After some time, following a range of blogs, podcasts, Twitter and RSS feeds - contributing to forums, chatting to people all over the world in a variety of ways, the time has come to create a visible online presence.
The first move was to set up a free account with Google Apps; a service which allows the hosting of a web domain, and provides basic web page creation tools. Some of the other features within Google Apps, such as docs and calendar, I will probably not use so much, as they are duplicated in my virtual life by other applications. I’m pleased with the domain I have managed to acquire - indeed I was quite surprised that it was available. At the very least, Google Apps gives me a safe place to park the domain whilst I decide what format it will eventually take. For the time being, I will keep the domain name private, until there is sufficient content to make it worthwhile to go “live”.
I heard of Tumblr a few years ago on the Net@Nite podcast, hosted by Leo Laporte and Amber MacArthur. Of course there are more well known blogging tools available, and maybe I will experiment with a selection of them over time and post my findings. For now, however, Tumblr meets my needs as it is incredibly simple and also has an iPhone app for on-the-go posts.
So, this is the first post. Hopefully there will be many more to come, as I find my way in this disjointed reality. I hope you, the reader will come back and read more of what I find to say.
Thank you for taking the time to make this first visit.