Category: blogs


Sometimes I just want to quit the Internets

Filed Under: blogs, internet by Noor — 3 Comments
August 8, 2010

I woke up this morning to find that this here blog and the blog over at my portfolio site are being blocked by Google for being “attack sites.” I’m not sure how long they’ve been blocked because it wasn’t like anybody notified me. I just happened to pull up my blog (whatever it was I wanted to do I totally can’t remember anymore) when I saw a scary warning in my browser. I tried refreshing and even switched to another browser but that didn’t help. After doing a bit of digging around, I concluded that it probably had something to do with my WordPress installations (the blog software I use) and started cleaning up old web directories and installing the latest WP build. I should note that I’m really simplifying this entire process which involved way too many annoying steps, switching between two laptops, periods of breaks to go do other things that I actually planned on doing today that did not involve WordPress or blogs, and plenty of moments of panic, anger, and sheer frustration. It looks like Google has lifted the ban on this blog but not on the one on my portfolio. I fixed up the blog on my portfolio just a few hours ago so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it will be back to normal tomorrow morning.

I went for a run in the midst of all this mess to clear my mind and actually accomplish the workout that I had planned on doing today before this whole stupid thing started. As I was running, I started thinking very seriously about just shutting off both of my blogs. I’ve never been very good about blogging on my portfolio – I never seem to have enough things to say about technology that I would be willing to share in public, rather than express more privately at work. I do blog here on a more frequent basis but that’s not saying much. I’m no longer an uninhibited 21 year old sharing any little thought that comes across my mind (I don’t even do that on Twitter or Facebook). I’m far more concerned than I ever have in my life about my privacy and the image I present online. This sort of stuff used to be really fun for me but I no longer get much pleasure around crafting my own little online identity. I really can’t think of a place online right now that is as private, anonymous, and fun as blogging used to feel. Now I just think about who will read it and what they’ll think or if whatever awesome idea or revelation I have will be stolen by somebody else.

But for whatever reason, I can’t see myself shutting down this blog anytime soon. Maybe it is because I’ve had some sort of blog for nine years. But I also think there is something very attractive about this format itself – the promise of an audience (but judging by the comments I don’t get, I don’t think anybody actually reads this blog anymore) and that dream that one day this blog could become something more (even though I know that building a popular blog requires a lot of hard work and luck).

Sometimes I wish I could just get myself to write all the ideas and thoughts I have floating in my head in my paper journal or the Word document I started about a year ago to kick off writing a book about my various life experiences. But for whatever reason, I’m more likely to write here than I am in either of those places, which I find rather perplexing. After all, what is so different about this giant text box than the giant text box in Word?! I have a couple of ideas (lack of editing tools make writing faster + notion that somebody might leave a comment) but I’m not 100% sure. I am hoping that this little incident will get me to dust off that Word document to write about those things that I just can’t share here (heck something happened just a few days ago that is blog-worthy but not appropriate for public consumption).

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changes

Filed Under: blogs, losing weight by Noor — Leave a comment
February 22, 2009

A few weeks ago, I started a new blog over at Blogger to document my weight loss process and my thoughts and feelings about the whole thing. Instead of writing about that stuff here, I thought it might make things more organized if I had a separate blog for that kind of content. Deep down inside, though, I threw it on Blogger instead of here because it made me feel less exposed. It was sort of like I was putting it aside in some blog ghetto that isn’t as easy to find or discover as my main blog. Even though I’m far more comfortable than I’ve ever been talking and writing about my weight and my body, my project with my body still feels very personal. At the same time, though, I really don’t have much else to write about here. This project has consumed most of my time during the past couple of years and it has become such a huge part of my identity that it just felt wrong to have to maintain two blogs (one about my life and another about my weight loss) when the two things are essentially the same. I merged all of the weight loss content I had posted on the other blog into this blog. You can find those posts under the weight loss category.

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neglected

Filed Under: blogs, reflections by Noor — 6 Comments
May 21, 2008

I have neglected my blog. Again.

