I worked on and off for six months on a 25th anniversary Ideapad post, and then I went and missed the deadline. Tonight I finished the post, backdated it to November 1, and belatedly got it live. Take a look. And thanks for being here.
Month: November 2023
A blog meme! I recently discovered that early blogger Chris O’Donnell is still at it, and now we’re reading each other again, and he pulled together this list (which I’m guessing started on yet another blog) so I thought I’d join in the fun.
My phone, remember, is an iPhone 13 mini.
- Mail Service: whatever Pair is using, and Gmail
- Mail Client: Mail app (iPhone), Gmail in the browser (desktop)
- Notes: Notes app and/or BBEdit, depending on circumstance
- To-Do: Due
- Calendar: Calendar app (iPhone), Google Calendar in the browser (desktop)
- Contacts: Contacts app (iPhone)
- RSS Service: n/a
- RSS Client: Feedly
- Launcher: N/A
- Cloud storage: both Dropbox and iCloud
- Photo library: all local, baby, 33,000 images and videos clogging my laptop hard drive
- Web Browser: both Chrome and Safari
- Chat: Messages and WhatsApp
- Bookmarks: Chrome
- Reading: Magazines, the New York Times and the internet
- Word Processing: Word, usually
- Spreadsheets: Excel and Google Sheets, depending
- Presentations: PowerPoint, mostly
- Shopping Lists: Pen and paper
- Personal Finance: a mishmosh
- Music: iTunes, streaming subscription + local files
- Podcasts: Podcasts app
- Password Management: Chrome, despite buying a 1Password subscription
- Social Media: Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads and Slack
- Weather: Weather app (iPhone) and NOAA Weather (desktop)
- Search: DuckDuckGo (iPhone) and Google (desktop)
- Code Editor: BBEdit
I have had this self-congratulatory fact in the Ideapad sidebar for some time now. On November 1, 1998, I started the Ideapad. So this marks a full quarter-century of posting my thoughts online.
When I began blogging, the community was small enough that Brigitte Eaton was able to hand-compile a list of all of them. I remember there being 500 or so when I first came across it; the farthest we can see in the Wayback machine shows 1285 weblogs, including this one. The web has come a long, long way since then, and while innumerable blogs have come and gone, the Ideapad endures.
I’m not a real milestone guy, and I covered this lightly when the blog turned twenty, but I do want to acknowledge the moment.
When I reflect on what twenty-five years of blogging means, mostly it’s the persistence: my blog is still here, still publishing new content, at the same URL as when it was launched, and with almost all of the archives intact and readable. It’s not hard to do, but few do it, and when I’m blogging I’m continuing my commitment to digital longevity.
I revisited the bookmarks file referenced in 2018 to see who is still blogging, and oh, the linkrot. Let’s pause to appreciate those who keep at it. Jason Kottke, who inspired me to put up my own weblog, blogs for a living, of course. Peter Merholz, coiner of “blog,” is, blessedly, still maintaining his. Journal-bloggers like Jessamyn and Cat are still journaling away. A tip of the cap also goes to those who stopped blogging but keep their sites live, so their contributions to the formative era of the internet aren’t forgotten. I hope some of these folks see this, and I hope they realize the value of their efforts.
And to you, dear reader: I’ve long stopped looking at my site metrics, and for all I know, my only regulars are me and my mom. (Hi, Mom.) But I’m glad you stopped by, even this once, and I hope you enjoy exploring everything I’ve shared with the world these past 25 years.