If you’ve just stumbled onto this blog, then this page is intended to explain what it’s about.

As I explained elsewhere, this is my personal blog, as opposed to my professional blog. As such, it contains posts on a wide variety of topics. My  personal and professional interests are listed on the page About the Author: they include Art, Writing, Language, Software Development, Video, Transport, and Birdwatching, so you can expect posts covering any of those topics on this site! You can also expect to see my comments on politics and religion (or the lack of it) from time to time, because, distasteful though those subjects may be for many of us, they have a direct impact on our lives.

Incidentally, I realize that there are many “David Hodgsons” in the world, so, if you’re trying to figure out which of them is me, this post may be helpful: Which David Hodgson is Which?

Alternative to Social Media

I’ve been posting on Facebook and LinkedIn for many years, but I became increasingly dissatisfied with social media sites. By creating posts here instead (which then automatically link to my Facebook page), I can write more informative posts and have more control over how they are displayed. I was also frustrated by the “temporary” nature of Facebook posts, where everything you post eventually disappears into a “black hole”. That may be reasonable if all you’ve got to write about is what you had for dinner last night, but in my case I’d like to be able to link back to earlier posts rather than repeating myself.

Image Ownership Issues

I’m also concerned about ownership issues in connection with posting images to social media. There are too many stories of people who posted a photo to social media, only to find it cropping up, without their permission, in someone’s advertisement later!

Of course, once you post an image anywhere on the internet, it’s impossible to prevent anyone from taking a copy of it. The simple reality is that, if they can see it on the screen, then they can copy it. It’s still a violation of copyright, but it happens all the time nonetheless. I try to add a copyright statement to every image on this site, to ensure that nobody can credibly claim that they didn’t know who owns the rights.

Being an artist who also has a fairly large collection of photos, it shouldn’t be any problem for me to illustrate all my posts with images that are definitely owned by me! As such, there should be no excuse for any confusion about the copyright and ownership of images on this site. For more information, see my Policies page.

Recommended Hosting Model

Incidentally, at present my two blogs are hosted differently. This personal blog is hosted on WordPress.com (but is not a “free” site). The professional blog uses WordPress.org software, but is hosted by Bluehost. If you’re considering starting your own blog, then (unless you’re very non-technical or you’re going to be content with a very basic blog), I strongly recommend the WordPress.org and third-party hosting option. The latter option is slightly more complex to set up, but much less restricted once you start using it. For example, WordPress.com prevents you from adding custom plugins, but the ability to add plugins is one of WordPress’ most powerful and valuable features!

Theme

This blog’s current theme is “Wilson” by http://www.andersnoren.se/. This theme provides a very neat and well-organized look, and the neutral palette avoids color clashes with on-screen images. I want to avoid the themes of all-too-many blogs that present a cluttered, disorganized and overwhelming appearance, which actually drives me away!