After a quick glance to my very first post on July 7th, 2005, I can now proudly claim that I have published 100 posts (this being #100). All I can say is “Wow.” 100 isn’t a huge number, but it does mark a certain amount of commitment, a commitment renewed a few months back, which I will speak on shortly. The purpose of this post is to mainly discuss the evolution of this blog and where the future of this blog, and also my other projects, will go. Although this post will focus specifically on my blog, I believe it represents most blogs in their struggles and peaks.

A look backwards

As is customary at times like these with a large milestone, I want to begin by looking back from where I’ve come. I think the critical step to my blogging came about a year prior to my actual blogging. On July 13th 2004, I released QuickTunes. QuickTunes was my first step into Mac software development. Why do I say this is where my blogging began even though I didn’t start blogging until almost a year later? The key to blogging or at least to successfully blogging, is to find some subject, some niche, some area of expertise. In my particular case this happened to be Mac programming. Keep in mind that at the release of QuickTunes and even a year later in July, I still was no expert in Cocoa. I still cannot claim that now, but over these last 2 years, I’ve definitely become a more skilled developer. The focus here is that even after a year into the release of QuickTunes, I still was no guru. But there’s no need for me to be a Larry Ellison before I can start blogging about computers or software (or databases). Part of the appeal of blogging is that it contributes to your learning. Few are experts on any topic, and we are blessed to have their blogs (Gruber, Shipley, Kawasaki), but for the rest of us, blogging leads us down the right path.

For instance, take my ability with Javascript. For most of my years developing websites, Javascript was the awkward stepchild of crappy hacks or ugly onMouseOver image swaps. It wasn’t a language to me. In the last few months, I’ve learned quite a bit about Javascript. And each time I learned something new, I blogged it. I didn’t simply say “Hey, I learned a cool trick. Check it out here.” I, instead, wrote a detailed tutorial of exactly how and why this certain effect worked. This not only reinforced my understanding of javascript, but gave back to a community of bloggers that so helped me in learning the language.

The idea of community stands out as another driving force behind blogging. If you look a few months back on this blog, you’ll probably see sporadic posts probably devoid of a lot of content you find interesting. There is beginner mistake number 1. Content no one cares about. I have no problem with personal and professional blogs combined in one. If I’m reading a blog that usually talks about coding but every once in awhile the blogger wants to write a post about some pictures he took on a vacation or that he just had a baby, it doesn’t bother me. In fact, it let’s me learn a bit more about this blogger from a different perspective. It helps to find a healthy balance here. But, let me return to the idea of community. As I was saying, my blog was a jumble of semi-good posts and just bad posts. Then came along a friend: Jake Dahn. He introduced me to a blogging community, RandomShapes. I know I’ve plugged these guys in previous posts, so I won’t at this time, but the important part is that this community has resurrected my drive in blogging.

Almost immediately after joining, my posts started taking a turn for the better. There were a lot more tutorials, some stories meriting digg exposure, and an increase in FeedBurner subscribership. I’m not saying that having a community will guarantee better posts and more readers, but it certainly helped for me. It allowed me to meet and talk with a bunch of other people out there who love to blog. This inspired and re-lit the flame in me for blogging. There’s something about doing things in groups, and I have to say that blogging is no different. You’re going to get tired of it. You’re going to start getting bored. You’re going to start getting sick of it. But when you have a friend doing it there with you, well it keeps you working. It keeps you trying. You’ll get through those dips.

So probably my most important piece of advice for bloggers out there is to get into some community, whether it be some close local friends, RandomShapes, or some other community. Join it and participate. It’ll make blogging for you more fun, and because you’re having fun, you’re posts will be more interesting, which means more readers, which means even more enjoyment for you. It’s the opposite of Catch-22.

A look ahead

I guess that was a bit long about the past, but there were some key things to note, and I hope that you can take some of that with you and improve your own blog (if you have one).

At this time I’d like to mention a little about where I see this blog headed. I’ve really become overwhelmed with this whole concept. The idea that people enjoy reading what I write, is pretty thrilling. I’m very excited to have found a group of readers who enjoy what I have to say. I hope to keep all of you as readers and to hopefully attract a larger audience. Because over the last few months, I’ve seen a direct correlation between reader appeal and the types of posts, I feel that I’ve found a good idea of what you, as readers, want to see me write about. It looks like you guys are interested in tutorials that really explain what the code is doing broken down into pieces so you can understand it. I really love writing these and plan on releasing even more of these in the future. Almost all of what I post about is technology related, and since that seems what you guys have responded well to, I plan on continuing in this area (mainly because I love writing about geek stuff). But I also really enjoy the behind-the-scenes of movie making and photography, so these areas will also be explored in greater detail. In regards to the blog, my plans are to continue on posting content that people find interesting generally in the area of technology. Also, I want to maintain this post frequency. Other than this last week (filled with graduation and a loss in the family), I’ve been fairly consistent over the last few weeks of providing content on a regular basis.

Basically, I just want to assure you that more is coming, and it’s going to be frequent. I want to maintain this blog with good content and not let it rot into desertion. I appreciate all of you readers. That’s why I’m doing it.

A look ahead: Other projects

As a developer I also wanted to take a second to talk about where my projects are going. A lot of people have been emailing me about my apps. There seems to be a lot of interest. I just first want to apologize for the long delay in software updates (particularly Todos). It’s been pretty busy with school and other stuff. I’ve also been reluctant to step into the code and finish rewriting the core of the app. I’ve done some of it, but it’s getting ugly. I don’t want to make any promises on a date, but I do really want to get an update of it out there.

DiggUpdate seems to be pretty solid right now. I just released a new version about a week ago. I don’t see any real plans for growth right now, but as new feature ideas come to me they will be implemented and released.

ShowYourself seems to be at a point where I don’t honestly know what to add. If you have suggestions please post a comment. I have desire to work on it, but I don’t have the ideas.

As some of you might now, I’m also beginning a new shareware project with a few local friends from SA. At this point everything is under wraps, and we are still in a very early stage of development, but stay tuned for future updates. I think you are really going to love what we have to offer.

Wrap up

So, ladies and gentlemen. That brings our State of the Union, as some might call it, to a close. Again, I really appreciate all you readers. This site is for you, so please get involved. Please leave comments on any post you feel compelled to talk about and please feel free to contact me through AIM or email. I love talking with other Mac enthusiast or tech folks in general. Again, thank you, and I look forward to sharing a lot of good posts with you soon.