More About this Blog and Blogging

What is this?

This is a weblog written by contributors including anyone in our extended family who wants to participate. Hopefully someone will write a blurb, post a photo and/or update this site daily or weekly, sometimes more than once a day. We hope to see links, essays, articles, pictures, and discussions about family matters, fun stuff we're doing together and individually -- well, just about anything and everything. So, although I am the "administrator" of the blog, there are multiple authors -- you all. I hope once it's up and running smoothly someone else might want to take a turn being administrator.

Oh. So how did this come about?
The inaugural post in Gettin' Together explains the why of our blog.


I see. Ahem ... so ... pardon my ignorance but can you tell me again, what is a blog?
Good question. First off, this post explains why it's called a blog. A blog (short for web log) is a web site with dated entries. Think of it like an online journal or, in our case, an online family scrapbook. Blogs are usually written in the first person by an individual or group of folks, and they update regularly. There are many different kinds of blogs including corporate blogs, personal blogs that really are like diaries, product blogs about how best to use individual products, and topical blogs about everything from politics to chocolate, gardening to cooking.


Why would anybody want to write their journal or diary or whatever ... online? And make it public???
The best way to understand blogs is to read some. There are millions of blogs on the web. Of course, I have my own interests that are different from some of yours, but just to give you examples of the range of topics people are blogging about, here are a few of my favorites:

Acorns is a gardening blog by Marion Owen in Kodiak Alaska. She includes podcasts (audio clips like a radio show) on her blog.

Botany Photo of the Day is run by Daniel Mosquin, director of the UBC Botanical Garden in Vancouver, BC. Every day he posts gorgeous plant photos, with an entertaining and education blurb and a useful link about botany. I've had two of my photos published on Daniel's site. One is here.

Here's another one on gardening I've enjoyed reading over the last year or two: Cold Climate Gardening.

My Mom's Blog by Thoroughly Modern Millie (who lives in Florida and is 80 years old) is entertaining, weird and cool.

This one, Cool Tools, may appeal to everyone in the family - there is something for everyone from the artists to the fix-it folks to the technology lovers.

An interesting mixed-design blog is Social Design Notes -- it's a collection of notes on the built environment, graphic design, product design, architecure, the decisions we make, and the impact they have. Always something new.

How can I find blogs that interest me?
To find blogs about your particular interests, there are lots of blog search sites. One to try is Technorati Blog Finder. Or Google Blogs, which is more for searching for individual posts about a certain subject. When you get the search results, the short list at the top has blogs that specialize in that topic.

Hmmm, maybe I want to try making my own blog. What's up with that?
If you'd like to learn more about blogs or try creating one of your own, click here
and follow the easy directions.

Have fun!
Maureen