What is a blog?
Blogs - short for “web logs” - are shared, online journals. And it has become all the rage on the internet, gracing large corporate sites and personal home pages alike.
The content and purposes of blogs varies greatly - from links and commentary about other web sites, to news about a company / person / idea, to diaries, photos, poetry, mini-essays, project updates, even fiction. As you can imagine, most are quite bizarre in a good way.
Blogs are usually short, frequently updated posts that are arranged chronologically - like a what’s new page or a journal.
Blogs are thus more dynamic than older-style home pages, and more permanent than posts to a forum or newsgroup. They are more private and personal than traditional journalism, and more public than diaries.
History of blogging
It all started several years ago, when webmasters and internet junkies (probably in an attempt to keep their web sites more frequently updated - in the age of the web “portal”) started posting short thoughts / discoveries / rants / ideas etc to their web pages on a more frequent basis.
Improvements in Web design tools have made it easier for beginners to create their own Web logs and update them as often as they wish. And thus … blogging was born. Blogs are now often thought of like instant messages to a web page. (Except with a blog…the audience is the world.)
About my blog
Rules:
There aren’t actually any hard and fast rules to blogging, but I am going to try and hold myself to a few DavidMeade.com blog commandments:
- “Thy blog shalt not be news of thy website - for that shall be told by thine News section.”.
- “Thou shalt not blog when drunk for when drunk thy would surely blog foolishness”.
Thankfully there aren’t any hard and fast rules for you either. I have a personal preference that your comments on a blog have at least something to do with the blog … but as long you aren’t flaming someone you can post anything you like! 
The Technical stuff…
The DavidMeade.com blog has gone thru many rounds of improvements. It all started with a system I coded myself in php using MySQL databases and a custom admin too I created. This was (and is) actually a really great tool. In it’s current form, my blog is actually stored within a phpBB database. Alot of the pages that I actually coded here now pull data out of the phpBB databases. While I do still code most of the front end myself, I’ve decided to use the phpBB back end for several reasons.
- It’s a widely used system and there are countless hard core developers out there who understand it to an unhealthy degree. I can use this to my advantage - using phpBB support forums and the countless nerds…I mean experts… to help me troubleshoot and continue to develop davidmeade.com’s features.
- phpBB has very sophisticated user / member management tools. I started to develop my own system … but phpBBs system is both exceptional…and already created.
- Killing the two birds above with one stone inside of 2 hours was just too good to pass up.
- Why reinvent the wheel?
DavidMeade.com blog FAQ
Q: Why can’t I start a post here?
A: The blogs are special because they are frequently updated posts from the person or organization that runs the website. Only David Meade can start a new blog here, however anyone can read them and post their comments on the blog.
Q: Do I have to register to comment on a blog!?
A: No you dont! Anyone can comment on a blog, even an unregistered guest. If you’re an old timer here at DavidMeade.com, don’t worry … anything you could do at DavidMeade.com in the old system you can do at DavidMeade.com in the new system even without being a registered user … however if you register you will have access to some new features and gain access to member-only content!
Q: Why would I want to become a registered member?
A: For lots of reasons!
- You’ll never have to type your dang name/email/url again when commenting on a blog! The system will remember you and do that for you!
- As a registered member, you can subscribe to a blog or news article and be notified by email when it’s been commented on!
- You’ll be able to send Private Messages to me and any other DavidMeade.com member via the website!
- You’ll be able to recieve private message from me and any other DavidMeade.com member!
- You’ll gain access to special member-only conent at DavidMeade.com! (I’m still working on this, but fully plan to make some member only stuff!)
