TeochewThunder: Year Four (Part 2/2)

2018 certainly wasn't an underperforming year. While I never achieved the same popularity with the heights of 2017, there were still some unexpected successes. Also, the average number of views per blogpost went up. Unlike previous years, there aren't any posts with a dismal total of 10 to 20 views. I'm not sure if the numbers are to be believed, but I'll take what I can get!

Web Tutorials

With me picking up Ruby and experimenting with Ruby On Rails, there have been less web tutorials that can simply be run without a server. On one hand, this is a good thing; breadth in knowledge is enormously helpful to a developer. On the other hand, I might want to veer back to my HTML/CSS/JavaScript roots once in a while. Because it's huge fun.

Still, this year alone, there have been HTML/CSS/JavaScript, Ruby, Ruby On Rails, QBasic, PHP and AngularJS web tutorials. Not gonna lie there; I'm pretty proud of that diversity.

Reviews

As with the previous blogging year, there have been more reviews this blogging year. I see this trend continuing over the next few years - there's a ton of stuff I want to review but haven't quite had the chance.

There was also an introduction to a new kind of review - The Reference Review. Considering the sheer amount of hours I spent studying in between (and during) jobs, it's inevitable that I would review some of the books, websites and study materials that had helped me over the last few years.

Sometimes, viewership
feels like that...

Popular Posts

As mentioned earlier, there weren't many wildly popular posts even though the viewership went up across the board. Only two posts really stand out.

The first is Ten Principles of Adult Learning Applied to Software Development, a listicle I wrote while studying for my Advanced Certification in Training and Assessment (ACTA). It was produced as a kind of value-add to an existing assignment I had... and whoa, I was not prepared for how many views this one got.

The second was Online Lynch Mob Activated!, something I wrote in response to a huge Internet uproar in Singapore. Local the news might be, but the phenomenon certainly isn't. Somehow I suspect this post is popular only because I (kinda) dissed the Government there...

Honorable Mentions

Web Tutorial: Multilingual CNY Website - this was my first Ruby On Rails web tutorial, and honestly I'm surprised it got the views it did considering not that many people are into them generally.

Film Review: Silicon Valley Season 2 - another surprise there. Though admittedly, Film Reviews are a hit-or-miss thing and could go either way.

No bonus? No problemo - one of my trademark rants against the folly of traditional thinking in the workplace. It's 2018, people. Move the hell on!

How I Became A Software Engineer - the story of how I survived a retrenchment three years ago and levelled up in the process. Again, my War Stories are sometimes well-received and sometimes not.

That's all for now. See you soon!

I've got a few weeks left to enjoy of this break, and I promise to be back with more of the same. Meanwhile, stay healthy, don't sweat the small stuff and keep reading!

Blog and roll, baby!
T___T

TeochewThunder: Year Four (Part 1/2)

Dear readers! It's the end of the blogging year 2018, and time for me to take my annual blogging break!

What, you might ask, goes on during a blogging break?

Well, I certainly don't take a break from producing content. All the break really does is to enable me to take a breather from putting stuff up at regular intervals. My coding still goes on, and blogpost drafts are still being written. For an entire month, I forego posting stuff in order to take stock of what I've done during the entire year starting from last October to this October. And to modify the planned posts for the year ahead.

There's a plan?!

Are you serious, dude? Of course there's a plan. There's always a plan. It's just that the plan is never a hundred percent. Some posts get delayed because more urgent stuff comes up, such as breaking news in tech and new tech-themed movies whose reviews will make a hell lot more sense if I post them ASAP rather than three years later.

Some things, though, are definitely better when delayed. Stuff that goes on under War Stories, for example. There have been a lot of things that pissed me off in the past, but time has dulled the anger to a point where I'm able to write about it without negative emotion getting in the way. Sure, I'm a lot less acerbic and insulting this way. And also a lot less entertaining. But my primary objective is to educate, not entertain.

A lot of people make the mistake of expressing themselves while their annoyance is still fresh, and end up coming off like a fool. I'm not judging; I've done my fair share of that. But yes, a lot less of that is in order.

Blogging benefits

Other than the ones I've described here, having to put out a certain amount of posts a month at certain intervals, imposes a kind of discipline which is useful. I can't slack off; the posts have to be vetted for clarity, correctness, and unnecessary profanities. (Yes, I do censor myself. Profanities are well and good if they help accentuate the friggin' point. If not, they're just meaninglessly padding the word count; why would anyone want that?) And after that, posting when it's time to post. Not too early, not too late; a twenty-hour hour window.

A certain drop in quality

I'm gonna confess and say that 2018 was an overwhelmingly busy year. I had to juggle work, school, and getting married to the girlfriend. (Yes, that's right. Your Teochewness got hitched. More about that another time.) So if my blogposts seemed altogether too short, or if web tutorials appeared unreasonably simple, it wasn't just a matter of me trying to exercise the art of brevity. Time was scarce; I made my point in my posts and pretty much moved on from there. Even the quality of my signoffs got tamer!

Costs

What, you think all this comes completely free?! Dream on!

Images. With 123rf imposing new prices on stock photos, I've had to scrimp a little by accessing free stock photos from Pexels and Pixabay. While the quality of these free photos is no less stellar, it's hard to find exactly what I want unless the search terms are exceedingly simple.

From this...

... to this...

... and this!

Once in a while, when I'm forced to use 123rf (and pay), I try to make it good. Like, use it for photos that would help bring my point across rather than just frivolously.

Aaaaahhhhhh!

Hosting for teochewthunder.com. When you visited www.teochewthunder.com a while back, you may see that purple banner above. Hostinger UK are moving all free accounts to another server, and they asked if I would like to stay and upgrade, for a fee, of course. To avoid the hassle of moving, I paid up. So now my hosting is no longer free, but thank goodness it's cheap. For now.

All in all, things could be better. Then again, my income's roughly 50% more than when it was when I initially started this blog. Money's gotta go somewhere, so... to hell with it. It's just money, right?

Next

The post report. Let's see what you guys clicked on most!