[Updates] Another Geeky Guide Restart?

Hello geeky readers. It has been a while.

Over the past few years, I've let the blog slip into a sort of hiatus and limited my regular updates to summaries of all the books I had read and little else. I've limited my regular writing updates for my personal blog because that is all my brain could handle and then I think I lost even more drive to write over the course the pandemic. 

Every few years I write about wanting to figure out what to do with the blog and find a better direction for it. But one thing leads to another (or doesn't) and then I'm left with a non-moving blog. I continue to pay for the domain, mainly because I still love it, but that's about it.

[Geeky Guide] Taking A Breather

So I've been steadily writing reviews and other posts for The Geeky Guide to Nearly Everything for over 9 years now and I'm starting to wonder if it's all still worth it. Blogging seems to be a bit of a more archaic web medium with more comment discussions happening on social media or more engagement with more dynamic content like podcasts and videos.

I don't think I'm quite done with the Geeky Guide just yet - I've poured too much time and effort into this blog over the years to just drop it so quickly. But I do recognize I need to reconsider how I want to utilize this site moving forward and whether or not I want to shift to other formats like podcasting or vlogging.

I'm also going to experiment with shifting my book reviews to places like Amazon or Goodreads, as they may have more value to independent authors there versus here on this site. We'll see how things go come 2019,  but for now expect more sporadic/infrequent updates starting December 2018.

[Geeky Guide] Minor Site Update

So a quick update for all of you who still read this blog.

Some time back I implemented a content schedule to better organize the blog. It was a fun experiment that required me to maintain a certain degree of discipline in terms of both consuming content and writing about them.

But changes in my actual job have led to new challenges in terms of keeping this blog alive. Let's face it, when you write for a living, you can only write so much in your leisure time.

This December I'm moving away from the content schedule and will go back to more ad hoc blog posting. At minimum I hope to have updates three times a week but I will still endeavor to have updates on the usual 6 times a week schedule or thereabouts. We'll see what can be maintained without driving myself crazy at work and at home.

Fingers crossed people!

[Community Poll] What Should Technicolor Musings Discuss Next?

When I dedicated Sundays to LGBT content here on the Geeky Guide, I figured it would be a nice outlet for discussing relevant LGBT issues, news and other bits of queer culture. It led to a number of interesting posts along with me getting into a number of different LGBT movies, books and other media. It has been an interesting experience to be certain, but time is rather limited.

As of late I haven't had much chance to watch more movies or read more queer fiction, so most of these posts have been somewhat short and at times rushed. I sometimes get lucky and have a news article to react to or something along those lines. But beyond that it has been a bit of a struggle.

From experience comments are quite limited since most folks prefer to react to the social media side of things and not necessarily here on the blog. But I would like to reach out to you few readers and ask - What do you want me to write about? What sort of LGBT concerns or subjects do you want to read about? Do people have questions or things that they want to consult about and maybe have "Dear Abby" style posts here?

I'd really love to hear from you.

[Blogosphere] Blog-rolling!

This week marked the launch of my new personal blog and domain, RockySunico.com, which marks my formal exit from LiveJournal after more than 8 years of blogging there. Given that, I find myself now open to building a new blogroll for the site given LJ used to limit you to about 15-20 links even on a good day.

If you're interested in getting on the blogrolls of any of the three blogs that I manage / write for, here's what you need to know:

The Geeky Guide to Nearly Everything

This blog features a more dynamic blog roll that rewards you more if you have new updates and sort of forgets you when you have nothing to say. I tried to focus on more conventional blogs and not so much the big names that have a gazillion updates a day - it gives everyone a better chance of getting featured.

Baduy Pride

This is the co-blog that I write with my partner, Tobie Abad. It's really meant to celebrate our relationship together so the blog naturally has an LGBT tone to it. Thus the blogroll on this site is more focused on listing other gay blogs of interest. I'm definitely open to adding you to the list even if I don't know you all that well - we have to support the LGBT community after all, right? The blogroll is a static page, accessible from the site's main navigation bar.

