To Write Thusly, Amuses Me Greatly…Truly

 

A LOOSELY WRITTEN POST REGARDING BLOGS and (FREE) BLOGGING SERVICES…SORTA

"About the Free Blogs --"

"Free blogs? WTF? There all free, you moron. You mean to tell me that you honestly peruse elitist corporate drone / swine blogs that actually charge you? Like...real money?"

"No, no...I mean, like this. This 'Blogger' place you're operating out of…"

"You mean free Blogging Services, idiot ...or Blogging Service Providers...not free blogs…"

"Yeah, that...you know anything about that? About how to do all of this...the best places to do it, maybe...that sort of thing?"

No, not really.

Not very much, anyway.

I mean...I use Wordpress, but that's really only because Microsoft bailed on its "Live Spaces" venture\tactic\gambit ...(pick your own favorite term).

[I know that probably reads like I'm unhappy about that; like I'm bitching about that].

[Yeah, bitching….bitching about Microsoft ("Microfrost" is more like it)…like I'm bitter or something, bitter at Microsoft for just bailing on Live Spaces...just giving up on it...just up and quitting on it, on us….pushing us away...all of us...the newbs, the trolls, the bro's, the ho's and us...US!  The long-term "Live Spaces" users...the devoted, dedicated, and committed "Live Spaces" users...users, such as myself and many others, just like me...we, who kept our private "online journals" there… we, who wrote down all of our genuinely important words there… we, who gave of ourselves, there...who had dutifully, respectfully, and lovingly edited our HTML there, our CSS there, our scripts, our lists and yes, our exquisite prose there...we, who had published there, frequently ...and by so doing, had promoted them...the callous and mercenary Microsoft machine...promoted them for years...WE are told to grab our shit and just get the fuck out...”go to Wordpress, scum, and take your shit, your junk, over there…”]

[Bitching like that, ya mean?] 

But, uhm, no...I'm not.

Wordpress is awesome.

"Wordpress? You mean Blogger, right?...or Blogspot...or whatever the hell this is…right? Or what? You have another blog? Besides this one?"

"Yeah, I have another blog, genius...thanks fer askin'. Whattaya want? A nickel?"

[I’m so mean to that guy…really, I am…I really should lighten up on him a tad, shouldn’t I?]

I have TWO other blogs, actually.

But those...those are my own…my secret and sacred spaces in which I clarify and define my understanding of life, meaning, of the world as I know it, and of my place in it…and another where I unload my baggage. But these…"these are not for the likes of you." (grin)

[Three, come to think of it...if you count that lame-ass shit that I played around with for a little while, provided by the (otherwise quite excellent) web-browser, Opera.

Heh…yeah…”played around with for a little while”...like, maybe a day. Jeez...whatta-piece-of-crap that was].

But I digress…

I also use Blogger (obviously) and it's pretty nice, as well. No real complaints. It’s swell as hell, and all that (But honestly...I think I like Wordpress better, really...when all is said and done, I mean. It has a lot more blog "themes" [i.e. designs], for one thing...and I think most of theirs look better than any in Blogger's meager collection, for another. Hell, maybe that's the only thing, really...I haven't really thought very deeply about it, after all...but that's something that I know I genuinely care about. I likes my prose to look pretty).

The fact is, though, the only reason this blog is on Blogger is simply because I was curious about something and, more importantly, I wanted to be fair. To Google.

Allow me to explain...

You see, I had, when I started on this latest writing jag (and still have, actually)...a vision…a vision, of myself, writing this great big, exhaustively-tested, exquisitely researched, comprehensive, daring, honest, unflinching, enthusiastic, multi-part, technical-journalism "thing."

(...er...I think they call those things "an article"...or, in your case, an "essay," a "treatise," a "freakin' novel"...hahahahahahahaheh...*ahem*)

I had rediscovered a passion to write, and so, I decided I would write a "thing."

A "thing" about…

Well, that's just it. The "about" part started out as this little-bit-of-nothin-much-ta-talk-about…but very soon thereafter, the scope kind of… grew…

And grew...and grew. (And thus, a decision to write a "multi-part" piece was born).

Initially it was to be about Microsoft's most recent Windows Live /Office Live promotional initiatives, starting with their (completely free...and surprisingly good) Microsoft Security Essentials software.

Ya see...for the most part, I had lost touch with tech and tech news over the past two years or so... having all that divorce, familial betrayal, sporadic employment, couch-surfing\living-in-my-car, string-of-bad-relationships stuff to keep me occupied. But now, life has gotten on track again, and I’m back in the biz, again, and there are things I should do for my colleagues, just because I can. So, I'm doing some research for this new-hire training/orientation/acclimation piece, and I need to tell them where to go get their anti-virus software, and I happen to read about this MS Security Essentials software. "Interesting," thinks I. Microsoft has moved passed the mere (weak-ass) malware defense stuff (Windows Defender, et. al.) and gone ahead and put out a full-blown antivirus\antimalware product. That was really kind of a surprising move on their part, actually...in my opinion.

And one of these days, I'm probably going to get around to telling you why I found\find that surprising (no…it's not why you'd think). but that day is not today.

Well...mere days after catching wind of this new (and free) security-based product from Microsoft that, amazingly enough, tech people…tech-people in-the-know, as I like to call 'em…actually like (oh...did I mention that it's good? As in, really good? As in, quite possibly the best free antivirus/anti-malware/rootkit protection and real-time detection software out there, right now? Opinions vary, I'm sure, about who\what belongs in the top spot, but almost all the tech reviewers of note agree… MS done did dis one right).

Anyway, as I was saying...mere days after, I'm reading about "Windows Live Essentials 2011," another free bundle (they like to call them "suites," if I recall correctly) of various and sundry software.

What's in it? A lot of really, really nice shit, actually...but I didn't know that at the time. The one that caught my eye...the only piece that caught MY eye, actually, (and immediately, at that), was the new version of Windows Live Writer.

To be continued...