Just announced today on April 1st *wink wink*, Google is offering absolutely FREE wireless broadband service through it’s Google TiSP project. Sign up for free and receive an installation package that teaches you how to easily hook it up through your toilet drain.

I must say Google has taken it a notch up in reorganizing the world’s data this time, offering this service completely free through data mining of your bodily fluids in order to personalize your ad displays. However sign up soon, as this service might not be available any more after today!

For those out there who personally know me, and realize that I haven’t been updating my old blog on Xanga for quite a while (actually since October 2005), I guess this marks my return on exposing my private life to the world out there.

While I have always done web development in a variety of contexts, and am beginning to feel more like a geek by the day reading all these tech sites out there, it just didn’t seem right to me that I don’t have my own proper domain, a place that I can call my own. But now, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to retrochronix.com. While currently it’s redirected to my blog that you’re reading right now, please anticipate the coming of the main homepage when I actually get the time to do it (i.e.when I’m not lazy and slacking off).

On the topic of blogging, I’m sure there are plenty of blogs out there floating around just waiting to be discovered (like mine =S). However, not too many of these blogs that I have visited actually display a sense of professional communication. With this in mind, I stumbled across this article on blog usability on useit.com written by Jakob Nielson which addressed just this topic. Jakob Nielson is this pro-guy in the field of web usability, and has done a lot of usability research and analysis on how to maximize the ergonomics involved on the internet. While I’ve come across many of his books and articles during my course research for APS185 during first year, it was interesting to read what he had to say about blogging.

You can read his article here. But for the people who don’t like doing their own homework, here is a summary of his key points I find the most relevant:

1. Use descriptive headlines
   Hmmm… is “The art of blogging” a good headline? I don’t really know…
2. Links don’t say where they go
   Be explicit when linking to external sites. Well I think I might have made this mistake just a few lines up.
3. The calendar is only for navigation
   Categorize your posts! I don’t expect too many bloggers to fail this one, not me at least.
4. Irregular publish frequency
   He suggests that “daily updates are probably best, but weekly or even monthly updates might work as well, depending on your topic. In either case, pick a publication schedule and stick to it“. I really don’t know how often I’ll update my blog. I too hope that I can do so on a regular basis as suggested *shrugs*.
5. Forgetting that you write for your future boss
   In other words, be wary of the consequences of what you write. Well this really caught me on, while I’m aware of how there’s no privacy on the internet anymore now, think Facebook, I do need to keep in mind of my audience i think, just in case. I do still want to land a good job someday and not live off GoogleAds =).
6. Having a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service!!!
   Yeah, baby! “Please visit my site at www.retrochronix.com”, doesn’t that just sound awesome? Pardon my excitement, I just love my domain name right now =D. Goodbye xanga, blogger, blogspot, myspace, msnspace or whatever else you use; Helllloooooooo Wordpress!

There’s still much for me to learn about in this area. The internet is just amazing, isn’t it?