When I came up with the name Soapbox for the blog software that I'm building I was surprised that name wasn't already used for a similar product. I grew really attached to the name as it suited the product perfectly. Several months back I got a scare when I saw a new dotcom site pop up called soapboxit.com, I thought they would have a problem for sure with sharing the name soapbox. I contacted the owner of the site and to my surprise he didn't have any problem at all sharing the name. While I wasn't terribly excited about sharing the name, there wasn't much I could do.

When Microsoft came out with their new video sharing website I knew for sure the name Soapbox was no longer going to be usable. You guessed it, they decided to name their service Soapbox. I knew  that I didn't stand a chance fighting Microsoft for the rights to use the name Soapbox. Even the soapboxit.com changed their name to soapadoo.com

Now I need to come up with a new name for my blog software that is nearing completion. I'm looking for a catchy name that preferably relates to the product in some way.  If anyone has any ideas leave a comment, or email me.

Back in February I decided to re-learn PHP. My programming language of choice had always been ASP and I never really got into PHP. There were certain aspects of ASP that became increasingly more frustrating as projects became more complex and I decided it was time to re-learn PHP. I find the best way to learn something new is make a project out of it. Need to learn woodworking, make a spice rack. Need to learn PHP, make blog software. So that's what I did.

Over the past six months or so I've been pecking away at building Soapbox, a friendly, easy to use blogging platform. While it's not as powerful or robust as other blog software like Wordpress or Movable Type, it's much more friendly and easy to use.

Soapbox is currently powering this blog as well as Thirdcircle's blog The Infinite Loop. There is still a little more work to be done before Soapbox is released to the public, but you will be able to get a copy of soapbox from the official Soapbox website.