Dual post - New toys, future toys, and G.I. Joes I'm giving to the dog.

This post was originally posted on my new blog - GrantSidwell.com. Please visit this page to stay up to date with me and this blog will only be active for a limited time.
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Since I decided that my old blog just wasn't cutting the mustard anymore I've invested a fair amount of time into learning new things.

1. Drupal

I first time heard of Drupal was at the first MiniBar evening I went to. At the time I was seriously new to the more technical aspect of new media and as such I paid it little to no attention. However the name stuck, and I revisited it a couple weeks ago whilst I was playing around with wordpress for this blog. Within a couple hours I had everything sorted and to my complete amazement I had created my blog, from start to finish, completely by myself. Whilst I'll admit it's not pretty... it is 100% me, and I really feel like I have been empowered thanks to Drupal.

2. Xobni

I found xobni (inbox spelt backwards) thanks to techcrunch and installed it at work. Talk about a nifty app! I have been enthralled by my email usage. My favourite thing to do is look at when a particular person responds to my emails. So now I know that contact X seems to only like getting back to me in the afternoons... bonus now I know not to expect anything until then and can manage my own time more effectively.

3. Twitter

While I've been tweeting for just over a couple months now, and still not used it to it's full extent, I'm still confident that it's popularity will continue to grow. Twitter is hard to explain to others why it's cool... It's not IM, it's not blogging, it's not a facebook status, and the blank look I get when I say 'micro-blogging' gets enough blank faces to discourage from using it ever again. However you put it, if you give it time, twitter rocks.

Some things I'm going to learn about

1. Entrecard

Eager to see if it's worth the effort.

2. Affiliate activity vs Adsense

Even with the meager traffic I used to get on my old blog, I still managed to generate a google cheque eventually. For my new blog I'm going to be using a combination of different affiliate activity and I'll see how it goes.

Things I'm not going to be learning.

1. Facebook

FB is sooo 2007!

2. Blogger

Goodbye my old friend... you served me well.

Much love.