I was interested by Kev Quirk's "Blog Questions Challenge", so here's my answers.

To recap, the questions are:

  1. Why did you start blogging in the first place ?
  2. What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it ?
  3. Have you blogged on other platforms before ?
  4. How do you write your posts? For example, in a local editing tool, or in a panel/dashboard that's part of your blog ?
  5. When do you feel most inspired to write ?
  6. Do you publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft ?
  7. What's your favourite post on your blog ?
  8. Any future plans for your blog ? Maybe a redesign, a move to another platform, or adding a new feature ?

Why did you start blogging in the first place ?

I had a web site from 1999 but this was essentially a set of static HTML pages.

I'm an Oracle DBA/developer and there was an active Oracle blogging community who first piqued my interest in back in 2005. I am a serial experimenter and curious about new technologies so initially I chose Blogger and subsequently switched to Wordpress.

What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it ?

This blog currently uses Emacs, Hugo, GitHub and Netlify as I wanted to use as many moving parts as possible. This stack is also essentially a 'free' solution.

Have you blogged on other platforms before ?

Err, yes. I've used many blogging platforms (Blogger, Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, Tumblr, Posterous, Serendipity, Jekyll, Pelican, Octopress, Habari, Nikola, Eleventy, write.as, Hugo).

How do you write your posts ?

Now I write in Emacs and orgmode. This was a recent, conscious decision as I wanted to standardise on orgmode markup. Trying to remember the subtle differences between Markdown and orgmode formats was irritating.

When do you feel most inspired to write ?

Unfortunately not very often.

Years ago, I tended to be prompted to post by other bloggers but, with the advent of the immediacy of social media, sadly the blogging community and the number of feeds in my RSS client has shrunk considerably.

Plus I'm lazy. Incredibly lazy.

Do you publish immediately or have Draft posts ?

Normally, I publish immediately. I really don't like content sitting in 'Drafts' which is akin to a dripping water tap, taunting me, nagging me.

However, I am slightly pedantic about presentation and typos, in particular, so will always preview the post locally in Hugo before publishing.

What's your favourite post on your blog ?

Easy. Two. Both involve hamsters.

Any future plans for your blog ?

Possibly. I'm quite happy with my existing setup but sometimes I think self hosting using WriteFreely would be easier and offer better integration with the Fediverse.