Well my old website/blog has been inactive for a while. Over the past year, instead of maintaining my website, I have been using Twitter more and more because of it’s quick and easy communication. I found myself wanting to write more about things in detail and being frustrated when I tried because I would just get tied up in the mess of Google’s Blogger service and overall not being happy with my layout. People were saying they were checking my website and I wasn’t making updates, so they would always ask what is new.
I decided to find a new solution. I wanted something sleeker, quicker and easier to use. I began dabbling here and there with various other software packages for CMS/blogging. I eventually narrowed it down to WordPress and Tumblr, and since you are here reading this, it means I’ve made my decision.
I’ve decided to go with Tumblr over WordPress because I liked its simple and elegant style and best of all it’s zero-configuration as far as the back-end goes. Instead of having to install all this software, setup a database and most importantly update the software regularly, Tumblr handles all that for me. I just design how it looks (if I don’t like their built-in themes) and then start writing the content.
An added plus that pushed me over the top is their Goodies like iPhone Application and Mac Widgets for easy blogging. I have been getting addicted to Bookmarklets, so they had one for easy blogging of links and media that I like; can’t go wrong with that. The final piece of the puzzle was the excellent blog composer application for the MacOS (MarsEdit). It is currently in a public beta for Tumblr support. It gives me yet another way to update and manage my blog without a web interface.
The next step was to find a name that would stick. I wanted to use something other than patrickmccarron.com for my blog, and allow myself to setup my personal site to be less of a blog that points to the various places on the web I can be found. I wanted something Irish since my name is very Irish, so it’d be easy to associate with. When building this site I was using Shamrocks in place of the typical Infinity symbol you see used on Tumblr for permalinks. That’s when I realized that I should combine the two, and I got a unique name:Infinite Shamrock. Which also ties to programming background with the term of an Infinite Loop, and it’s also Apple Headquarters street address. So it stuck, and then the logo just kind of came naturally when messing around in Photoshop.
I hope to use Infinite Shamrock to post things that are on my mind, stories on the internet that I enjoyed and also code snippets that I think may help out all the fellow iPhone developers out there.
(Big thanks to my girlfriend KT for editing this rambling post for me, and James for the honest opinions during the design process!)