered that people do find my wibblings about places to visit worthy of note, and who show their appreciation for my photographic efforts via my Flickr stream and profile feed as well, all of which are very much appreciated.
It’s been quite the odyssey so far, one I currently don’t plan on stopping. To all of you who have encouraged me by reading, commenting, poking and suggesting, I again offer my sincere thanks.
Since getting the new PC (did I mention I had a new PC? ;-)), I’ve been busy sorting various bits and pieces out – not so much installing software, but sorting through files, re-organising things, and so on.
I’ve always been fairly ordered in my filing – paper and computer – and I like to have everything in its place, neat, tidy and sorted. So I was a little surprised to come across a series of shots I took of Verdigris a while back somewhat mis-filed (among my work bits, no less; oops) and lacking a blog post.
The brainchild of Oriolus Oliva, Verdigris must be one of the landmark sites of Second Life; a strange, wonderful village sitting atop a bridge to nowhere, facing N0th1ng Ackland’s trestle-mounted Dirty Rat store across a deep gorge.
This is a brilliant place to visit and photograph – as many have done well before me. It’s also a wonderful place to wander around, mooching through the shops, climbing and descending the stairs to / from the upper gallery stores, admiring the view and exploring the ground level; I personally love the windmill at the end of the bridge.
Regulars to this blog will likely have noticed something of a falling-off in the number of posts I make, particularly over the last week or so. While I don’t want to bore people with the ins and out of the life of a Pey, there are several reasons for this, two of which I will mention (well, I could mention three, but the Tour de France ended on Sunday, so I’m no longer oogling men in lycra & riding bikes every afternoon :)).
The first is that we’re in something of a heat wave in the UK right now. While it is really nice to have sunshine and clear blue skies, it also means it is blue bloody murder sitting in a little study with a PC toasting your toes (or at least blowing out warm air over them), sans air conditioning, and with the windows shut tight against the cat attempting a leap out of them into the wild blue yonder – again (my study is on the upper floor of the house). So the upshot is that, even with the desk fan on throughout the day, by the time I’ve finished my “real” work, I’m at the point where I’m ready to peel myself (quite literally) out of the chair and just go vegetate somewhere cooler.
The other reason is more annoying. Last week I started experiencing problems connecting to WordPress via my ISP, both when trying to read other blogs and in trying to access mine to paste text for draft posts, update posts-in-progress, etc. I wasn’t alone; checking the WordPress forums, it appeared that a fair few people from the UK (and initially using the same ISP as me) were experiencing the same problem. It had thought to have been fixed a couple of times (the initial thread being closed pretty rapidly by WordPress admin as “resolved”). Unfortunately, the situation actually seems to have worsened – people on other UK-based ISPs are reporting similar errors and problems. Quite where the issue lies is unclear, but there is a lot of finger-pointing going on in both directions.
So, as a result of both these issues (and one or two others), my blogging has slowed down somewhat of late, and while I have a mass of articles-in-waiting, I have to confess that firing-up the enthusiasm has been a little difficult at times. I do promise, however, that – as the saying goes – “normal service will be resumed as soon as possible”. Probably when I stop melting :).
In the meantime, enjoy the Verdigris piccies. Or better yet, go pay a visit if you haven’t before / recently :).
WordPress.com just dropped a notification on me. Apparently, I’ve now been with them for four years today! While I was aware I’d made the move to WordPress in 2009, exactly when that happened isn’t something which has been uppermost in my mind, and so the notification came as something of a surprise.
I first moved to WordPress having been with Blogspot. I did so because WordPress appeared to offer a lot more in the way of options and layouts. By-and-large, I’ve been happy with the result. The software is easy-to-use, and WordPress.com provide a useful set of free themes and a range of tools to make sure your adventures in the land of blogging are as pleasant as possible.
That said, for a product which is so dependent on people liking and using it, the company is at times a little obtuse when it comes to introducing updates to the platform (where have we heard that before? :)), with changes often implemented in such a way as to bring out ire and annoyance in a good proportion of users. I have to admit, I’ve had the odd growl or two over the last couple of years!
Even so, I do like to platform and have found that blogging with it is rarely onerous in terms of using the tools – importing from MS Word could be a little easier, perhaps – but cut’n’paste gets me past the worst of issues.
At the start of the month I finally got around to responding to Strawberry Singh’s “Why do I blog?” meme. It asked a lot of very pointed questions, the last question of which asked, “So, why do you continue to blog?”, to which I replied, “I can’t stand going cold turkey when away from my blog .”
While that is partially true – blogging is completely addictive, after all! – There is also another reason, one I hesitated to give as I didn’t want it to sound egotistical or anything like that.
I continue to blog because people appear to find something of value here. And that, as much as anything else, has kept me sitting in front of the keyboard and rattling off posts. It’s also what has helped to keep me engaged in Second Life, be it trying to report on what is going on in and around the platform or logging-in and exploring the grid.
I can’t promise to be blogging in another four years (or whenever WordPress next send me such a notification, as this is the first I’ve ever received of this kind!) – but I can say thank you to all of you who have stopped by these pages over the last four and making my blogging a lot more fun!
I’m getting to this at least a week after everyone else – if not longer. The reason why is simple: I’ve actually had something of an internal fight with myself over whether to a) do it and b) press it.
What am I talking about? Strawberry Singh’s meme (one of a whole series she has been setting, which have been thought-provoking) of “Why do I blog?” The format is easy enough – answer a series of questions on the subject of “why do I blog?”
So after several rounds of yes / no / yes / no arguments with myself, here (finally, and for whatever they’re worth!) are my answers.
