I've always had a journal online, ever since I discovered the internet! I have posts dating back to 2005, and I used to post alot back then, almost daily, there was always something every week, and I was mostly just writing for myself, not expecting anyone to read it. I still do not expect anyone to read what I write, but it's always amusing when someone does leave a comment.
This is essentially my diary, I sometimes like to browse over it, the posts being like little landmarks of things that happen. So I really should have been doing a better job at posting, it's like hardly anything has happened over the last 10 years, there are currently 33 published posts since I migrated from livejournal.
LiveJournal
I was very active on livejournal, had a small group of friends that had access to it. Started it when I began socializing on a site called GaiaOnline back in 2005. There was probably not a week that went by without a post, plenty of emotions and musings to pass around.
Ever heard that it's good to write things down rather than bottling it up, even if you don't intend for anyone to read it and might even discard it afterwards? It does plenty of good when you have a lot going on in your head. That is how I used my journal, I never expected people to read it.
I think it was around 2008 when that little community of mine scattered to the wind, when GaiaOnline was changing a lot and people leaving.
WordPress
It was in 2011 when I got myself a shared hosting for the first time. I had played around with GeoCities websites before, I even managed to salvage that ancient website of mine for old times sake (last updated 2006). That's probably the time when I decided to leave livejournal and set up my first wordpress installation.
I managed to export all my livejournal posts and import them to my wordpress. I've been using wordpress ever since.
Tried out Disqus for comments, it was such a neat system, that allowed people to be logged in and comment on any website that was using discourse, because people like having things connected! Never really liked the default comment system of wordpress, but I kind of regret messing around with Disqus comments, because it kind of failed of keeping my older comments connected to the right posts (yes, I could import the existing comments into Disqus), and new comments get lost with the system if things got disconnected (it wouldn't know where the comments belonged).
Nearly all the imported posts have been set to private, because there is no reason for me to exposing my awkward teenage years to the public.
New editing posts
I just have to say that I really REALLY dislike the new way you edit posts on wordpress, it might not be the reason why I haven't been doing a good job of posting into my journal, but sure as heck it plays a big role in it since it arrived. I really wish it was a optional mode, there is a thing as simplifying too much to the point of it working against you.
I have discovered that there is a way to have a markdown block for editing, I think I'm going to go for that, to make things bearable.
Posting again regularly
I am going to try to post more again, because I actually enjoy the ability to browse through my journal to see the context of things, this is primarily just a journal for myself, and in cases where I don't want things public, there is always the neat little "private" setting for the posts.
Hopefully when I'm done with school I'll be able to give this journal a makeover, because I hardly find the time at all during school or between semesters (because they squeeze in a 3 week program between semesters, so school never really ends).
I still don't expect people to be reading this or commenting, though I have set things so I get an email if someone comments, I've decided to stop using disqus, it was a hassle and I don't quite trust it anymore to connect comments to their right posts anymore.
Going over old posts
I feel the urge to go over my old posts, because the SSL says my website isn't quite secure enough, because of the use of images from external sources. I wonder if I can use images from my gallery (which is in a sub directory of this site) and have things stay secure according to the https security.
I just realised I might have lost parts of many older posts, where I had a plugin that would just show a preview of the post, and have a link "continue reading this post". Those links are broken, not sure if I can restore that, because I can't get the custom permalinks to work since I changed from shared hosting to a VPS