STATUS UPDATE: SUMMER HIATUS

Good morning, everyone! I’m back after a bit of an unintentional hiatus. These past few months have been very busy for me. As I’ve mentioned before, one of the original reasons I launched Ivan’s Insights was to write about topics related to my areas of expertise. Though I published book reviews from the beginning, this site wasn’t a bona fide book blog until later. I had and still have trouble finding work even though I’m not a slacker, I’ve never been fired (let alone reprimanded), and I don’t apply to jobs that I honestly can’t do, like a doctor’s assistant or a junior marketing specialist. The field I’m best at is information technology. I’ve been a software and website tester as well as an IT aide, but those jobs were temporary. And unfortunately, my computer technician skills have become rusty from lack of use (managing my tech and my parents’ tech is nowhere near challenging enough) so I’ve been searching for other kinds of work.

Over the past few months, I’ve been freelancing as a food delivery driver for DoorDash and Uber Eats. I was aware those existed, but they didn’t seem like ‘real’ work to me. I wanted a regular W-2 job, not a contractor position or freelance job. My financial stability was precarious, so I signed up for those apps. I was a little apprehensive at first, but eventually I fell into a routine. I’ve read online that apps like Uber and DoorDash don’t quite pay contractors well (and a lot of customers pay meager tips). Despite that, I made enough to cover my bills and a small bit more. It made me wish I could drive passengers, though. My car is just not recent enough.

Apart from that, I’ve also been reading as many books as usual. I just haven’t written that many new reviews. My writing time has been taken up with the novel I’ve been working on since last year. It’s slow going; I haven’t even finished the first draft yet. I think it’s good, though. It’s strayed a bit from the outline I made, but I like how it’s turning out. I can’t wait to be able to reveal more about it. All I’ll say for now is that it’s a sci-fi thriller.

That’s all for this morning. I’ll see if I can stick to my regular Wednesday book review schedule again. Not that I have run out of them; I still have plenty even though I’ve barely written any new ones. I’ve just been rather consumed by my freelance work and my novel. Oh, and I’ve been gaming a bit as well, but I’m disciplined enough to only schedule myself two hours a day for that. Anyway, have a good day!

STATUS UPDATE: END OF YEAR HIATUS AND NEW PROJECT

Good morning, everyone! I just wanted to pop in after going two consecutive weeks without any new posts. This isn’t the first time I take a break from my blog. I usually wait at least until late November, though. I admit I’ve been writing less book reviews than I used to, but I haven’t yet run out of new ones to post. I simply have been busy these past few weeks. There’s a project I decided to start, and it has all but consumed me.

Considering that I’m a very avid reader, it likely isn’t hard to guess what my project is. Yep, I’m writing a novel (or will be doing it soon). I guess what they say about “read enough books, eventually you'll want to write one” is true. I had what I think is an amazing idea recently, and I couldn’t stop the desire to develop it. I won’t say what it is yet, but I hope that I will sometime next year. I’ve already come up with a bunch of characters, and the protagonist has me completely invested. At the moment, I’m working on a plot outline. This means I can’t finish in time for NaNoWriMo, but I wasn’t aiming for that anyway. The event did give me the impetus to start now, though. I would like to have a completed first draft by year’s end. Even as I write this, ideas are cropping up in my head.

There are only a few weeks left in the year, so I’ll post no more book reviews while I work on my project. The exception is my annual “Top Ten Reads” list, which I’m already preparing. On another subject, I am still debating where to restart my social media presence. Twitter’s a no-go, of course, so I’ve pretty much abandoned that account. I’ll leave it as is instead of deleting it. Maybe I’ll move to Threads by Meta. Now that it’s possible to have more than one account (and to open one without needing Instagram), I may create a Threads profile soon. I’ll update my About Page when I do. For now, this is all. I’ll be back the second week of December with the ten best books I read this year.

STATUS UPDATE: POSSIBLE SOCIAL NETWORK CHANGE & MID-YEAR REDESIGN

Good morning, people! I'm here with another status update. First, as you have no doubt noticed, I redesigned Ivan's Insights one more time. I hope the change isn't too jarring. While I am not overly concerned about page views, I still care about people visiting my blog. I don't write book reviews just to keep them to myself. Judging by its stats, I'd say the last redesign I gave Ivan's Insights didn't go over too well. I admit it wasn't its best look. I was going for a modern/futuristic-ish design, but it ended up leaving a bit to be desired. So now I've gone for a cleaner, more traditional look. Admittedly, Google's Blogger has a dearth of themes (let alone good ones), but this is the best I could manage for now. I don't normally change my blog's theme midway through the year, but it was needed.

