a) cheap (as in "free");And as there have been many times since I went to the one-post-a-weekday-only format when I've wanted to just put in a link to a news story with a brief comment, but do not have the coding skills to rip off Ernie's "mini-blog" format, what I'm about to introduce definitely meets the third requirement. Happily, it also meets the first two.
b) easy (because, let's face it, almost a year later and I still don't know what I'm doing when it comes to HTML); and
c) interesting (at least to me).
So, without further ado -- although, really, I don't see what's so wrong with ado, and maybe what the world needs now is more ado, sweet ado -- I'd like to introduce you to Ping on the Side. It's a bit of an experiment that I've embarked on merely to amuse myself...and because AOL decided to jump on the blog bandwagon (the blogdwagon?) and shoved the opportunity in my face with some goofy come-on that I was intrigued (read: bored) enough to check out.
I had no idea that they've had an "AOL Journal" available for over a year, though apparently it was something that until recently was only able to be viewed by other AOL members. But, being the egalitarian sort, they have now opened it up to the WWWorld at large and here I am doing their publicity for them. But really, I think the format suits what I had in mind and I consider it to be a supplement to this page.
Cool-ish things about it:
1. I can IM items to post to it. This would be very cool if I were able to get AIM to work through the firewall at my job;Should a particular day's OPO post bore you to tears, yet you still like coming here soooo much that you just can't bear to take off in under your usual 20 seconds...or you're too lazy to go find the link to the "Odd News of the Day" headlines elsewhere...or you're just dying to discover what news items I find fascinating and whether or not I'll actually fill in the "All About Me" section that some people seem to find so necessary to a successful blog and I have never cared enough about to enable here...or you find me mildly amusing on a semi-regular basis but think that I ramble on too much on a regular basis (Rita)...or are just bored enough to try something new, too, please go check it out and let me know what you think.
2. It will e-mail me if someone makes a comment there, unlike here. I imagine that if I upgraded Haloscan, that would probably be available to me, but then I'd have to spend money; and
3. Did I mention it's free?
Once I figure out what to do with the link to it after today, kind of like a New Feature for the New Year sort of thing, it will remain there until it either dies a slow death because no one cares or I get too busy to continue it because no one cares.
So care, people, care -- or the innocent little baby blog that never hurt anyone gets it.
Update: Because LibertyBob is the only one who cares (even if he does think awful things about California), he went and played guinea pig on this for me. And what he found was a little disturbing: The stupid thing makes you sign in. That certainly wasn't my intention, as I don't think someone should have to give out info if they don't want to. Should have known this was too good to be true!
Anyone want to see if it will let you put in a BS address, like NOYB@dot.com? We could have some fun with that if it does. Like George.Foreman@kittygriddles.com, for Norman! (Although he's so busy being Michele'd that he may not have time to visit the likes of me again anytime soon.) If not, or if it's just not worth it, that could be the shortest experiment ever.
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