A New Blog Home and a New Blog

I've just switched my blog home again, as I have done several times in the past. Usually I make a change like this because I find something limiting or annoying about the previous site/software I was using for blogging. In this case that's one reason for the change: my blog on MSN Spaces seems to limit me to a small number of tags (also known as labels, subjects, or categories) which is annoying both for me and those who read my blog.

But there are 2 other reasons for this change. One is a change in job. My career path seems to be governed by a pendulum that has me alternately swinging between working on software product and working as a consultant. After several years of working on the Neuron ESB product at Neudesic, the pendulum is swinging me back into consulting, also at Neudesic. Why does this affect blogging? Well, there's a big difference in openness between the product world and the consulting world. In the product world, every new way you to find to solve a problem, or optimize something, becomes intellectual property to be patented, protected, and held secret from competitors. In the consulting world, those things are to be openly shared with community, as they help build the reputation and value of your consulting organization. So you can expect a lot more technical blogging now that I'm returning to the consulting world.

The third reason is I've decided to blog about any and all aspects of my life that I feel like sharing, not just technical matters. There's far more to life than technology. That means you'll find everything from parenting anecodotes to religious conviction to political opinion to literary exercise in this blog (if this offends you, you may want to unsubscribe from this blog). Still, technical articles are going to dominate. I cannot count the number of times some online information has helped me get a job done or solve a problem, and I would very much like to "give back" on that front where I can. Fortunately, my new job is going to make that easy to do on a regular basis, as I'll have my hands in just about every technology area there is on the Microsoft platform.

I look forward to my new open, multi-facted blog and hope you will too.