hyalineskies and 9rules

After nearly a year and a half of content-building, hyalineskies was admitted into the 9rules Network, a network of (what I believe are) some of the best blogs on the Internet. It’s a really great thing for me, since I feel as if something I’ve been doing around here has been recognised as useful, but at the same time I think 9rules will help out you, the reader, more than it will me, the author. Since some of my incoming traffic will be new thanks to 9r, I’m going to leave this announcement up until the new year.

Oh, and in celebration and thanks, I’ve released a new style for K2 based on my Gridlock theme. It’s called Gridlock-K2 (duh,) and you can get it over here.

I’m new here. What should I expect?

If you’re new to hyalineskies, you should expect this to be different in some ways than your average blog, while exactly the same in others. hyalineskies has three distinct sections: First Class, Economy Class, and Pilot Training; consider these the categories in which I post.

  • First Class is an archive of media analysis, musings on information theory, and interviews with prominent characters in new media. I publish a lot on online journalism and social media tools, and this is where I write about them.
  • Economy Class is the category in which I write all of my personal bloggery; I blog about everything from things I’m buying to activities, et cetera, much like any other personal blogger does.
  • Pilot Training is a category exclusively for web design and development tutorials, from building MySpace layouts to making your own WordPress Software. Updates to this section have been slow, but I’m going to make an effort to try to post more in this section.

There’s also the WordPress Hangar, which doesn’t really exist in a uniform way yet; in it I’ll be posting all of my WordPress themes and plugins for download. Don’t worry; I’m working on it.

I’ve been around since the dawn of time. What’s changing for me?

A lot more than you’d expect. Like I said in my previous announcement, I’m going to be tweaking Aerial to look better and function in ways that make more sense. You may have noticed that I made some minor aesthetic changes when I added the 9rules leaf; I thinned out Avenir to be less heavy in the sIFR replacement and added a darker footer section. I’m going to be rewriting the front page layout as well.

Also, you’ll see a difference in some of the content I’m posting. While I’ll still post the usual stuff, I’m going to try to focus more on making Pilot Training tutorials as well as building larger series in the First Class section. I’m going to be writing more on online journalism in the future, and you’ll see some new things regarding Second Life, the social app du jour. I’m going to try to stray away from some of my more obtuse, academic styles of writing and write in a more journalistic fashion. When you realise that some of your posts are exceeding grade levels of 20, you need to stop using so many semi-colons and multisyllabic words.

So what else is occupying your time?

Well, a lot to say the least. I’m going to be putting free-goodies development (WordPress Hangar stuff) on hiatus for a while to work on some freelance projects, and I’ll be spending an increased amount of time on working on things that may help me get a decent job in the future. I’m also kicking around some ideas for a startup that may or may not ever leave the ground.

That said, I’m also spending a good amount of time with family and friends, something this demanding college semester (as well as work) hasn’t really allowed me much time to do. I’m planning a trip to Chicago shortly as well as a cross-country triangle for spring break.

Anyway, that’s enough for this week’s announcement. I’ve spent a lot of time away from studying for finals to bring you this week’s content; enjoy.