Friday, December 15, 2006

Blogger Farewells

I have heard from two people recently, Ddot and Grant. Ddot has not written in a month, and Grant has given up blogging for good. I have written before when talented writers leave blogger. Even hacks that I have enjoyed reading.

But blogging normally does not lead to cash, and after blogging for a year or so, many drop out. Side note: sort of reminds me of a Jules Renard quote: "Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money."

Grant told me about Sarcasmo, who passed away recently. I have not actually visited Sarcasmo's blog before she died, but her last post was poignant. It starts out: "My PC fan is slowly dying. I'm hoping it will wait till after the holidays to give up the ghost. With all of Scrooges fellas flying about, we're up to our ears in ghosts already. (Also, if this post ends abruptly, you'll know why. Just in case, I'll be trying to back some thing up over night tonight. In either case, forgive my brevity.)"

Her last post was on December 7th. And that's it. Judging from her blogroll, she kept up with lots of blogs, and I am sure her absence will be (is) felt. Sort of like removing a flower from the flowerbed. Immediately, you notice the whole, and every flower around knows the absence. Over time, rain and wind and whatever starts filling the whole, and either flowers start crowding the spot or new seeds take root. But the flower was there, and over time, the missing flower is less noticeable. But the dirt never fully fills the whole. And some of the flowers always remember.

Now I didn't know Star (Sarcasmo), and I am not implying that her passing resembles a missing flower. During the holidays, we sometimes are reminded of those in our families that are no longer with us. Oh, it was Uncle Fred's job to cut the turkey, and well, Uncle Jeff just does not look as confident when wielding the carving knife. Grandma always loved the smell of cinnamon at Christmas. Whatever the thoughts tend to be. I guess I am just noticing wholes in my garden, both in blogland and outside of blogland. Even co-workers who are no longer with us.

On a separate note, Eric Case was asked recently about Blogger Beta. As you know, I have not switched, but I think I am going to switch soon. For me, I will be saying farewell to blogger, and trying out this beta version of the product. It appears that we will all need to change soon. My guess is that the mad rush to the exit will create more problems (key the impending doom music). So if this blog disappears, please blame Google, and not some blood clot that has made its way to my brain.

14 comments:

Tony said...

Lucky, Lucky Star went through the same scenario as did Grant before he went on hiatus. When you move on to bigger and better blogs, remember us little ones. Our garden wouldn't be complete without you.

Anonymous said...

BLogger beta more tightly integrates other blogger services there is actually no real difference between blogger stable and blogger beta that the user can see. Some asthetic things, that's about it.

Leesa said...

tony: thanks, sweetie.

prata: I saw you changed another account (the group blog) to beta a while back.

VX: looks like Google will eventually move everyone to beta.

Advizor54 said...

I haven't tried beta yet, but I wanted to post a comment about why most people stop blogging.

1 - It's a lot of work
2 - For most of us, no one reads what we write
3 - For those with readers, they are frequently the subject of attacks that take the fun out of blogging.

Right now I am firmly in Category #2. I have a couple of readers who occasionaly comment, but for the most part, my blog is for myself only and that's about it. I like having my work out "in public" even though "public" would be the middle of a field of winter wheat in Saskatchewan (and yes, I had to look that up).

As for #1, even though I don't have any readers, I feel the pressure of having to come up with something 3-4 times a week, I don't even try for daily anymore. I come to work with an idea, but the work intrudes, I get busy, or the mood passes, or my pithy thought doesn't seem so funny any more, and my blog sits idle for one more day.

So I tip my hat to Leesa and others who keep the rest of us entertained. Thanks for all the hard work....

Anonymous said...

VideoX

Your significant user change. That's a backend change, not a front end change. It does not change the user experience as it's not a UI feature, it's an integration feature for Google's backend. Like I mentioned prior.

How blogger functions is still the same. Which was my point to begin with.

So, no there is no significant user changes. Posting to a blog is still the same the only actual "change" is username/password although that didn't change for me...it's still the same.

When everyone moves to beta, it won't be beta anymore, it'll be stable. That's typically how software development works. But this is google we're talkin' about. Oh yeah, I did swap it over, because I swapped my account over to see what the hub bub was about. I didn't actually..find anything overtly interesting..which in and of itself..is INTERESTING! Means they are working on a consistent UI while providing increased functionality..that's a Good Thing.

Leesa said...

advizor: thanks for the thoughtful comments. I guess I am fortunate that people read me, though I am not sure exactly why. I feel like my writing is not as good as it once was. Or at least the subjects are getting old.

prata: for not liking Google, you know alot about the technical stuff.

Tony said...

Leesa, you used to write about things you were passionate about. What are you passionate about now?

Anonymous said...

Isn't it weird when somebody we know at 'this' level passes on? I mean, we don't know them as a flesh-and-blood entity, yet we feel a distinct connection and can even build up friendships of a sort, and then if something happens, it hits us.
As for Beta, I switched last week. It seems OK, but actually I find it a bit cumbersome. I'll be interested to know how it works for you.
Best to you my always wise and sensitive friend,
Ian

Deb said...

That's so sad about Star. Kinda scary and weird with her last post and all.

I tried switching to Beta, and it said that my blog was too large to transfer. I wonder if they'll automatically transfer everything over? When I visit people with beta blogs, I have to enter in my google account, as oppose to my blogger account. A lot of people think that they can't comment...but they can if they just set up an account. I'm scared of losing everything. I need to back up my stuff.

Do you back up your writing?

Anonymous said...

Welp...my knowledge of how the technical stuff functions is based on how other projects tend to function.

~deb! Hi hi! I would assume they will port it for everyone when they go stable. If not, I'm not quite sure..possibly allow an import/export tool like wordpress does. I can't say for certain. Maybe an e-mail to blogger's tech sup. would answer that one.

Anonymous said...

I switched to Beta about a month ago. So far no problems *fingers crossed*

Leesa said...

VX: When I am forced to switch, I will make annonomous posting an option. So you can post comments.

tony: you may have hit the nail on the head.

edge: I think both "bad" and "good" bloggers stop. We just remember the good ones.

ian: I can't switch yet. Too many posts, I suppose.

~deb: I don't back up any of my writing. How could I do that?

dbsmall: thanks for the kind words.

prata: wordpress can import blogger accounts? Hmmmmmmmm.

mal: good for you!

Anonymous said...

Yah. How do you think I got all of Reality Out of Sync onto kuei-jin.org? ^_^

Anonymous said...

How I used to back things up with blogger was to rss feed my blog over to sylpheed (linux e-mail client) and then I simply saved that to an NFS share on my network.

With wordpress I back up my blog via wordpress' backup utility. Since it's just a sql database that I have running on my server (wordpress puts everything in a sql database anyhow) then I move that to an NFS share. I back up that share to cd (well now it's DVD because I have music on that share and it's also an ftp server for some of my friends that are looking for specific types of porn!). Worst case scenario if both my computer hard drive die and my server drive bite it, I can get new drives, reinstall, and then restore my database with onne simple command. Cake!