Simon Dickson has been blogging about online government, politics and WordPress since 2005. Some important people read it.

 
 
Saturday 24 December 2005

Design is a dying art

To design or not to design? If I'd been able to answer that question, this blog would have started weeks ago. But I couldn't decide if I liked any of the WordPress.com themes on offer, or if I wanted to design my own in Blogger. In actual fact, if this still matters, it soon won't. I read most of my favourite blogs via their (text only) RSS feed, in Bloglines. I almost never see their websites, and I genuinely don't know what many of them look like. I don't know why, but I just looked at Steve Rubel's MicroPersuasion site - a feed I read every day - and got quite a shock!

Friday 23 December 2005

Why I finally switched to Firefox

Until very recently, Microsoft's Internet Explorer was my browser of no-choice. By which I mean, in a world where one browser has a market share in excess of 90%, it's insanity to work with anything else - especially if websites are your livelihood. In a clash between 'standards compliance' and '90% market share', I'm afraid standards have to go out the window. But today, I switched my default browser to Firefox - and here's why. (more...)

Friday 23 December 2005

Blogging on the move

OK, so perhaps you can't email into WordPress.com, but I've found a possible solution. There's a tool called Pocket SharpMT, which seems to speak to WordPress. I'm posting from it now. Only problem so far is that it doesn't seem too keen on working with my PDA's keyboard: not that it isn't working, but I can't see what I'm typing.

UPDATE (23.1.06): I've spotted a few hits to this item today; wonder why it's suddenly of interest? Anyway, my new recommendation is the Windows Mobile version of DopplerRadio, currently in beta but working very well as a blogging client.

Friday 23 December 2005

The perfect bloghost doesn't exist.

Deciding to write a blog is very easy, especially if you're someone making a career out of online communication. But deciding where to put it has been quite a struggle: I know precisely what I want, but disappointingly, I haven't found it. In the end, WordPress.com has got my vote - but not without reservations. (more...)

Wednesday 9 November 2005

Hello world!

This is the default post you get when you open a WordPress.com account. I'm going to leave it here as proof that I was here early.