This blog won’t have a specific theme, but will feature anything that interests me.

I enjoy messing around with computers and other technology. Microsoft has managed to simultaneously create the worst version of Windows ever, along with the worst version of Office, so one day I may write all that down – but only when I can bring some coherence to the rant. I’ve dabbled with Macs, but have never been impressed enough to make the switch. I’ve fiddled with Linux and set up servers running OpenBSD (yes, it’s obscure, but now is not the time to explain) – so HOWTOs may follow. When it comes to phones I’m happy with Android, although if that didn’t exist I’d probably use an iPhone and be happy with it – I just prefer to use the operating system that allows me most flexibility, and for me that’s Android, even if that means spending more time configuring things that most people would want to do. So if I find useful stuff on Android it may crop up here. I have no illusions about Google – at the moment I use their services as a necessary evil. I’ve spent too much time playing computer games, and still dabble from time to time, but if and until Valve release Half Life 2 Episode 3 don’t expect to see much on games here.

I take a lot of photos, mostly as visual notes for work, but also of anything that I spot on my travels. Photography used to be a serious hobby of mine, and I have a large number of 35mm slides that I plan to scan one day. When that happens they will feature here. A long time ago I turned my number one hobby – gardening – into my work, and over the years that has meant I’ve wanted to spend less of my leisure time one it. However, as many of the photos I take are of horticultural subjects, that’s how this interest will manifest here.

I like Movies and TV, mostly Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Crime Dramas, so they will make an appearance. I spend a lot of time listening to music (classical and contemporary) so that may feature too – some videos have already been posted. I don’t read as much as I should, but as completing a book is a Big Thing for me it could prompt me to post here.

“Procrastination is the Thief of Time” – and to avoid my time being stolen I have invested substantial amounts of it looking at ways of improving my personal productivity. I’m still waiting for the investment to pay off, but I have picked up some useful tips on the way, and they may feature here too. One unexpected consequence of looking into efficient ways of pulling together information has been to rediscover the seductive charms of pens, ink and paper. My Pinterest account is a bit of a giveaway on that, and there will posts on this subject. I’m not sure I’m glad I fell down that particular rabbit hole.

As more posts appear, so will the Categories and Tags, which are shown at the foot of the site. RSS feeds for both categories and feeds are available at http://stationaryjourney.com/category/name-of-category/feed and http://stationaryjourney.com/tag/name-of-tag/feed respectively. If you are clever enough to be using an RSS reader you should be able to work out what to do. With the mention of RSS comes the opportunity to take a pop at Google for shutting down Google Reader (I now use Tiny Tiny RSS) so here is the obligatory Downfall video:

I thought I would start the New Year with an explanation of why I don’t post very much.

I like tinkering around with computers and software. There are worse hobbies, but over the years they been vast consumers of my time with very little to show for it. After messing around with a few servers I set myself the task of setting up a personal blogging platform, initially to share links to things I had found to useful, as well as for posting the occasional howto and random thoughts. I quickly settled on WordPress, and installed it on a VPS. All was fine, but I rarely found the inspiration to actually write anything.

As time passed I realised that other platforms were better for collecting links (e.g. Delicious) and social networks were better for sharing random thoughts. This was a long process but I realised that I need to pull these posts on the different networks back into a Lifestream. While other platforms exist for this too, a Lifestream could be retrofitted to WordPress , so that was the next step. This proved to be easier said than done though, because the social networks like to capture information and cherish it within their ad serving citadels walled gardens. I can just about prise my posts out of the hands of Twitter and Google+ and aggregate them in the Lifestream (though specially generated RSS feeds), but Facebook is a lost cause. This is no great hardship though, as I don’t think anyone would be interested in my Facebook posts other than the people I am friends with on Facebook. The generated RSS feeds for Google+ and Twitter could fail the next time they change their APIs. Again no great loss in the case of Google+ (my disenchantment with Google may form a future long post) but I would be more unhappy if the Twitter feed RSS failed – I do actually post to it from time to time.

Along the way I’ve switched from the VPS to shared hosting, and the composition of the Lifestream has evolved. I’ve also been tweaking things along the way and I’ve got to the stage where where I will be happy enough to start posting on a regular basis. So I suppose that’s my resolution for this year – post more. I’ll start by setting the objective of at least one post per week. Let’s see how far I get…