RockySunico.com

The blogroll here is more focused on site supported by people that I actually know in real life or have maintained some degree of a significant online friendship. I'm not quite up to solely marketing-driven link exchanges at this site since this site has no advertising and is not concerned with monetization at this time. The blog utilizes Blogger's new Dynamic Views template, thus readers have the option to change layouts when reading. The blogroll here is also a static page, accessible from the site's main navigation bar.

And of course in all cases, it's only polite that you link back.

[Geeky Guide] 2,000 Posts And Counting!

Image via Wikipedia

Today marks another milestone of sorts, especially those of you who really like numbers divisible by 10, 100 or 1,000. This exact entry that you happen to be reading now is officially the 2,000th post to appear on the Geeky Guide. That's quite a LOT of blogging when you think about it, which is pretty cool too.

I could have just let this post go to tomorrow's Technicolor Musings post, however my planned topic is a tad colorful and so I figured it would be best not to mix messages. You'll understand come tomorrow.

So I just wanted to take a moment to thank all of you for your continued support of the site. I know it may not seem like much, but I do value everyone who takes the time to visit the site directly or at the very least skim these posts via Google Reader or whatever RSS application you use.

I hope you continue to enjoy what you find here on the site and hopefully we'll hear more from you in the future. As always, your comments, suggestions and even requests are valued and I've love to hear what you guys and girls have to say.

Stay Geeky!


PS
Oh, and in case you're wondering what Marilyn Monroe has to do with this post, I wouldn't know how to answer you. It was just one of the automatically suggested images provided by Zemanta and seeing it there made me laugh.

So I posted it. It was either this or Donald Duck.

[Geeky Guide] Another Geeky Topic For Wednesdays

Hello Again Fellow Geeks!

It's been a while since I directly discussed the thinking behind this blog. So for those who are interested in this sort of thing, then continue reading! Otherwise, well, expect another review by tomorrow.

Previously, I had decided to better organize my entries into themes or topics for most days of the week. The only day that I don't have entries scheduled for posting remains to be Saturdays since even I need a day to rest, right?

At present, here's the current line-up:

• Mondays - New Movies
  
• Tuesdays - Books and Comic Books
  
• Wednesdays - Computers and Technology
  
• Thursdays - TV shows, theater plays and musicals
  
• Fridays - Older movies
  
• Sundays - Technicolor Musings and LGBT media reviews

The core posts during the week days haven't changed much, but I do have to admit that I've really gotten to enjoy writing my Technicolor Musings entries. It's nice to have more pink content on this blog and it's a great way to celebrate my open geeky gay life.

Ironically enough, I seem to have the most trouble when it comes to Wednesdays. Maybe it's because I seem to limit myself to computer game reviews. Perhaps it's because I like reading about technology more than I want to write about it. Or maybe it's because I can't help but feel that the so many other blogs are already talking about certain topics of interest and adding my blog would be just one more voice in the noise.

So after careful consideration, I've decided to expand my Wednesdays to include another technology other than the cyber world. As much as I want to do more technology blogging, I know that my "day" job is going to get in the way of the research time I'd like to put into each techie blog entry.

So starting next week, Wednesday is also a day to expect discussions and reviews about toys that interest me (and those that bother me something nasty). I'm not sure if I'll be able to start immediately next week, but I'll get started as soon as I can. Just giving myself more options for Wendnesdays. Besides, I can't just keep buying new PS3 games to give me something to blog about - it's getting a tad expensive, plus I need to actually finish all these games.

If you have other ideas or just comments about the blog in general, my contact details are on my profile page. Or of course you can just leave a comment on this post!

[Geeky Guide] A New Look Thanks To Blogger Template Designer

The Geeky Guide to Nearly Everything has remained largely static in its appearance ever since I first started this blog back in 2006. I wanted a nice and simple template and so I ended up with the familiar blue appearance it has maintained over the years. Plus there's the fact that I'm really not too good with the detailed programming of more advanced webpages and so I've stuck to a simpler approach.

Over the years I've made minor improvements along the lines of new sidebar widgets, additional features like the LinkWithin recommendations you get with every post entry, but nothing major. I guess it just didn't feel necessary.


