PaulLau.com 4.0

It has been nearly three years since I started blogging here. It has been, for me, an amazing journey, what with over 140,000 views and nearly 700 posts so far. From the original intent of being a collection of my opinions, this blog has grown to become a key source of debating news as I began to attend international level competitions. In many ways, this blog has evolved like me, as I moved half-way around the world to attend UWC Atlantic College, a whole new set of posts about those experiences sprang up.

At times, I’ve found the blog a little bit too messy for my liking, too hard to find exactly what I’m interested at that moment, a little too much content without it all being nicely sorted and easy to access. Inspired by Dennis G Campbell during the AC Arts Festival 2012 and with all the time in the world on my hands now during summer, I’ve done a little spring cleaning and updated the blog. Here is PaulLau.com 4.0.

More Blogs!

Since I last featured blogs, a number of other people have decided to take the plunge and start their own blogs.

In Hong Kong, WEUer, who HAD KennethChan.org and subsequently deleted it, decided to set up another blog to his passion, this time using a very canadian centric ‘Literature Eh!’ to focus on the English language, which as far as I understand doesn’t come from Canada and hasn’t been particularly helped by Canadians. Nevertheless, Kenneth took the name and even went as far as to set up an extra twitter account. He seems to be doing quite well despite having to toy around with blogger, wordpress and multiple twitter accounts.

Also in Hong Kong, the boys from Sha Tin have also picked up their pens (or rather keyboard) and started their own little bit of blogging. Also known as Annette’s minions, both Irving Teng and Justin Wong has got their own blogs, both on wordpress at http://irvingteng.wordpress.com/ and http://jasonwongstc.wordpress.com/ respectively. At least someone will be able to take over debating reporting once I fly out.

Another debater has dabbled his feet in blogging, albeit using Google Blogger. Hubrack, our beloved Qatari debater who hails from Jordan, has started his blog at http://hubrack.blogspot.com/.

The only other blogsphere related news is that HKSDC’s wordpress website/blog is now up and running. It was launched a while back, but with exams soon to be over and a long summer before us, me and Heather hope to inject a few major improvements to the website in time for the next academic year. So keep checking at http://hksdc.wordpress.com because the website will be undergoing furious development come July. If you have any suggestions on how to improve the site, feel free to drop us a word.

WordPress Craze

Ever since I first started blogging on WordPress way back in October last year, we have seen wordpress begin to snake its way through the community with WEUer on KennethChan.com and Heather Pickerell joining the blogsphere.

More recently however, I have seen what I can only describe as a ‘WordPress Craze’

First there was fellow debater and SISer Tiffany Chung’s new blog titled ‘Tiffany Chung’s Blog’. She’s known to have a lot to say and way too many opinions, so maybe this may spare our ears.

Then there came another debater, this time from Queens College Hong Kong, as Benjamin So launched his blog ‘Put into Perspective’. The self described

epitome of the typical Asian student – Chinese, bookish, arrogant, ignorant and career-minded.

During WSDC itself, I helped the gaffe loving ‘funny’ guy to set up a blog of his own after he saw mine. Micheal.com from Michael Nauta himself provides a Namibian perspective that looks to shake things up and provide a good humorous time.

Happy Blogging Guys! Best of Luck!

KennethChan.org

I was initially inspired to start PaulLau.WordPress.com and this blog by the million of other personal websites and blogs out there in “the internets”. Since I started, you can even find this website on “the google”

I’m please and glad to be able to see that my own blog has inspired others; KennethChan.org.

For those of you who like Fanfiction or English writing, KennethChan.org may be the place to go for those who like Fanfiction, IGCSE example essays and more. At least that’s what the site promises. Up till now however, despite having started

this blog to make sure I practice my writing.

there has only been 1 blog post and no essays. Despite this, he has linked to KennethChan.org from twitter for a while.

Best of luck to weuer aka Kenneth in the future.

Hootsuite-WordPress integration

This is a test for the hootsuite’s ability to integrate with wordpress.

Hootsuite recently had a new feature added to its limited range whereby it is possible to post a blog post from Hootsuite without actually having to set foot on http://paullau.wordpress.com as I often have to do. This is the first time I am testing this.

On a different note with regards to Hootsuite, it has a good integration although sadly it is limited in certain aspects with regards to load speed and being able to bring together various social media services. It supports PingFM, Twitter, WordPress, LinkedIn and Facebook. RSS support is woefully limited and it doesn’t fit news reading at all.

If you want to go and try it yourselves, just pop over to http://hootsuite.com/ and check it out.

It appears however that Hootsuite lacks power editing of content in a major way. I think that will be its major flaw in terms of WordPress integration.

Heather Pickerell on WordPress

Having been inspired by the millions if not billions of other blogs out there in the blogosphere, I saw then and I see now the power of free expression so critical to the internet. Since I posted my first blog post, I am happy and glad that I can now say things have gone in a full circle. It is a very happy feeling knowing I was able to inspire another individual to start their own blog.

For my fellow debater, WSDC teammate and international relations enthusiast, Heather Pickerell, congratulations on her new blog also hosted at wordpress at http://heatherpickerell.wordpress.com/