If you use Feedburner and haven't logged into your account for awhile, go have a look. There has been a complete
Feedburner Redesign. It's pretty cool becasue you can see all your feeds circulation right there on the home page.
Clicking on the title for one of your feeds will take you to the details page which has had a huge overhaul. The interface is now tabbed: Analyze, Optimize, Publicize, Monetize, Troubleshootize. The various Feedburner services run down the left hand side of the page.
Over all I think the pages load faster and the navigation seems much cleaner than it was before.
Don't know what Feedburner is? Have a look at their
about page.
Wednesday, August 31, 2005 |
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TechCrunch has a
review of some new web based software called
Writely.
It is a word processor that you only need your browser to use. Built on AJAX. It is similar to a wiki and yet you can set permissions to documents. Hmmm...AJAX Office anyone? Could be big.
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How do you stay organized? PDA? Paper? Maybe, you're not and need to start? However you may organize yourself, you might what to have a look at this tool even, if just for the sheer beauty of the concept and implementation. It’s called PocketMod. PocketMod is a browser-based tool and the only requirement is that you have the Flash player plugin installed. Once there, click the Create PocketMod link and you’ll be able to build a portable paper organizer that gets printed on one page of paper. You then fold it in a special way to create a little book. There are grid pages, lined pages, calendar pages all the usual stuff you would find in an organizer. You choose your own layout. Try it out. Get organized!
Technorati Tags : PocketMod, GTD
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It's BlogDay2005! Ok, it's late in the day but better late than ever I suppose. Don't know about BlogDay? Check it out
here. In no real order, here are my favorties lately:
- Lifehacker, the Productivity and Software Guide - Cool tips for getting along in this crazy world.
- The RSS Blog - Randy keeps up with all things RSS and blog search. Great resource.
- TechCrunch - Relatively new kid on the block, TechCrunch is turning out to be one of the first ones I check when my aggregator updates. They also have an awsome weekly review new things on the read/write web.
- InsideGoogle - Nathan keeps up with all Google and other search related goings on
- John Battelle's Searchblog - John was a co-founder of Wired, has a book about Search coming out in the Fall and generally has the industry inside scoop.
Geeky stuff, huh?
Additionally, if you're looking for an RSS aggregator,
Bloglines and
GreatNews rock. You do use RSS, right? A great explanation if you don't understand what all the fuss is about is
here.
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Tuesday, August 30, 2005 |
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Dave Winer points to the New Orelans Times-Picayune and their new
blog format for breaking news. Very cool. They have an RSS feed too.
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More interesting Podcasting tid bits today
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PodSpider is new software for Windows XP the is supposed to be linked to the worlds largest Podcast Directory. Interesting. I'm going to download it now so expect a review soon.
And if you produce a podcast, you can easily add it to their directory
here.
UPDATE: 5:20PM 8/30/05 I'm still awaiting the email with my download instructions and user key. Been a few hours. Hmmm.
UPDATE: 8/31/05 So I still hadn't heard from them so I got curious and yep, the invite was in my GMail Spam folder. Thats not a good sign to me.
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I've noticed my blog circulation stats go up over the last few days and I got to thinking it might be because of Google Desktop 2 and it's auto adding of feeds to the sidebar.
Any one else notice an increase? The graph shows GD at 21.6% of the feed readers.
Technorati Tags : Google+Desktop, RSS, Feeds, Circulation, Feedburner
Monday, August 29, 2005 |
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Poodle Predictor is an interesting tool. You enter your URL and click the Poodle Search button. The tool then goes and looks at your page and spiders the linked pages. The idea is to see how compatible your code is with search engines.
Once your results come back there are links to view the headers returned by your site, the source code and diagnostics to help you fix your code to be more xhtml compliant.
If you build your one pages it is a great tool. Have a look.
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Here is a list of all kinds of webcams and other links to information about the Hurricane Katrina.
Sunday, August 28, 2005 |
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Technorati RSS feed for blogposts about Katrina:
Katrina Feed
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Podcast Expo is just around the corner. I anyone going? I'm going to try and be there to, at the very least, wander around and meet people. Haven't figured out yet if I'll be there both days.
