Rob Ferrer’s Thoughts and Writings

I’ve had this blog for a few months now, and I’ve started to think about my reasons for starting it. When I started I didn’t really have a plan for any theme or anything,and I’m not sure I really expected anyone to read it.

Most of my posts get almost zero visitors. My most visited post is a rather un-interesting one about how to fix a text copying problem. At least it shows I have something useful to say, although even that has just over 300 views! I get around 5-20 pageviews on an average day.

Should I be suprised I am essentially bloging to myself - I’m not even sure I’ve got anything interesting to say. It’s also not like I read many other blogs on a regular basis. In Thunderbird (currently how I read RSS feeds) I am subscribed to:

• 3 System status pages
• 2 Blogs of friends who have gone travelling. One has returned, and both have gone pretty dead
• A feed of web design leads (I never actually use any - I should really remove it)
• Fadtastic - a blog of web design trends
• Weebl’s Stuff - I love those cartoons
• The personal blog of Natalie - a uni friend, and the blog of her photo retouching company she started recently

The last two I only really started reading when thinking about this post!

I know I get one or two readers of my posts when they are imported into Facebook (Hi Michelle!), and I don’t know if anyone subscribes to my feed, but very few people regularly read my posts.

So, I don’t read anyone else’s, and I’ve not got much interesting to say, so it’s not surprising I don’t get many visitors, so I started to think about why I started a blog in the first place.

Blog Technology Familiarisation

Like I say in my tagline “I thought it was about time I started a blog”. I develop websites for a living, and I can see that blogs are becoming more and more important. I felt I needed to familiarise myself with both the mechanism for running a blog (Permalinks, trackbacks etc), the etiquette, and of course the software behind it, in this case Wordpress. The easiest way to do this is to start my own - even if no-one reads it.

Constructive Procrastination

Working from home, I do on occasions find my mind wandering! I thought I may as well allow my mind to wonder somewhere creative! I’m not sure if this has happened though!

Passing on Knowledge

Occasionally I have to hack a piece of software, or spend ages trying to find the best way to fix a problem, and I like to share it with the world. Not all of my posts of this type have become popular, but some have. Examples are the Text Copying problem, fixing a bug in a Wordpress template, and instructions on how to use OpenID with your blog. The first two have had moderate success, the last one not as much!

Money

I think I always hoped my writings would become popular and I would be able to make money from advertising. I’m not thinking this is unlikely, but I think the hope will always be there in the back of my mind.

Fame?

There are lots of people out there who become well known for their writings on their blogs, whether technical or just about their every day lives (although I can’t think of any at the moment!), and I think I always hoped to become famous, or at least respected for my blog, or at least one post, but I always knew this was unlikely.

Personal Diary

Finally, whether it was my intention or not, this blog serves as a personal diary that I can look back on, just like people used to write “Dear Diary”, and is a great place to vent my thoughts.

So, there are my reasons for writing. If anyone does read this come and say hi, and you have your own blog, why not think about your reasons. Add them to the comments, or write your own post and let me know.

If anyone with their own personal blog let’s me know, I will add your feed to my reader and start to read yours (at least till I get bored!)

I read a few days ago that the wedding list service Wrapit has gone into administration. This is bad news for couples who have their wedding lists with them, and the guests who’ve purchased gifts.

I believe any gifts already in the warehouse should get to the happy couples, and guests who used credit cards should be able to get their money back, but it’s not good for newly-weds at what is meant to be the happiest time of their life.

This is probably a good time to announce my new project: What We’d Like. This is a service like Wrapit that allows couples to create wedding lists. This difference is that guests purchase the gift in the old fashioned way - from whichever shop they wish, online or in person, and give the gift to the couple themselves. This means there is no risk as we won’t handle any of the money.

The other major benefit is that you can ask the guests to decide on the exact gift. For example you can ask for a “Picture of York”, and your guests can chose a nice one to give the gift a personal touch.

I developed the basic service when we got married 3 years ago because we didn’t want to be tied down to a particular shop. Recently some friends asked if I could do something similar for them so I started developing the site to something more polished. The site will be completely funded by advertising so there are no fees to couples or guests.

Currently the service is in public beta, but is in a usable (and presentable) state, with new features being added constantly. If you would be interested in using the service please contact me, or why not check out the What We’d Like Facebook Page.