TeochewThunder: Year One (Part 2/2)

OK, so what goes into the blogging process? I think it would be clearer if I first started with aims.

On target?

My Aims

Simplicity. I want this to be a tech blog, but I want it to be a tech blog that can act as a bridge between the layperson and the techie. Therefore, I'm not going to spew long complicated jargon-y words just to sound clever. I may not always succeed in this, though.

Friendliness. No hostility. OK, not much, at any rate. This isn't one of those personal blogs where the blogger constantly goes off on a long rant on what's wrong with the people around him and how misunderstood he is. I want to keep things light-hearted. That doesn't always work, however. Some topics just aren't light.

Neutrality. Some topics are divisive. That's fine and dandy. But I generally try to avoid taking sides, not because I'm too much of a pussy to take a stand, but because I think being extreme helps no one. You pick a side, and you automatically develop a blind spot. And blind spots are bad for techies. Blog content suffers for it. But instead of taking neither side, I prefer to take both sides.

Constant quantity. A consistent stream of content. Something dependable. I'm actively avoiding cases of dropping out of sight one month, and posting like mad next month. If you take a look, you may notice that with the exception of October 2014 when this blog started, every month from there on there have been 5 to 7 blog posts. This is not a coincidence. I like to pace things.

Variety. Sometimes I rant, sometimes I get technical, sometimes I get instructional. Sometimes I talk about front-end, or back-end, or the database. Sometimes I talk about the business end of things. But there will not be a month where I do any one of these to the exclusion of all else. There's got to be a healthy mix of everything.

Point, A, Point B.

The process behind a TeochewThunder blogpost

Conceptualization. It may be on a bus ride, or during a few laps in the pool, or over lunch. Or perhaps the ol' lightbulb will spark to life while browsing in the library. Or during a conversation with a fellow techie. Ideas for blogpost topics pop up ever so often. Taxi Turmoil, for example, was brought to life during a conversation with an ex-classmate turned taxi driver. The Bowline Bend Analogy was written after an IT Consultant gave me some feedback on my blog. The various Spot The Bug posts were penned sporadically as I made mistakes while coding, and decided to document them for posterity.

Research. This may take the form of interviews, online searches, library haunting, all in the name of getting the information I need; and ensuring that my facts are credible, if not rock-solid.

Content. Then comes the actual writing, and the insertion of codes, screenshots and stock photos as illustrations. I don't have that much faith in my writing that I wouldn't resort to visual aids.

Final touch. As mentioned earlier, I generally try to keep things light-hearted. That usually manifests itself in a pun at the end of the blogpost. Generally that works well, but in some instances have backfired. In the case of The Tragic Case of Izabel Laxamana, I had ended the blogpost with a pun only to be informed by my test audience (yes I have those, doesn't everyone?) that it was flippant and disrespectful to the subject of my blogpost. I agreed, and changed it.

Rewording. Sometimes I get carried away, and write a bit more than I should. Sometimes I get a bit too harsh, and use way more profanity than is needed. When I finish a draft, it rarely gets published right away unless it's breaking news. No, I go over it with a critical eye first. (Is it too long? Did I belabor some points? If so then it's time for a bit of truncation, or in certain cases, to split the blogpost into multiple parts. Of Gratitude and Loyalty is one such example, as are some of the web tutorials. Perhaps I came on a bit too strongly in certain areas? Sounded a bit too defensive? Time to tone it down. Does my choice of words - usually swear words - detract from the essence of the blogpost? Clean it up.) It could take months before the draft is published. One of the advantages of posting it on the Internet over saying stuff out loud, is that you get plenty of time to choose your words wisely. I wouldn't want to come back to my blog archive to find that I had droned on endlessly like some self-important mofo over one point, or emoted like some angsty teenager over another. Not that I have anything against bloggers who do those - I'd just prefer to keep this to a minimum here.

Those trends...

Demographics

You know who reads TeochewThunder, you know what goes into TeochewThunder, now the burning question: who reads what?

The most popular blogposts tend to be those dealing with local events, such as Web Tutorial: LKY's Memorial and The Great Widget Falsification.

Following a distant second are rants, such as Of Gratitude and Loyalty. Even this is context-based; Part 2 appears to be way more popular than Part 1, probably because Part 2 criticizes employers while Part 1 criticizes employees.