Introducing the Blogger Template Designer

When Blogger in Draft came out with the Blogger Template Designer, a point-and-click solution for more novice blog owners who want to customize their template fully. I was surprised by how versatile the tool truly was and the level of control it afforded me as a blog owner. It does take a fair amount of time for it to load the first time and you'll find yourself better off taking one of the new templates as a starting point and then working your way from there.

It didn't take me too much time to get the look and feel I wanted, and thus ultimately resulted in a wider blog text area. It did take me a bit of a while to add back my customizations such as my Google Analytics tracking code and my tag cloud, but the patient should not find this an issue. Plus there's the added benefit of new Blogger apps that may already mirror the functions of all third party hacks that used to litter Blogger blogs previously.

So here you have it - the new Geeky Guide look and feel. Tell me what you think about it in the comments or perhaps more directly.

[Poll] Would You Read A Gay(er) Geeky Guide?

The Geeky Guide to Nearly Everything is many things. It's a review blog for movies, books, TV shows and various establishments around the Metro Manila area and beyond. It's an opinion blog where I talk about current events, new items and the latest technological developments.

And here and there I have LGBT items about the latest news, advocacy items and other pink-themed topics. While I'm not at all ashamed about these entries, I am thinking about making the Geeky Guide itself focus more on reviews since that makes up more than 80% of my posts and perhaps spinning off an LGBT-focused blog as part of the "Geeky Guide" family.

So what do you think? Should I create separate Geeky Guide for my LGBT opinions, stories and other such articles? I'll retain LGBT movie and TV show reviews here for my Sunday posts but perhaps there's room for diversity beyond this. Leave your comments about this below or you can vote directly in the polling gadget I've added to the side-bar above my Twitter posts. Vote now!

[Contests] Google Wave Invites Up For Grabs!

Image via Wikipedia

So I've been using Google Wave for about a month now and it's been pretty cool but of course a tad confusing at times. I think all new Google Wave users get that initial "Yay, I have an invite!" feeling that's quickly followed by the "Great, now what do I do with this?" notion immediately after. It's definitely a different concept that only really makes more sense when you have more contacts to Wave with - this is a social communication tool after all.

To get a better idea of what Google Wave promises to be, check out this video:

What is Google Wave?

So I was surprised to find that I've been given 28 Google Wave invites and given it's Thanksgiving, it only makes sense to share the love with all you Geeky Guide readers! But let's make it a little more interesting in terms of how you can get a Google Wave invite.

[Google] AdWords, AdSense and Analytics

Image by suzukik via Flickr

My more die hard Google loving readers will probably not need this entry. For the rest of you who get AdWords, AdSense and Analytics confused, this post may be for you. I'm not promising anything spectacular - I just wanted to take the time today to discuss what each one is.

Yeah, I guess I'm in a geeky training mode today. It is my job after all.

I will warn you - this entry is going to be boring, but highly informative. Honest.

[Writing] NaNoWriMo 2009

I've always had a passion for writing, and this everyone can probably determine based on the volume of entries that I post here and on my personal blog, Beyond Dinobot Island. However a lot of my writing has become very work-focused or has been largely limited to blogging. There's nothing wrong with blogging, mind you, I guess I just miss my fiction writing.

So this year my partner encouraged me to attempt NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month - as an effort to get some fiction writing done and largely feel that sense of accomplishment if I do manage to manage to write a piece of fiction at least 50,000 or 175 pages long. It's a daunting goal, but we'll keep pushing!

For regular readers of this blog, this may lead to a decrease in terms of my posting frequency, although at the very least I will try to have at least 3 entries a week posted on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

For those interesting in seeing what I come up with, I've linked the active Google Document to the Google Site that I use to store all my writing - the Gossamer Tower. This year's NaNoWriMo page can be found HERE.

Wish me luck fellow geeks!

[Geeky Guide] 3 Geeky Years

3rd Birthday Cupcakes by clevercupcakes on Flickr.


