Until recently I always thought the word 'blog' sounded kind of silly. I think it had something to do with the pronunciation, or maybe the fact that the word itself was so new. Regardless, over the last couple years I've slowly started to enjoy the word and now feel perfectly comfortable using it.

So welcome to my official blog. My little corner of the internet that will house any thoughts I deem worthy of sharing with the web at large. My goal here is simple, I'd like to produce high-quality articles that are both enjoyable and helpful to read. I'm not going to set any artificial limitations on the range of topics I'll cover; instead, I'll be writing on the subjects that I find most engaging and hope that my genuine interest will shine through.

This being said, I'm a web developer who wants to become more involved in the development community, so the bulk of my posts will probably be technical. I'm currently on a bit of a Rails kick, but also have a good understanding of HTML, CSS, jQuery, Wordpress, PHP, Photoshop, and general design philosophy.

For What it's Worth

So why start a blog? After all, a quality blog requires a huge amount of time and effort to maintain. What makes it 'worth it' to write a blog? And what are the real benefits?

I think the benefits of having a high quality blog are immeasurable, especially to someone who wants to make a living working on the web. Blogs are a place where people can project their ideas to the world, a home base to showcase work, and literal log of thoughts and ideas. It can also serve as an important source of self documentation - like a personal database of solutions to problems you've solved.

I also think having an online space (blog or otherwise) is a great way to own your reputation. It's the official source and doesn't rely on things like facebook, twitter, or some other 3rd-party information distributor that might change its service at any time. Don't get me wrong, I think twitter is a great way to make connections and keep up-to-date with industry news - but I see it more as a lighthearted supplement than a primary means of communication.

Quality or Quantity?

I've decided to take a very different approach with this blog than any of the others that I've started. The principle philosophy is this: I never ever want to feel any shame when I give out this link. I want all my posts to be as professional and pristine as possible. This is not to say that my posts will lack personality or 'fun links' (eg 8-bit darkside), but the overall tone I want to go for is professional.

With this in mind I've decided to avoid the pressures of "needing to post" and will focus more on the idea of creating landmark, high-quality content. I think this idea came to me when I was reading some content over at Hivelogic, where certain posts have become the definitive source for setting up Ruby on Rails development environments. This is really self-made authority.

So will this blog be updated every day? No. Will this blog be updated every week? Probably not. But will this blog contain high quality and stimulating content? I really really hope so.

This is the conclusion of my first post and I look forward to seeing what the future will bring. The web is an exciting place to be right now and it's great to be involved in something that's changing the world in such drastic and positive ways. It's like 1440 all over again...