Tag Archives: blogging

A Cleanr Look

If you’re one of the dear souls who sub­scribes to this under­used blog you already know how I’ve ago­nized over a suit­able theme. The search may final­ly be over. I think I’ve final­ly found a winner!

I chose Cleanr. It’s a straight­for­ward theme that fits my strict aes­thet­ic needs. I’m in love with the right rail, too! There you’ll find my Twit­ter updates, Flickr pho­tos, and Google Read­er shared items. I think it’s the best inte­gra­tion I’ve found yet. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about that space is that it’s prone to clutter.

I’m look­ing to add a Last.fm cov­er­flow wid­get to share the albums I’m check­ing out on Lala.com. If you can rec­om­mend one with a lay­out sim­i­lar to the Flickr wid­get, let me know!

On a part­ing note, I need to say that Word­Press has real­ly made it easy to update and change themes and wid­gets. I’m a total noob, yet I felt very com­fort­able try­ing things out in the new dash­board envi­ron­ment. It’s amazing!

Pardon My Dust

Sor­ry I’ve been away so long, but I’ve been kept very busy late­ly with my new son, Charles. I’m pleased to report that he’s a healthy, hap­py lit­tle boy.

I’m going to be tidy­ing up around here to reflect some of my new ideas about how this blog ought to look and what I’d like to share here. Hope­ful­ly I’ll be able to tweak the site a bit this week­end, adding my Twit­ter, Flickr, and Deli­cious pro­files to the right rail. 

This place could stand to be a lit­tle more social, could­n’t it? Well, look for me to add some fea­tures that let you decide how you want to stay abreast of updates on Kens­ing­ton Blues.

(I’m scrib­bling this post on my iPhone. It’s been my go-to device ever since Char­lie was born. I can’t think of some­thing that’s eas­i­er to pick up and use dur­ing those ear­ly morn­ing feedings!)

Saying Goodbye to SXSW

Last year I attend­ed my first South by South­west Music Fes­ti­val. It was a big deal! It was on the com­pa­ny dime! I lead a team of four peo­ple on a musi­cal jour­ney that took us from Rachael Ray to 2 Live Crew. We met a ton of inter­est­ing artists and talked to as many as we could on cam­era for comcast.net. I was real­ly proud of what we accom­plished in our first time out. Before we left for Austin, I ful­ly expect­ed that SXSW would be an annu­al event on my edi­to­r­i­al calendar.

What a dif­fer­ence a year makes.Con­tin­ue read­ing “Say­ing Good­bye to SXSW”

I STILL NEED YOUR LINKS!

I edit­ed my blogroll again this morn­ing. I’m treat­ing it as a more flu­id space until I can cat­e­go­rize these links on the links page prop­er. I’m try­ing to keep it live­ly so it’s just not a col­lec­tion of totemic links that you see on pret­ty much every blog in the known uni­verse. That prac­tice to me is a rel­ic of the days when one might try to ingra­ti­ate one­self to an edi­tor by read­ing their stuff reli­gious­ly. We’ve all done it, but it’s just silly.

There’s anoth­er rea­son I’m so adamant about this now. It’s the way of the Inter­net. Peo­ple used to treat their blogrolls like a new­stand to show off how var­ied their opin­ions were, or worse, to show­case well-con­nect­ed friends on the Inter­net. That too is sil­ly. If the blog is one of the basic units of social media, then it should be a social expe­ri­ence where every­thing is flu­id. Don’t just link to a blog out of oblig­a­tion! Tell us why you did it and why your read­ers should too.

This just isn’t about nudg­ing your online friends with memes; it should­n’t be cut­ting and past­ing a press release; it should be about hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with some­one and shar­ing it with every­one. It makes for a much rich­er expe­ri­ence and will like­ly fill in those writer­ly gaps we all strug­gle with when we sit down to blog. It does­n’t have to be so hard!

So here’s what I want from you: I’m look­ing for peo­ple who are writ­ing fre­quent­ly and engag­ing­ly on almost any­thing. Drop your sug­ges­tions in the com­ments box if you feel so moved to rep for your­self or some­one you’re read­ing. Keep in mind that I actu­al­ly sub­scribe to the blogs I list. It takes a vil­lage, right?