Here is the registration summary:
# Exhibit Hall Only: Free
- exhibit hall access for two full days
- exhibit hall stage mini-classes every 30 minutes
- all keynote sessions
# Conference & Exhibit Hall: $199 by Sept. 30th ($249 after Sept. 30)
- choice of over 35 educational sessions, classes and panels
- attend any class at either the Podcast Conference or Portable Content Summit
- audio and handout downloads of ALL sessions after the Expo
- all keynote sessions
- exhibit hall access for two full days
- exhibit hall stage mini-classes every 30 minutes
Friday, August 26, 2005 |
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My favorites: Cursor in the chat winndow then ctrl+scrollwheel will change the font size. *this* make this and _this_ makes this.
Thursday, August 25, 2005 |
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We ran a couple cool
GoogleTalk tips over on TipMonkies this morning:
Google Talk hacks! - adding switches to the start up to make it do things like start with windows, check for new versions and rest all your settings
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Turn your flickr photo into a
Magazine Cover. Goofy yet cool. Especially if you've got kids.
Wednesday, August 24, 2005 |
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Here's what I want: To be able to go to Gmail, notice I have an email from a buddy and, right next to the message, have an indicator that says my buddy is on line. Then I can use GoogleTalk to chat/call instead of the email mambo. It should notifiy i real time. If you are busy, it's yellow or something. Otherwise green or red. Lotus Notes/Sametime has this. Awareness in a good thing.
Anyone know if GoogleTalk is encrypted? Can it be? What do you need to do that?
Technorati Tags : Google, GoogleTalk, Gmail
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It's Live! All you need is a
900k download, your gmail account name and your in.
You can also use other clients if you like.
Find out more
here. For voice you need the Google client.We're following it over on
TipMonkies and should have a review tomorrow.
Update: Google's
page for developers has lots of information about their plans for client choice and service choice. Looks like they'll be opening it up and plan documentation for Jabber/XMPP protocol.
Tuesday, August 23, 2005 |
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It's been an interesting GoogleWeek and it's only Tuesday! Yesterday we had Google Desktop 2 beta released. Today lot of news:
Google Talk
Appears to be IM/Voice chat. Jabber based. Skype killer??
InsideGoogle: "Could this be Google IM waiting to be unleashed? Since the server is using open source technology it’d be wonderful if anyone with a Jabber enabled chat client could use it (Trillian, GAIM, etc) and not just users of Google IM. While this hope is based on speculation, it does have some backing in the form of an active server."
New AdSense Feature
InsideGoogle:" Section Targeting. Just surround a portion of your content in tags that essentially say “more important” and “irrelevant”, so you don’t get ads on your blog for the word “blog”. " This is a very cool and welcomed feature. See the link for more how-to detail.
New Send Mail As Feature in GMail
More from
InsideGoogle: "a feature just added to Gmail: Send mail as. Now you can give your outgoing as any other email address you own."
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Qumana has fixed the Blogger issues so you can now post and it includes the title. Yeah! Blogger users, go get it and try it out!
I forgot to mention: They've fixed the edit old posts feature for Blogger as well.
Monday, August 22, 2005 |
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I found a feature on Bloglines that they say is new. Not really sure how long it's been there but it is kind of cool. It runs along the lines of recent conversations about '
how do you find good blogs'. It's called Quick Pick Subscriptions. You get to it in Bloglines by going to your My Feeds tab and clicking the Add link. At the top of righthand pane you'lll see the Quick Pick Subscriptions link. It lets you find the 50 top feeds of the day as subscribed to by Bloglines members and also lists interesting links by genre. Check it out if you use Bloglines.
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It's a script for the Greasemonkey Firefox Extension
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Nathan Weinberg over at Inside Google is tracking
Google Desktop 2 developments. He’s got more details about the Sidebar.
Hopefully I'll get some time today to install it and try it out.
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Handy site from ResearchBuzz:
Cookin' With Google. Enter ingredients and the kind of recipe (atkins, diabetic, crockpot, seafood, etc) and then click 'Grab A Recipe' and you'll get your Google results.
Sunday, August 21, 2005 |
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Ok, so no sooner do I post than I find out that Desktop 2 is available for download. Go here:
Google Desktop 2 . More details:
- Get all your personalized info in one place with Sidebar
- Launch applications and search instantly with Quick Find
- Find all your email, files, photos, web history, Gmail, and more
- Search conveniently in Outlook with the Outlook Toolbar
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I got an email this afternoon from Blake Rhodes over at IceRocket. He told me that they were adding servers all weekend and that updates should be in the feeds now. Cool. I’m not going to change the Barcamp feed since it’s over if you want to check out barcamp on IceRocket then head over to
this page.
Hope everyone had fun and gets home safely. I’m still sifting through all the news. I’m sure more will be posted as the week unfolds.
