I'm going back to working with text files again and start working with pdf. A webzine, rather than a blog. Well, a webzine as a working name.

Running a blog has become ruined with marketing and pressure to conform. I've always liked doing things my own way. Following all the "rules" for bloggers means putting marketing first. I don't want to do that. Yet, each time I try to get working on my sites again there is all that stuff telling everyone how to do everything better, almost always involving SEO and marketing. I don't want to live like everything is for sale. I don't want to blog that way either. So, blogging is out.

Of course, that means deciding what blogging actually is and what I want to do next. Once upon a time it was a web log, keeping dated entries about changes made to your projects on the web. Some personal posts became sprinkled in and next thing you had the personal online journal. Blogs came from that, later. Dated entries were the key to what was a blog and what was not. That is so lost these days, there are blogs which don't want to post dates at all. They call it evergreen. I call it, not a blog.

I have a lot of old content to merge with something new. Once I take it out of CMS software I won't have to keep trying to find ways to make it display for software, just the txt or pdf file type. That will be a LOT easier.

I'm keeping something blog-like to post things I find along the way, in niche and topical blogish displays. Likely on Blogger because I can use Open Live Writer to create the post and then filter it to whichever site I want it to show up on. They will be content curation sites, not blogs. I can post links to niche sources in the sidebars, as I find good links. But, dates, marketing, and professional templates won't be important.

So much is still lost, gone and unretrievable. Software changes, sites that close with no/little notice, people deciding what does matter and what does not based on what seemed to matter at that time. I've lost quite a lot of what I have written over the years I've been online. The Wayback Machine has some of it. Not all. Of course, not every word, thought, image, or news has value worth keeping for however long. But, once its gone it isn't likely to be found again.

It is still funny, in an interesting way, that all of it, saved or not, is just code. The science of having so much created based on 1 and 0 is still amazing.

In the 01990s, when we first started really talking about the issues of digital storage media and file format obsolescence, it was almost as if we were caught with our pants down. We hadn’t truly been thinking about this as a problem; we as a civilization weren’t prepared for the challenges it posed. We soon realized, however, that digital documents have their own complex fragility and maintaining access to digitally encoded information over the long-term may be more challenging than the analog. There was a flurry of activity across the globe, and while the topic faded from the headlines, the flurry of activity continued and has slowly and steadily gained momentum.

Source: #nodigitaldarkage? — Blog of the Long Now - Heather Ryan.

I haven't updated my own photos to my Flickr account (or the groups I started there) since 2013. I feel guilty, sort of. Mostly I think I just ran out of steam. I have still been taking photos. Getting them up online was a routine for awhile and then I got behind and more behind and then drastically behind.

I still moderate at Flickr. I don't login as often as I used to but I'm keeping the groups going. I like to see the new photos come in and (for the groups which I moderate for someone else) new photos can't get posted without moderator approval. On my own groups I didn't set them up that way. But, this means I have to have faith in people to post relevant photos. I've been really lucky or fortunate. I seldom need to moderate my groups for Ontario or Canadian explorers. Now and then someone posts a road trip photo, not understanding the idea of urban and rural exploration versus a road trip.

Anyway, I am merging older posts from my personal blog into this one so my older exploring and photos will be here, soon. I've started adding some but the old blog is a disorganized mess. It has been around since before the days of categories and tags. I've found posts which don't have anything, not a title even. So, it is taking time to sort out the madness.

The nice thing about doing this is finding places I had forgotten about. I only hope all the photos will come along nice and easy as I move the posts over. At least it is another WordPress blog so it shouldn't have a conflict that way.

Wish me luck!

I want to create a site which will be more than a WordPress blog or a site running with the limits of WordPress themes and plugins. I looked at Drupal and others but decided Joomla seems the most user friendly, with community support and enough extra features for me to have the site I want to build. Joomla is open source.

WordPress is still great for a site which is intended as a blog. But, I want to evolve. For years I have wanted to build my own web directory and create a site which will let me have a calendar of annual holidays and events which I can also use to distribute egreeting cards with my ASCII art. I have been trying to do this with various WordPress themes, plugins and just using WordPress as it is. It's not working. WordPress is great at what it can do, but there are still limits to WordPress if you want more content than an online journal or basic website.

I had a plan for my site when I was running WordPress but I kept bumping into roadblocks where WordPress just was not enough. I'd download one plugin and another theme and have them break, lack support or just be a drain on my bank account without giving me the results I wanted. So, off to explore new territory: Joomla.

Joomla Installed Easily

I loaded Joomla onto my web domain and now I am teaching myself how to get my site off the ground again. I like learning new things. But, I admit, I'm not learning as easily and quickly as I would have done when I was still 30-something. But, I want to do this. Another exploration for Laura the Explorer.

Installing Joomla was straight forward enough. You can install it from your web host, an automatic install which just needs you to type in a name for the new database you are creating. You need to know your web host information for the domain. This is the same information you would need for installing WordPress. So, if you have done that before you won't find Joomla a challenge to install.

I do find both Joomla and WordPress could have a more user friendly guide for the installation. Someone who is completely new to setting up a site will not have enough basic information to make the install go as smoothly as it could. I'm not saying the install is a complicated process, it will just seem that way to someone who has no experience at all.

Joomla Builds Websites, Forums, Portals and Blogs Too

I have found modules and extensions which I am learning to work with on my Joomla site. As a bonus, my sister runs her business site on Joomla so I will be able to help her from time to time too.

I'd write more about what I'm doing but I am just working in the background on my site, in the admin section. I'm taking my time and deciding which Joomla theme I want to start with now that I'm not blogging. It's all different when you step out from the blog.

If you are reading this, you already have a good chance of being an unmarketer. The basic concept of this book is to be social, personal and use word of mouth in your marketing plans rather than SEO (which is mainly directed to machines, not people).

So, if you are reading this, you already know what it is to be human, to read rather than scan for keywords and to choose content over flash. You know how to be engaging. But, you could use some extra ideas to apply those skills to your business, web site, blog and/ or social media online.

You can't fake passion.

Introduce yourself to people when they visit your site. Think about your own visits to other sites, what worked and what did not. Does a site work better when you know the site owner, or at least see a photo of them?

Chances are you are not selling a marketing scheme but visitors to your site may not be seeing that. What first impression are you making on Twitter, Facebook and your blog? Are you engaging new and existing readers, followers and friends? Do you give them something to come back for? Could you be offering something to bring them back? Do you ask them for anything, even something small like a comment on your blog?

You can't have presence without being present.

Scott Stratten is writing about better customer service, being an unmarketer rather than a faceless marketer who focuses on sales but not on the people holding the wallets. He gives perspective and ideas which encourage everyone to think like a human being rather than a marketing machine. Each chapter of the book deals with different forms of media and marketing ideas.

You can't automate authenticity.

I bought the book because I'm fed up with the rabid machine marketing which is pretty out of control online. But, the book is not meant to be for online/ web marketers only. Anyone with a business will benefit from the ideas and advice in this book.

Visit Unmarketing.com for more ideas, resources and sign up for newsletters.