I hate neglecting my blog. There’s an odd sort of guilt associated with it. A bunch of factors are to blame – my various microblogging/social networking efforts (Twitter, Facebook, flickr) and my desire to sensor myself (if only I’m as audacious as I used to be at 21). I’ve been thinking lately that I may try the private LiveJournal route (gasp! LiveJournal?!? Have I sunk *that* low?). There’s a lot happening in my life right now but most of it isn’t the sort of thing I readily want to share in public. But it is the sort of stuff I want to share with my close friends. At the same time, I hate making things private (except with flickr) – I always worry about making my friends use yet another service to keep track of me. And I feel weird about having another place to write, when this has been my place to do so for so long. And I really love the WordPress UI. So I’m a bit conflicted tonight about it all. And I can’t seem to write whole sentences that don’t start with so or and (my high school English teachers would be utterly horrified).

I suppose I could always try the private post feature in WordPress.

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six years

Filed Under: blogs, reflections, site notes, social computing, social software by Noor — 3 Comments
October 26, 2007

I’ve somehow missed it yet again – my six year blogiversary!  I started officially blogging on October 1st, 2001.  I’m amazed that I’m still blogging and have somehow managed to turn it into a professional interest.  A lot of things have changed in my life since October 2001 – I don’t live in IL, I’m in my late 20s, I’m not in college, and I work in a different field.  Lately, my blogging has been fairly sporadic and other social media formats have taken more of my time (flickr, Facebook, Twitter).  As cool as the explosion of social media has been in the past few years, I still miss how exclusive blogging used to be.  I miss reading blogs that were authentic – not commerical enterprises.  I miss the social connections that I was able to make at that time, simply because there weren’t that many other people participating in this medium.  There’s something about this format [large text box + one:many + my own space that isn't part of something else] that I still find engaging and so much more effective at communicating my ideas and documenting my life.

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blog? what blog?

Filed Under: blogs, daily rambles, site notes by Noor — Leave a comment
October 1, 2007

Hey, look, it’s that time of the year where I apologize for ignoring my blog!  I can’t believe I haven’t blogged for nearly two months!  When I was conducting research in grad school, I didn’t consider blogs to be active if they hadn’t been updated for a month.

I’ve become one of THOSE bloggers.

Alas, I’m not sure how much of my life needs to be documented in this format anymore – what with posting to flickr and twitter on a weekly basis.  And now it seems everyone that I know and their mother is on Facebook  . . . and well, there is only so many hours in a day.

I have been fairly busy over the past couple of months.  In case you somehow missed it in my flickr stream, I finally moved to my new apartment in Mountain View.  The move went smoothly and I unpacked in record time (2 days!).  The apartment is great and it has been kind of fun being on the other side of town and getting to explore that.  For instance, I now have a new grocery store – yes, City people, these are the things that are exciting in the South Bay.

I did have a lot of little issues when I first moved in (like the dishwasher stopped working one day and then the washing machine stopped working one weekend) but everything seems to be fixed now.  The number of maintenance requests that I had filed had gotten so bad that I could just see the leasing office people grimace every time I walked in there with yet another one.

The weekend before I moved, I went down to San Diego to visit Tracey and Erin.  It was really fun getting to hang out with both of them, especially since I’ve known them from two totally different periods in my life (grad school and elementary school).  We did A LOT over the weekend . . . and I even ended up with a pretty bad sunburn.

Aside from moving and the San Diego trip, I finally caved in and bought an Xbox, which has probably been the most fun entertainment purchase I’ve made in years (it has also been consuming a lot of my free time, hence the lack of blogging).  I’ve been mostly playing San Andreas and the Xbox has now replaced my dead dvd player.

I’m going to be on vacation starting Wednesday through the rest of the week for a grand Midwestern tour.  I’m going home for a couple of days then heading to Iowa for Matt & Maggie’s wedding.  Yay, Iowa!  I really can’t contain my excitement about this vacation – Edwardsville AND Iowa in one week?!? :p

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so much for posting ACTUAL content

Filed Under: blogs, site notes by Noor — 9 Comments
June 5, 2007

blog

I sat down tonight to actually write a couple of blog posts I’ve been thinking about for a few days. Horrified by the sheer ugliness of my blog skin, I decided to put my web design freak on and redesign the skin. I’m happy to report that even after several years of minimal web design exposure, I still haven’t forgotten how to use Fireworks or update style sheets. I’m pretty happy with the end result. I also updated my stale about page and redesigned my favicon.

