How long have you been blogging?

Since August 2005

What got you started?

Blogging was something I wanted to do for a long time before I actually got going, but I was never in the mood to develop too much of the web interface myself. I played around a lot with editing HTML in a text editor, but didn't enjoy that too much and I was never happy with the results I achieved. Then, I stumbled across Wordpress, installed it on my PC and played around with it. It was exactly what I wanted, so I set up a hosting account, bought a domain name and tried it out for real.
 
How do you stay motivated to blog daily?

Daily blogging can be a bit of a drag if there is nothing new to report on. I try to have at least five ideas of something to write about in my head in case nothing else interests me on any particular day, or if there is no event or announcement. By now, the daily posting ritual is so firmly ingrained that I feel odd if I haven't posted anything.
 
What would be on your list of essential blogging tools?

Since I use various systems (Windows/Mac/Linux) throughout the day, I try to stay away from any specific blogging tool and still prefer the standard Wordpress web-based dashboard. At most, I use a GUI-based FTP utility to upload content and depend on IrfanView (Windows) and Preview (Mac) to crop images. I've found that I can get by with these rather basic tools.

You recently started up a Gatorpeeps account. What do you think of the service?

I think it's fantastic that we have South African Internet entrepreneurs who are starting to provide services and applications that we usually expect only from the large US market. Though Gatorpeeps is essentially a localised Twitter service, it's another channel that I use to interact with fellow bloggers. Services like Gatorpeeps are becoming an essential part of how I gather news and information on current events. With various services and plug-ins available for popular blogging engines such as Wordpress, Gatorpeeps is also a means of making others aware of my blog and current posts.

Citizen journalism. What are your thoughts on the values/ risks involved?

Citizen journalism is an essential part of modern information dissemination and plays a part in keeping society honest and uncovering issues that require further investigation. A danger that I perceive in the sudden explosion of information being instantaneously delivered to a large audience through services like Twitter and Gatorpeeps is that the information is often not properly researched and may evoke an emotional response from the audience consuming that information. Where erroneous information is provided, a lot of harm may be done to individuals and corporations and there is little that can be done to retract erroneous or untrue statements. In that sense, traditional media is bound by stricter guidelines, but often has the disadvantage of not being able to provide timely information.
 
You are an iPhone users, are you not? What do you think of the new HTC Android phones?

I've been a long-time Nokia user and recently switched to the iPhone. It's a fantastic device that works and integrates seamlessly and I have been less bothered about potential restrictions imposed by Apple than I initially imagined. As someone who supports the open source software movement, Android is a very appealing option. Android is flexible, integrates very well with Google's online services and is customisable. My decision to make my computing platform of choice the Apple Mac is probably what pushed me towards the iPhone, else I would have selected an Android-based mobile phone.