It's been 3 years since I started The Geeky Guide to Nearly Everything, and it's been an interesting trip. Considering this remains to be a side project and is no where near becoming a remotely possible source of alternative revenue for me, I've enjoyed writing every single entry and will hopefully continue to do so for many years to come.

Sure, many things have changed in my life and the amount of geeky things that I get into but it doesn't change the fact that this blog remains to be a way for me to share what interests me, celebrate geeky things and generally provide another view of the geeky world that we live in.

Last year the milestone was finally getting my own domain name. This year it's all about better organizing entries and more regular posting schedules. Who knows what the future may bring. I just hope that all of you readers (geeky or otherwise) continue to frequent the Geeky Guide, support my efforts and most important of all, celebrate your own inner geekdom and find things to be crazily obesessed about.

So Happy 3rd Birthday to The Geeky Guide to Nearly Everything!

[Geeky Guide] Daily Entry Categories for August

Hello Geeky Readers!

For those who have been keeping up with the times, you should already know that I've been considering better organizing my entries throughout the week so that you, the readers, will have a better idea of what to expect on certain days of the week and to help me discipline myself to post more regularly. Initially I had committed to regular entries only on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays but now I pretty much have posting plans for all days of the work week with the weekends left pretty much free-for-all in terms of entries.

So here's the break-down of categories:

• Movie Mondays - Mondays will be devoted to posting reviews of recent movies. For now I'm defining recent as being any film released no earlier than last year so for now it means you can expect reviews from the 2008-2009 movie seasons.
  
• Text-Toon Tuesdays - I know, the title sucks but it's the only alliteration I could come up with. For the most part, Tuesdays are now devoted to comic books and cartoons and possible book reviews, too - I'm still a little on the fence about that.
  
• Wired Wednesdays - Wednesdays will be all about computers and console gaming, so expect reviews of popular games, interesting applications and probably a lot of Google news, if ever.
  
• TV Thursdays - Thursdays are for reviewing complete TV seasons, discussing possible new shows and dispelling rumors about other developments in the TV universe. What Geeky Guide can be without TV, right?
  
• Flashback Fridays - This is admittedly me cheating in order to have a day for everything else that I wasn't able to fit into other categories throughout the week. Thus this mostly means movies prior to 2008 but could also feature any number of reviews of older content like classic books, console games, or whatever.

On the whole, these aren't permanent categories but pretty much an experiment for now. To get a better idea of what this means, you can review the entries posted during this week from July 27 -31, 2009 and you'll see that I've already sort of followed these categories for now. Weekends are totally free-for-all, and I seem to be pretty much posting a lot of my viral video entries then.

I'm still considering other possible categories and perhaps dedicating a day for LGBT-related posts in order to push the advocacy angle a bit more, but I'll see how that pans out. Beyond these categories, entries can still appear randomly throughout the week even though they don't fit the categories, especially in the case of breaking news, current events and Google. You know I always have to give Google love when it's warranted, hehe.

Entries that fit these categories typically start posted at one hour intervals starting 12:08 PM (GMT +8) so anything outside this schedule is just bonus content (like this entry).

Let me know what you think! Are these categories lame? Do you like seeing more regular content on the Geeky Guide? Is there something you wish to see more instead of what I've chosen to schedule out in terms of entries? As always, the comments are open (OpenID or Blogger / Google Account needed) or just email me directly.

Cheers!

[Geeky Guide] Considering Regular Feature Categories

Hello Again Geeky Readers!

In an effort to re-organize the Geeky Guide and make it more meaningful to you, the readers, I was considering coming up with categories for the various articles and a more or less regular posting schedule that should make getting into the Geeky Guide a lot easier.

By now you probably realize that the bulk of my content centers around reviews of movies, books, games, comic books, TV shows and other items of geeky interest. I also post a lot of upcoming movie and game trailers, viral videos and quirky how-to videos as well. Beyond that, I do a number of political commentaries, observations of life here in the Philippines or in the call center industry and whatever else that comes to mind. I'm a major Google fan, but I also write a number of features about cloud computing, online solutions and various tech-savvy things that make gadget boys go oooh. Yes, the Geeky Guide is all this and more, depending on the day and how much time I have.