Of moderate success are the web tutorials, and I'm glad for that because I worked pretty damn hard on those. Reviews, on the other hand, seem to enjoy less success.

Technical snippets are the least popular, but they're important. To me.

Finally...

That's it for the year-end report. For a virgin effort, I think it went pretty well. Here's looking forward to another productive blogging year.

Thanks for tuning in. I'll keep you posted.
T___T

TeochewThunder: Year One (Part 1/2)

And with the arrival of October 2015, TeochewThunder has passed its first year. I'd like to thank my esteemed readers for being patient with the sometimes monotonous nature of this tech blog - at times too technical for the layperson, at times too simplistic for the tech guru. And, at times too ranty for the weak of stomach. It's been an interesting ride.

How did it all begin?

It was in the October of 2014 when I met Catherine Ling. Catherine is a food blogger of some fame, and runs Caremberu, a food blog with some very well-written reviews and appetizing pictures. We got along swimmingly, and I revealed that I had nursed the idea of starting a blog. She told me to go for it.

This got me thinking. I'd been nursing the idea since late 2012. Several things have put the idea on hold - job changes, the acquisition of my first (and hopefully last) home, and so on. Catherine was dead on. It was time to stop talking and start writing.

Thus, here we are.

Why blog?

To go back even further, why had I been thinking about blogging? My hands were full with household chores, bills and work. It wasn't like there was nothing to do. No, this went beyond that.

Bits and pieces of a puzzle.

Firstly, as a web developer trained in the 90s, a lot of my knowledge tends to be piecemeal. A bit of this and that, taken off various sources. I wanted a place where I could document everything I'd learned in the process of being a web developer. A technical scrapbook of sorts. This would include not only technical knowledge, but also knowledge of the industry. My experiences. My reactions. What I've learned, not just technically, but personally.

The Third Level of expertise.

Secondly, there's this thing about expertise. I tend to divide expertise into three levels. Level One - how readily you can understand concepts when explained. Level Two - how readily you can apply those concepts. And finally, Level Three - how well you can explain those concepts to someone else. I was going for gold. And starting a blog seemed like a step in the right direction, a way to keep honing my craft. Because the amount of research needed to ensure that whatever I post is factually correct, I level up in the process of writing these blogposts. It's different from doing, where all I need to do is ensure that shit works, to hell with why it works or how to explain why it works.

I'm good, baby.

Thirdly, putting modesty aside, I've been told I have a way with the English language. And that I should totally do something with that.

Who reads TeochewThunder?

It's a very modest demographic. My friends, ex-colleagues and family, some of whom receive special mention from time to time. And when I write something that resonates, I'm rewarded by them sharing the link.

Damn, that's dry.

Laypersons who read this blog will sometimes find the content dry. Terribly dry. Dryer than the Sahara. When I comment on life in the office, I like to think that's where we find common ground, regardless of whether or not they are web developers.

Techies who read this blog will often already know the stuff I'm going on about, like in the web tutorials, for example. But there's a million different ways to accomplish the same things, and often these guys are just comparing notes. Because how I do things isn't necessarily how they would do it, and vice versa. That's how we all learn. There are no blanket solutions.

What goes into TeochewThunder?

The focus of this blog started out pretty narrow, but evolved to become a bit more inclusive as time went by. So what do I write about?

Tech. In particular, web tech. Tech news, tech snippets, tech tutorials, tech reviews. Experiences as a web developer. Experiences as an office drone in general. If it doesn't come under any of those, I don't blog about it. Focus. I don't want to be rambling on about a million things all at once. To elaborate...

Tech news. News about the web industry, news about how internet technology has wormed its way into our lives. Even non-related news may get exposure on my blog if I can wrangle a tech angle out of it. See the death of LKY.

Tech snippets. Little programming or coding elements, and my musings about how they work. This will be very varied. The skillset of a web developer demands it. Things like Spot The Bug are a prime example.

Tech tutorials. Self-explanatory. This particular feature was requested by my sister, not that she seems to have used any of it.

Tech reviews. From time to time, I may offer my two cents on some of the products involving computer technology. These may be reviews on movies, apps, software or books (both fiction and otherwise).

Office experiences. Part and parcel of being a web developer. I share my view of how the industry works. Sometimes, it's very developer-specific, and sometimes it's a bit more general.

Next

I go into detail about the blogging process. Stay tuned!