It has been a few years since I have blogged and I decided it was time to start again. Why you might ask?

1) First, technology has advanced. Last time I got overloaded with the war against spam. Instead of nurturing a nice online community I spent my time cleaning up junk. Wordpress had some tools, but they still had significant holes. Times have changed.

2) Twitter is nice, but 140 characters is a bit limiting. Find me on twitter at http://twitter.com/troyp

3) No iPhone anymore! So for a number of reasons I had to part with my iPhone. I tried a Windows Mobile phone – that lasted one week. That week was one of the worst techno-gadget weeks of my life. ARGH! So I switched to a BlackBerry Storm. So far this is better, not an iPhone, but worlds better than WinMo. BUT … where are the applications?

I decided I needed a place to rant and explore the applications for the BlackBerry Storm.

4) Software development. I hope to use the blog as a platform to explore some tools and give something back to the community. That could be open-source contributions, explorations of tools that I’m using, or tutorials. Lately I have been comparing PHP-based web frameworks. I keep wanting to like cakePHP, but have turned my attention to symfony.

5) Ducati. Just to type those letters raises my pulse. I know it is winter and I haven’t heard my motorcycle growl for several months. I purchased a 2003 Ducati Monster last spring and put on more than 5,500 miles last season. I need to perform a valve job on it before riding season arrives. A blog will give me a place to share the highs and lows of owning a Ducati.

So armed with a load of good intentions, let the blogging begin.