Note to self: Stop procrastinating and download Dave’s
OPML editor (AKA his
Purple Cow)
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USAToday:
Google updates search software with Desktop 2. New version due out Monday.Integrated email, stock prices, news, weather, RSS feeds. Some new deal called the Sidebar.
Guess it's time to do a bunch of new research and update my old
GDS page.
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Scoble: RSS is a brand. Web Feed is something you do. Sorta like "GMC" is a brand of car. I rave about my Ford Focus. I don't rave here about "my car."
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Barcamp via RSS feed has been changed a bit. IceRocket is out and Findory is in. I was getting better results this way. Hope everyone is cool with that. I'd leave IceRocket in but my feedigest account will only allow 3 feeds. IceRocket hasn't changed all day.
Saturday, August 20, 2005 |
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This is frustrating. Last night I blogged about
Barcamp via RSS. Seems to be working great. However, subscribing thru Bloglines, the feed doesn't seem to be updating. Seems it's a Bloglines issue because when I subscribe directely to the feed it works fine. I'll have to monitor this further.
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Well, since I can't be there I wanted to get as close as I could so I created a merged
feed (using
feeddigest) of Flickr/Technorati/Ice Rocket tags. Feed digest is supposed to prevent duplicates so we'll see how that goes.
Many posts already. Hope everyone has a good time. Get that fridge restocked!
I've added the feed to the
wiki but here it is as well.
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Friday, August 19, 2005 |
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David Coursey:
RSS Is a Label We Don't Need to SeeI am weighing in on this because Microsoft is taking some heat from Winer, who invented RSS, and others for using the term "Web feeds" instead of RSS for a new feature in Internet Explorer 7. The new browser has a button that displays a site's RSS content.
But the thing is, David, you just had to explain the button. If it was labeled 'RSS' I'd know that it took me to a site's RSS content.
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Some geek camping going in this weekend. The industy's brightest minds getting to gether. We'll watch and see what comes out of it.
FooCamp (invite only)
BarCamp (open)
Wish I could go but the following technorati tags will leed to the world's bloggers.
Technorati Tags :
FooCamp,
BarCamp
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TechCrunch did a
profile today on
Protopage. It is a new service that lets you create personal home pages. Uses AJAX.
No idea what to do with it yet but I like it. Now if they let me surface some RSS feeds in the page that might get interesting.
Just go and check it out. You don't even need to sign up, unless you want to create your own page.
Thursday, August 18, 2005 |
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Blogger Buzz::"We've just introduced the option to require
word verification for comments. This option (off by default) gives bloggers a tool to prevent the automatic creation of comments by nefarious ne'er-do-wells (e.g. spammers)."
This is a good thing. I noticed last night that Blogger is taking steps to prevent auto blog creation by having you enter text from a picture. That has a nifty name but I never remember what it is.
Technorati Tags :
Blogger,
Spam,
Comments
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Humorous flash movie. Check it out:
Why you should switch to...
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Cory Doctorow over on BoingBoing points to this
article about Disneyland getting whacked by the latest Windows worm. Not the happiest place on Earth for the network admins I can tell you!
"Disneyland's many computers were reportedly brought low by the Windows worms sweeping the Internet this week, shutting down the cash-registers, employee management system, and Fast Pass dispensers"
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With all the latest debate over RSS Feeds v. Web Feeds I was poking around BBC news and noticed they get the whole deal and have lil' orange RSS buttons all over the place. I love the way their page explains it:
"In a world heaving under the weight of billions of web pages, keeping up to date with the information you want can be a drag.
Wouldn't it be better to have the latest news and features delivered directly to you, rather than clicking from site to site? Well now you can, thanks to a very clever service, RSS"
Yes, ideed it is better.
Wednesday, August 17, 2005 |
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In his article
Finding needles in the growing Blog Haystack?, Jeremy Zawodny writes about a recent meme: important blogs and blogs that matter.
Stats From Technorati.
Jeremy Zawodny: "..the reality is that I don't care. I don't care how many blogs there are and neither do most people. What matters is finding stuff you like and being able to subscribe to, right? Who is working on solving that problem?"
I agree. I find good blogs by reading other blogs, seeing who is commenting and having a look at their blog and subscribing to their RSS Feed. Additionally, I'll have a look at linking blogs if they use a nice service like Ice Rocket that provides me with info that others are linking.
You could also use a service like
Findory and search for topics your are interested in and subscribe to the search results.Or try
KBCafe search for an interesting way to skim through blogs looking for like-minded bloggers.
