Yesterday, I touched on my ennui with things pertaining to life, and one of those things is blogging topics. I have been having a helluva time coming up with good things to blog about that interest me and others. Sure, I could prattle on about my day, but that gets boring. Let's face it, I'm not that terribly interesting. ;-)
So I'm trying to come up with some ideas on things to blog about. But since this blog is just as much for you as it is for me, I'd like some feedback on what things you'd find interesting.
What I'm thinking of doing is picking a few themes, and blogging about that. For instance, have a Win32 API week. And then a .NET week. Then an insects week. Etc.
So here are some of the theme ideas which I'd find interesting:
- Win32 APIs
- User interface design principles
- UI hall of shame with explanations of why something sucks
- Insects, with a bit of information from Lis. ;-)
- Central MN "things." Just little tidbits of interesting information about the area I grew up and live in
- "Useless" trivia about random things. For instance, did you know that some languages don't have the concept of italics, while others will actually change the gylphs entirely?
That's about all I can think of right now, but if you've got other things which you think may be interesting, I'm interested to hear about them.
pr0n
How about REALbasic as a topic? ;-)
@Jake -- mmm... pr0n... ;-)
@Scott -- That's one of the topics I'm rather burnt out about. Having a hard time finding topics that interest me which I haven't covered before that I enjoy. As I run into topics on RB that I like blogging about, I blog about them.
I'd sure like to learn/hear more about using REALbasic apps as a backend for Web-based applications. The means of interchange that I think deserves attention is PHP 5 running under Apache 2. At present PHP 5 uses the older SQLite 2.8.1 library while REALbasic uses SQLite 3x. There must be a way to build PHP 5 interactions with SQLite 3x file created and processed with REALbasic.
I would be kinda curious about the work atmosphere and behind-the-scenes stuff at Real Software. Sometimes I get the impression you telecommute, others you work at an office... I guess it's the former with occasional visits? Some more detail on that and how it's worked out for you so far would be interesting. Also just general work atmosphere stuff and how you choose your work... That'll certainly be interesting to people just looking for a job and wondering how real work life is. Feel free to also share stuff on other jobs you had, how you got to Real, any funny or just interesting anecdotes...
I'm also a sucker for language and parser design, but I suppose you don't directly work on those aspects of RB that much.
I also enjoyed your Windows-vs-Mac posts tremendously. Mainly being a Mac user, it's kind of hard for me to get at unbiased Windows information that doesn't come from someone either trying to suck up to me to get tips on what Mac to Switch(tm) to, or trying to talk down my choice of OS in favour of their 1337 h4x0r system... While you don't seem to like Macs very much, you've always fairly commended and bashed both.
Oh, and BTW -- I'm also kinda pumped out right now... gotta get powered up again soon, so I can finish my two apps...
Ugh--Those are all so terrible, I say write about your boring life, it never gets old for me.
There is a book called Head First Design Patterns that outlines major design patterns in Java.
I have read the book several times and always thought it would be cool to create an Realbasic program that implemented all of the Design Patterns. Not "toy" examples but substative examples.
My problem is while I have been a programmer for many years...I am learning Realbasic. Someone as yourself with extensive knowledge of Realbasic would be able to create substative examples because you already know Realbasic like the "back-of-your-hand."
I know I would certainly learn much from it.
I'm sorry for being mean, and your girlfriend is not black. ;)
You're forgiven, even though you're crazy. ;-)
More pictures !
My net connection is way too fast and I need a way to slow things down ...
please :)
Seriously ... write about what you care about whether it's work, life, hunting, building a deck , whatever.
More Win32 APIs definitely!
And it would be great if you could “touch†on some controls like Rebars and Toolbars (and yes, I know there are toolbar plugins on the market, but none of them mimic correctly the toolbar and buttons behavior on Windows). I already tried to create them on RB but unfortunately I don’t have the same skills and knowledge than you with RB, so I failed miserably :(
How about doing a random topic each week? Take all the topics you can think of, put them down on paper and draw one out of a hat (or do the electronic equivalent :P). Maybe one week you'd write some movie reviews, the next some posts about your experiences and gotchas to look out for in building your house, maybe game reviews, some posts on digital photography, or whatever else you think you'd like to post about (and perhaps learn about along the way). :)
In any case, I find your blog to be me favourite read everyday :)
As far as what you could blog about, why not the future of computing, or the future of languages, development, etc. If you're tapped out, you're tapped out. We all go through dry spells. You could talk about how weird I am...? ;)
@Will B -- Lis and I were having an argument last night about whether a friend of ours was dating a black woman, or an asian woman. I know for a fact that he's dating an asian woman, but Lis' hazy memory seems to think maybe perhaps she was possibly a black woman. Of course, Lis was wrong. ;-)
And I'm really liking everyone's ideas, so thank you all for them! :-)
You could talk about past things, like how things have changed, in reguards to computer, or anything for that matter. Show how things have improved, features you miss, features that you are sorry to see still there..... :D
I can understand getting burned out on REALbasic topics (although I would guess that is the reason why about half of your readers are here). Let me think of a few none REALbasic topics:
1. You know, I actually enjoyed your old comics... I like your sense of humor. Perhaps a new comic every couple of weeks would be a nice change.
2. I like it when you get all puffed up about an issue you feel strongly about; like the Water company issue a few months back (details fuzzy). I think that you are very entertaining (although you may not feel that way at the time), and you certainly get your point across... my point? Write more about the things that bug you. =)
3. You could always write your own opinion about a news article; particularly opinion pieces.
4. Deep thoughts. No, not those ones... the Jack Handey's kind of thoughts. =)
As one who's "here for the rb"...
a. Annotate a book. Awhile back you were considering Pragmatic Programming. Did you get a copy? Head First Design Patterns would also be nifty...please don't opt for the GoF version.
b. "Lightning talks" - 2 paragraphs, 1 topic, as much code as necessary. If we can't digest it in five minutes, we probably wouldn't read it anyway.
c. RB idioms. We need more of these. From simple "use the canvas!" to "how to iterate over a file/array/dictionary" ... memory block ... gathering metrics ...
d. Don't stop with the new feature reviews. I have the VersionControl format a quick look...but it was buried in a Save As dialog and usual 'what it is' in the Guide. The inspiration for the feature and applicablitity (story behind the feature!) are what'll really bring in the google hits..er, human interest. :-)
e. If you really don't feel like writing about RB *here* anymore, why not start a companion multi-author blog at RBLibrary? Pay for micro-articles (blog entries), publish for free, score ad revenue...use as starting point for larger articles.