This blog is on its way down and out.

Short version:
I don't use MySpace for anything any more except for posting blogs and keeping up with only a couple other people's blogs. For this and other reasons (see "Long version" below), I'm relocating my blog to calebwallen.blogspot.com. (MySpace is blocking this link, apparently, so you'll have to type it in yourself: http://calebwallen.blogspot.com - no "www" at the beginning.)

I suggest that if you want to keep following me, bookmark that new location and/or start making plans to use the RSS feed on my new blog. For those who aren't familiar with using RSS to keep track of people, I do plan on creating a post (which will be on this MySpace blog) that will help you get started with RSS subscriptions. The quick-start tip is to just go to reader.google.com, sign in with your Gmail (Google) account information, and start messing around. You'll probably figure it out in no time at all.

Long version:
I don't use MySpace. I don't really like MySpace. OK, I mean literally, I don't use MySpace... for anything... at all. Except for the few folks who actually post blogs that I check. I never update my profile any more, and frankly I don't plan to. I figure I'll leave that page just as it is, sort of as an archive of that stage of my life.

I use Facebook for any "real" (interpret that as you may) social networking. I have way more friends on Facebook, and it is really a lot nicer, in my mind. It doesn't suffer from the ugliness that permeates the MySpace profile arena. No annoying profile songs automatically playing whenever you go to somebody's page (yeah I have them disabled, but there are ways people can still have songs play automatically). Facebook has beaten out MySpace to me because it just seems so much cleaner, smoother, more refined, less plagued with junk messages and spammy friend requests, and in general just a better user experience.

Yet for all its good traits, I don't feel compelled to use Facebook for blogging, which I believe I could do with "notes", or some such feature. In that area, I actually do prefer to have a little bit of customization and Facebook falls short. Also, I want to be able to have the RSS feed, but I'm not sure that Facebook Notes support that. I don't want the fact that I've posted a new note/blog to show up in everybody's home page "stalker feed", but I want it to be visible to anybody even if they are not a member of whatever I'm using to host my blog. Basically, there are just too many things about using Facebook to make me want to even bother looking into it.

I considered using my MobileMe (formerly .Mac) account to create a blog using iWeb, but that would require that I always have the same computer available to me just by the very nature of the iWeb/MobileMe combination. That's a limitation I don't think will be very good for me in the future. I have to be able to access and update it from wherever I may be and from any computer I may get to use.

During my freshman year I had played around briefly with Blogger.com (now owned by Google). This is the same service my sister ended up choosing, too, when she decided to take up blogging. I had helped her set up a MySpace for doing it, but after looking around and trying a few things out, she decided Blogger best suited her needs. And now it seems that it best suits my needs, too.

Some things I like about using Blogger are multiple blogs (I won't elaborate on that this time), multiple authors for specific blogs, nice RSS capabilities, great Google integration (go figure), and of course its slick looks. Oh, it's free, too. It also focuses on the blogging; it is ever so aptly named. I don't care so much about the social networking for this thing: I just want to be able to post a nice, clean blog. I'll have my social networking accounts point to it, and that'll work well enough for me.

As for the folks who still post blogs on MySpace that I want to read... there is actually a way to use an RSS reader with MySpace blogs, too. It just isn't implemented in the typical way. So for the most important people, I'll add their MySpace RSS feeds to my RSS aggregator (I use Google Reader) so their new posts will automatically show up for me. For most, though, I'll just have to remind myself to log in to MySpace now and then to check for new posts. [Ritzy, you're assured of being one of the ones I add to my RSS subscriptions :) but who knows, maybe you'll want to do something similar to this down the road, too, and switch to a real blogging service!] I did just do a quick check and found out that any Preferred Lists that I'm on will have to be specially checked, too; those will only show up when I'm signed in to MySpace and won't show up in the RSS feed. Darn.

And for the folks who care enough to keep following me even after I stop blogging here, I suggest you get with the program! RSS subscriptions are really handy for following friends' blogs, getting news delivered right to you, or seeing the latest articles from some site you enjoy reading. As I mentioned in the Short version (top), I'll be posting a little Get-Started With RSS guide in the future before my final switch to the new blog. If you want to start playing around with it before then, you can try Googling for other guides that are probably out there, or just go check out Google Reader, which is currently my RSS aggregator of choice, and start having at it. It isn't really that difficult, and once you start getting a few RSS subscriptions, you'll notice more things to which you can subscribe and it will just increase in utility.

Grrr... see, this is another reason I'm ceasing on here: the link to my new blog is being blocked by MySpace! I realize the need for that with all the spamming and spoofing and phishing going on (and all the stupid people who use MySpace and don't know any better than to just enter their password willy-nilly whenever any little page pretending to be legit asks for it), but come on, sometimes it is really annoying when you are linking to a safe site.

All for now...
//C.