My Online Footprint

My first efforts at consistent blogging were not here, but at a blog that preceded it called 100 Days with the Eee PC. I received an Asus Eee PC for my birthday in November of 2008, just before the term netbook became a household word. Since they were still a fledgling technology, I decided to try a little experiment – to only use the Eee PC as my primary computer. I figured it would be a pretty clear case study to show the potential of the tiny machine.

My experiment was a success, but it came with a residual effect – I realized the excitement (and importance) to blogging. The blog you’re reading right now is a direct result of my netbook experiment.

The 100 Days blog has sat dormant for almost a year now, and I haven’t had too much need to go back to it – until yesterday. I was looking some source code I used about this time last year to create a online quiz for my students. I couldn’t remember where I had downloaded it from, but I did remember that I had blogged about it. I Googled my old blog to see if I could find the link.

What I found instead was sobering.

On the first page of results was a message board posting that someone had started about my blog. In it, they explained who I was, the purpose of my writing, and what subject area and grade level I taught. He then went on to question the legality of something I had written about. All of this information was easily obtainable through my blog or in my Blogger profile, but it was vexing to see it written by a stranger.

I once wrote that blogging is an open journal, but this Google search made me realize how true that is. There's a valuable message to share about your online footprint - If it's online, someone will find it. If it's something even remotely questionable, someone will question it. And unlike a footprint in the sand, what is said online is never washed away by the inevitable rising tide.

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