growled on Thursday, August 25, 2005 7:43:37 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
barked at microsoft
I'm torn right now. 
 
Some background...  My distinct lack of posts over the past month has been due to a few things.  First off, I've been extremely busy at work and at home.
 
Work is work.  I've been able to leave it at work since my big project finished up the end of June, but I've been busy fighting fires while I'm here.  So not much time to post while at work. 
 
Personal time is a bit more complicated.  Of course my family is my number one priority so I try (unsuccessfully a lot of the time) to limit my computer time at home.  We've also been busy this summer with family gatherings and working around our house (aka: painting).  I have also started a personal project that is taking up quite a bit of my time outside of work (you can read more about it at www.thdad.com if you're interested).
 
Which leads me back to my title...should I stay or should I go now.
 
I'm using dasBlog at thDad and am really enjoying it.  The software is easy to use and I can customize it to my heart's content.  I can even play around with the source code if I want (a sweet option for a wannabe dev like me).  The devs (Scott & Omar) are really responsive to questions and suggestions, heck, Omar even works for Microsoft (on the new hotmail version, Kahuna)!
 
So this has me wondering if I should leave MSN Spaces and start using dasBlog with Webhost4Life (my provider for thDad)? 
 
Spaces - Pros:
I'm supporting MSN & Microsoft, which is very important to me.
Everything is setup and it just works.  All I have to do is add posts.
Photos section is easy to use.
It's tied to my Passport account and IM so all my friends know when I post.
 
Spaces - Cons:
Extremely limited customization.
History function sucks @$$.
Code snippets don't work very well in the limited width columns (one reason I haven't posted any in awhile).
Cannot use multiple categories for a single post.
Photos don't display in all browsers (the slide shows don't work for me using Avantbrowser even though it is just an IE wrapper).
 
dasBlog - Pros:
I can customize to my hearts content!
A complete history is available at my fingertips.
I could use a separate photos display app and store much, much more than 30 mb (I have 2 GB of storage at webhost4life). 
A passport account is not required to leave comments, which I believe is a huge limiting factor to Spaces being accepted outside of the Spaces community.
Backing up my posts and comments is as easy as FTPing them to my local hard drive.
 
dasBlog - Cons:
I don't think photos are integrated, but I'm honestly not positive.
I am now responsible for software upgrades.
Not tied to my Passport account so people would need to subscribe via RSS or email alerts.
 
Of course, another option is to follow in Eric's footsteps and post everything to my Space while having another site that just grabs those posts and displays them...a pseudo-blog, if you will.
 
Any thoughts?
 
growled on Friday, August 19, 2005 2:32:37 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
barked at ramblings
I'm off work for a long weekend...Thursday - Monday and back to work on Tuesday.  Am I having fun?  No, we're painting our house...by hand!  We are trying to be fiscally responsible by doing it ourselves, not too mention we need to buy a new washer/dryer set in the near future as well.
 
We put the first coat on the front today, but got a late start and only got about 5 hours of painting in.  Tomorrow we hope to get 10 or so hours and get the sides done and a second coat on the front.
 
The moral of the story...painting sucks. 
 
growled on Wednesday, August 17, 2005 4:18:01 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
barked at microsoft
Dear MSN Virtual Earth,
 
Please create an advertisment as funny as Google's!

Sincerely,
 
A MSFT Stockholder
 
PS: Could you also update your satellite images from 1972?
growled on Wednesday, August 17, 2005 1:19:29 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
barked at ramblings
growled on Tuesday, August 16, 2005 6:09:53 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
barked at ramblings
  1. System
  2. System.Excuses
  3.  
  4. namespace MyExcuses
  5. {
  6.         public class ExcusesForBlogging
  7.         {
  8.                 void GetExcuse()
  9.                 {
  10.                         try
  11.                         {
  12.                                 while (PersonalTime != Free)
  13.                                 {
  14.                                         Blog.WriteLine("Sorry, I'm just too busy right now.");
  15.                                 }
  16.                         }
  17.                         catch (Exception e)
  18.                         {
  19.                                 throw new Exception(e.Message);
  20.                         }
  21.                 }
  22.         }
  23. } 
updated 8.17 - just for Daveeelyyy...ya smartass. 
growled on Wednesday, August 03, 2005 1:06:24 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
barked at microsoft
So far, I really like it. 
 
 
ps: there ya go Chris!