Jer's Life

“But I thought Twitter was free?”   It is, till they decide it’s not.  We’re talking “free bird” here, not just “free beer“.

Why do I use WordPress?  Because it’s free and open source.  I can archive my entries locally.  I don’t have to worry about the proprietary service (aka Livejournal) shutting down, and denying me access to my entries.    I can fully customize the look and function of my blog.  I can… well…  I can do anything. If I don’t have the time to setup my own WordPress server, I can go to WordPress.com and get a free account.  Then, when I do eventually get the time to setup my own server, I can archive ALL my blog entries and upload them to my own server.

This type of thinking applies to just about everything I do.  If I can find an open source alternative, I’ll use it… or at least give it a try.  My latest discovery was Identi!

Identi, an alternative to Twitter. Laconi (on which Identi is based) is open source & more scalable than Twitter.  What’s that mean?  You can download the software and set up your own server.  Also, Laconi servers can talk to other Laconi servers.   I mean, that’s kinda the whole idea behind the web, isn’t it?

Till another better, more free alternative to Twitter pops up, you’ll be hearing me talk a lot about Identi, so get used to it.

Don’t feel like downloading Laconi and setting it up?  Then just go to Identi.ca and and open a free account.   Don’t want to leave your Twitter followers high and dry?  Well, you can have your Identi.ca account update your Twitter account, automatically…  while you migrate.

Sorry about that… I just get pretty excited when people share through open source.

WOO!!