I still mourn the loss of a blog I once had. It was a wiki for one that I had running on my work computer at my last full-time job. I wrote everything I was doing, and what I’d done to fix things, and reminders about stuff I should do someday but never got the chance. I also wrote some neat scripts and SQL, “tricks” I’d figured out that helped me in my job.
And then I got laid off. I’d never copied a backup to my home computer, so I lost all of it. There wasn’t anything all that profound in its contents, but profundity in database administration is not something I’ve aimed for. Just remembering how to do shit, that’s a more practical goal.
I hate that I never made its contents public (removing anything company-specific obviously), because that had been my plan, once I felt there were enough posts to spread them out well over the following weeks. I was going to have a tech blog with sparkles and put it on Planet MySQL. So much for that.
I’ve since built up similar notes at my current job and am wondering about whether I should restart the whole tech blog idea, as the recent conference has me jonesing for an online presence that’s not just this silly self-obsessed brainfart of a blog. I don’t know many DBAs or database developers and it’s a lonely existence. I bet there’s maybe a handful of MySQL DBAs in all of BC, and I must be only one in Kelowna (not surprising, this isn’t the “silicon vineyard” that local businessmen were hoping to create). Sigh. I think I’ll go sit at my window and stare out at the ghetto parking lot behind my apartment, dreaming of having friends who aren’t software developers.
But back on the tech blog idea: there’s one last thing leaving me uneasy, and that’s Planet MySQL. There’s voting, a la thumbs-up-or-down on a per-post basis. That just seems, I dunno, mean, like we can’t all be nice and appreciate everyone’s effort even if we think it’s all bollocks. Most of the voting seems to be politically charged (i.e., pro-Oracle posts will get a bunch of thumbs-downs because some people are upset about their recently finalized purchase of Sun/MySQL) and if you avoid that arena you’re halfway there. But I’ve been barked at in comments sections of blog posts, too, and I wasn’t even saying “FRIST!!!111″ or trolling or anything.
I would hope that anything I produced would be read and commented on and if I was full of crap or worthy of mockery then people would at least be nice about it like my teammates are when they laugh at me at work (at least they’re smiling as I run off to the bathroom to cry). I guess I just don’t see the point of voting at all on an aggregate feed of blog posts about databases, and worry about getting commenters who are going to get all snippy at me because I don’t like master-master replication (because if so, they better BRING IT).
Any techies still reading want to comment on this?
You should tech blog, and you should syndicate it into Planet MySQL, and you should just ignore the voting. The voting was put into place when a bunch of Sun salesmen thought that polluting Planet MySQL with marketing drivel was a smart idea, so the voting system was put into place to get rid of it.
I would say write a tech blog, and tell people about it, but don’t intentionally syndicate it on a portal. People who are interested will find it, by word of mouth or Google, and will post links and excerpts on the portals if they want. That way you can moderate comments on your posts as you wish, and blog about whatever you want instead of what ‘s appropriate for the portal.
+1 tech blog. I’ve considered doing one myself, but never got around to it…
My blog (at LJ), is mostly technical material, with most non-technical content friends locked.
Any posts tagged with ‘gentoo’ are aggregated up onto the Gentoo Planet, which is most of them these days.
I don’t see much point in having them separate blogs, since the private content is blocked from the average viewer anyway.
I agree with the other folks here. Publish it yourself on whatever system and domain you prefer, and syndicate it if you want. If it’s good stuff, people will find it. For example, if it had been one of the URLs at the end of the talk you posted last week, people seeing that would have come to check it out, and maybe the ball would get rolling from there.
Maybe don’t host it on a server in your apartment, though.
Hey! I stopped hosting from my living room last year!
Blog on kid… There are a few of us that do want the tech db advice, I for one would read both blogs, I’m a manager (yes I hate people too, ‘users’ to be precise,, specially on Mondays and Fridays) but still get do some coding on my free time, and need the Dba help most of the time.