listening to @phoneboyspeaks Episode 919 about Social Network News stiffened my resolve to take back control of my online presence(s). While dismissing the Ello iOS app, as everyone else has, Dameon casually mentioned Yet Another Social Platform that he signed up for "because". I too like to sign up for and play with all the shiny new things, but I also want to make life easier for myself and anyone who has the slightest interest in interacting with me.

So I've signed up for a shiny new thing.

I like being able to put things up here on the internet, not just to feed my ego but also because I genuinely think other people may find them just a teeny bit diverting. Lord knows, it is easy enough to do that, what with all the options out there that make sharing banalities just a click away. The problem with most of those for me, however, is that I want to be the customer, not the product. I actually want to pay for the services I use. Lately, though, that hasn't been working out too well.

Before I get to that, though, I want to complain about one of those free services, one where I didn't actually mind being the product: Tumblr.

I am in a mess, and for a whole slew of different reasons. This afternoon, a few minutes ago, I recognised a definite warning sign. In pursuit of doing something new and different, I got completely stuck in how to do it instead of what to do. Classic prevarication. Figure out a way to make the process more efficient before I have even decided what the outcome of the process should be. So I spent the better part of an hour futzing around with Workflow on the iPhone to see whether I could send some information directly to a nascent bit of what. And why? Because simply emailing the information and then using that as the basis for a bit of what seemed clumsy. It isn't.

Well, it is, but it will at least get the job done.

At least, it will if I let myself let it.

Some very smart people have been having a right old ding-dong over how big a phone is and how small a tablet is and this mythical creature called a phablet. Little of which I can relate to, as I don't have a tablet and my phone is a fine size for me. But I certainly can relate more generally.

Once again, technology is getting away from me, and it is my own fault, if anyone's. Software is something I'm interested in and like to understand, but it isn't my work, paid or otherwise. Which makes it just so hard to keep up. And that's frustrating.

The immediate problem is a slightly ill-thought-out attempt to "redesign" a couple of my websites. And the scare quotes are there because I didn't actually do much thinking about the design. Just looked at a bunch of templates and saw one that looked kind of what I wanted. So I paid for it, and it was indeed almost what I wanted. But not quite. I poked about under the hood, because I have a tiny bit of ability in that department, made a couple of adjustments and then, realising wearily that my abilities have once again been left in the dust, gave it up and resolved to make do with almost. For a while.