I've been busy lately bringing up Linix (Ubuntu dist) on some old computers that were becoming nearly worthless under the increased demands of modern software. It's an amazing transformation: my tired old systems seem almost snappy. It was fairly easy to do, after a couple of false starts. The Linux world isn't perfect - there are some odd quirks here and there, but it was definitely worth the effort. If you've got an old system that is nearly worthless, give it a try. It's easy and free!

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With most of the big Internet players like Facebook and Google (and countless smaller ones) offering an Internet "home", I've been busy looking at the various options. I've concluded that the only way to have a true digital home that does everything I want is to use my own Web site. I've let this place go dormant while I was busy playing with all the new cloud toys, but now I've decided to revive this site as my central presence on the Web. Thanks for bearing with me.
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I plan on shrinking the content of this site - better to do a few things well than a lot of things poorly! When I started creating Web sites, it was important to create links - lots of links, such as on my Tools or Resources page. But times change, and with search capabilities ever more powerful, there's just not as much need to link to things. If I reference a site such as BeFunky.com, I don't need to link to it - any modern browser can find it without a hiccup. So I'm shedding content soon....
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I plan to change how my various postings are organized. I plan to stop dumping absolutely everything into my Shared Google Reader. Instead, I will limit Shared Google Reader to longer form things I read. This means my output will consist of long form re-posting (Shared Google Reader), short form re-postings (tumblr.com), and two different original Wordpress postings. I think this will make life easier on my readers.
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I'm doing an informal inventory of my past writings and - holy cow - I sure have cranked out a lot of words. The problem is that most of those words haven't been read. I see several possibilities for the future.

1. Concentrate on making everything more uniform and attractive.  
2. Get everything organized with a focus on reusing material
3. Generate new material

I am inclined to focus on 2 and 3, while trying to place referring material in places that lead to wider readership.

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I've been thinking of managing my Web presence as a publishing problem. Now I'm not so sure. Oh, there are problems all right, but now I think about it differently. One problem is mine alone: how I manage the updates to this site and the related sites. The other problem is more serious: I've made my Web presence needlessly difficult to navigate. Specifically, I've forced readers to click through multiple pages in order to access my stuff. That is a big "no no". To remedy that, I'm restructuri...
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If I publish what I want, there is no getting around the need for multiple Web sites and multiple platforms. But this can easily lead to chaos. My Web presence is, in fact, a mess. It's tempting to rush in and fix it, but I've tried that before and only got a bigger mess to show for it. No, what I need is an architecture, not just for content containers, but also for process. Maybe that's a tall order, but stay tuned.
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If you've been reading my stuff for any time at all, you know that I've tried a variety of publishing options. I've had my Wordpress blog (Thinking Things Through) for some time, but I've also flirted with Tumblr and Google Reader. Now I see that Google Reader had added some wonderful enhancements which are tempting. The main appeal is that I can post more with much less effort, especially since most of my commentary is short, if I comment at all. Google Reader is how I "read" the Web and doi...
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Whoo boy! The InterWebs keep throwing out nifty toys and I keep trying them. Keeping track of my blogging activity must be a pain for anyone silly enough to try (that would be you). But now I'm going to try to clean up my act. My primary personal publishing will be done here, but I will continue to publish in other places, while linking from here. This should be home and I will try to make it one ... hopefully without being distracted by the next goodie to rumble across the InterWebs. Wish me...
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