Hello World

So it looks like I actually got around to putting up a personal site. This is something I’d thought about doing for a couple years, but had never invested the time to get it off the ground. After a couple of false starts, I am going to try and publish at least a few things here going forward.

One of the things I asked myself any time I considered setting up a personal site is “why”? I think I finally have a few answers to that question. First off, working on the web platform for the last 7 years and still not having any kind of personal online space is a bit embarrassing. While most of my posts here will probably be software/technology related, the occasional non-technical article will probably find its way here as well.

A second reason for the site is that I’ve noticed my written communication skills have really deteriorated over time. I haven’t really written anything longer than 4 paragraphs since university, and anytime you abandon a skill for that long, atrophy is inevitable.

Finally, I’m hoping to “reset” the way that I communicate online somewhat. I’ve used Facebook and Twitter for a few years, and I think writing exclusively in media of their ilk dulls your brain a bit. After the shutdown of Google Reader, there has been small renaissance in feed reader software, so it’s good to see that people are still interested in life beyond 140 characters. That’s where I am hoping to spend more of my time online.

So hopefully this has been a reasonable defence of this site’s existence. I’m sort of re-learning how to write, and trying to find a voice, so it will probably be ugly for a while. Anyways, this site’s source and posts are all open source on github so if you see anything wrong, or have any suggestions, let me know. If you are interested in keeping tabs on what I post, an Atom feed is available.