New era, same blog?

Today I went to a library to get a book they ended up not even having. Don't you just hate when they keep English titles when they translate the book? It's so misleading! I thought they had the English version of the book I wanted but instead they had one in Swedish. Anyway. On my way home I got this idea.

I have been wanting a running log for quite some time now. A little place where I could write down my thoughts about running. I actually already created a Tumblr blog because I thought it would be fun to reblog motivational running posters and that kind of stuff. But I then found out that the office I work in has blocked Tumblr blog posting. I can access Tumblr, I can login, I can write posts... But when I try to actually publish the posts, it gives me an error. The company has pretty much blocked all the social media sites it's actually surprising I can access Tumblr in the first place.

But on my way home I realized I do have this nice place already. My personal blog that has served me for years. There has been many different eras in this blog. I think I started this blog when I was getting eaten by an eating disorder. When I was sad, in a miserable relationship (though you really have to read between the lines to figure that out) and depressed. Blogging helped me to organize my thoughts and to go on.

And then... I guess I wrote more nerdy stuff. And book reviews. And movie reviews. I wrote a lot about music too. I think I was in a happier place in my life. After that era I got into knitting and crocheting. It was a big thing for me for years and I even started a yarny blog together with my then-boyfriend-now-husband J.R.

And then it was all about the dogs. My precious little pups. I wrote so much about then that I altered my blog name to be "It's About Amoena and the Dogs". That was an era too. I wrote about their health mostly, since they both have health issues. Anyway.

This story is getting too long. I just realized that I have so many different eras in my life already and this blog has served them all. So why not used this space again, for this new era of my life. I love this blog because it's all mine and it doesn't really have a niche. I can write what ever I want. I can write about running again (I used to write about running long, long time ago when all I ever wanted was to disapper), I can write reviews again... I can. Because I can. Ha!

But I think I need to chance my banner at least. This is about me again, about Amoena.

Fresh start... with the dogs

The new layout has been up for two days, and all the major bugs have now been fixed. Things are finally looking quite stable. I still need to prettify the sidebar, but otherwise I'm really satisfied. I have wanted to change the design since forever, but I thought it would be a job too big for a slug like me. It turned out to be pretty easy when I just decided to do it. Took me two days in total. Not bad, right?

Now couple words about the new design... As my regular readers (like all the three of them) have probably noticed, I have blogged more and more about my dogs than about the nerdiness of my everyday life. First I thought I should start another, separate blog about the dogs, but then I realized that I wouldn't have anything left to blog here. My life is about the dogs now. So I thought it would be more than appropriate to change the niche of my blog to actually include the dogs too. So for now on, as long as dogs are the biggest part of my life, this blog is called "It's About Amoena and the Dogs". It sounds really original, doesn't it? I thought about changing the name completely, but then I would end up with a mismatching url.

Anyway. Now you know the reasonings behind the new title. Now couple words about the actual design. It's really nothing new under my sun. I made a design for a non-commercial Finnish fashion blog for like zillion years ago and I really, really liked it at the time and I was so sorry that I did it for someone else. The blog has not existed for another zillion years, so I thought I could finally justify myself to reuse the design. I didn't just copy the old design though, I made quite many changes along the way and made it more up-to-date. And I'm really pleased that I was able to corporate the about pages so nicely to the design!

Anyway. I know that this new design is dramatically different compared to the old one, but I wanted to get rid of all the clutter and I thought the only way to do it is to start fresh. And maybe this more professional-looking and serious layout encourages me to write better posts more often.

The Yarn-Loving Couple

In case you haven't noticed, our new blog is finally up and running. It's called "the Yarn-Loving Couple" because we are a couple and we love working with yarn. Quite obvious, right? And the blog design is completely made by us. It took a lot of time and effort because we wanted our blog to stand out, but it surely doesn't look like a standard Blogger blog now! It was all worth the trouble.

We try to write on the blog equally, though I think I'm going to blog more than J.R. because my projects are usually smaller and because I also have more free time on my hands. We have agreed that we both try to post at least once in a week. Anyway. Our blog is a great way to get to know J.R. (he's responsible for the very clever Ravelry-link button we use on our posts, go check it out).