On another subject, Twitter has been all over the news lately. Ever since Musk bought it, things have been going downhill. The latest brilliant move? To introduce rate limits, which means that the number of tweets you can view on Twitter per day is now limited. It's a preposterous change if you ask me. And if that wasn't enough, you now need to sign up for Twitter to view anything on it now. Mr. Musk's intention is to keep AI companies from having unfettered access to Twitter's data to train chatbots like ChatGPT. Whatever his claims, I'm with those that feel like Twitter is going to seed. Several months ago, I made a personal Hive Social account to see if it would be a good alternative. I was preparing to jump ship from Twitter, but Hive still isn't as popular as I expected.

Last Wednesday night, a new competitor to Twitter was launched. It's called Threads, a social network created by a veteran in the field: Meta. Yep, it's the same company that owns Instagram. That means if you have an account on that app, you can use it to log into your own Threads profile. This makes it so you can follow Threads accounts that you already follow on Instagram. Having such a vast built-in user base makes Threads perhaps the most promising Twitter alternative yet. For now it's only available as an iPhone and Android app, but that doesn't seem to be hurting it. I'll be following news updates for the meantime to see where things go. But if Threads' first day is anything to go by, it's very likely I'll open a new Ivan's Insights account there. When I do, I'm not going to write a whole post for it; I'll just tweet about it (ha!) and add the link to my About page here.

That's it for today. As usual, I'll keep posting new book reviews every Wednesday morning. My latest one was Speak of the Devil by Allison Leotta. You can read it at this link. Thank you for stopping by, and have a good day!

IT'S THE START OF A NEW BLOGGING YEAR

Good morning! It's been a little over a week since 2023 began. This means I'm back with more bookish posts. I took a hiatus these holidays to not only redesign Ivan's Insights, but also to fix a little mishap. That's all sorted out for the most part. There are a few non-book-related posts I didn't take the time to fix. This is the second year that Ivan's Insights will be exclusively a book blog. As usual, I will publish new book reviews every Wednesday morning.

This year, the only thing that's changing about Ivan's Insights is the design. I feel this look is quite more modern than the previous one. And it looks great as well, as it usually happens with this kind of stuff. I have a good eye for design, so I like it when websites/programs/apps get a flashier new look. I wonder for how many years I'll be able to touch up Ivan's Insights, though. Blogger is seriously lacking in good-looking blog themes. Maybe I'll have to migrate to Wordpress or something down the line.

That is all for today. As I said, there will be no major changes to my blog this year. I considered posting some book reviews in French, considering I'm fluent in the language. In the end, I decided not to. That's hardly a must have, and I strongly doubt I've had even one French-speaking visitor to this blog. My primary target audience is the U.S., where I am, after all. I do get a steady flow of visitors at least, but not as many as I'd wish for considering how long Ivan's Insights has been active. I hope this year that might change. If you're a regular visitor, I thank you for choosing to read my book reviews. I don't see myself stopping from reading books anytime soon, so the reviews will keep coming. Have a great day!

Ivan

STATUS UPDATE: SITE UNDER RECONSTRUCTION

Good morning, everyone! As you may have noticed, several things look different throughout my blog now. Primarily, a ton of images I used in my posts have vanished. This happened because I changed the Google account I use to manage Ivan's Insights. I didn't want or need the old account, so I decided to delete it. What I didn't realize is that the account in question is where many of this blog's images are stored. I'm going to have to re-upload them all. It will be a pretty massive task, and I have other things to do unrelated to my online affairs. So this might take a little while. At least the timing isn't too bad; Ivan's Insights is almost due for a new coat of paint. I will likely take the opportunity to do that now. In the meanwhile, I'll keep posting new book reviews. Those will be unaffected by the changes, of course.

This is still me as well. Ivan's Insights hasn't been taken over by someone else. I just didn't need the old Google account I deleted. So, that's it for now. Have a good day!


Ivan

STATUS UPDATE: NEW YEAR AND NEW CHANGES

Hello! It’s been a little while since I write a status update. Given that it’s a new year now, I thought this was due. As you may have noticed, I’ve given this blog a fresh coat of paint. In my opinion, Ivan’s Insights has never looked better. The color scheme is slightly altered, and every font was changed for improved readability. This is a text-heavy blog, so that was a must. I also redesigned the header. It better reflects what Ivan’s Insights is all about. That image is part of my real bookshelf. I did arrange my favorite novels so they’d show prominently.

The changes aren’t simply aesthetic. For instance, the sidebar has different functions now. I’ve permanently switched from Goodreads to The StoryGraph, so I removed the Goodreads widget. In its place I’m adding a makeshift Currently Reading widget for TS. I’ll have to manually change it, but that’s very little hassle. I’m also exclusively focusing on book-related posts now. I’ve hesitated to call Ivan’s Insights a book blog, partly because I wasn’t sure it qualified as such. Pretty much every book blogger I’ve come across only reads novels released in the current year. If I limited myself to that, I wouldn’t read as many books as I do now. And I post reviews in all of my favorite genres, not just one or two. I don't read very many genres, though.