How do you find good blogs?
Technorati Tags :
blogging,
blog,
findory,
technorati,
kbcafe Powered By Qumana
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For that
last post I used a combination of
Qumana and
Blogger Toolbar for MS-Word. It seemed to work pretty good. Some may think it bit of overkill to use 2 tools for the job but the link and text collection is the Qumana desk pad is really cool.
Word to the wise…use copy/paste or save your Qumana file as HTML and open it in word. The RTF deal works but the results are a little messed up.
MS-Word make a nice link editor and Qumana makes it easy to add tags and collect your info. A nice combo as the feature sets of Qumana continue to improve.
Technorati Tags :
Qumana,
Blogging,
MS+Word
Tuesday, August 16, 2005 |
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Business 2.0 -Free WiFi from Google?This could get interesting.
"For the past year, it has quietly been shopping for miles and miles of "dark," or unused, fiber-optic cable across the country from wholesalers such as New York’s AboveNet. It's also acquiring superfast connections from Cogent Communications and WilTel, among others, between East Coast cities including Atlanta, Miami, and New York."
Via:
Scripting News- 8-16-2005Technorati Tags :
Google,
WiFi
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TipMonkies Post about a new toolbar for Blogger that lets you edit and publish right from MS-Word.
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In his article in WebProBusiness titled "
RSS What’s In A Name", David Utter weighs in on Dave Winer's
comments about Microsoft's proposed name change to news feeds in IE7. He says Microsoft isn't being evil by doing so.
I think evil is a bit strong but I look at it this way. If you were browsing a site and you saw a link that says epost what would that mean? Would that be a link that let you send the author an electronic message? I suppose. Now, what if the link was changed to email? Yep, exactly. Common knowledge becaue you've seen it that way for a long time.
I didn't get it
before. Clear to me now.
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You need block quoting and a way to see the html.
Technorati Tags : Qumana
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This article points to Nielsen/NetRatings that say 11% of blog readers use RSS.
Do you?
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If you didn't follow the comments below, the folks at Qumana responded (very quickly I might add) to my queries about the Blogger title issue. It is a know problem and has to do with the Blogger API. They are working to fix it and should have it out in the next version next month.
Also, there is a
Beta version of QumanaLE that will let you edit previous posts. This, too, doesn't work correctly in Blogger. You can see the posts but it won't bring them down so you can edit them. Also, you can see only Qumana created posts. It is supposed to let you edit them no matter how they were created.
I really want this stuff to work so you can be sure I'll post more as I continue to test.
Monday, August 15, 2005 |
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Are you a blogger? If so you might want to check out a new piece of software called Qumana LE. This is a Windows application that makes the work of blogging much easier. It is free and available from
Qumana .
The software works with just about any blogging service that is out there. When you first set it up you simply point it to the page your blog is on and it determines if you use the Blogger API or Wordpress or whatever then sets things up automatically for you. You really don't need much more detail than your blog's address and your user name and password.
The idea is that there is what Qumana calls a DropPad sitting in the corner of your screen and as you are reading things on the web you simply drag the URL or selected bits of text or a picture down on to the DropPad. When you've collected everything you double click on the DropPad and all your dragged items appear in the form of a post that you can then edit in a format similar to Microsoft Word or any other favorite editor. If you want, you can save your post as RTF and edit it later in MS-Word of other editor that supports Rich Text Format. Now, Qumana doesn't read in RTF but it will read in HTML so if you want to get your edits back from your RTF editor you'll have to cut and paste or save it as HTML and open it in Qumana that way.
I found the DropPad to be a little big, not sure if you can change the size it does go transparent when you aren't using it. I discovered that the Drag-n-drop works from MS-Word as well as the
GreatNews feed reader I
reviewed a few days ago. When you blog, you have to get a link about what you are blogging about and maybe another reference link and some text from something you might be quoting and the DropPad feature really makes that a lot easier.
If you use
Technorati tags the interface will let you create and add them with ease. Simply enter your tags in the Tags field at the top of the screen then put your cursor where you want the tags and click Insert - Technorati or click the Technorati button in the button bar at the top of the window.
Using a tool like Wordpress that includes categories? Then click the Categories drop down icon. The software will go to your blog, grab your categories and present them in a clickable format for including in your post.
TechCrunch did a
Profile on the company that is worth a read as well.
There is a preview mode which is pretty handy but there is no option for viewing your HTML. This may not be a problem for some but for coders like me it is something that would be great to have.
