It's easy to see based on the last post date that this blog has been an increasingly lower priority over the last few months. With work, my professional blog, my new girlfriend and just life in general, blogging has become less important in terms of keeping people up to date. Plus, with Twitter and other social networks I'm able to communicate instant thoughts to people, without actually writing a full blog entry. And so, I have decided to stop writing for Almost Georgetown.

This July will mark two years since I moved from California. In that time, I've posted 350 blog entries, you have made 596 comments, there have been more than 55,000 visits and all on custom code that I wrote two years ago. Not bad. Not bad at all.

For those who have been faithful readers, thank you. This season is ending, but I am still blogging, on professional topics, on Twitter, on social networks. And for those in Washington, fret not; I'm not leaving the area (on the contrary I expect to be here for a long time), so many of you I will see at beverage subgroups or meetups. Thanks for your support and friendship.

2:24 pm | Comment (0) | Print | Categories: Blog Administration, Relationships

The days are long, the weather is warm, and its time for a well-earned hiatus from the blogosphere. I've got a bout of writer's block so I'm goinng to take a week or so to clear my head.

Until then, there's a blogroll and over 300 entries to whet your palate.

See you in about a week!

5:18 pm | Comment (0) | Print | Categories: Blog Administration

I'm working hard at making the Almost Georgetown code better in version 2.0, and I wanted to take a couple minutes to discuss the some of the coolest features that I'll be introducing.

Audiences
One of them is called the concept of "audiences." When I implemented Almost Georgetown I assumed that I would have a number of entries that I would want to post to certain groups of people only. The problem is that this isn't exactly how a blog works; also, it didn't give me enough control over who got an entry and who didn't.

I wanted to make your user account more relevant, and provide new tools. In the next revision, I will revolutionize the concept with a new feature called audiences. With audiences, I'll be able to group people and target specific blog entries based on their grouping. Also, you will be able to add or remove yourself from certain groups, meaning that you'll be able to decide what entries you want to read and what entries you'd rather leave for others.

The benefit is that entries will become more relevant to you, the reader, than they would have been before. You can block out certain entries, for example the PHP entries (if you're not a coder), or read everything. It's up to you. Also, it will let me get a little bit more personal in my entries, since I can target them to specific readers, rather than worrying about the whole world seeing them.

User Profiles
Lots of modern blogs let users customize a little profile for themselves. In the next version, I will allow you to do the same thing. You'll be able to display (or opt not to display) your location, a small icon (usually called an avatar), and some other information. You'll also be able to use this personal profile as a way to follow and be followed by other commenters - much like the Twitter model. So, if you like what my mom says or what Cale says, you'll be able to track all those user's comments on your personal page!

Anonymous Comments
This isn't directed at my known readers, but at my unknown readers. A lot more people read than just those who comment, and I want to give the anonymous readers a chance to express their thoughts too. With just an email address and a comment, people from around the world will be invited to post their comments (subject to approval to prevent spam) and express their ideas.

Why the e-mail address? Even if the comments are anonymous, I'd like to try and build some sort of relationship with my readers. It won't ever be published and I'll never use it for illicit purposes. Also, it's part of my effort to prevent spam comments (I can block certain e-mail addresses if they're consistently linked to spam posts).

Georgetown Planet
I have a lot of blogs that I read and enjoy. And I want to see that you have an opportunity to read them too. So, I'm working on a blog feed aggregator that will take parts of blogs from all over and let you have access to them. See Planet Chris (http://shiflett.org/planet) for an example.

I haven't finalized a release date yet, but I will be talking about it more as we get closer. I'm excited, and you should be, too!

4:31 pm | Comment (0) | Print | Categories: Blog Administration, New Features

Occasionally I'll get a few e-mails from people asking me to implement a specific feature here on the blog. When I get them I do everything I can to implement the requests, because usually it makes things easier for people who use the site.

However, I have determined that it is time to close revisions on this codebase, and I will be rewriting the codebase using skills I have acquired over the last year. My goal is to produce a product that can be implemented cross-platform for blog administration on not just my website, but on any website of anyone who wishes to use it.

Starting on Friday, new feature requests will be implemented into the new code, which is slated for release sometime mid-June. Since the release on here will coincide with a major website redesign it will be obvious that the code has been redeveloped.

Please make any final feature requests prior to Friday. Feature requests recieved AFTER Friday will be integrated into the new code, but this codebase will not be updated except to provide critical fixes for bugs. I look forward to the release of the new code.

11:20 pm | Comment (1) | Print | Categories: Blog Administration, New Features

New feature!

7:41 pm | Comment (2) | Print | Categories: Blog Administration

I needed to update everybody on some blog administration things.
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5:54 pm | Comment (1) | Print | Categories: Blog Administration

For those of you who recieved morning e-mails from the new email processor, you may have noticed some bugs in the delivery system. I know I certainly did, and I do apologize for those bugs. New technology is hard to deploy on a mass scale, since when run in a controlled environment it's easy to manage, but when run in "the wild" it's harder to predict what will happen.
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8:25 am | Comment (2) | Print | Categories: Blog Administration, Technology

A common question I get about Almost Georgetown is why the e-mail says every day that you must log in before you can read the blog posts I've posted, when most of them are public anyway. The answer is because the notification is a form e-mail that gets sent out when I post new entries, and sometimes it's true and sometimes it's not.

However, I don't recommend that you all stop logging in; there are regularly postings that are private and in fact you logging in tells me that you've read the blog. That helps me to understand readership and know the patterns of the site, as well as to know how many readers are subscribers and how many are not.

In the coming week I will be developing a new series of programs that will let you better control your e-mail settings. They will let you receive a daily e-mail of all the blog postings, or a notification of new postings as they happen, and a variety of other features that people have asked me about.

I appreciate you all, and I thank you for being faithful readers. In fact, 77% of you log in the day after a blog e-mail gets sent out about new postings. That's pretty impressive by any scale.

I'll make another announcement about the new features once they've been completed. If you have any you'd particularly enjoy, feel free to leave them in the comments!

5:55 pm | Comment (2) | Print | Categories: Blog Administration, Statistics

A screen shot of my statistics program.

12:19 am | Comment (4) | Print | Categories: Blog Administration, Statistics

You probably came here through an e-mail I sent or a bulletin I posted on Myspace and you're wondering, "should I sign up?" Well, the answer is yes. Read on to find out why.
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2:20 am | Comment (0) | Print | Categories: Blog Administration