Wow! 10 Years of WordPress Love: An Introspection On Life And Blogging

Hey guys! I know, I know. I haven’t been here in what seems like ages and I have no excuse you guys. I just have none. But hey, WordPress just gave me this loving nudge that I’ve been on this platform for 10 years and what do I have to show for it?

Well, love. I got love. And it’s not some lame bs I’m spouting just to be polite or anything but it’s all I can say truly. I mean all these years since my first blog post here on WordPress (coming from Google’s Blogger), I’ve done many things, tried lots of projects, won some, lost some, love and lost — all that shitty and beautiful stuff a human being goes through. I did that and more.

This blog went from personal, to entertainment (movie, song reviews), political, web tech and gadgetry. You name it, I’ve blogged it. I’ve made free stuff, I’ve written paid stuff. Blah blah. The whole nine yards, my fellas.

I went hard and strong with e-commerce (my other first love, don’t be jealous, WordPress), released albums upon albums of cover songs, I’ve written (unpublished) books, I’ve even started reading tarot cards — yes, yes good ‘ol fortune telling sans the cookie.

Name it. I’ve prolly explored it to some extent.

And through it all, WordPress blogging has been a silent and patient witness to my ever-changing and mind-numbing flip-flopping from this and that, here and there. Never judging. Just patiently watching and listening and waiting for me to one day “come home” — to come back home.

But where is home? What really is home? Don’t mean to sound overly emo or anything like that but when I get reminded of all the years that passed that I haven’t written anything in acceptable longform content, it does send me to someplace nostalgic.

After all, when you strip me of everything I’ve said and done, I am at the very core of me, a writer. I write everyday not with pen, paper or keyboard — I write my life in ways so much more intangible yet profound, as  only I can create it.

I may no longer type it and publish it in a “blog” but I still do it in the so-called Web 2.0 of social media — Facebook, Instagram, Twitter — even the Smule Sing app.

What used to be integrated and well-written in a blog post is now published in some form of erratic, condensed, snapshot form as we’ve gotten used to by now.

And it’s a shame, ain’t it? That now, our poor stalkers need to visit so many sites and apps just to find out what we had for lunch or if we’re listening to the latest Lil’ Pump song or not. Used to be so easy for them stalkers back then. Go to a person’s blog and you’ll see everything there — pictures, videos, thoughts and random ramblings, music etc.

Why am I even talking about this? Oh I don’t know. I think, maybe just like the rest of the world, all this fragmented info and the mad rush to keep up with it has caused our poor blogging brains to shrink — so much so that we can’t even hold a cohesive thought for more than 5 seconds.

Is there hope, you ask? Or more appropriately, does anyone even bother to think about all this? I don’t know. I don’t know my friend.

But I do know that the mere fact that I had to be reminded of my WordPress 10th Year Anniversary just to come up with a such a lame post such as this is indicative of the long road ahead of us if we ever want to go back to introspective blogging — or even thinking for that matter. And well, ain’t it a shame? I think it is.

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Oh my! I love my personalized Spotify Time Capsule Playlist! It does take me back in time. 😍😌💋🎧

HeyRJ’s Time Capsule Playlist by Spotify

Oh yay! Skype relented and brought back support to iPhone 5 and older devices running iOS 9 and later

Well well well! What a triumph for backward compatibility! Days ago I just blogged and whined about how disappointed I am that Skype 8.1 dropped support for the iPhone 5.

It looks like Skype has learned the error in its ways and have brought us iPhone 5 users back into its loving arms.

I’m guessing I wasn’t a lonely voice in the desert asking them to repent because just a few days after the shocking release of 8.1 they released 8.1.2 announcing that the “issue” of backward compatibility has been “fixed”.

No, its not an oversight on their part at all. They really meant to initially kick us iPhone 5 users out of the Snapchat-like update. Otherwise this compatible device list wouldn’t have been updated.

That screenshot of the 8.1 update states explicitly that device compatibility starts from iPhone 5s and up. I have suspected that this is their way of heeding Apple’s “gentle” encouragement that developers update their apps to be exclusively 64-bit compatible.

Now, I have nothing against progress, mind you. But looking at the updates and features they included in 8.1, I don’t feel like 64-bit is absolutely required. Sure there will be features that the iPhone 5’s hardware cannot support but in terms of the basic functionality plus a few bells and whistles, it should still work decently. So why hold out on us poor iPhone 5 users, right?

The newest update, 8.1.2 now indicate backward compatibility with all iOS devices running iOS 9 and up. See below.

What’s more, this Snapchat-like update as I’d like to call it, boasts a lot of new features for fans of customization, stickers and all other fancy stuff we’re more familiar with from other messaging/social media apps.

Are you bored with Skype’s blue theme? Well here you go. You can now change it as you please.

