Successful bloggers, and indeed writers in most fields, will tell you that the key to success is to pick your target market and stick to it.  No surprise, then, that the most read blogs are ones where their authors talk religiously about their chosen topic, whether that be a blog about programming methods or a blog about one man’s journey to become a vintage bus driver.

In spite of this well-acknowledged fact, you’ll notice that my blog is still littered with a whole plethora of categories, covering all sorts of topics and areas of life.  I have chosen not to focus on one target audience, but to write infrequently about everything instead.

Now, finally, I’ve got round to introducing a way for you, the reader, to take control of my blog and only show the articles you’re actually interested in.

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I remember when I first started blogging.  My friend Phill was responsible for starting me off, back when we were at uni together.  He had a blog, and said that I should have one too.  So I registered a free domain name – www.minipix.cjb.net – and pointed that at some free webspace that came with my Dad’s dial-up internet connection (with permission… I think), and wrote my first blog.  If memory serves, it said something along the lines of ‘hey, I’ve got a blog, not sure what to write here, but we’ll see how it goes’.  Once the bug had bitten, there was no stopping me.

That first blog was a straight HTML page.  I edited the HTML, probably in Notepad, put the latest post at the top of the page, and re-uploaded the file.  Simple but effective.  But over time it became a little unwieldy.  So Phill got me to beta-test his PHP-MySQL blogging system that he’d been tinkering with, and that opened up a lot more options.  Before long though I felt it necessary to migrate to something more substantial, made the move to WordPress (importing my old blog posts), and have been a blogging sensation ever since.  Well, maybe not the sensation bit.

But now, an ominous cloud hangs on the horizon.  A tiny ripple out at sea that has the potential to grow into a tidal wave that will rip through all that once was safe and secure.  My wife has a blog.

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No post today about Lego.  One my wife’s old school friends is with us for the weekend, so the Lego has been diligently packed away and hidden in the garage again until it’s safe to resume my private geekiness.  Unless I suddenly lose all interest overnight, I expect the boxes will reappear on Monday evening, if not before…

What I’m actually blogging about now is the film we went to see this afternoon.  Now, being in the middle of the countryside, our nearest cinema isn’t exactly on our doorstep.  In fact, Cineworld in Yeovil is a good 40 minute drive away (albeit along beautiful country lanes).  The film in question was “Julie & Julia”, a film based on two true stories, one of a prestigious cook from the 50s and one of a modern day blogger who finds purpose in life through cooking.  Yes, this is a film review.  Read on if you’ve already seen the film, or if you have no intention of seeing the film but want to know what happens, or if you are planning on seeing the film but don’t mind knowing beforehand what happens.

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Just quick note to say that I have updated my blog template to the new design I’ve been working on.  It’s not quite finished yet, and there are some links that won’t work yet, but I’m out this evening so those things will have to be added tomorrow.  The basic functionality is there though, and I’m much happier with this design than I was with the previous off-the-shelf one I tried a while back…

Anyway, once it’s all settled in, feel free to let me know what you think of it.

Work has generally been quite busy recently.  Which is a good thing.  More work means more money.  However, there is more to life than work, and there are a whole load more things I need to squeeze into my week than just work.  I’d like to share just a few of this week’s additional bits and bobs with you.  It gives me something to do after all.

This afternoon I took the opportunity to put work on hold briefly while I went outside and mowed the lawn.  It has needed doing for a while now, and I’ve been putting it off, but today I figured I ought to take advantage of the sunshine and get out there while I can.  Looking at the forecast, the weekend isn’t going to be too promising.  The lawn actually needs treating at some point, as one half of it looks to be more moss than grass.  We’ve got some moss-killer, it’s just a case of spraying it on and letting it do its job.  I didn’t get round to that today, but I did cut the grass and do the edges, so the garden is looking nice now.  I also noticed that the peas in our vegetable patch are beginning to grow too!  We’ve got carrots and parsnips in there too, but I only planted them last week so it’s no surprise they’re not topside yet.

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I’ve been hovering on the WordPress forums recently, keeping my eyes peeled for a solution to my missing media buttons following up my upgrade to WordPress 2.5 a week or so ago. Today, prompted by a post by jeenie involving looking at the source code, I had a poke around and managed to get half way there. As you can see from the attached screenshot (which proves it all works!!), I can now access the functionality, even though the images still don’t show. It’s a curious thing, given that it looks like a fairly simple bit of code that oughtn’t to have any problems at all.

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This evening I upgraded my blog to WordPress 2.5, the latest version of the famous blogging software.  It’s pretty neat, has a nice revamped interface, and introduces a few nice changes along the way.  They’re not differences you’ll notice as a reader though, which is partly why I loaded up a new theme, so you’d have something different to look at!  The theme isn’t mine, incidentally, I couldn’t be bothered to spend all that time developing it and wanted something quickly, so used someone else’s.

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