the new markdalius.com!

Welcome to the all new and improved markdalius.com!

It’s been a long time coming, but I’ve migrated from an absolutely ancient version of the Moveable Type blogging engine and onto this shiny new WordPress-powered system. The most obvious difference is the wider, easier-to-read layout (with the wonderful iPhone pic of Brighton Reservoir taking the place of the old cell-phone pic of the Potomac River). I hope that the other major difference–a very streamlined commenting process–will lead you to comment on and discuss stories more than ever before. And, I’ve added a prominent RSS link for those of you who would prefer to read updates through your preferred reader software, and fellow Facebook fans can easily publish entries so your friends can become my friends.

Also, I’ve abandoned the “one story, one category” mindset of the old blog and come up with both more general categories and “tags” which can be used to find interesting content. Just about everything has an updated category, and I’ll gradually be tagging the old stuff as I get time. You may also note that I got rid of the Google ads…they weren’t generating any revenue. If/when readership increases to the point where they do, they will come back.

I’m hoping that some of the updates on the backend will help me to write and publish with much greater efficiency. I’ve got some more useful data tracking so I can see more accurately how popular (or unpopular) a particular entry is, I have a great new iPhone interface right into the blog so I can write from anywhere, and it’s just generally a lot easier for me to add new features and functionality without having to dig into the code.

Other than that, I don’t expect anything to change. I’ll still be attempting to write on a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule, and will probably always be experimenting with new topics and formats. And, of course, I encourage you to send interesting articles to friends, coworkers and family, and to comment on entries and email me your suggestions.

Thanks for reading!