What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • New Year Predictions 2017

    Here’s my New Year Predictions…

    1. Trump will become President of the USA later this month but won’t manage to survive for 4 years. (And don’t be rejoicing anyone, take a look at his VP).
    2. No significant progressive change will be proposed by the bishops of the Church of England in relation to LGBT issues.
    3. A solid majority in all houses of the Scottish Episcopal Church synod in favour of opening marriage to same-sex couples. (But I’m not predicting whether or not it will be enough to pass the legislation).
    4. SNP to lead the next administration of Glasgow City Council after the elections in May but possibly in coalition with others.
    5. Lib Dems will claim they’ve turned the corner after the local elections. Greens will continue to make very little progress in a political situation that seems almost designed for them to thrive. UKIP will do badly in Scotland. And is there another party?
    6. #Brexit will be triggered. And we will all end up the  poorer for it. Especially those already poorer.
    7. Success for the TIE campaign – I expect that they will make significant progress in getting more inclusive education in Scotland’s schools. By the end of the year I expect there will have been progress either in new Scottish Government guidelines or proposed legislation.
    8. Wikileaks-esque publication of details of membership of a large pornographic internet site and consequent sackings, suicides and divorces. (It is only a matter of time).
    9. François Fillon to win the French Presidency but Le Pen to do frighteningly well.
    10. The end of the beard. (Oh, I know I’ve predicted this before but how long can this hirsute tyranny go on? How much longer can good looking men keep their faces covered. Come along boys, enough is enough. Lather up.)

     

8 responses to “How to write a blog #1”

  1. chris Avatar
    chris

    I’m afraid I hate using WordPress. I struggle with it every time I have to update the church site – maybe I’m more interested in having an easy place to say what I want to than in fiddling with the layout!

    Gosh. That sounds somehow superior. Not meant! 😉

    Reply
  2. David | Dah•veed Avatar
    David | Dah•veed

    If you want complete control you can host your own wordpress site on your own server (which is what I do)

    I have always wondered why Safari stops and thinks for 30 seconds or more before your blog begins to load. Now I know why.

    Reply
  3. Jackie Avatar
    Jackie

    If you are a student (particularly if you are doing a PhD), starting a new blog is an ideal way to procrastinate.

    Reply
  4. Gareth J M Saunders Avatar
    Gareth J M Saunders

    @Chris – I notice that you use Blogspot (which is owned by Google). I struggle every time I have to use Blogspot, which is only very occasionally when assisting other people with their blogs. I’d go with WordPress every time, but then I’ve been using it for years and years, since version 0.6 (it’s currently at 3.0.1). I guess it’s partly what you’re familiar with. My top tip, if it helps, is simply being aware of the difference between posts (news-like articles that are time-dependent) and pages (mostly static content).

    @David – I’m writing this in Safari. I didn’t find any delay in Safari serving up Kelvin’s blog. There are many reasons why you might get a delay, including time of day, your own connection speed, what else is hosted on the same server, etc. I host my own WordPress blog too, and since moving to a new host it’s been lightning fast.

    Reply
  5. Stewart Avatar
    Stewart

    Writing a blog can be difficult.

    Since June 2004 I have had an on-line photo album via fotopic, which allows me to show may photographs and put in a little story about them.

    Them along came Kelvin at St Mary’s in May 2006, and Kimberley’s “Bloggers and Bluebells” event in May 2007, which re-invigorated my fotopic activities. Although I have a Flickr account, I still prefer fotopic for my photographs. Moving forward to the Facebook era (again following a blog from Kelvin) and another means of displaying photographs. Then at Christmas 2008 I started the Pencefn blog on wordpress.

    I like to write items that are illustrated with photos I have taken, most times cross linking a blog posting to a fotopic collection. However even with the best intentions, I do not manage to establish the discipline to publish as often as I would like.

    One rich theme I have is travelogs from my trips, this does take time, selecting the most appropriate pictures for fotopic, and writing (what I think is interesting) for WordPress.

    Would I started blogging without see Kelvin – not sure, probably not. Thank you Kelvin for introducing me to blogging, even if it took me several years to start writing my own.

    Reply
  6. RevRuth Avatar
    RevRuth

    I used to use Blogger but I found it a bit clunky and prone to large quantities of the kind of spam which a priest really ought not to be promoting, if you get what I mean. Despite several complaints they did nothing about it and so I migrated to WordPress. I love it. I’m sure I could do more with it than I do (change the appearance from time to time) but for a novice it is just perfect.

    Reply
  7. David | Dah•veed Avatar
    David | Dah•veed

    @Gareth – perhaps I misunderstood the Padre. (I often misunderstand many things in English!) I took the comment that he was hosting a blog on his own server to mean he had the blog on a computer serving as a server in his own home/office.

    I have tested Kelvin’s blog on Camino, Firefox, and Google Chrome. There is a definite lag as the browser sits there waiting for a response to the request for the page. The only other blog I see that with is Padre Bosco’s blog, Liturgy, in New Zealand.

    My service is 4 Meg DSL from my cable provider.

    It could be that I am in North America. That little country with the drug war located just south of the Statesonians, Mexico. Blogger blogs load instantly, but that is likely because no matter where the blogger is located in the world, the blog is hosted on Google’s servers in the US. So those blogs are physically near to my location when compared to a blog actually hosted somewhere in Europe or New Zealand.

    Reply
    1. kelvin Avatar
      kelvin

      The server I use is not in my office. Its a vps located in Manchester, Englandshire.

      Reply

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