5th Anniversary

Today sees the 5th Anniversary of the official launch of WordPress , the Blogging Application. They’ve come a long way since their original 0.7 release. To celebrate they will be throwing a party in San Francisco at 111 Minna, starting at 9PM (local time!). More details are available on Upcoming or Facebook.

It is quite something to look back over the last 13 or so years at the way the internet has developed and grown considerably. In 1996, if you had the internet in your home you were one of the lucky few, although your connection would have been dial-up! Not that this was a major inconvenience back then as the amount you would be downloading was pretty low. Websites were predominately text based and fancy websites didn’t really exist except for one or two huge websites. These were back in the days when DOS was still being used! It was not surprising that DOS would be replaced by GUIs (graphical user interfaces) as computers were starting to find their ways into people’s home and thus the idea of the Home Computer was born. I remember that our home computer didn’t even have a CD-rom drive in it when we first bought it. I remember being excited at the prospect that we were going to get a CD-rom drive! The capabilities of the drive were not anything like there are now, but back then it was considerable! Especially when you consider that a CD-rom disc would be about 3 times the size of your hard drive!

Towards the end of the 90s, we saw people get their own personal email addresses and the Windows Operating Systems allowed you to set up simple profiles on one computer allowing users to have their own feel to the home computer. Companies such as Yahoo and Altavista became household names. Even though people were starting to get their own email addresses and ‘surf’ the internet, it was still considered to be used mainly by geeks! It wasn’t until the 2000 onward that the internet became the first resource over pretty much everything, especially research. Who would have thought thirteen years ago that we would be buying and downloading high quality music from the internet on a broadband connection.

But back to blogging, one day I will actually write an article on “why blog”. We blog for so many different reasons and the expectations we have from our blogs are just as different. For me, it allows me to share simple aspects of my personal journey, to record for the sake of it what I’ve been up to. My blog is a expression of me, not the whole expression but a part. The blog, for me, is an extension of who I am. I am very fond of the connection the blog gives me (and if you’re not a blogger you probably won’t understand that). A blog can truly be a rush of passion! For me it’s not important for my blog to be read, although it is .. which I am pleased about I guess. I’m also grateful that I can read over my life since I’ve been blogging. Someone once said “I blog so I know what I think”. I can also understand this because although it’s easy to read a posting it’s not always as easy to write a post. For example, I actually started this blog last night, but didn’t actually write much until today.

I think it allows people to express themselves in a way which isn’t particularly intrusive to others. For me being able to write down how I feel about something helps because to say it isn’t always easy and also not physically easy to say off the cuff. Writing stuff down allows you to ponder about the subject and sometimes I’m really surprised by the amount of stuff I really want to say about a particular issue. More than I realised! lol

I think, therefore I blog! Blogging can also be a place where you can challenge the minds of others and get feedback on your thoughts. Of course you need to be careful what you wish for especially if you don’t want your thoughts criticised.

For me the interest is also in the technical side of the blog. The fact it’s hosted on my domain and that it’s pulling posts and information from my database. The blog is by far the most updated part of my website. Which is why there is a feed to the very first page! Well I think that is enough for now.

Today also sees the anniversary (of a few more years) of a friend of mine. Happy Birthday Jo! Hope you’re having a lot of fun today. Enjoy your day.