Sully

Version 1.0

I started blogging way back in December of 2006 when I was working on a MUD game engine titled TBG Engine. The blog was more or less a Sourceforge project web-site that I was using to provide updates to the project. While putting this post together I was reminded that at the time I was writing my code in Visual Basic 2003 on the .NET 1.1 Framework and had just started targeting the old Windows Pocket PC 2003 phone OS. Things sure have changed since then. I've moved from writing in VB from roughly 1995 to 2005, to C# through 2012. Currently I'm writing my code in Objective-C.

The TBG Engine project was actually migrated to Visual Basic 2003 from Visual Basic 5.0 and it was far from having the best looking source code. So I ended up dumping it and moving on to C# in 2005 and re-writing the entire MUD engine from the ground up, rebranding it as Mud Designer Tool Kit; which went through several metamorphosis itself. The project moved off of the sourceforge site and onto the Microsoft Codeplex site in 2009. When that happened I had to move my blog, which went to Google's Blogspot. I used it for less than a year; it really sucked when I compared it to other platforms such as Wordpress.

Version 2.0

I migrated my posts from the blogspot account over to a new Wordpress site that they hosted for me. I used it quiet a bit until 2011. Reading traffic for my posts had increased and I decided it was time to move once again, to a self hosted Wordpress installation. My thinking was that I could use this as an opportunity to build a complete website based on Wordpress. Host my own files for download and have my own domain. I stuck with Wordpress longer than any of the other sites, ultimately giving it up this year. I found I never posted to it, it was cumbersome to post to when compared to other services such as Tumblr; where I ended up moving to.

I like Tumblr, it's a solid place for blogging. The issue that I ran into with it though is that you can't post code snippets and you're limited to just one picture in a post. I discovered pretty quickly that I tend to post a lot of source code (hadn't really realized it) along with pictures. Tumblr really fails at letting me do this. I needed to do something different; without returning to Wordpress.

I tried Google+ but it doesn't support code snippets or inline photos so I quickly gave up on that as a proper blogging platform. It doesn't differ from Tumblr very much in reality, except that the social aspect is much better. I enjoy how it allows content authors to interact with their community better, but it was just to limiting for me to use.

I had been experimenting with Podcasting as well, so what ever I choose, I need it to support that as well. Without me having to host any of it.

Version 3.0

Enter Squarespace. A modern blogging platform that seems to support all of the prerequisits that I have. It supports Markdown which was a big plus. I can post code snippets, multiple photo's per post and upload podcast episodes to them for hosting. It's a win-win for me. I will run with Squarespace for now and see how I like it. If it works out well, I'll keep it as my new blogging home.