i want a bit of a newer, fresher, easier-to-update look for this blog — and i also want to learn more HTML, some CSS and get more up to date with wordpress.

all of which is my excuse for the fact that this blog may go through a funny-looking, awkward stage (or two). bear with me - i’ll keep on blogging, and things should get good-looking again one day.

and if not, well - change keeps life interesting, doesn’t it?!

some unrelated ways you can maybe help me (well, it *is* my blog…):

1. i’m doing a project kinda thing (you know you love it when i get specific!) about women, men, gender, technology and the internet. if you have any relevant info or see any sites i should know about relating to any/all of the above, please email me a link. i’m collating everything here, so you can see what i have so far.

2. i’m putting together another secret project to do with blogging, and i also need help with that: i need you to recommend great blog posts (specific posts if possible, rather than just great blogs - and they can be your own posts!) one proviso: they need to be relatively clean. i haven’t set up a place to collate these yet, but i will in due course. (don’t you love the saying “in due course”? it sounds official yet could mean anything. i use it to mean “soon… probably”.)

3. and in non-tech related news… on my way back from america last year, i had a fantastic meal on the plane (i know!) of chicken and sweet potatoes in a chipotle sauce. which was serendipitous as i’d just watched rachel ray cook with chipotles… but i can’t find them in the UK. do we have a different name for them, or are they just not available? i have the recipe, i just need the chipotles… help!

*hey, that’s my second beatles-lyric title this week. will i make it three?

no, i will not.

i’ve just realised that three weeks from now, i’ll be spending the weekend in asia.

ASIA!

even better, i’ll see my dad for the first time in three years.

THREE YEARS!

i am very, very excited and happy about this.

but sitting here in my dressing gown after a long day of work and period pain, looking at the piles of clothes i have yet to wash/pack/try on and send back to online retailers, it all seems a little hard to believe.

EEK!

oh, this is truly exciting! remember that really exciting and mysterious new tech blogging gig i told you about, ooh… four days ago?

well today i make my debut *squee!* on fabulous american site popgadget. i’ll be contributing 4-5 posts a week, so i hope you’ll stop by regularly. (i’m not just saying that because i write for it now: it’s one of those sites that’s so cool i’d get a lump of jealousy in my throat when reading it. it’s a great site with or without me… but i’m glad it’s with. hee).

anyway, see me talk about the cutest magnets ev-ah here.

*squee!*

my techie alter ego is still going strong: i’m currently working on two tech features for a national newspaper, answering basic tech questions in woman’s weekly every two weeks and…

this week i was offered a blogging job at a wonderful american site about women, lifestyle and tech. woot!

i haven’t started posting yet (i’ll keep you, er, posted, and remove the veil of mystery then) but i’m very excited about this! it’s such a great site, and very well-respected.

want to know how i got the job? 

i just emailed to ask if they wanted another writer.

it was a powerful reminder to me of the value of asking for what you want - you never know where you might end up!

update: i’m so excited, i got offered another fabby blogging job (and of course accepted), again just by asking - more details soon!

even after researching and writing about the online harassment of kathy sierra last year, i’m still totally shocked by the weekend’s news of a mcdonald’s executive’s ‘death by blog’.

i know too well the vitriol that gets directed at perfectly decent people who also happen to be bloggers. (i’ve had my taste, education and intellectual ability questioned… and i’ve only suffered the mildest of doses!) 

while commenters can’t take the blame for another person’s mental ill-health, we all have a duty to behave like human beings - whether online or off.

in other words, if you’re ever tempted to spew hate via your asdl, step. away. from the computer… and get a life, instead of trying to ruin someone else’s.

i know i was (am?) having a hiatus (i’m still feeling a bit rough to be honest, also: grumpy) but the site wasn’t supposed to totally freaking disappear!

after two days, i got in touch with my blog host, and it transpired they had changed some of their settings (why? why?) and made my blog go ‘way as a result.

so i had to go and change my settings with the company i bought dianeshipley.com from, where it was a dark world of ‘nameserver this’ and ‘DNS settings that’ and ‘this is not the email address you registered with’ and ‘please log in again’ until i nearly tore my hair out.

but i made it back!

and if you missed it, while the site was down i got another blasting in wrote another piece for the guardian: don’t bite the hand that feeds the inner you.

is there a good self-help book for dealing with criticism and blog disappearances, do you know?

i’m sorry, i know i owe emails left, right and centre but i’m busier than i’ve ever been, ever, at the moment, and now i’ve been hit with some sort of virus that’s making me sluggish and overheated: i literally cannot think. my brain has gone. also, the thought of food turns my stomach - that can’t be good. hopefully i can take this afternoon off and come back fighting tomorrow.

i’ll be back blogging when i can, but i don’t have any idea when that might be. i need to do loads of stuff for australia, reply to all those million emails… and what was that other thing? oh yes, work. and i have two days training and an interview next week, too. (not that i’m complaining!) it’s very nice to be needed and wanted and have things to do: having spent years lolling on sofas, i know. but still… pass the smelling salts, someone.

i’m going to let you in on a little secret: i’ve been hard at work on a lot of things lately, not all of them profitable, but top of the list is [drumroll please…] a whole new blog.

not as a replacement for this one, but as a more commercial venture (i.e. i’d like to make some money at it one day) and of a much less personal nature.

but still funny, weird and interesting, of course. (what do i mean, ’still’?)

if you’re curious, clicky here to find out more.