That's all I'm going to say, rest you can see by yourself. So, please, visit the Yarn-Loving Couple. All comments are welcome, especially if you notice that something isn't working correctly. The blog should be looking nice on Firefox and IE7. (It will look awful on IE6 but we decided that it's not our fault if people still use outdated browsers.)

Repeat after me: Domain is not God

It seems I can’t avoid metablogging themes... Last week we had a DNS lecture at school. I’m finally starting to understand these things. Anyway. DNS stands for Domain Name System and that led me to think custom domains and blogging.

All the big metablogs preach us that domain is the God. You must have your own domain. I agree and disagree with this claim. I think it is important to have your own domain if you’re creating a brand. It’s like a part of a good product and good service.

But if you blog only because you love self-expressing and writing... Then I think it’s perfectly OK not to have your own domain. Domain is just a line of easily remembered characters pointing to a specific IP address. Since when did that have anything to do with the urge to write?

And I have never thought that a blog without own domain is somehow untrustworthy. I’ve been writing and reading blogs for years and all these different blogging platforms are like my old friends. I think that a blog hosted on Blog*Spot, for example, is as trustworthy as all the other blogs. I just think that the writer of the blog likes that certain blogging platform and is not bothered by the whole domain issue.

And honestly... I don’t give a rat’s ass about your domain. The content and the blog design are the only things that truly matters to me. Domain was just a substitute for a clumsy IP address... It doesn't make the blog any better. I’m not tired of reading blogspot.com in blog domains, I’m sick tired seeing Blogger default templates. Your blog should, first of all, look like your blog. Make some effort, make an outstanding blog design.

"Custom domains are easier to remember." We have heard that explanation before, and it's true. But how often do you have to remember domains? If you’re like me, you support bookmarking. I use Delicious.com to bookmark everything interesting and my browser to bookmark sites I know I’m going to visit on a daily basis.

But to blogs I subscribe.

And that is the main reason why I think blog domains doesn’t matter so much. You find a nice blog, you press subscribe. The next time you want to read that blog, you do that via your RSS reader. You don’t need to memorize hundreds of blog domains, you only have to remember the address of your (web-based) RSS reader. And that's easy.

So, in my opinion, domain names do and don't matter. If it matters to you, get one. If it doesn't, don't let some fancy metablog make you believe otherwise.

I'm perfectly happy with its-about-amoena.blogspot.com, even though it's clumsy and almost impossible to remember. I have an unique design, good content and a huge subscribe button. Fuck the domain. I trust my readers. If they want to read my blog, they subscribe.

Metablogging

Today I was supposed to give a presentation at school about how I got interested in ICT branch but I got sick. I was going to tell that it was blogging that really got me hooked on computers. And it's true. Pretty much everything I have ever done with computers have had something to do with blogging, one way or another. For example I learned CSS only because I wanted to make my blog look unique. And then there is an infinite list of things I wouldn't be even aware of without blogging, things like RSS and SEO. It just blows my mind away.

And one another thing that also blows my mind away is the fact that I have blogged for about six years now. Though I can't remember the exact date when I started to blog, but I remember it was Fall 2002. Doesn't that make me a veteran or something? So I guess it's no wonder I know so much about blogs and blogging.

And I talk a lot about blogging. So much in fact that J.R. is tired of listening to it. But I can't really help it. I love blogging and I love to talk about things I love. I talk a lot about J.R. too. So much in fact that Hannes is tired of listening to it... Anyway.

As I have pointed out, I know a lot about blogging. I know the ingredients you need to create a killer blog. But I'm just not into that. I love to learn all these things about marketing and search engine optimizing and so on, but blogging is just a hobby to me. A very important hobby, but still just a hobby. I take blogging very seriously, but I don't want my blog to be serious. I want to drive my blog, not the other way round.

And my blog evolves with me. For example when I was exploring Ubuntu, I wrote some Ubuntu related articles. Now I'm into crocheting and it shows on my topics too. I even changed the header to match the blog content better. If this was a serious niche blog I wouldn't be able to do so. My blog is a reflection of my current interests. And they vary.

OK, this may be a bit off topic... But I just got home from grocery store and I need to share this with you. I was walking to the store when a man stopped me. And out of the blue he asked if I wore panties. Like what is wrong with him? Seriously. You can't just go asking women if they are wearing underwear! That's not cool. And I'm not even hot or anything. Ugh.