Once Upon a Geek

As usual, I will be attending the upcoming Dragon*Con convention.  If you’re not familiar with it, Dragon*Con is the largest multi-media, popular culture convention focusing on science fiction and fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film in the US.  Dragon*Con 2008 will be held Labor Day weekend (August 29 - September 1, 2008) in Atlanta, GA.

Several of my buddies from THE UNIQUE GEEK will also be there.  We’ve started a Dragon*Con countdown over a THE UNIQUE GEEK website.  The countdown is basically daily lists of things to keep in mind and pictures from Dragon*Con’s past.  Check it out!

And if you’re thinking about going to Dragon*Con, drop me a line! 

So I finally broke down and upgraded to WordPress 2.5.  When I first created the “Once Upon a Geek” blog, the current release was 2.3.  I set up the blog using version 2.3, got it just like I wanted it, and then launched “Once Upon a Geek”.  Something like 15 pico-seconds after I launched my site, they rolled out version 2.5.  And apparently there were enough upgrades that everyone and their second cousin have been pushing me to change up.

Well I’m on vacation this week, so I took some time to do it.  It was somewhat of a pain: deactivating all my plug-ins, seeking out versions of plug-ins that worked with WordPress 2.5, deleting and replacing all the files, reactivating plug-ins, etc … etc.. blah ditty-blah…

With all that said and done, I’ve finished updating the blog.  Now we just have to see if everything is working.  If you run across a bug, or some feature doesn’t appear to be working anymore, please give me a shout.

As always, thanks for reading.

Hey gang - I just wanted to let you know about some new functionality for comments on my blog.  I think this new feature will make comments much easier for users to follow.

The new feature allows someone making a comment to have further comments to that same post e-mailed directly to them.  For example, let’s say you make a derogatory comment on my post about Aquaman.  Instead of having to remember to come back to my site to see if I wrote a scathing comment back, you can just opt to have any further comments e-mailed directly to you.  Very handy!

I believe this will help to foster dialogue back and forth, rather than having to manually check for responses to your comments.  Below is a screen shot showing you where you select to have follow-up comments sent to you via e-mail.

If you are running WordPress and are interested in this feature, it’s a plugin called “Subscribe to Comments“.  It hasn’t been tested for WordPress 2.5 yet, but it definitely works on 2.3.1.

If you are reading this, please take a second to visit my site (http://onceuponageek.com/) and take the poll in the right-hand sidebar.  I’m just curious how everyone reads my blog.  For example, do you read it on my site, or through LiveJournal, or through an RSS feeder, or some other way I’m not even thinking of.

Regardless, thanks for reading my blog!  And please take just a couple seconds to vote in the poll.

Thanks,

The Irredeemable Shag

Not exactly a geek-related post, but after all this is my blog … so I think its fair game.

Y’know, in recent months one of the most offensive questions I’ve heard is, “Didn’t you read my blog?” Now part of the offensiveness comes from the delivery. Imagine it’s being asked by someone very incredulously and the tone of their voice suggests what they really mean is, “I’m not going to respond to you! I’ve already blogged on that very topic. You should already know my thoughts on this issue. How dare you not read my blog! It’s the most important thing on Earth! It reveals my innermost thoughts which I’m allowing you and the rest of the world to be privy to! If you haven’t read my blog than this face-to-face conversation is meaningless!” … well … that’s a rough translation of the subtext behind the delivery of, “Didn’t you read my blog?”  Its worth noting that the phrase “Obviously you don’t read my blog,” has basically the same effect.

For those of you that have ever uttered that question/accusation, please continue…

From dictionary.com
blog - noun
an online diary; a personal chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page

di•a•ry - noun
a daily record, usually private, esp. of the writer’s own experiences, observations, feelings, attitudes, etc.

Okay, that seems pretty clear. A blog is an online record of the writer’s own experiences, observations, and feelings. Therefore a blog is typically something very personal. So if a blog is personal, it’s really about the writer… not the reader. That leads me to believe that a blogger should be publishing simply for their own personal satisfaction. They should not be publishing because they expect every person they’ve ever met to read their blog and take it to heart.

Therefore, just because you have a blog it doesn’t make it required reading for all your friends. And don’t be surprised or act condescending when you find out someone you know doesn’t read your blog.  You should publish your blog for yourself, and if someone reads it then celebrate! That’s great! Thank them for reading your blog and move on with your day.  It also doesn’t mean they should be expected to leave you a comment every time you post.  I subscribe to many of my friends blogs, I read many of the entries (but not all), I enjoy them thoroughly, but I may not don’t bother to comment.

So next time you find yourself in a conversation and it seems to be re-treading something you already blogged about, please don’t ask the person, “Didn’t you read my blog?”  Why not say something like, “That’s interesting. I wrote a blog on this very topic.”  See, doesn’t that sound nicer?

There you have it. Don’t expect people to read your blog. Just be happy if they do.

/rant 

*Whew* I’m glad I got that out of my system. Now I won’t have to hear that question ever again. Well… y’know… because all my friends read my blog, right? 

Sorry about this… Due to a one-time update on my site, I’d like to ask anyone who has already subscribed to my RSS feed to re-subscribe. The easiest way would be to delete your current subscription, and then subscribe again. Sorry about this inconvenience.  It shouldn’t happen again.  It’s not that your current feed won’t work, it’s just that this update will make things work better on the admin site.

If you need the new RSS feed URL, it is: http://onceuponageek.com/feed/ 

Thanks for your understanding.