Paul's blog still 1.0

The Name - LloydyWeb

What started out as a rush choice for a domain name seven years ago has since grown into an online pseudonym of sorts, and is today attached to many online accounts and even as part of my Yahoo IM handle. Given it was my domain name it seemed the obvious choice when signing up for such services, but I can’t help but feel like I’ve grown out of it.

If I was an earlier adaptor (both to these websites and obtaining a personal domain name) I could have chosen ‘paullloyd’, but I’m not a great fan of my real name either! In fact, I’m not keen on FourTwo (the name for which I christened my freelance ‘operation’), so perhaps this is a medical condition? Maybe, I’m just bad at picking names.

I would have chosen to represent myself with a symbol but not only did (the artist formal known as) Prince get there first, but I would have been limited to the _ and – characters…

Then there’s the .org. Whilst I may be international and to some extent organised, I’m certainly not an international organisation! Who knows what went through my mind as I picked that one!

I’m currently in two minds as to what to do. As a precursor, I have registered lloydyweb.com (and .co.uk) as well as paulrobertlloyd.com (and .co.uk), but I can see me being stuck with LloydyWeb for many years to come. Unless anyone else has any suggestions?

My Writing Style

My blog started out back in the day as not a blog at all, but manually updated HTML ‘news updates’ (old school!). As this slowly transformed into a blog, it remained pretty much (as Jon would put it) “Today I went to the loo three times, and had corned beef hash for my tea”. I soon grew tired of such posts and in the last year I have made real efforts to try and post entries that have some sort of thought behind them (even if not a point).

One of my biggest goals of keeping a blog was, and still is, to improve my written communication skills. This is one area I feel Jon excels in especially, and I’m not ashamed to let everyone know how insanely jealous of him I am for that. I just hope my own style can improve with age too.

I’m also a little concerned that my best search referrals come from being the top result in mis-spelt searches. Was a whole 4 years of primary education wasted?

Archives

At the moment I’m tempted to delete all posts written before a certain date (and I have in fact been slowly pruning the really embarrassing stuff as I’ve been going forward), but is that the right thing to do? As a representation of yourself online, should previous posts be kept as a lasting record, or if you no longer feel that these represent who you are today, should they be removed? It could be argued both ways, but I have a feeling the archives may be getting shorter quite soon.

Design

Okay, what with that recent (and bloody fantastic) redesign (and perhaps another high profile one on the way soon too), it’s hard as a designer not to feel disheartened with ones own work. Aside from the fact the black is the new black and two column layouts are sooo 2003, I genuinely feel it’s time for a refresh. Which brings me on to…

Technology

Since this version of the site went live almost two years ago, ‘web 2.0’ (for want of not having to use that buzzword) has taken off. A big part of this web renaissance, is the easy interchange and sharing of data and content. Here are just some of this new 2.0 goodness that I want to inject into this site:

• Photos: I have made the decision (or the decision has been made for me) – I will be incorporating my flickr account into the next design. Not only is this because I’m now totally addicted, but mainly due to the number of ways I can get my photos on to the site, quickly. This is especially important when travelling as much as I am currently.

• Blog Posts: My most recent stuff is nowhere to be seen on Technorati or Google’s Blog Search. I might as well not exist as a blog with out being more accessible to those two great tools. I’m looking at improving the categories, and adding (better) Technorati tags to all my posts.

• Bookmarks: Another service I’ve become addicted to within the last 6 months is del.icio.us. Purely in terms of the way my bookmarks are currently being presented, it doesn’t do their frequency or quantity justice.

• Reviews: I think they may be taking a REST…

There are lots of other great APIs and tools I would like to incorporate too (last.fm, LinkedIn, MicroFormats, Skype/IM status), but those listed above are definite areas that I want to focus on.

I guess as a way of representing who I am online, this site hasn’t done a bad job. I have it to thank for both my current achievements, and as can be seen above, my future growth as a web developer. It’s just a shame I might not find the time to make the changes I feel I need to make, for quite a while yet.