newly ancient

I’m excited to announce that I have been accepted into the 9rules blog network. This is a great honor, as I’ll be joining some of the web’s best. I’ve applied once before, but couldn’t get in due to a minimum age of 14 (I’m now 15). All in all, this is a terrific piece of news and I look forward to getting to know the 9rules community even better.

What Rules?

9rules is a blog network compromising a great number of top bloggers with some very well-respected content. 9rules is known to be highly selective, and thus includes some of the best content around. Importantly, all members are independent. 9rules is also known for its design savvy, shown both by members and the always luscious site designs courtesy of Mike Rundle. Essentially, 9rules is the Harvard of blog networks (Or, at least, the MIT) .For those of you wondering what the actual rules are, here are the laws of the land:

1. Love what you do.
2. Never stop learning.
3. Form works with function.
4. Simple is beautiful.
5. Work hard, play hard.
6. You get what you pay for.
7. When you talk, we listen.
8. Must constantly improve.
9. Respect your inspiration.

I’d love to see a school with such a true and simple set of rules!

What’s next?

I’ll take the opportunity to outline some of my plans for this blog. Sometime in the next month, a new design should be debuting (finally) which replaces the current fall leaf with the 9rules leaf. (Of course, a whole lot more as well) This will be a complete redesign and rebranding, which will include a new logo, a new design, and possibly a new domain. (The name will stay the same though, as well the content you’ve come to know and love.) I’ll also be moving the engine over to Habari as we approach the first beta release. Finally, I plan to finally get a new podcast up and running this summer, which may either be part of this site or a brand of its own.

Merci!

I’d of course like to thank the whole 9rules crew for accepting me. I’d also like to thank Gnorb for inspiring me to apply. I’d also like to offer special thanks to Tyme for offering up quick replies to my questions on Twitter and in email. Congratulations to my new fellow members. For those of you who didn’t make the cut this time, bonne chance!

For any new readers, I invite you to take a stroll over to the archives to dig into the past. If you like what you see, please subscribe.

The troops have come back from a long, hard day with very little rest. Yet, they report success on all fronts. On the 9rules front, the war drags on and our enemy seems to be weakening. Really readers, (dropping the war metaphor) I am very excited about 9rules. Even if the mission fails, I have learned a lot about how to improve my blog. A large part of this is thanks to the wonderful folks on 9rules IRC. I really can’t wait to discover all the exciting new (or old) blogs that will be revealed in round 5. The 9rules task force (me) has been steadily hacking away at membership.

Remember that bit about success on all fronts. Well, my idea for a class blog had a major success today. When I suggessted the idea to my English teacher, she was very enthusiastic about it. However, I was referred to the technology comitte. They of course know nothing about the internet (look at that site) and will be very hard to convince. Still, success may be near and the classroom blog should be started before Turkey Day. I have worked hard on all fronts and the success of my 9rules submission and classroom blog is drawing closer.

In other news, I have been talking about my triple-boot with seanrox and may add on another OS. I also enjoyed this.