Of course, user feedback will be duly noted and ignored accommodated. ;)

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comment free-for-all

Filed Under: blogs, site notes by Noor — 30 Comments
March 21, 2007

I know I haven’t been doing a great job of updating this blog lately but the lack of comments on my recent posts is depressing!  I think it is time to have a comment open-mike night.  I’m always curious about who is actually reading this blog (if anyone).  So, if you’re reading this post right now, leave a comment with your name, blog, and how you got here.

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thoughts on microblogging

Filed Under: blogs, ideas, internet, social computing by Noor — 15 Comments
December 22, 2006

During the past few months, I’ve been observing some changes in the blogging behaviors of many of my friends. I’ve been referring to their behavior as microblogging. I thought I was onto something new but a quick Live search reveals that the term has been floating around for awhile (just when I thought I had invented a new term!). I couldn’t find anything that actually defined it, though, so I figured I’d give my notion of what it means, what I’ve been observing, and why it’s important.

What is it?

Microblogging is just what it sounds – it’s regularly publishing small pieces of content on the web. The best example of microblogging is Twitter (from the same guys that brought you old school pre-Google-acquisition Blogger and Odeo). Twitter is a nifty new service that allows you to create a microblog of small pieces of text that you can update from your mobile, IM, or via the Twitter site (for an example, here’s my Twitter).

However, I don’t believe that Twitter is the first (or only) form of microblogging. I’ve been observing this trend of micro-microcontent (many people think regular blogging is microcontent) in various forms – del.icio.us (when posting a small note along with a bookmark), flickr (when posting a bit of text along with a photo), Facebook status, and even adding a review on Yelp could be considered microblogging.

So the common denominator between these examples is short content and minimal commitment.

My observations

Recently, I’ve observed that many of my friends have shifted their posting from their regular blogs to these various forms of microblogs. For instance, some of my friends haven’t updated their blogs in weeks (and some haven’t even updated them in months) but these same friends regularly post to their del.icio.us and flickr accounts. What I find even more interesting are my friends who would never think of starting a blog but have now become regular contributors to their del.icio.us and/or flickr accounts.

Microblogs are more appealing for a number of reasons. First, they offer a low level of commitment from both the blogger and reader. The blogger posts much shorter content, which is easier to update. The reader doesn’t have to commit to reading a lengthy post that they may or may not like. Moreover, because the posts are so short, the reader is more likely to read them and possibly leave a comment in return. The comments fuel the microblogging fire. A comment reinforces the blogger, illustrating that not only is the blogger’s content being read, it is of enough interest to generate new micro-microcontent.

In addition, I don’t think microblogs carry the same pressure to regularly update content that we usually associate with regular blogging. Merely by their design and format, traditional blogs tend to emphasize the dates/times of updates and the frequency of posts. One of the first things that you tend to notice on a blog is when it was lasted updated. Some blogs even roll the content on the home page, so if a blogger hasn’t updated her blog she ends up with an embarrassingly empty home page. The same isn’t true for a flickr, del.icio.us, or Yelp account. You immediately see the last updated entries, whether they occurred today, last week, or three months ago. Moreover, the date of these entries isn’t as prominent in the design.

So what?

In a world where the term blog is overused and over-hyped and blogs are misused, it’s interesting and refreshing to observe these changes in the blog format. You certainly can’t create a community around your cause/product/grad program with an ill-conceived blog, and you’re certainly not going to do it if the format changes. I also feel that this deviation in blogging validates blogging and signals its maturity as a format.

Now what?

All of these observations are anecdotal in nature and merely based on the behavior of a very small and non-diverse sample. The real questions at this point are whether any of these thoughts are true when examined with a larger and more representative sample. Is this really a phenomenon? And what sort of people are doing this? Are those new to social software jumping in to microblogging and skipping past traditional blogging or is microblogging a path along the blogging continuum (read other blogs > start your own blog > start microblogging)?

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Oh behave!

Filed Under: blogs, site notes by Noor — 2 Comments
November 12, 2006

Since Akismet does a pretty good job controlling comment spam (it misses one or two every now and then) and I haven’t had any problems recently with abusive comments, I’ve removed comment moderation. That means that as long as you provide your name and email address, I don’t have to approve your comment for it to appear. Of course, I can always go back and delete your comment. Remember, I’m the dictator around this here blog.

