Recently I wrote my very first “blog post”. It was a write-up on (warning to my non-tech friends, be prepared for something you aren’t going to understand) “Accessing SQL 2008 R2 Named Instances with SSMS, Remotely, on Custom Ports”. I’d like to reflect on that experience.

I already know the value of blogs. In working in the IT field, almost daily I owe thanks to someone who has ran into the exact same issue I am troubleshooting, blogged about it, and included a fix to my problem. But me, posting to a blog? It just didn’t sound like much fun. Here’s how it happened.

We encountered an issue outside of the norm that required several troubleshooting steps. Once we had resolved the problem, it was strongly suggested that the subject matter would “make a good blog post”. Giving into “peer pressure”, I decided to give it a shot. I started at the beginning of the problem, documented all the steps that our team took to troubleshoot the problem successfully. I also included some extra information, so that if someone encounters my post it may prove helpful.

Much to my dismay, it was actually an enjoyable experience. Here are some things I picked up on:

1) Blogging could be fun!
2) Blogging cemented my knowledge in the subject matter, and would do so in any other subject that I decided to tackle.
3) Blogging on the subject may help others resolve this same issue.

So I decided to setup this blog. I decided to go with a WordPress site, mostly because of the wealth of plug-ins.

I picked up a domain name from GoDaddy for $8, setup a new WordPress website with a Cytanium hosting account, and I had this blog up and running in 30 minutes or less! The experience with both GoDaddy and Cytanium was stellar.

My first blog post mentioned above will be available on the ORCS Web website once the new site goes live. I’ll be posting it here afterwards.