What was supposed to be a quick post eventually evolved into a structured story about my previous blog and my love about everything apple.
Past years
I’ve had a blog since December 2007 called My Simple Romance, it was about music (my chemical romance and simple plan, my favorite bands at the time). It was actually a forum, in the beginning, where I wrote more than 10 thousand posts until 2009 when It hit 2000 unique visitors a month and I decided to switch to a full site.
After few months of development spent with a friend manually writing pages full of HTML, CSS, and PHP we finally opened it up in June of the same year. We installed a first basic CMS application called cutenews but it was too basic (for example links were compiled with PHP queries and the article management had few problems - I’ve just found out that the development is now on hold and the official forum is in chaos) anyway after a few months I discovered wordpress ( and after years I’m still using it - even if it’s not perfect). At that time my friend was too busy so I end up working on the site on my own all the time, I installed Wordpress and I switched to XHTML 1.0 and to a full PHP layout with a CSS menu (precisely I had used frames, awful, then tables and finally divs). I wrote 1700 articles on the site until last October when after few months of agony, when I posted less than 2/3 articles a month, I finally decided to close it.
Since then I wanted to start a new project on a whole different topic, to focus on something else.
Apple
| [iPhone 2g | Samsung J-700] |
I heard about Apple on January 9, 2007, right after the keynote about the original iPhone. I’ve had an iPod Nano (4g) before, but I’d bought it only because it was a ‘status symbol’ (yeah I know what you’re thinking, but hey it has been really hard to admit..) so I didn’t know whatever that Apple on the back means, I just knew it was an American company, nothing more. The day after the keynote I was going to school as usual and I picked up a free newspaper and on the front page there was a giant picture of this new ‘phone’ with a giant screen and i immediately fallen in love with its design and its user interface. My phone was a Samsung j-700, a dumb phone to use Steve’s words.
On December of the same year, I received an iPod touch 1g for Christmas, I was so happy when I found it under the trees… I was so eager to try it that I’ve used it til the battery died (not too much after). I’ve kept using it until last year when I bought my first iPhone, a black 16gb iPhone 4. And I can say with no doubt that it’s the best device I’ve ever bought.
In this period of time, I’ve been following a lot of apple related blogs; I began with Italian news blog which just copied news and rumors from English blogs, then I switched to American commentary blogs.
Last year, in November, I bought a 32gb HP touchpad for 160€ (i didn’t have the money for an iPad) and I had the chance to try WebOS and Android, basically this experience has convinced me even more of that iOS is still the best mobile OS to date, mostly for its exclusive apps.
Next step - a MacBook Air.
Blog Content
I wanna write few words on what I’ll cover here. The blog will be focused on Apple and technology in general, but I’ve decided to not write about rumors or daily news. There will be articles about news of course, but that’s not the main purpose of the blog.
I want to focus on a little more than that: I’ll write commentaries and short ‘essays’ - I’m not so self-absorbed to presume that I’m able to write a full essay, but just a sort of.
I want to point out one last thing. I won’t update this site regularly or on daily basis ‘cause I’m pretty busy at the moment.
My policy is simple: if I have something to say be sure I will, if not I won’t post rubbish just to get more page views.
I’ll also finish to set up the site and the layout soon. I’ll add simple graphics (minimal style) and a read later button linked to Readability if I find it.
I still have to take a decision on comments, I’ll let you know soon. Til then you can take a look at the contact page. Feel free to email me or reply at all time.
Edit#1: I’ve added a readability button on the top of every article, I’ve also decided to turn off comments - I’m writing a full article about this matter, till then you can read this article from Matt Gemmel about his decision to turn off comments for his blog.