A challenge of blog questions

I got tagged by Sathya to take up the challenge of blog questions. I don't even remember the last time something like this happened. But I am thrilled to see blogging is popular again and, in most cases, becoming an alternative to social media. A selfish reason for participating in this challenge is to discover more personal blogs that I can add to my blogring.

Why did you start blogging in the first place?

In 2003, Internet access at my first job, interactions at Infylug, and tech news sites like Slashdot inspired me to start a newsletter called TechMag. I sent emails to friends with highlights of the week and some reviews.

At some point, I converted it into Yahoo Groups so I could send it to a larger group, and then it became a blog called TechMag. I would also write personal things, but I started focusing mainly on tech as the audience grew. I also created a couple of other blogs for nontech interests. In 2007, I got this URL and combined all my blogs under this domain.  

In 2023, I completed 20 years of blogging, so I wrote a detailed post about the origin.

What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it? Have you blogged on other platforms before?

Since 2007, I have been using WordPress. It has its issues, both technical and other. But it meets all my requirements for now, so I have no plans to change it.

I have used Yahoo Groups, static HTML on Geocities, Blogger, and Drupal.

How do you write your posts? For example, in a local editing tool, or in a panel/dashboard that's part of your blog?

I used to write in the WordPress editor directly until blocks were introduced.

Now, I write in a Text editor or Google Docs first, then run it through Grammarly or Hemingway App, then paste it into WordPress and click publish.

When do you feel most inspired to write?

I blog when I have something to say, learn something new, travel, or on Fridays when I publish my Weekly Notes.

Do you publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?

It depends. There are hundreds of posts in draft status. Which I think will remain there. These days, I don't wait to publish; most things get written and published on the same day or in the next couple of days.

But there are exceptions, like my weekly notes - they start on Saturday, get edited throughout the week, and are published on Friday evening.

What's your favorite post on your blog?

Most of my favorite posts are not about the posts themselves but about the occasion or incident that caused me to blog about them. I love the series of travel posts I wrote every evening when Appa and I took a road trip and the Epic 40-day road trip that Anju and I did across India.

Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, a move to another platform, or adding a new feature?

I always keep adding minor features to the blog. They are so small and incremental that sometimes people don't notice it immediately. Recently, I have added a Location and Characters feature where I can tag a post with them.

I have been adding and updating the blogring; currently, a random blog from the ring appears in the side column of all posts. On the blogring page it appears as a table.

I have been moving all the maps to either geojson or gpx based. I use the leaflet-map WordPress plugin to display them. However, one can use any other mapping tool to visualize them.

I keep looking at the IndieWeb community to see if I can implement any. Sometimes I try them on my live blog thej.in before implementing them here.

Who's next?

Oh, I like to tag every one in my blogring. But here are some of them that I want to read answers from Anand, Rohit, Sai, T Shrinivasan, Ayyappa, Tracy, Haripriya, Pooja, Jeff, Pradeep, Saurabh, Adhavan and Mihir. I know some of these people in IRL, some only online, and others, I just follow their blog.

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