compilerbitch: That's me, that is! (Default)
compilerbitch ([personal profile] compilerbitch) wrote2005-11-17 11:44 am

And now... [drum roll] Introducing... er, Me.

In a fit of sorting-out-my-personal-web-presence, which has been a royal mess for the last couple of years at least, I now have a Wiki and a 'real' blog. Not that LJ is less than real -- actually, in many ways, I think that LJ is far superior to independently hosted blogs, at least for the things that I use LJ for. Which is, to be honest, for chatting to a fairly wide circle of friends, organising parties, finding out about other people's parties, angsting about angsty stuff, you know, the usual.

I realised recently that what I don't typically do on LJ is actually 'blog' in the usual sense of the word. No quotidian ramblings, no book reviews, not many pointers-to-interesting-stuff-on-the-net. In general, my style has been and will remain (on LJ) that of someone chatting to close-ish friends, to the extent that most of the good stuff tends to be friends locked.

I have decided to have a go at the other kind of blogging too -- writing in a more journalistic style, potentially for a wider audience, though of course it remains to be seen whether anyone will want to read it!

On the subject of my Wiki, it's main aim is to replace two grotty out-of-date web sites, one academic and one personal, with a single, rather more sorted place-to-put-stuff. Most importantly, I want to use it to maintain a download page for my academic papers, but I have a vision for extending it a bit to become a Wiki in the more traditional sense supporting some of my weirder bits of mathematics that, eventually, might make their way onto Wikipedia. The style for that stuff will be aimed at compatibility with the mathematics pages in Wikipedia itself, so to that end I have installed the LaTeX support for MediaWiki (works a treat). I'll probably also post reference pages for my artier interests (cartoons, photographs and music).

OK, so here's some linkage:

http://findatlantis.com/ -- currently pointing at my Wiki, though I may point it at my blog instead eventually
http://findatlantis.com/wiki/ -- direct link to my wiki (won't move)
http://findatlantis.com/fablog/ -- direct link to my 'other' blog
[livejournal.com profile] findatlantis -- syndicated RSS feed from my 'other' blog (feel free to friend it!)

[identity profile] briggsy.livejournal.com 2005-11-17 12:06 pm (UTC)(link)
I need to sort out personal websitey stuff as well. I have issues with wikis because to be honest they all look like wikis. I find the 'simplified' markup to be pointless, might just as well use HTML. But that's just me I'm sure, and I don't like manually editing full HTML pages, so off the shelf software is good because I haven't got the time to redo my old online website editor. In the end the point is getting information across.

Yeah, I never use my LJ for real blogging either. Just minor news, checking up what other people are up to, etc.

[identity profile] compilerbitch.livejournal.com 2005-11-17 12:12 pm (UTC)(link)
I find that whilst I am perfectly capable of hacking html web sites, I just never actually can be bothered to actually do it. The simplified Wiki markup just seems to lower the bar somehow to the extent that I don't mind getting on with it and doing it.

[identity profile] briggsy.livejournal.com 2005-11-17 12:41 pm (UTC)(link)
It is easier to type == Blah == than

Blah

admittedly.

If I find the source to my old website editor (merely a template + content engine with output to static HTML pages) I might add some of the better wiki markup to it. Although I think I'd rather have *bold* and /italic/ and /*bolditalic*/ and _underline_ than what MediaWiki uses. The lists in MediaWiki are easier too.