New Blog

I'm starting a new blog and here is post one.  I've been blogging for over 3 years on https://blogs.msdn.com/oallen, and I tried to do some personal blogging on MSN Spaces, but I've been meaning to find a way to mix the two of them.  I didn't want to start putting personal stuff on a blog that is hosted under a MSFT domain name, so I am now blogging under an old domain name of mine, canaltown.net. 

I started my previous blog before blogging had really taken off, and I had been looking for a way to communicate to my customers.  Well, I don't need to be the source of new product information for my customers any longer, as many different Microsoft product groups are running their own blogs.  I work primarily with the SharePoint Technologies, and there are dozens of Office and SharePoint related blogs available now. 

So, I'm going to try to take a more light-hearted approach to blogging with this site, and mix in a lot of my personal life with those other areas that I spend most of my time with. That leaves me with work and family and...  well, if any other areas come up besides work and family, youi'll hear about it here first, I'm sure.

I'm not going to be bringing over my old content.  I'll keep it there for a while, and I'll be adding lists and filling out this site as time goes by.  Send me a note once in a while and let me know if this is going in the right direction, or if it's not.

Where did the name canaltown come from?  Well, I lived for a while in Macedon, New York, a town that is on the Erie Canal.  I grew to enjoy the canal.  The town just east of Macedon is Palmyra, New York, and Palmyra has the nickname of CanalTown.  So, it stuck. 

One of my models for this type of blog is Mike Ganotti, a peer of mine who lives and works out of North Carolina.  His blog is at https://www.mikeysgblog.com.  I can only dream of being as prolific a writer as either Mike or my other blogging inspiration, Mark Harrison, at https://www.markharrison.co.uk/blog.   Any similarity in content or structure of this blog with the blogs or content of either Mike or Mark is strictly intentional.

Update (9/1/2008) – I’m importing blog posts from www.canaltown.net back into blogs.msdn.com/oallen.  …