Tag: My Websites

WordPress tags and categories: how a journalist can organize a personal site

I’m reworking this site. There is no reason for you to have noticed that I’ve changed all the categories and started using tags for my posts. All of my archives are now online with the concept.

I was trying to organize a post last week and realized I had more than 40 categories and was barely using tags. That’s ridiculous. Their purposes are to better organize posts and allow you to group like material. None of that was happening.

Yes, for those of you new or unfamiliar to WordPress, it gives you every reason for your product to be super organized and increase the searchability of your posts. The better organized, the easier it is to disseminate and let others find your material. That’s good news for a young journalist looking to promote himself.

The only problem is that I have more than 400 posts in less than a year of this blog’s existence. That’s a lot of work.

Continue reading WordPress tags and categories: how a journalist can organize a personal site

Lessons from WDSTL: podcasting, travel blogging, exploring

Sean Blanda (left) and I on the Philadelphia Art Museum steps on May 28, 2008. Together we travel blogged and podcasted for a month while backpacking Europe.
Sean Blanda (left) and I on the Philadelphia Art Museum steps on May 28, 2008. Together we travel blogged and podcasted at WeDontSpeaktheLanguage.com for a month while backpacking Europe.

After returning from backpacking Europe earlier this month, I shared some of the professional experience I got while blogging at WeDontSpeaktheLanguage.com.

My good buddy, travel partner and fellow aspiring new media journalist Sean Blanda beat me to a post on lessons learned, but I have some thoughts myself: on podcasting, travel blogging and exploring generally.

Continue reading Lessons from WDSTL: podcasting, travel blogging, exploring

WDSTL Highlights: professional merit from backpacking Europe

Sean Blanda (left) and I at the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France on Oct. 12, 2008.
Sean Blanda (left) and me at the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France on Oct. 12, 2008.

I’ve been backpacking Europe.

I returned last week and have been getting out from underneath the transition since then.

Though this is a blog on being a young journalist housed on my professional site, I can’t help but share some of the blogging and podcasting I did on WeDontSpeaktheLanguage.com.

Continue reading WDSTL Highlights: professional merit from backpacking Europe

New blogging page on ChristopherWink.com

THOSE READING A FEED MAY NOT HAVE NOTICED I added a page on this site that features my blogging experience.

Like my journalism page, it lists some featured posts from the blogs for which I have worked, including posts on the popular state government blog Capitol Ideas, my work for Y-Decide, a blog by Philadelphia’s WHYY, and the blogging I did to cover my senior thesis, mentioned on my academic page.

In today’s age, my experience and interest in blogging may be one of my best assets.

You gotta flaunt whatcha got.

Any advice?

Cartoon courtesy of Gaping Void.

My Honors Thesis Web site: The Philadelphia Republican Party

Updated: My thesis has now moved to a subdomain here, as explained here.

CHECK OUT A (SEMI) COMPLETED WEB SITE I made for my year-long thesis project that I only finished now, having spent a couple months as a college graduate.

I graduated from Temple in May, with honors I might add, because of that thesis project on which I worked. Despite being a couple months removed from college, I only recently finished the final revisions offered to me by my paper’s adviser, the eminent Dr. Joseph McLaughlin.

Back in April, I announced I had the site running, but now have the final paper available. I hope to add some more features and supplemental info, but for now, it is a nice collection of the research and work I’ve done.

[www.phillypolitics.wordpress.com]

The unveiling of my Philadelphia Republican Party honors thesis Web site

I have been busy.

Because I didn’t have the grades to get into the honors school initially, in order to graduate with honors on May 22 – my day of commencement from Temple University – I have to complete an undergraduate thesis project.

I have been steadily working on my paper, due the first week of May, but, in addition to a public presentation and defense of my initial findings at a research forum held two weeks ago, I have nearly put all the final touches on the framework of a blog that chronicles my year-long research on Philadelphia’s Republican Party, the focus of my thesis.

Finally, a home for all of you dying to learn everything there was to know about partisan politics in Philadelphia.

The paper will eventually go up there too, all of my research and notes, as a means for giving the project a permanent, more visible home. For now, I am happy to have a place to organize all of my work, interviews and research.

Give it a look. I’ll keep you posted on its progress.

An unannounced welcome

This is a placeholder. A beginning of profound visions, to be sure. No one who gives it any thought doubts that the internet is the home of the next great real estate boom. Westward expansion damn near into the 20th Century left land in the United States cheap enough that it was devalued to the point many who could decided not to pursue its acquisition.

Today, I purchased the ChristopherWink.com domain name for $10.19. Cheap enough that internet space couldn’t be valuable. Yet, still people sit on domain names. I hear there isn’t a three-letter combination .com website that isn’t already purchased.

What I am suggesting is that I don’t know what I want to do with this website. I have tried before and found it self-indulgent. To be true, paying for an address with my own name still seems it, but I press on because I can’t help but think the inevitable progression of things will force everyone to need a home online. This is mine. Waiting for things to put in the attic… and living room… and kitchen

So, I plan on tinkering and learning and making the best looking “Seat Reserved” sign I can. I am particularly unsure of this whole weblog thing. I don’t have the time, interest or belief that anyone cares enough to warrant me updating daily on my life or even what happens around me. I might chronicle the important events of my life, expecting this to, someday, be a means to communicate with those who time won’t allow me to in person.

For now, I see this as the wordiest resume or largest business card I could ever give to potential employers. I will treat it as such. Check back, maybe that won’t be as lame as it seems.