I've been thinking a lot about the concept of privacy in the world of blogging.

I've been running this little blog for over two years now. In that time I've written a lot of articles on various subjects. From reading the blog, you can deduce many things about me. From the title of the blog you can deduce that my first name is 'Rick'. From the domain name of the blog, you can deduce my last name is 'Ekle'. I even have my full first and last name and email address sitting right there in plain sight on the upper right hand corner of the page. Do a quick Whois search on the domain name and you can find my complete address and phone number. I have never made any secret of these things. With these bits of information an enterprising person could do some Google searches and find out a great deal more about me. My last name is fairly unusual, so you are unlikely to find another person with my name online. That being said, however, I do maintain a great deal of privacy on this blog.

I have mentioned my family in passing on my blog over the last couple of years, but I have intentionally not said anything that would allow people to easily identify them. I have never mentioned my parents by name, and I believe I've only mentioned my brother's name once. My brother doesn't like the idea of me talking about him in 'public' on the blog, and I can't blame him. That's why I've said little about him and my family. While I have to a certain degree 'exposed' myself on this blog, I will not do that to my family and friends without their permission. I tend to see this blog as my own little 'newspaper column'. I write articles about whatever is interesting to me at the time, but I rarely bring my family and friends into it.

I have seen other blogs, and know other bloggers who have revealed a great deal more personal information about themselves and their families on their blogs. That's not my style. If you want to read the latest sob story about some major medical problem me or a family member has had, go elsewhere. You won't find it here. If you want to read the occaisional interesting article about programming, computers, music, or fuzzy little cats, feel free to read on... :)