Of summer and blogging

This is the kind of title that you'll see when I attempt to combine two topics that are supposed to be discrete... I'm just too lazy to create two separate posts instead of one. Nevertheless, they're somehow related for me to weave them into one post. Read on.


My blog is half dead

I realised that there are many many broken promises on my blog - from my assurance to update more frequently and to my pledge to provide more follow-up posts. Ironically， the music I'm currently playing on my blog is 约定 ("Promise") by Michael Wong. I should've posted more updates especially during the summer holidays, which is about to end by the way. Close to four months... yet only four updates during this period (not including this post). What am I doing?

My (and maybe some others') interest in blogging has probably declined since using Facebook. Being on Facebook has sapped much of the time available for me to be active in blogging. With Facebook, I can keep up with updates from bloggers and non-bloggers alike, on one single website - convenient eh? No need to go blog-hopping and waiting for (some painfully slow) blogs to load. Naturally, updating my status on Facebook is much easier than writing a full-length blog post.

So why am I still writing this? I should've ditched this blog long ago! Actually, not a chance. Here are my five reasons:

1. This blog can be designed the way I like it.
2. Freedom to write as long as I want. Status updates are for short updates.
3. Facebook Notes? Limited capabilities. Here I can include pictures, Flash animations, CSS, Javascript, Java applets, even ActiveX in my posts if I know how to use it.
4. Facebook Photos? Again limited. I can write a photo story here instead of displaying my photos album-style.
5. Unlimited stuff that I can include here, unlike my plain old Facebook profile.

So Facebook or blogging? Hopefully both, if I have the time. In fact, I've just added a Facebook badge at my blog's sidebar to keep this blog updated with my Facebook status. This way, my blog will never be dead!


Summer summary

OK, so you know I didn't spend my summer writing lengthy articles on who-knows-what (I didn't even bother to think about what articles to write). I'll classify the happenings in summer in two categories - good and bad.

The good:

• Visited Indonesia for the first time.
• Earned some money.
• Got an external hard drive.
• My house is now a Wi-Fi zone.
• Bought myself a new handphone (more about this later).
• Played DotA with my cousin. He's getting better than me!
• Met some old friends, both during work and late-night mamak sessions.

The bad:

• Didn't do as much as I planned to do.
• My external hard drive suffered a fall. It's still working, but not without minor glitches (more about this later).
• My grandfather in Penang had a stroke, still recovering. Will see him next week.
• Broke my laptop, due to me leaving it on for insanely long hours. (Or rather, it broke on me.) Come on, it's only slightly more than a years' old and a day is only 24 hours at maximum. So this is the lifespan of my laptop made by DELL (more about this later).
  

Notice the fancy bullets I used when writing out my list. This will never be possible on Facebook. So fellow bloggers, keep on blogging. Rest assured, I'll be monitoring your blogs through my blogroll on the right. Keep your blog updated to stay on top!


P.S.: If I missed out any of your blogs, feel free to shout at me in my Shoutbox.