justgraham

You know how it goes (or you don’t in which case I envy you )

When you have some difficulties in keeping up with one blog, you will of course have problems maintaining two!!

I haven’t updated here in a while but now that my main blog is more active I will be testing out stuff here rather than over there.

I want to obtain a magazine style blog with articles maintained in categories. Unfortunately in my main blog and due to the absence of tags until recently I have far too many categories and far too few tags

As there are few posts here I will rearrange things here and use this as a testing bed.

Over on my long established personal blog I have decided to devote the content to only personal and local topics and move other technical and social topics here.

I also plan to mix english and french content and encourage my friends and family to participate.

This is an extract from my other blog explaining the shift.

There are however, I feel, two types of readers and visitors. Those attracted by personal comments and life in general and those more interested by technical and professional topics.

I have started another blog for all those technical, web 2.0, social apps, cms, wms and edh posts that I intend to write from my viewpoint. I am a fiftysomething geek. I am not alone and I want to understand and be a part of the new social web and help others be a part of it too.

Most of these sites and webapps seem aimed at my younger friends but already there appears to be some social divide between twentysomethings and thirtysomethings while fortysomethings and fiftysomethings are a little lost. But are they? Is that just my perception of a non-existant problem?

If you are happy just finding out what’s going on in Geneva and in my life and want a hug and wave from time to time. Pop over to (blog.graham-lawrence.com). It’s going to get personal. It’s finally having a distinct style of it’s own.

I read an interesting post by Megan Berry this morning called “when worlds collide”.

She was musing over the fact that some Facebook users are worried over the collision between private and business profiles. She says :

“As a Facebook “expert” I get asked: “what Facebook apps do you use?” “why not just email instead of using Facebook messages?” I do my best to answer and sometimes wonder just what it is about Facebook that has so captured the minds of numerous thirty-somethings.

For this generation of thirty-something web users much of their business marketability has come from being web-literate, young, and in touch with the latest Internet trends. As a new generation joins the work force who is younger and learned to use a computer before they learned how to ride a bike the value of the thirty-somethings is slowly changing from youth and knowledge of current trends to experience. I suspect that many who try to join Facebook to prove their youth are instead finding that it makes them feel old.”

If the thirty-somethings are supposed to be feeling old where does that leave me and those in my age group? Do we fifty-somethings have somewhere nice to go on the web? Are there social apps geared toward us hidden somewhere? Is age a problem?

That got me to thinking that during the preparation of my daughter Jennifer’s wedding we spent some time with two of her friends that will be getting married in a few weeks time. They are a wonderful couple and we spent a few really nice evenings with them.

I remember saying in my wedding speech, while thanking them for their contribution, that only a few decades separated us from a great friendship.

Generations don’t mix easily in the real world and it would seem that they don’t fare much better online.

This is something that you probably should have told me (but why would you have done that) a long time ago. I visit a lot of sites per day. I use(d) Netvibes as my start page because I love the magic of having the same start page over multiple sites and platforms.

I have a sidebar on my blog with the blogs of friends that I visit.

I’ve been on the web before it became the web (long story) and I’m an early adopter when it comes to buying into new technology. Specially when it comes to gadgets!

Some things take longer to sink in and although I’m a little ashamed I admit that I saw a poll today of how people read their feeds It was from reading the results that I learnt that most people use a web-based reader and a lot of them pick Google Reader.

I may be a little thick at times but I don’t think I’m an idiot or can’t change my mind on something so I’ve just set it up.

Although I’ll keep using Netvibes for all non feed related widgets I’m crossing over to the other side and adopting Google reader.

I honestly think that it will save me time and that is what we all have as a precious commodity. I think I will also just consult it a few times a day. The other problem with Netvibes is that the feeds are there but you have to reclick many times to get where you want to go.

I like to think of it as being the difference between going around your neighborhood looking for stuff and looking in all the shop windows or just having all that news delivered to your doorstep.

I’ll give you an update in a few days but would welcome any input or advice you could give me.

I often wonder if my dedicated readers just watch my feeds or actually visit or under what conditions they physically visit the blog.