Thinking about why I blog while sitting at Hazardous
How long have you been blogging? I started in January 2007 using Blogspot, then in 2009 made the move to WordPress.
Why did you start blogging? This is a little complicated. There was a time when I was very involved in D/s in my real life (I’ve actually written extensively on the subject elsewhere in the past – and no, I’m not saying where or under what name!). In coming back to SL, I opted to explore how D/s is perceived and acted upon. While it may sound presumptuous, I was so taken aback by a good few of the attitudes and misconceptions surrounding D/s as seen in SL, that I started blogging to try to offer a counterpoint and present D/s in a wider context. Over time, my own interests in SL changed such that the nature of my blogging shifted focus, particularly after the move to WordPress, and the blog evolved to what is read today.
How many times a week do you post an entry? Currently, I’m running at least one post a day, although sometimes I can hit 4 or 5 a day – it really depends what is going on, what I read about, what I learn and what generally comes my way.
How many different blogs do you read on a regular basis? I try to run through all the blogs on my blogroll at least a couple of times a week. Some are daily reading (or very nearly). I also read a number of other blogs as time allows, although they should perhaps be read more frequently (Strawberry’s being one … hence coming to this meme so late!). My problem is that I can either blog or read (or blog and read … and ignore the realities of real life!).
Do you comment on other people’s blogs? Yes, when I feel I have something to say that actually might be worth saying.
Do you keep track of how many visitors you have? Yes, although I’m actually more interested in the geographic diversity of those who visit. In the last five months this blog has averaged 32,800 page views and an average of 14,000 unique visitors a month – which I find amazing. What amazes me even more is that these people come from all over the world. Obviously, the highest concentrations of page views comes from the USA, Europe, Australia and Japan, but I’m genuinely stunned when I look back across a month and see multiple page views from Fiji, Belize, San Marino, Tanzania, Oman, Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka, Macau, Taiwan and more. Of course, these views likely all only add up to one person each (especially as some don’t climb above 5 or 6 views a week), but the fact they are there month on month does remind me that Second Life really does have a global reach.
I track visitors, and do get a buzz out of seeing how far-flung across the world they are
Did you ever regret a post that you wrote? Some of my pieces take a good while to germinate and take shape, particularly as I try to keep to a certain “maximum length” of article. This has meant in the past that I’ve sometimes pushed the “publish” button when perhaps a little more polish or simply walking away one more time and then coming back with a fresh pair of eyes for a final read-through might have been better.
Do you think your readers have a true sense of who you are based on your blog? I hope that people have a clear sense of my values. I don’t have a hard-and-fast rule on differentiating between the “real” and “virtual” me (although I have various limits on how far I will go in talking about the “real me”). Whether this gives any real sense as to who I am for anyone reading these pages without encountering me – I’ve honestly no idea.
Do you blog under your real name? Nope. All my VW writing is done under my virtual identity of Inara Pey. The vast majority of my writing elsewhere has been under pseudonyms as well.
Are there topics that you would never blog about? Yes. Real world politics for one. Religion for another.
What is the theme/topic of your blog? Virtual worlds and environments, although the primary focus is on Second Life, as I simply cannot keep pace with everything else going on out there!
Do you have more than one blog? If so, why? Yes. No. Sort-of. I have two other blogs, one for my builds and one for *some* of my D/s writing carried over from my original blog – but both rarely get any real attention from me.
What have you found to be the benefits of blogging? A greater understanding of Second Life and a clearer appreciation for Linden Lab (warts and all) and the work they put into making this incredible environment possible. A growing love of virtual photography (I’m even starting to venture into the world of post-processing!), and the discovery of in-world interests and hobbies.
Blogging has encouraged me to try to improve my ability in framing and taking snapshots – such as with Keisei
So, why do you continue to blog? I can’t stand going cold turkey when away from my blog :).
Shug Maitland contacted me earlier this evening to inform me that this blog had come top in a New World Notes reader’s poll of SL blogs.
I’d be lying if I say I was unaware that such a poll had taken place – for one thing a couple of people tapped me about it when it was on-going, and for another I read at least one blogger requesting people go vote for their blog and another asking people to not vote for their blog!
Anyway, suffice it to say, I’m sincerely surprised and very flattered that people feel so strongly about this blog they’d actually go vote for it somewhere, and I would like to take a moment to thank all who did so; not so much for putting me at the top of a poll – with due respect to Hamlet, that actually matters not – but for taking the time and effort to show your appreciation of this blog; it really means a lot to me, and encourages me to work to improve my coverage of SL in the future.
Last week I implemented further changes to this blog as part of my ongoing attempts to improve readability and finding information. At the time, I included a little poll to help gauge feedback, which I set to run for a week.
As the week is now up, here are the results. A total of 40 people took the time to vote. Of these:
33 people (82.5%) liked the new look overall, with 27 indicating they found the layout easier to navigate, and six stating they like it
3 people (7.5%) felt the layout is an improvement, but were not fond of the sidebar appearing on every page
3 people (7.5%) preferred the older layout
1 person had no opinion on the new layout either way.
Poll results
One person remarked that they were having issues with the layout at a resolution of 1920×1080, with white space and problems with random characters appearing in bold. Feedback was requested from several people using the same resolution, and resolutions similar to it (all of which were beyond the range of my own screen output), and while some did remark on the borders around pages, they didn’t feel it was a problem to them, and none reported any issues with random character emboldening.
I don’t intend to make any more substantial changes to the blog for the time being, although I’ll be continuing to tweak things in small ways. However, I would like extend my thanks to everyone who took the time to provide feedback.
Without me actually realising it at the time, this blog passed the 2,000 published articles mark. I’m a bit boggled by that figure.
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Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 