I hope you intend to use capital letters in any such blog.

nemail wrote:

do you think it would be worth the time (maybe also making some youtube videos)

I for one do not care for Youtube videos. Their content is not searchable, and often they sorely need a great deal of editing and/or have truly obnoxious voice work.

or is the internet already full of the very same content?

Google can tell you that much.

In the end, if there's something you feel needs saying, then you might as well sit down and say it, but if it matters to you that people will read it, then perhaps you should find another more popular site that might appreciate your expertise.

Yes my experience has been that you need to write for your own enjoyment as a priority, because generally speaking it's very hard to find an audience.

Well, do you have a purpose? edit: for instance "for your own enjoyment". That will be a good enough purpose IMO 😀

Agreed with the others - you should have a reason for doing this, be it internal or external. The quality of the writing doesn't have to be outstanding, but you should certainly put some effort into it; else it will be painful to read.

Been thinking of something similar, only thing stopping me is don't like listening to my voice on video and the time it would take. because it will take a lot of time to do well.
A central place for up to date info on obsolete server/networking is lacking. That's what I would personally focus on despite coming across a lot of the same topics you list. but as others have said it would be a personal thing, that hopefully others may get use out of but not the ultimate goal.

Not to say a more general field of topics is a bad thing, as long as your information is correct then it may help someone sometime, plus I guess you could mention it on your CV kind of "look at all the stuff I can do"

well, from a relative newcomer to the tech blog bandwagon I say try it. I started my blog about 3 years ago at the urging of some friends that saw the stuff I posted on Facebook. I always liked writing and wanted to share what I knew about some stuff. I especially wanted to make things easier for people as when I started getting into retro computing a lot of the information was out there but it really wasn't to centralized and it was a matter of piecing together info from many sources or even several posts in a single forum. My biggest roadblock with starting a blog was myself. I just kept feeling that anything I wrote would be pointless as it would just be going over the exact same stuff you could find on Wikipedia or any other number of tech blogs. In the end I got over that and decided that my view or spin on a subject was just as valid as any other and someone may be able to gleam something new from it so I started my blog. I think I would of called 5 or 6 visitors a week a wild success but as of now I get close to 100 a day and I have over 40+ followers, I know that's pretty small fries comparatively but to me its beyond what I ever would of expected.

I think I found my niche in covering in detail retro PC's that no one really cares about like various generic PC clones and Packard Bell models, Compaqs ect... how useful is the information, that's debatable but at the very least from the comments I've gotten its stirred some nostalgia in a few people and that's good enough for me.

I've been being pulled by the siren song of YouTube and video reviews but haven't done it yet. I think most people would prefer videos and the exposure from a YouTube vblog is pretty huge compaired to a old fashion written blog. Jorpho does bring up good points though. I will most likely just stick to written articles with possibly a video to supplement them.

I think the "video supplement" is a good idea - even if you end up repeating a lot of the core content in the video, you can still add visual material not available in the written format, and then use the written format to outline more complex stuff (like if you have code examples, for example). As long as they link to each other, it shouldn't be too hard for people who are interested to follow both.

Jorpho wrote:

I hope you intend to use capital letters in any such blog.

I wrote that on my smartphone. Also I'm not an english native speaker and I still haven't made a final decision whether I'll blog in english or german.

Jorpho wrote:

In the end, if there's something you feel needs saying, then you might as well sit down and say it, but if it matters to you that people will read it, then perhaps you should find another more popular site that might appreciate your expertise.

I didn't intend to advertise my blog here. If I start one, I'd find other ways than starting a topic with a question about "blog starting worth the time".

badmojo wrote:

Yes my experience has been that you need to write for your own enjoyment as a priority, because generally speaking it's very hard to find an audience.

I don't expect my blog to get very popular but maybe it gets. How should I find out if I don't start one? 😀
It would for sure be for my own enjoyment too, as well as kind of a documentation of the things I did or achieved in the categories I have mentioned.

obobskivich wrote:

The quality of the writing doesn't have to be outstanding, but you should certainly put some effort into it; else it will be painful to read.

