The past two weeks have seen my blogs attached to proper domain names, but after a fortnight of near-daily posts, I decided to take a small break (two days) and see how I'd done.

Last night I added a new domain, but decided to attach it to a service where I can add a small amount of monetization and even have some sharing capability.  As a result, www.geehall1.org came into being.

I did try to use that service to have the name of this blog, but half an hour of experimenting showed it wasn't going to be exactly the way I wanted.  Hence, off to purchase the .org name and then tie the service I wanted to it.

I like the idea that the .org site allows me to provide my readers with sharing links, adding a few more options than just the cross-posting that's automatic here.

For the moment, however, it's a good idea to rearrange some post scheduling so I can still adequately do two lots of near-daily posts.  So www.geehall1.org has been promoted to a daily.  Of course, that made this particular blog you're reading a bit less frequent.  This blog will now switch to twice-weekly.

That's not so bad an idea, because later in the year I want to convert this one to a fully-hosted site.  My target is to have one fully-hosted site/domain by the end of the year or earlier.  In the meantime, if it's going to be called www.geehall1.com, I'll need have have this particular page eventually redirecting to it.  So a minimal number of posts that are easy to export to the new site is a good idea.

It's also about refreshing, original content.  It serves no real good having three domains all saying the same thing.  I prefer this year to have every site I post to having something different from the other two.  Last year I saw the problems of overdoing the cross-posting and duplicating content, which devalued the content I posted.  This year, original content on every blog I use.

It's even something that's applicable to social media.  If you have one site aggregating all your different services, just take a look at what happens when all your Twitter updates are repeated and duplicated by identi.ca and/or Facebook and even Plurk.  It gets kind of annoying and boring looking at six identical versions of the one tweet.

They're quickly discovering that over at Google Buzz this week.

Buzz is making a lot of people rethink how they do their online content and whether or not they aggregate it or duplicate it.

Anyway, it never hurts to re-evaluate from time to time.  Once in a blue moon, sit back, smell the roses/coffee, then come back to your online stuff that much fresher.

Do you take a break and re-evaluate from time to time?

Let's hear some thoughts on that.

Have you tried out Google Buzz yet?

I can know Darren Rowse has, after seeing his Buzzes this afternoon.

I also know Ange Recchia has, since she popped into Buzz today too.

I even had a look at the 'Nearby' tab in the mobile version this afternoon and was surprised to see there's a few in the inner suburbs of Melbourne already getting some practice at it.

Interestingly, though, I didn't recognize these people as Twitter regulars.  Then again, you don't always know people's names from quick glances of Twitter nicks.

I'm intrigued to know what people are using Buzz in its first few days and who's not.

Apart from a handful of people among my regular Twitter friends, there doesn't seem to be too big a buzz in local Twitter for it as yet.  Perhaps that's because Buzz is technically a competitor to Twitter.  Contrasted to that are the people I know from Friendfeed who are enjoying the similarities to their old service.

So let's here some feedback on what the average Twitter user thinks of Buzz.

And yes, I'll be quite happy to hear any "buzz" joke you can think of.

The first day using Google Buzz shows it's everything we would like Wave to be.

It's fast, for one thing.

As yet, I'm still waiting for my Gmail account to be connected to Buzz and about the only practice I'm getting on it is through the mobile version. Even so, I'm liking what I see.

When the Gmail connection is live, I'll be able to take a better look at what it's like for sharing pictures and/or video.  In the meantime, I'm already noting how Mashable is already using Buzz to give updates on their articles.  They're already doing something constructive with it there.

So far it's been good to join some conversations with Google Reader contacts and in this regard, it's much like Friendfeed, a service I'm still active on.  So if I've picked up Friendfeed pretty well, the learning curve for Buzz will be quite minimal.

Google profile is where I'm seeing my updates the best, with Buzz threads showing up currently as messages containing one thread, as opposed to one small message.  As I'm still waiting for the full connection on any other computer, there's a limit to how much I can describe, although the mobile Buzz web app is a good start.

The mobile interface is very effective, but it took a few minutes to work out I had to click on the thread-starter's profile to be able to add a coment or a like.

As you first login to the mobile version of Buzz, a small popup tells you how to turn it into a mobile bookmark on your iPhone's homescreen.  From there you can read through your contacts' buzzes or you can check who's updated nearby.

It's only the first day of Buzz yet, but it's off to a good start as far as I'm concerned.

As a "Wave Lite," Buzz works.

Seven days' time marks the anniversary of the worst disaster Victorians have faced.

February 7 a year ago was Black Saturday...the hottest day not only of last year, but of all time since records started.  It became six weeks of hell for almost everyone.  If not especially for those in the disaster areas, for those who knew someone who was.  Very few Victorians could not be unaffected as they knew friends or relatives who had either died or who were in the displaced.

In one way, it brought about an incredible community spirit as Victorians and even non-Victorians struggled to find any way they could to help.

Social media especially was utilized to provide ways to keep expatriate Victorians informed, to take some of the pressure off over-burdened CFA systems, or simply just to get as much timely information out as possible of any new fire danger.

We'd already seen how Twitter was utilized in other situations around the world, but with the Victorian bushfires, Australians worked to make it even more effective as an information system.  Mashups with Google maps and other satellite mapping systems were brought into play and even Twitpics sent from some areas close to fires helped provide what was needed.

One name cropped up on Twitter showing a huge concern for one little town...@rexster.  When I first saw his tweets on the situation in Flowerdale, I didn't know if he was a country bumpkin or a CEO, but he kept tweeting of what was happening in Flowerdale and how he was trying to get some supplies into the place to help them save what they had left.  I remember putting out a tweet on the relevant hashtag that said:  "How can we help this guy do something for Flowerdale?"

The guy was actually Pete Williams, CEO of Deloitte Digital, as I found out a week or two later.

What Flowerdale went through is best described here.

Of course, Kinglake was also amongst the worst towns hit by the fires.

A few weeks after the fires were no longer a danger, I took a near-dusk trip to Kinglake with my family, travelling along the St. Andrews road.  It's a narrow, meandering road, not really much trouble for the driving skills of someone who was taught in the hills of East Gippsland.  It wasn't the driving that bothered me.  It was the sight of the burnt trees against the fading light.

The St. Andrews to Kinglake road had no lights on it once we left St. Andrews.  Not one.  Against what little light there was, we could see blackened, broken trees.  It's a sight that no tweet or news report can really, truly describe.  Needless to say, after we got to Kinglake and stopped for some fish-and-chips, we took the better, safer road out the other side, via Whittlesea.

However, that was in dark.  A few months later I saw the Whittlesea road in daylight.

In July, Pete Williams got me to film the Sustainable Housing workshop in Kinglake.

Sure, grass had regrown on the floor of that bushland.  There were new leaves on the trees.

But the trees themselves were still black.  And they still are, as seen a few weeks ago on the last drive I took to the area.

You leave Whittlesea and for a couple of kilometres you still see untouched road.  Then you cross one particular hill and then the wrecked trees start.

You see the blackened trees on the hills underneath the new foliage.

However, on the last trip there a few weeks ago, I saw the rebuilding.  New houses popping up on places that were flattened or empty back in July.

My favorite thing this last visit to Kinglake was seeing one impromptu sign that read:  "Welcome to Kinglake...the town that STILL refuses to die."

I especially pointed that out to the nine-year-old...explaining to him that no matter what disaster there is in life, the most important thing is to bounce back from it.

Next weekend, I want to visit both Flowerdale and Kinglake on the anniversary of Black Saturday.  As all of us in Victoria remember the lifes lost.

One year later, let's hope we've learned something.