bitdepth

Bitdepth Year 6

Six years ago I started this blog and it’s been my online home for that time as everything changed around it. Now everything is spread out much more and overall it’s a lot easier to do this stuff and you don’t need to get your hands very dirty with HTML and SQL and CSS to have a blog. As I write this, I’m not even using my own laptop and not having my laptop with all of the files also gives me the opportunity to reflect on how things have changed over the past few years with the technology that I use to communicate with you and how everything ties together.

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May 19, 2008 43things, bitdepth, blog, blosxom, flickr, history, marsedit, twitter, wordpress

Changing Bitdepth

When I started this site in May of 2002, I was using Rael Dornfest‘s amazing Blosxom script that takes text files and converts them into postings. It’s worked without a hitch for over five years, but I’ve been wanting to use a more comprehensive system for a while now. Yesterday I installed WordPress and migrated over. Importing my previous posts was a bit of a pain, but I was able to do it. The biggest changes are in the look and in the addition of comments to the site. One of the reasons that I haven’t been here as much over the past while is probably the lack of comments and interaction as there is nothing like an audience to motivate you and I’ve been spending more time where I’m connecting with people.
Things have changed a lot with web hosting and blogging systems over the past five years. Configuring and installing systems is much easier now and for many people, they won’t have to use MySQL commands or even use the terminal to set up and configure things. I think that I’ve struck a good balance between a system that I install myself and can configure and change without a lot of effort.
Now instead of using a text editor for posts, I’m using MarsEdit and I have to say that it is a fun and geeky day for me and I hope to be writing more and to be hearing from you as well. Thanks for being here and enjoy the new look and site.

December 2, 2007 blog, blosxom, marsedit, wordpress

Bitdepth is Four

bitdepth is four Looking at the date I realize that I’ve had this blog up and running for four years now. It’s the beginning of year five and I looked back over some of what I had written. I tended to ramble more in the past, but the focus more recently on this site has been on films. My posting times tend to be variable, but I’m still using the same tools. The site is served up with the same Blosxom script by Rael Dornfest that I’ve been running for a few years and I still write the posts in BBEdit. I am planning to move over to Typo, which I like very much, but I have to import all of the entries first, so I’m waiting until I have time to do that.
What has changed is that I’m posting more online in other places. Flickr has added a whole visual dimension to what I do online and the Blogger-hosted Bitdepth Digest is a place to post shorter things. A more frequent presence is also maintained through 43 Things, and then 43 Places, and 43 People and especially All Consuming, where I now keep track of (mainly) the films that I consume. The other big change is the podcast that my son John and I do at Bad Metaphor. Podcasting didn’t exist when I started this, but it’s definitely around now.
Thanks for reading, stay in touch, and I’ll write more soon.

May 10, 2006 43things, allconsuming, badmetaphor, bitdepth, blogger, blogging, blosxom, flickr, writing

Weaving a Web

One thing that I’ve noticed is that I’m increasing my presence online. I don’t know if the quality is increasing or if it is just more stuff, but I think that one of the reasons that I’m more prolific now is that is easier. I love using Blosxom to blog because I can create the entries with any text editor, but I always use BBEdit to write for bitdepth. But the bitdepth entries aren’t as frequent as I wanted them to be, but now with my increased use of Blogger for Screen Arts and now bitdepth digest, I blog more often using Blogger. The other things that I use often are Flickr and, increasingly, 43 Things. One thing that all these sites have in common are their fairly flexible and open APIs, which allows the information and the sites to interact with other applications and sites. What it means practically is that I now am able to blog using Flickr and 43 Things and to have Flickr images automatically show up on my 43things page as well as here on bitdepth.
Very exciting things are also happening with Technorati adding watchlists where you can follow discussions in the blogosphere based on keywords. I keep track of just about all of this stuff using NetNewsWire as if there isn’t an RSS feed, I’m not as interested in it as I don’t want to spend the time looking around to see if anything has changed. While Flickr and 43things are very fun and aren’t technically oriented, Technorati is a geeky data-rich backend that is starting to have some very cool applications built on their API.
So the exciting thing now is that we’re moving away from needing to use one application to view and share and just find and create and share. It’s exciting when you don’t have to code or understand how to code to use things (but if you can, it’s even more exciting now as you have a lot more to play with).

January 8, 2005 43things, bbedit, bitdepth, blogger, blosxom, flickr, netnewswire, screenarts, technorati

Bye Bye Browser

I’ve been using the browser less and less since I started using NetNewsWire to read RSS feeds. It’s one the best shareware investments that I’ve made. It’s simple, well-designed and works well. Most of the time I can quickly get a lot of information via the feeds and NNW lets me check out things that I’m really interested in. When I used to click on a link it would open in my browser which is usually Safari, but I’m using Firefox a bit now. Now I’m using the latest beta which makes a good thing even better. Support has been added for Atom feeds and the weblog editor has been broken out into a new application called MarsEdit. The thing that has changed the way I look at things the most is that now (thanks to WebCore) I view pages within a tab that pops up in NNW. It’s a great idea and now I’m going outside to the browser less when I want to check something out. Simplifying things is always good.
MarsEdit is something that I wasn’t sure I’d use that much. But I’ve been using it a bit and I think that I’ll use it more. I’m not using Movable Type as much now which is what I used the weblog editor for before, but I am using Blogger and I can post to Blogger using MarsEdit with the quirk of not being able to set the title, but that’s on the way. I’m also thinking of using it a bit with this blog which is Blosxom-based with me editing the posts in BBEdit. The change in the interface of MarsEdit is that it now works and looks a bit more like email, which makes a lot of sense. The email workflow is closer to how blogging works intellectually. That being said, why am I writing longer posts now?

October 17, 2004 atom, bbedit, blogger, blosxom, firefox, marsedit, movabletype, netnewswire, rss, safari, software, web

Hacking and Making Stuff

Hacking is moving into the mainstream. O’Reilly has their successful “Hacks” series of books and people just can’t resist finding out how things work and making them better. 2600 is now 20 years old and they’re still as relevant as ever (maybe even more now). Lately I’ve been thinking about hacking and making stuff a lot. I listened to the Paul Graham talk about hackers and painters with Doug Kaye thanks to IT Conversations. I have to get Paul Graham’s book, named Hackers and Painters which collects some of his essays together. Then over the past few weeks I found myself looking at not martha and reading about the early 2005 launch of Make from O’Reilly. Make is halfway between a book and a magazine and it’s going to be filled with stuff to make. I’m looking forward to it. This blog runs with the tiny and cool Blosxom Perl script and I’ve been looking at Ruby and the very cool Instiki Wiki which is written in Ruby. People are doing some great stuff with simple technologies. But it’s not only the new stuff that is cool. I also saw someone repair a chair and glue it together using rope clamps. Just simple twine tied to itself and tightened with a wooden dowel. It’s efficient, environmentally-friendly and cheap. I have to start making more stuff myself.

August 19, 2004 2600, blosxom, hacks, instiki, itconversations, magazine, make, oreilly, perl, ruby, wiki

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