So now I want to better segment things so readers like you can visit the Guide on the days of the week that you expect your preferred content to appear. Perhaps I should have Movie Mondays when all movie reviews are posted. I could have Wired Wednesdays dedicated to the latest in web applications, social networking innovations and other online stuff. I might start hosting Fandom Fridays when I do more of my tribute entries to classics of yesteryear like cartoons from the 80's, great science fiction movies and franchises like Star Wars and the Terminator series. What about TV Thursdays just dedicated to on-going TV shows and speculations about new ones? Superhero Saturdays solely for the world of comic books and graphic novels? Or how about Transformer Tuesdays, where I can try to come up with new factoids or rants about Transformer news, developments and rumors?

There are so many possibilities, so many ways to share the geekier side of things with readers like you and I'd love to hear your thoughts on what direction you think the Geeky Guide should take. Do you want more reviews? Less viral videos? More LGBT features? Additional discussions about life in the Philippine call center industry? Leave a comment with your ideas or perhaps email me directly!

I'm looking forward to your opinions so don't hesitate to provide feedback!

[Geeky Guide] More Regular Updates

Hello Geeky Readers!

Yup, it's rOckY, the so-called Geeky Guide behind the Geeky Guide to Nearly Everything. Sorry the updates haven't been as frequent as I'd like them to be - my life has gotten a lot busier in very geeky ways and it's become a tad trickier to find regular time to update the Guide. No, no, this isn't a "goodbye" entry or anything like that, don't worry.

While trying to juggle regular White Wolf role-playing game sessions, ridiculous amounts of time spent playing Katamari Damacy and / or We ♥ Katamari, catching up with movies, reading comic books and recording episodes of Fandom Live with my fellow geeks, I still strongly want to continue writing for the Guide, and I will. It just needs a firm commitment and me re-thinking how I do things.

Normally I just update when I can and do multiple entries, thus resulting in a flood of updates over the span of a few days. Moving forward I'm going to start scheduling the publishing of these updates so that they come out on a more regular basis and not in a slipshod, infrequent basis like now. I'm thinking of adopting at least a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule for my various reviews of movies, books and games since these are a little easier to "bank" for future use while my features about life in the metro, interesting news items and geeky viral videos will still appear periodically throughout the week. At least this way there'll be guaranteed content thrice a week and the potential for more updates as time permits.

If you have ideas about regular features you'd like to see or perhaps past entries you really liked and want to see more of, feel free to let me know in the comments!

Cheers to all of you and stay geeky!

[Google] The May 14 Outage

Image via Wikipedia

I was busy finishing a blog entry a little before midnight when it happened - I had run a routine Google search on "madeline pastry" since I wanted to verify how it was spelled when my search window timed out. How odd. I almost noticed my Gmail when into "offline" mode, so I figured something was wrong with our internet connection. I checked with my friend and he said he was still connected, but we tried rebooting the router just in case.

No dice. I was still disconnected from Gmail, my Google searches weren't running and Google Reader was not refreshing either. Oh, and Pidgin could no longer connect to Google Talk.

Cue mild panic now.

A Google outage is pretty rare, but of course it's bound to happen sooner or later. Unfortunately, it does act as a startling reminder of just how dependent many of us are on Google for many services. Isolated outages of individual products aren't so bad since that's only a subset of the total population of Google users, but when pretty much the entire Google network goes down, a large chuck of the web goes down with it.

During major web "events" like this, it's always amusing to jump over to Twitter to see how people are reacting. A casual search of the #gmail, #google or #googlefail hash tags got me hundreds upon hundreds of reports about the outage, but not much else in terms of actually useful information. Heck, the worse are those classic Twitter messages along the lines of "if you can't access #google, retweet this post" and it's never ending echoes around the web. It's no surprise some folks have actually written about the silly, non-essential role Twitter plays in times like this.

