A refreshing update from the wordpress team.  I have had issues with the version 2.7 when it first came out and after I have upgraded to 2.8, those problems disappear.  This new version comes with a heap of new features.  For a whole list of them, click here.  This is my first post after upgrade.  Usually after I upgrade to a new version, there are bound to be some issues with the blog.  Touch wood, I hope to see smooth posting after I hit the ‘post’ button.  Well, if you are a little brave at heart, come and join me in the upgrade.  I am sure, you will be fine… He He!…

vladstudio over at deviantART released a new wallpaper titled “The Traveling Tree”.  This new header brings a refreshing green and blue to the blog design.  As I have been itching to change the entire blog design, I have yet to find inspiration.  The Travelling Tree brings a new breath and helps to brighten the blog design and helps to fill the gap while I search for a fresh look.

I have been wanting to change my blog theme, but as usual, lack of creativity and urge to revamp the entire design.  So I settle for a header change.  After browsing around at deviantart.com, I came across Votre Sante by jplacson.  It was warm (in color) and has a nice sleepy tone to it, kinda reflecting how my blog have been recently.  I crop it and whola, a new header. 

Photo Artist – jplacson

One hard experience that I have learnt from WordPress is not to jump onto the latest release as everyone else.  Even thought sometimes there’s a security threat, for many times, things are sure to be broken when I do the migration.  Then I would have to spend hours figuring out what’s wrong and dig through the forum sites for solutions.  I have had my blog broken for so many times that I have lost count.  Only recently, I have upgraded to the 2.6.3 and found something broken with Windows Live Writer.  All the < and > character were missing, and so when I post up to the blog, instead of <p>Hello</p>, it becomes pHello/p.  Seams like no one encounter this problem, and when I posted a thread on the forum, no help from there either. 

So, when WordPress 2.7 enters beta 2, I was tempted to migrate.  There were so many features that I need, and yet, this little voice in me asking me not to be crazy.  After all, I am no Bruce Willies in Die Hard nor Mel Gibson in Bravehear, two of my favourite expression for people who are not afraid to die.  Then on the other hand I am a little bored, some spices will sure be a time killer.  Well, lets first do a backup and sleep on it.  Tomorrow will be the right day to Die Hard.

Recently, I changed to my new theme with archives by the month on the right side of the blog. It made the site more accessible to old postings, and at one instant, a new friend find past 6 years of life through the archives. Yes, I have been blogging for 6 years. If you think of it, 6 years is quite a long time. If I had a kid then, he/she would be 6 years old now. In 6 years, government could change, as well as people’s life. It is interesting how I lasted this long. Sometimes I do think this blog feeds into my ego, and that is the basis for explaining why I take the time to blog. At times, the blog was a place for me to cool down, for me to vent, and sometimes, I just enjoy playing with the themes. Nevertheless, I am still amaze how I lasted 6 years doing this.

When I frst started, I didn’t like writing. Writing to me is a tedious job. So, I make my blog a photoblog. If you check out post from 2002 and 2003, you will mostly find photos with occasional ramblings. I had my Nikon 2500 then and that little gadget filled my blogs with daily photos of sights and events around me. I am still photobloging, but the frequency has reduced as I have not that many of nice shots that is worth posting. Also, now I writes more, so my focus is more on writings than photos. During my days of photobloging, I manage to score a ‘Noteworthy‘ (top 6 voted photos out of 300 submission) from Photofriday. It was my proud moment in blogging.

I was first introduced into blogging by Albert. He was doing it through BlogSpot then and I was intrigue of easy self publishing engine that BlogSpot offers. Before that, I was building my own web pages during college days on geocities, if you still remember them. They exist today though yahoo. It was unfortunate that I did not safe any of the pages I built, it would be nice to look at them again. I was building pages about movies, that was my passion at that time. When I got back to Malaysia and started to work, I did not have the time for movies nor my geocities anymore, and that sank into oblivion. A couple of years leaving college, I was eager to find out what my old friends were doing. So, I made and printed a newsletter about what I have been up to. I only made one, a year after that, Albert introduce me to BlogSpot, and my blogging hobby begins. Its been 6 years since. 

Through out the 6 years, I have maintain my photoblog and my personal blog for insane rambling.  I venture into videoblogging at a time, and that did not caught on as I did not had the right tool and it takes too much time to edit a video.  I experimented with audio blogging, some of the web services offer a service where you can dial in through a phone and speak your mind.  It will be automatically be converted to MP3 and post to the blog.