So enjoy your new earned powers my little minions and leave as many comments about the Yoplait Whips! Chocolate Mousse Style Yogurt* as your heart desires.

—

* Even after posting it in February, the Yoplait Mousse post still receives comments from people whom I don’t know. I’m a little suspicious by the overly positive comments (“I enjoyed every spoonful”) and wonder if Yoplait is gaming my comments. How anyone could enjoy every spoonful of this stuff is beyond me. I still shudder when I see it in the dairy aisle at Safeway.

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Five year retrospective

Filed Under: blogs, ideas by Noor — 7 Comments
November 9, 2006

I started officially blogging on October 1, 2001. I had started adding updates to my personal website as early as December 2000 but I only became familiar with blogs (and actually figured out that what I was doing had a name) around September 2001.

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been blogging for five years (a half decade!). Other than maybe driving, I can’t think of too many other things that I’ve been doing for that long. In thinking about my blogging habits over the past five years (and looking through some of the archives), I’m amazed by how blogging and my own personal style have evolved.

When I first started blogging, I was 21 years old and a senior in college. When I first started blogging, my blog posts were all over the place, without any real focus or theme. I blogged almost everyday and most days I blogged multiple entries. At that time in my life, it was really important to capture all the really boring nuances of my life (some of you are yawing and thinking, “And this has changed?”). Even though I hardly ever discussed 9/11, I definitely started blogging because of it (perhaps more so on a subconscious level). When I first started reading through some of my early entries, I was really disappointed (and ashamed) with how little I wrote about what was happening in the world around me. At first glance, all I saw was a sheltered shallow self-absorbed kid. I then started thinking about what that time in my life was really like – I was terrified. It really felt like the whole world was coming apart. Aside from my family’s experiences during the first Gulf War (the extent of which I was a bit too young to fully realize), late 2001 and early 2002 were the grimmest geopolitical times I’d ever experienced (remember I grew up during the Clinton years). The economy fell apart and my job outlooks were bleak. Blogging was a way to put all of that aside (and sometimes to vent about it all). When I look back at those early posts, I’m amazed by how confessional and personal some of those early posts were. Even though I knew other people could read my blog, I’m not sure I really thought about it in that way. For a period of time (the first 6 or 7 months), my blog didn’t even have comments. Only after I had started blogging for at least a year did I make a connection between what I was writing and who was reading it.

When I entered SI, my blog became far more important in my social life. A lot of my friends already knew about blogs and some of them even started blogging while at SI. For that portion of my friends who blogged and read blogs, blogs became places where we could keep tabs on our friends and propagate inside jokes . . . . strategy hubs, if you will (OK, that’s taking that joke way too far). When I look through some of the comments that I get on this blog, I sometimes wonder if my blog has become clique-ish. Do you need to feel like you’re part of the club to leave a comment on this blog?

Today, when I blog, I’m very aware of my audience. I know other people can read my blog so I don’t share everything that happens in my life and I don’t even dare share anything as intimate as some of my early posts. I generally don’t post about politics or the news – mostly because I don’t think anyone who reads my blog really cares about my analysis of those topics. Based on my audience, I think I even have a pretty good idea of what sort of posts will generate more comments than others. And I’m disappointed when I compose what I presume to be a good post but it doesn’t actually receive many (or any) comments.

This may sound drastic but I truly believe that my blog has changed my life. I don’t think I would have ever discovered HCI, user experience, or social computing if it weren’t for keeping a blog and reading other people’s blogs.

As I was writing this post, I went back and perused through the archives and looked through what I was doing in Novembers past:

  • 2005 – I was so busy, I had no idea how I’d get everything that I needed to get done before Christmas break. Fitster was still a bunch of concepts in our heads and GSI-ing made me feel old.
  • 2004 – my first semester at SI, I was writing that horrible 501 paper (the did-you-do-your-readings assignment)
  • 2003 – I was applying to master’s programs and Sarah FINALLY released Afterglow.
  • 2002 – I voted for the first time.
  • 2001 – I was knee-deep in undergrad business classes . . . oh and my printer ran out of ink. I also bought tickets to my first River of Toys show, headlined by Natalie Merchant. John Mayer, who nobody had ever heard of, was playing, too.
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