With the drag and drop capabilities, built in spell-checking and thesaurus as well as what-you-see-is-what-you-get editing you can bet I'll be giving this a try.
UPDATE: The title field didn't get transfered. I had to log into Blogger to fix it. Huge problem. Not sure if that is the case on other blogging platforms. I've sent support and email.
Friday, August 12, 2005 |
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The
rumor mill has it that Technorati is being sold. No word yet on the buyer.
I haven't heard from
John Battelle on this yet but his SearchBlog is the site I'd watch.
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Ten Tips for Improving Your Podcasts by Jack Herrington -- Jack Herrington, author of Podcasting Hacks, offers his top ten suggestions for creating great podcasts. He starts with the basics: reducing noise, getting a good microphone, proper microphone technique, show prep, and format; and closes with tips that deal with improving the content of your show.
Via:
Lifehacker
Thursday, August 11, 2005 |
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The President is podcasting. Actually it's just his weekly radio address brought into the 21st century. I really like this because I've always seen on the tv news that the president (and others before him) have a weekly radio address but I've never known when and where to find it. Now I do. It will be on my mp3 player and I don't have to sit around listening to it on a Saturday. Excellent.
Via:
The RSS Blog
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Bloomberg notes that the Oxford English Dictionary added new words including `podcast' and 'phishing,' saying they are now part of the English language, as it published its second edition today.
Via:
The RSS Blog
Wednesday, August 10, 2005 |
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It appears that RSS enclosures should not contain an FTP link. I tried
enclosure url="ftp://filename.mp3 and, while it looks ok on the web and you can click and down load the file, it doesn't work in podcatching clients.
Anyone else try this? Ways around it? The file isn't my file so I can't change that. I'm trying to bookmark a file in del.icio.us and have it in personal podcast feed. Works great for
enclosure url="http://filename.mp3 type links but not ftp. Hmmm.
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Hey all you college types (actually any adult could benefit) I found a nice set of
Guides to Student Success.
Topics covered include:
Study Skills
Reading Comprehension
Vocabulary
Spelling
Critical Thinking
Textbook Study Strategies
Mathematics
Tuesday, August 09, 2005 |
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From eWeek:
Spyware Researchers Discover ID Theft Ring:
"'I'm not being dramatic. This is the most repulsive thing I've ever seen. It's very painful to see what's in these log files that are being uploaded in real time. We're seeing a lot of bank information and usernames and passwords to get in,' Eckelberry said."
Very scary. Go get the tool to remove it
here.
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Don't get me wrong, I like Dave Winer. I follow his blog because he's on the cutting edge of tech and I find it interesting. Today when he
posted about Google News feeds he said:
"Like it or not Google, the format is RSS 2.0. Look at how your position is eroding. Go all the way, and just give it up, and accept the gift, the way it was presented, without trying to edit, revise, fold, spindle or mutilate."
Here's where I need some help understanding his position. To me it appears that Google is supporting RSS 2.0. Is it the link to Atom that he doesn't like? Is it their non-use of the little orange XML icon? Or maybe Google is hacking up the feed on the backend and I didn't notice.
See, to me it doesn't matter as a consumer. Back in the pre-xml days, if you wanted to move data from say Excel to some database then you exported to CSV or maybe where you were importing needed tab delimited. Did you care? Did you look at the output? No. You picked up the conduit that was required and carried out the transaction.
Now of course if a feed only gives me titles and not the whole content of the post I definately have a problem. Motley Fool does that. Really annoying and worth unsubscribing. I know why they do, I won't see their ads. Now, of course, I won't see anything because it completely sucks and I won't use their service at all.
I digress. Help enlighten me.
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Google News Feeds will let you subscribe to either RSS or Atom feeds from Google News.
Also, any search on
Google News now will give you a link to subscribe to it as a feed.
Finally.
One thing that is really cool is that if you use
Google News Customizations feature and then click the RSS feed link your feed will be customized. Nice touch Google.
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Slashdot article is an interview with Bill Hilf, Microsoft's Linux Lab Manager. Worth a read.
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Business2Blog points to an article that says Chris Anderson who wrote the
Wired article about the
Long Tail now says the Long Tail was overstated and and not near as long as thought before.
That sound you here is the air being let out of an overhyped concept.
I dunno. I like the idea. Besides marketing, it is really the key draw behind podcasts. Especially the so called "indie" (whatever, Apple) podcasts.
Monday, August 08, 2005 |
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