I have a lot of my life invested in Google's portion of the "cloud", I have to admit. I route all my email through Gmail and I collate all my RSS feeds via Google Reader. I schedule events and reminders on Google Calendar and I maintain a decent number of friends on Google Talk. This blog is on the Blogger platform, my domain is supported by Google Apps and my RSS feed is run by FeedBurner (now a Google product). I run AdSense programs, AdWords advertising campaigns and I study all this through Google Analytics. I manage two wikis via Google Sites, I get updated via Google News and I even have a few Google Alerts set to notify of key updates. I maintain a number of documents and spreadsheets on Google Docs, manage a few email lists via Google Groups and I still have some leftover stuff on Google Notebook. Don't forget watching videos on YouTube and even maintaining links on Google Bookmarks! The list goes on and on...

So yeah, a Google outage is a near catastrophe for me. I'm like Google's primary demographic and it just kills me when any of these services go down, what more all of them.

I almost wasn't able to finish that blog entry - it seemed odd not to be able to search for terms to be used in the entry or to get interest web comics to share from Google Reader. Despite the loss of a major part of my internet life, I pushed on, finished the entry and waited for Google to come back. Yes, I was going through Google withdrawal.

In about an hour it did, and the world was restored to equilibrium. I could finally sleep easy knowing things were more or less back to normal. Google's official statement was as vague as always but CNET's WebWare came up with a pretty comprehensive post-mortem report on precisely what happened.

While I doubt this outage is going to make me abdandon Google for the likes of (gasps) Yahoo anytime soon, it is a bit disturbing how dependent I, and perhaps may others, have become on Google's many web services. While it was funny to read some of the Twitter messages about the Google outage meaning the end of the internet a as a whole, it was also somewhat scary since it almost felt true.

[Geeky Guide] ISP Updates

My ISP (Globe Broadband) finally dispatched a tech team to figure out why my wireless connection was being terribly pathetic since, well, ever since I signed up about a month ago. After several minutes of twiddling with my computer (with me watching like a hawk), the tech went on to explain how wonky the wireless service does get and just explained (as I had already observed) what he had done.

As stupid as it was for him to continually reset the connection via the admin page, it seems to work and I tried the same thing out when things started to slow down, and so far it seems to help. It wasn't the most amazing solution provided, but it was a practical one.

Ultimately what this means to you, geeky reader, is that I'm finally decently connected again, so expect more updates as we continue on into 2009. If anything, you can always go on and check on my personal blog, Beyond Dinobot Island (yes, I'm an LJ user!) in case you're curious as to what I'm up to when I'm not posting entries here.

Cheers!

[Geeky Guide] A Fairly Geeky 2008

Image by Patrick Doheny via FlickrWell fellow geeks, it's the last day of the year. This may not have been the most productive year in terms of the Geeky Guide, but we certainly made some interesting steps forward.

It was great that I finally go back to the US this year although it was a shame that I didn't get the chance to meet any Geeky readers that might have been in the Los Angeles area. Sure, it drastically reduced my posting frequency, but I did get to see a lot of great things while I was out there and I got to watch the LA production of Wicked to boot!

This year was one of my most gadgetful since I finally had a laptop and a pretty gnarly digital camera but sadly I lost both when someone broke into my home. That forced me and my partner to move out of Pasay over to Makati and thus further reduced my posting frequency given the initial (and somewhat on-going) challenges with our internet provider.

This was also the year that I finally decided to get a domain for this blog and while I probably haven't maximized its potential given the domain, at least we already have it and that's a good start. Maybe as we move forward we'll think of bigger and brighter things to do with it, haha.

So to all you fellow geeks or just wandering readers who lost their way and ended up here, let me just greet you a VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The Geeks are coming for you 2009!!!

[GeekyCast] Reviving the GeekyCasts

It's been ages since I last posted a GeekyCast - more than a year, in fact, and given the recent prodding of MyPodcast.com's deletion notice, I figured it wouldn't hurt to try my hand (or my voice) at another one for the heck of it.

This is more of just a general updates podcast to get back into the groove of things and sort of help everyone know what's been happening with the Geeky Guide and why posting frequency has dropped off. Perhaps I'll be able to manage a better one when we have the time after the holidays, eh?

Download this episode (9 min)