And it even showers you with praises at every step of the tutorial when you customize your Skype — because duh? We should get awards for trying! 😐

Now I couldn’t care less for these features, honestly. These shiny new things are lovely but I’m all about functionality and performance. So as long as Skype works the way it promises to work, then I’m happy.

And with 8.1.2 update bringing iPhone 5 back in, I couldn’t be happier.

How about you? Do you feel the same about Skype update 8.1.2? Did you even notice it? Or more to the point, do you even still care about Skype? Or have you moved on to other call/messaging apps long ago? Tell us in the comments! 😍

I hardly use Skype (at least not for calling) recently but I’m still upset that its latest update V8.1 dropped support for iPhone 5 and older devices.

So this is it, then? That weird alert email Skype users reportedly received about a month ago about Skype dropping support for older devices… this is it. 

That email, though referred to smart TVs and Windows phone and other devices. I didn’t realize it includes my poor old iPhone 5 too. 

But then when I tried updating Skype on my phone, it didn’t let me. 

First of all, why Skype? Why? And you know what, for that matter, Microsoft why? 

Worse, it teases you with all these fancy features, only to let you down. 

Skype has been clunky for the longest time across all devices (and that 1 star review on the App Store proves it), and yet instead of taking the high road and fixing the bugs, you take the easy way out by simply dropping support for all of them “older” devices. 

*Sigh*

I loved Skype. I really did. in fact I still have Skype credit I haven’t used in years. 

Once upon a time, Skype was the household name for VOIP calls. It was the de-facto software for calling your near and dear wherever they are in the world. 

Then all these messaging apps started integrated calling features, cheesy stickers, payment facilities and all the many bells and whistles we never knew we needed but now can’t seem to live without..

Skype however, didn’t budge and relented pretty late. Too little, too late actually. 

Now if they did this in favor of keeping the calls solid, that would’ve been understandable. But that’s not even the case. The service just kept getting worse by the day — calls dropping, call quality degrading and recently, snail-paced response while loading previous conversations in chat. 

But maybe it’s just my device. The iPhone 5, at least the one I have, is actually over 4 years old. And for a modern device, that’s pretty old. 

Still, I can’t help but be upset that I can’t update Skype. Maybe it’s sentimentality taking over. Or maybe I just can’t get over the fact that 32-bit devices are going the way of the dinosaur sooner than I imagined. 

I dropped my iPhone 5 innumerable times and replaced its battery thrice. Replaced cracked screen twice. 

And just like the 4S and the 3GS before it, it’s hard to wake up one day and realize that OMG you “need” to get a newer phone if you wanted to use a decent range of apps. It doesn’t help that the Apple App Store started removing 32-bit apps. It’s almost like you’re being pushed into a corner to upgrade or go Android. 

I was happy when iOS 10.3.2 kept support for the iPhone 5, contrary to many previous reports and speculations. Come iOS 11 though, it’s bye bye iPhone 5. 

Sadly this is our reality. My reality. I just have to either grin and bear it. Or get a newer phone. But with my iPhone 5 still alive and kicking, I simply can’t justify replacing it. 

Maybe soon… when my 5 finally dies on me. Until then, ’till brick do us part. 

Why am I on this? – Messaging Power App Telegram releases Telegraph – the quickest way to share your thoughts online.

Originally published at:  http://telegra.ph/Why-am-I-on-this-05-19

From the Telegram blog:

Telegraph

Today we are launching Telegraph – a publishing tool that lets you create richly formatted posts with photos and all sorts of embedded stuff. Telegraph posts get beautiful Instant View pages on Telegram.

To try it, go to telegra.ph, publish a story, and share it on Telegram. With Telegraph, your Telegram channel can run stories just like the mainstream media (although you may find it tricky to become as biased).

Well I saw Telegram came up with something like a blogging platform of sorts, a la Medium.. and being the huge Telegram fan and user that I am, I felt compelled to check this out and so here I am typing on my iPad with no particular topic in mind except for getting this over with so I can see what it is and how it’ll look like when I finally hit “Publish” because right now, all I see is white space everywhere and considering how cluttered the Internet has become over the years, this is both refreshing and weird for me. So hold on, let me take a screenshot so you could see what I mean.

Screenshot of my iPad screen as I was typing this post. Whoa. So meta.

Oh okay there it is. Wow. I can’t believe how incredibly easy this is! 😱😳😍

Like OMG is this for real? Absolutely undistracted blogging UI that only gives you exactly what you need as you need it. That is so simple yet so profound, so much so that I’m actually surprised that I’m still writing up to this point when I told myself from the beginning that I was only going to type a sentence or two.

Like wow. I could get used to this. I haven’t been blogging personally for so long because over time, it seemed to me that it’s become too much work composing your thoughts, adding pictures, worrying about SEO and sh*t that I end up not writing altogether.

This is really nice. I think I just found myself a new platform for daily diary entries. Let’s see what happens in the coming days. I feel excited and you should too.

Talk to you soon,

RJ