STATUS UPDATE: BLOG POST #100

Good morning! I am back with another status update. This post is special for one reason: it’s the 100th to be published to this blog. That’s a milestone I didn’t feel like passing by without mention. It’s been more than a year since I launched Ivan’s Insights. As I’ve mentioned, the main reason I started this blog was to share my book reviews. I’m an avid reader, so I’ve read a lot of books over most of the past decade. I wrote reviews almost from the beginning, but didn’t think of publishing them until later.

I’m still posting new book reviews. That isn’t going to run out; I read an average of one novel per week. I took a break this past late May and early June because of a trip. I already had my Covid-19 vaccination, and in good time. I was able to visit family who live out of the state. This trip was a breath of fresh air as well. I haven’t left my city at all since the pandemic started. Now that I’m vaccinated, I’m hoping to have more freedom to go out more often eventually.

NEW YEAR, NEW LOOK, AND A NEW VISION

Good morning, everyone! This blog is officially back from the holidays. I hope you all had a great time, whether you spent it with friends or family. It's finally 2021, and I for one wish that this year is better than the previous. It looks like things will get as back to normal as they can get. Even an introvert homebody like me can get sick of rarely spending time away.

As it's a new year, I decided to change the look of Ivan's Insights. It definitely looks a lot better now. The header is now my favorite shade of blue, rather than the newspaper-like white I had before. Also, the posts now contrast from the background. They look almost like sheets of paper now, which looks nice and fitting for my blog. I admit I didn't think it was possible to make a blog this good-looking with Blogger. I'm familiar with Wordpress and its themes, most of which are better than Google's. Blogger has impressed me now, though. I'm pleased with the new look of Ivan's Insights.

STATUS UPDATE: A FEW CHANGES ARE COMING FOR MY BLOG

Good morning! I’m here with a new update. These past few weeks, all I’ve been posting are book reviews. They’re supposed to go live on Wednesdays and Fridays. I’ve been preoccupied lately, so I’ve missed some of those Friday posts. A couple of weeks ago, I applied to a tech-related job. It seemed just what I was looking for. I’m in charge of technology at my house, so being a computer technician would greatly suit me. I got the interview and have been waiting to hear back. Unfortunately, it appears I didn’t get the job. I haven’t heard back from the employer. I thought I’d aced the interview, even though my tech skills are a little rusty. I confess I didn’t expect to find a job like that in my city anytime soon. That’s why I’ve put a bit more focus on my language and proofreading skills this year. 

Lately, I’ve been spending more time looking for work. Options are limited in my town, so I’ve looked at some other cities in Texas. Georgetown, Round Rock, and The Woodlands have caught my eye. They’re all medium-sized cities within driving distance of major cities. Austin and Houston have way more job openings per week than my town. I’ve been job-searching long enough to make the rough calculation. Also, they’re much, much better cities than where I currently live. I would move right away if I could get a job within the first couple of weeks.

Due to my new endeavor, I’m putting less priority on tech-related blog posts. For the time being, my focus will be language and book-related posts. I might still write tech-related articles, but they won’t be a main topic anymore. One reason for the change is that I’ve realized something about myself over the time I’ve had this blog. I’ve found that despite being highly knowledgeable in technology, writing articles on the subject doesn’t come very easy. I think it’s because my knowledge is mostly practical. I learned about tech so I could fix and maintain devices, not so I could write articles. It appears that being tech-savvy doesn’t mean one can write a lot of content.

That’s it for now. I’ll continue posting new articles every Wednesday and Friday. Meanwhile, I’m continuing to look for a job. I’m eager to return to work. Being at home all day sounds nice on paper, but in reality it’s not very appealing. One needs purpose, and to do something that matters. I really hope I can find work this summer. Anyway, until next time. Bye!

LIFE UPDATE: WHAT'S NEXT FOR MY BLOG

Good morning, everyone! I’m here today with a status update. It’s nearing the start of April, and I’ve written twenty blog posts already. Hard to believe how quickly time passes! I’d swear just a few weeks ago we were celebrating the New Year. And with the current global situation, time appears to be passing differently.

As many others around the world, my community is going through a social isolation. The coronavirus has already got here. I was half surprised when I found out. As I’ve mentioned before, I have a low opinion of my town. It’s boring, so noteworthy stuff rarely happens here. No offense to anyone, but a pandemic qualifies as noteworthy. I also thought it’d take longer for the virus to arrive because most people here aren’t well traveled. Only those who are wealthy or in big business can afford to go anywhere other than Canada or Mexico.