Software, Engineering, Development, and WordPress

Tag: Blogging (Page 1 of 7)

Living Deeply, Writing Broadly

Multiple times, I’ve drafted notes, written, and re-written parts of this post in an attempt to find the best way to start. And, I know, oftentimes writing qualifying statements or short paragraphs like this is considered something we shouldn’t do when publishing content.

But I don’t think I’ve the best track record of doing the things that I should be doing whenever writing on this site and I tend to write how I want, more often than not, about whatever it is I want to share.

Why buck the trend?

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Me, Myself, and I; Then, Now, and Soon

Previously, I wrote:

I’m having too much fun focusing on more things with less distraction. 

Maybe it sounds preachy, maybe not. If it does, I don’t mean it do be and if it doesn’t then I’m writing well enough; however, I still have the question as to what this means for this site. And though the answer isn’t necessarily as clear as I’d like, it’s better than that it was, say, four weeks ago.

And it may be a trivial, uninteresting thing to write about but I’ve written about just about anything and everything related to what it is I do with regard to this site, developing software, WordPress, and so for the majority for my career.

So as I hope to add to that, I seems to be reasonable to share why before getting back to what I normally do and starting to do more than I once did.

In other words, why stop now?

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On Retiring Site Memberships

After two years after writing a lot of content and giving exclusive access to site members, this past weekend I opened the site to everyone.

In short:

https://twitter.com/tommcfarlin/status/1198689233017430017

But this wasn’t a small nor was it a quick decision and it’s not something that I opted to on a whim. For those who were subscribed to the newsletter earlier this year, I made an announcement that this was coming.

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A Return to Form (Over a Decade in the Making)

I don’t know how many people are considered “regular readers” of this site (let alone any site, to be honest) because social media has changed how we find content, save it, and read it.

But if you’re someone who browses this site on any regular basis, then you’ve likely noticed that I’ve not posted anything related to development for a couple of weeks now.

Nothing’s wrong; life is good. But I’ve been taking a step back on several things in which I’m involved to take stock of essentially:

  • what I’m doing,
  • why I’m doing it,
  • what I want to continue to do,
  • and why I want to do it.

And if you were around when blogging was what it was, say, five years ago, then you know it’s considered “bad form” talk about not blogging and to get all apologetic about it.

I’m not getting apologetic about it, though.

Instead, I’m providing an update as to what I plan to do with this site moving forward.

And no, it’s not the type of post that contains anything related to WordPress development or programming.

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On Alternative Methods of Blog Feedback

Last month, I published two articles that talked about using cURL to handle redirects that may inevitably happen when working with certain URLs.

Specifically, I’m talking about:

  1. Finding the Destination of a Redirect with PHP
  2. Using cURL to Determine If the Specified URL Is a Valid Page

And though the second one is more of the subject of this post, I wanted to reference both since they are related.

Earlier this month, I wrote a bit how the purpose of blogging has changed. Perhaps it would’ve been better to talk about the motivation rather than the purpose, but I digress.

In this post, I talk a bit about commenting and feedback. And since I’ve closed comments, one of the ways that people will talk with me about certain posts is via Twitter.

Case in point:

And I like this because it’s:

  • a clearly stated, succinct question,
  • it’s directed towards me (with the potential for others to chime in),
  • and it can keep the conversation on the topic without it devolving into something else in the comments.

Further, Xaver’s question is good because it shows where my content may be lacking, and it gives me the opportunity to write a follow-up or a clarification on a post like this 🙂.

The thing is, the response to this particular question may not be as long as the lead in, but I always want to give enough context before providing an answer.

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