About RobiNZ Blogs

Biography

I’m a Kiwi who lives in the western suburbs of Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city. I’m the Design Systems Manager for LDE (Engineers · Scientists). The role involves BIM/CAD/GIS Management for Civil, Structural and Geo teams.

My blogging is a hobby and started with RobiNZ CAD Blog, on Typepad, back in March 2004. I had learnt a lot from other websites & blogging seemed to be an easy way to give something back. The CAD blog took a broad view of Computer Aided Design in covering IT, Web and design related topics.

RobiNZ Personal Blog was split from the CAD blog in 2005 to avoid inflicting Fiat, Formula 1, cycling, and various other non-CAD/IT topics on my technical readers. For a while I also posted similar content on TypePad's sister Vox Blog system until that was retired.

Social contacts are in the navigation bar above, and I also help organise the Revit Auckland User Group and Auckland Skeptics In The Pub Meetup Groups.

RobiNZ Blogs on Ghost

RobiNZ Blogs is an independent publication launched on Ghost in September 2025 by Robin Capper. It's a combination of my 2004-2025 TypePad and Vox Blogs that were migrated, when TypePad hosting closed in October 2025, and the home for all my future blogging content.

Why on Ghost?

I considered Substack, but David Farrier's experience there—read this, then this—put me off, and also trialled Wordpress.

Wordpress was fine, imported the Typepad content nicely, but I decided the complexity and management overhead of the platform (Plugins, security updates etc) was just not for me. I just want to write on a modern platform, not create a multi-facted web empire.

I'm on the hosted Ghost and found their support very good moving my own blog. There was no direct path from Typepad > Ghost but they supplied a process and supported a small issue that resulted. One of the four import files needed to move several thousand Typepad posts failed, but they sorted it for me in a day at no cost.

If you can be bothered with server admin you can download Ghost (an open-source platform) and 'self-host' entirely free of any platform overlords. I like having that as an option but don't as (although work in IT) managing a website backend is too much like work for me. It took me 19 years to get around to organising my own domain...

Why Subscribe?

Currently all content is public but if you subscribe you will get email newsletters about new content when it's available, ability to comment on posts, and access to any subscriber only content I may create.

Currently I'm not charging for subscription, just grateful you care enough to do it, there are optional paid levels which offer nothing more than the free one but all proceeds will be donated to my long established RobiNZ Blog Kiva Microloan Team. Funds are loaned, using Kiva, with repayments are re-loaned upon receipt.

Subscription offers:
Access all areas: By signing up, you'll get access to the full archive of everything that's been published before and everything that's still to come even if limited to signed in users. Your very own private library.
Fresh content, delivered: Stay up to date with new content sent straight to your inbox! No more worrying about whether you missed something because of a pesky algorithm or news feed.
Comment: Join a community of other subscribers who share the same interests and can comment on any posts.

Questions?

Email me at robinz.blog

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