AI-generated picture of a cat staring at a computer, in a woodcut / watercolor style.

20 blogging and article prompts for tech bloggers

Stumped for ideas what to blog about? Not sure what people would want to read that would be worth writing about? Here’s 20 prompts to get you started (some tweaking may be required). Yesterday I wrote about the 100 days of blogging challenge. A friend of mine asked if I had a good source of prompts for folks interested in doing something similar. Truth is, I hadn’t thought much about that.

November 29, 2022 · 4 min · zonker
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Give nothing, expect nothing: GitLab's the latest punching bag for entitled users

What do Docker, GitLab, and Red Hat have in common? Aside from various levels of participation in open source, they’ve all been punching bags over the past few years for non-paying users angry that they’ve taken some freebies off the table. When Docker had the temerity to introduce limits for free users pulling containers from DockerHub, or requiring a subscription for large business users, lots of people started complaining and/or looking for a free alternative....

August 10, 2022 · 6 min · zonker
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Three sentences in a trench coat pretending to be a coherent thought

At least once a week when I’m reading, or editing, copy related to work I’ll skim over something and realize that what I just read makes no sense. Sure, the words are used properly. The paragraph is composed of sentences that seem grammatically correct. But if you stop to think about what the copy is saying, it’s just three sentences in a trench coat pretending to be a coherent thought....

July 13, 2021 · 3 min · zonker
Bottle of Tres Comas held by Russ Hanneman, character on Silicon Valley

Make your sentences poorer, get out of the three comma club

There’s a running gag in the show Silicon Valley about a character obsessed with being in the “three comma” club. Being a billionaire, in other words. When he loses enough money to drop from $1.2 billion to “merely” $900 million, he’s “financially ruined” and despondent. Judging by the way some folks write sentences, they’re just as afraid to lose a comma. Me? I don’t want any billionaire sentences in my copy1....

April 11, 2021 · 3 min · zonker
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How to make money writing, the query letter (or email…)

Prior to taking the job I have now as editorial director for Linux.com, I was a freelancer for about six years, writing for Linux Magazine, Enterprise Linux Magazine, UnixReview.com, Linux Weekly News, IBM developerWorks, ZDNet, and a few others. I thought I’d share a few tips here that might help prospective authors get a little work on the side, or maybe even start up a freelancing career of their own....

April 22, 2006 · 4 min · zonker