If I start a blog I'll try to make it as high quality as I can because I hate it when I search for something and have to dig through crappy blogs with wrong information.

chinny22 wrote:

only thing stopping me is don't like listening to my voice on video and the time it would take. because it will take a lot of time to do well.

I also was thinking about that "issue". But I'll just try it anyway, i guess...

chinny22 wrote:

A central place for up to date info on obsolete server/networking is lacking.

If you have deep knowledge here, maybe we could cooperate in some way if I start a blog. My knowledge on let's call it "vintage" networking is kind of limited when it comes to dos/windows < 95 networking. As soon as i have a working NIC and TCP/IP Stack (which i both get to work from Win95 upwards) I'm ready to network.

chinny22 wrote:

plus I guess you could mention it on your CV kind of "look at all the stuff I can do"

yeah thats right. you get to get known in the "scene" if you publish high quality posts on a regular basis. I'd post my blog posts on facebook, linkedin and xing (kind of german version of linkedin).

soviet conscript wrote:

I get close to 100 a day and I have over 40+ followers

That is quite impressive to me too!

soviet conscript wrote:

I think I found my niche...

I think my niche would be to provide valuable deep knowledge and detailled instructions for which you'd normally hire a consultant.

obobskivich wrote:

I think the "video supplement" is a good idea

Me too! And making youtube videos as a supplemental for a written blog would be the only valid option for me personally, how I'd do it. Because I totally agree with the aspect that videos aren't searchable and lots of times full of sh*** you don't care about or need.

Thanks so far for your feedback, it quite motivated me to start a blog if i finally take my time for it.

nemail wrote:

Jorpho wrote:

I hope you intend to use capital letters in any such blog.

I wrote that on my smartphone. Also I'm not an english native speaker and I still haven't made a final decision whether I'll blog in english or german.

I hope you won't write blog posts on your smartphone. 😎

Jorpho wrote:

In the end, if there's something you feel needs saying, then you might as well sit down and say it, but if it matters to you that people will read it, then perhaps you should find another more popular site that might appreciate your expertise.

I didn't intend to advertise my blog here. If I start one, I'd find other ways than starting a topic with a question about "blog starting worth the time".

I meant that you should try to find some kind of tech website (i.e. not a forum) with an existing readership that would be interested in posting your articles. Unfortunately I have no idea what such a site may be.

I'd go for it 😀

I've been YouTubing for a while and it's heaps of fun. Sometimes I need a break from it, because it's not meant to be work, but enjoyable. I've also got a website now. Often I use it for myself, accessing resources and looking up things because I myself quickly forget the details.

I've always been a visual / auditory learner and found many write ups missing steps or details which lead to frustration. So my goal was to have something for the visual people out there. I'm fully aware that many guides can be written up in a few paragraphs, but that doesn't interest me to be honest.

Time is my biggest enemy. I have very little and don't get to do many projects I've got lined up. I fell like I could easily take a year or two off from work and be busy with retro projects... 😵

nemail wrote:

and I still haven't made a final decision whether I'll blog in english or german.

English will give you a waaaay larger audience.

GeorgeMan wrote:

English will give you a waaaay larger audience.

I know but I don't want my writing to be a pain in the ... eyes for my audience.
I'm far away from a publishable, enjoy-while-reading english I think.

A personal blog doesn't have to be a novel and grammatically perfect.
Just simple formatting rules and some reads by a friend or two in order to spot any big mistakes you can't. 😀

I'm Greek and technically don't have a high degree in English, yet I think I can write an easily readable text if I pay a little more attention than usual.

GeorgeMan wrote:

A personal blog doesn't have to be a novel and grammatically perfect.
Just simple formatting rules and some reads by a friend or two in order to spot any big mistakes you can't. 😀

I'm Greek and technically don't have a high degree in English, yet I think I can write an easily readable text if I pay a little more attention than usual.

I agree you'll get a bigger audience with English by far. no matter what you'll probably get some prick that feels they need to point out any minor grammatical errors, it's inevitable. I recently got a comment berating me on my misuse of "to vs too" and "there vs their". Shame on me.