Kathleen McGivney

Domain names, redirects, and Moo cards, oh my

After blogging at my own domain for so long, blogging on TypePad, a hosted service, took a little bit of getting used to. I'm all settled in now, but to complete everything, I bought a bunch of domain names that I can't believe I didn't have already - kmcgivney.com, .net, and .org, which redirect here, and kathleenmcgivney.com, .net. and .org, which don't yet, because I might put a photography portfolio up there. Don't hold your breath, though, because between designing my husband's website, putting together our wedding photo books to send to family, and doing a little prep work for some upcoming adventures, I don't have the time to do much more than redirect the URLs. Any volunteers for free website design will be happily accepted, as long as you don't use like, FrontPage or something.

Part of my reasoning for doing this is that kmcgivney.com is way easier to remember than kmcgivney.typepad.com when I'm telling someone about my blog. Of course, now I'll have to change the backs of my Moo cards when I order the next batch, because they all have the TypePad address on them, but that's no big deal, since they are dirt cheap - $20 for 100 mini cards. I use them to hand out if I'm taking a photo of someone on the street, or just for non-work-related contacts - if I am hanging out with Tim Gunn, I do not need to give him an IBM business card. I'd rather give him one that shows my creative side, and that's what I get with the Moo cards. Plus, they're easy and fast to create (bonus! see: lack of time, above), good quality, and I got them very fast, considering they're coming from the UK. I also ordered some stickers and postcards with my photos on them, and I like the quality - and now have fewer excuses for not sending my mother anything in the mail. A picture on a postcard is worth a thousand words, mom!

Another day, another blog

Yes, I've started yet another weblog. The two and a half of you who still read my other blog and blogs I write for may be asking yourselves, "Self, why would Kathleen start another blog when she so infrequently updates the ones she already has?" Well, I'll tell you, so that you no longer have to talk to yourself. It makes people think you're not quite right in the head.

I am starting this blog for a few reasons. First, though I have a blog at KMnow that I don't update very often (unless, of course, I'm liveblogging a conference or something), I don't want to use it for blogging about my personal life. I don't have an issue putting some aspects of my personal life on display for all of the interwebs to see, obviously, but I'd prefer to keep the work/geek and life topics on separate blogs.

Second, though I LOVE Domino for many things, including blogging, I find it somewhat limiting for the type of blogging I like to do - mobile, on the move, and not tied to a particular client. I am probably making a giant ass out of myself because I'm sure that there are capabilities in one or another of the Domino blog templates to e-mail posts and photos to the blog, blog from my mobile phone's browser, etc. (and if there are, feel free to yell at me for being a bad Domino blogger in the comments). TypePad/MT allows me to e-mail photos and posts directly to the blog and automatically post them while I'm on the road - which will make it far easier for me to post much more frequently. I come up with ideas for blog posts all the time, but many times (like now, while I'm on holiday in Italy) I don't have access to a Notes client and so I can't blog what I want to, when I want to.

Third, I have some collaborative personal web projects on the horizon with people who are not Notes/Domino people. I know, I know! What am I doing associating with people who don't share the same obsession with the product I work with? You'd think I have a life outside of work or something. Anyway, working with a web-based tool that they are already familiar with reduces the ramp-up time for those projects and lets us get to creating awesome content already.

So, keep an eye out here for Lotus-related topics, here for NYC-related topics, and here (that's this blog) for everything else, including lots of photos. You can also view my photos at Flickr and keep up with me on Twitter. And there you have it.