Anticipation of the fireworks & a large amount of grilled protein takes me away from this blog for a while. I'll be back. In the meantime please read the blogroll, tag your posts, and should you be so moved, add Freshblog to your sidebar!! I'll appreciate it!! Happy Holidays.
Blogger Hacks, Categories, Tips & Tricks
The James Bond Vehicle Library has a catalog of the many & varied motorised modes of transportation that Commander Bond makes use of. Me? I'm all about the DB-5, for which I would offer a permalink if the site permitted. via Driko.
BoingBoing: Stef sez, "For 15 days, I've been grabbing the London Underground realtime disruption map every few minutes. I've just glued them all together into a three minute Quicktime, so you can visualise just how bad London's subway system is."
Watch it, visualise it, feel it, be moved by it.....
Watch it, visualise it, feel it, be moved by it.....
So I'm more moved by this than even the passing of Piglet. Richard Whitely, king of Countdown, whom I have watched for years and whose cream & blue striped blazer I first encountered in the early '80s in my Grandmother's living room, has passed away. The BBC has an in-depth obituary. I'm particularly intrigued by their assertion that Whitely "is believed to have clocked-up more hours on television screens - and more than 10,000 appearances - than anyone else alive, apart from the girl on the test card." Wonder how that measures up to Regis Philbin?
Anyway. Farewell, & if you get chance, let us know the solution to the greatest conundrum of all...
Anyway. Farewell, & if you get chance, let us know the solution to the greatest conundrum of all...
Filed in: television culture
I really don't....
Engadget: "Jetpack shmetpack, we’ll take a personal eggbeater instead! Ok, maybe it’s only a prank but pictured here is what is claimed to be the world’s smallest co-axial helicopter capable of transporting wee humans (read: less than 155-pounds) for about an hour on a 5-gallon tank-o-gas."
Engadget: "Jetpack shmetpack, we’ll take a personal eggbeater instead! Ok, maybe it’s only a prank but pictured here is what is claimed to be the world’s smallest co-axial helicopter capable of transporting wee humans (read: less than 155-pounds) for about an hour on a 5-gallon tank-o-gas."
Filed in: gadgets technology transport flight madness
Boing Boing: "Two of the Disney Winnie the Pooh voice actors -- Paul Winchell (Tigger) amd John Fiedler (Piglet) -- died this weekend." Funny how people you never met can sound so familiar....
Filed in: disney movies entertainment
So after searching out hacks & tricks to add the link cosmos to this blog, the new Technorati embed delivers it all with one lil' script. There has been some degree of resistance amongst bloggers to the new roll-out, since our carefully designed templates changed overnight. In response technorati customised the embeds and gave bloggers the power to show & hide any or all of the elements.
The way I have it set, the search box and whole blog cosmos link get pasted in there with the logo. Pluses? It is easy. Minuses? It is ugly with a capital ug, and the ability to search all of technorati directly from this blog (esp.useful for tags & keywords) is gone. You can click the logo to reach Technorati & launch searches from there.
Not sure what I think about the changes. I have mothballed the old features with hide tags, and I'm going to live with it for a few days & if I decide that it's not working for me, I'm going to go back to my hack versions of the same tools. We'll see.
The way I have it set, the search box and whole blog cosmos link get pasted in there with the logo. Pluses? It is easy. Minuses? It is ugly with a capital ug, and the ability to search all of technorati directly from this blog (esp.useful for tags & keywords) is gone. You can click the logo to reach Technorati & launch searches from there.
Not sure what I think about the changes. I have mothballed the old features with hide tags, and I'm going to live with it for a few days & if I decide that it's not working for me, I'm going to go back to my hack versions of the same tools. We'll see.
Filed in: technorati cosmos blogging blogger blogtech
Sunday, June 26, 2005
Boing Boing: Survey to help Blogdex creator finish his PhD: "The MIT Media Lab's Cameron Marlow, creator of the excellent Blogdex service, is in the final throes of his PhD, and as part of his project, he's conducting a survey of bloggers:
This is a general social survey of the greater weblog community being conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Our goal is to help understand the way that weblogs are affecting the way we communicate with each other."
Go tell the man what your blog is about, & help him get his doctorate!!
This is a general social survey of the greater weblog community being conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Our goal is to help understand the way that weblogs are affecting the way we communicate with each other."
Go tell the man what your blog is about, & help him get his doctorate!!
Saturday, June 25, 2005
Blogging LA point to a wiki-built letter to the paper asking them to keep their experiment going.
Read the letter & the comments. I'm particularly interested in the strong assertion that , with proper design elements in place, this community would have become self-maintaining and that the ownership felt by regular reader / editors would have controlled the impact of vandalism. A powerful concept and a challenging letter....
Previous Post.
Read the letter & the comments. I'm particularly interested in the strong assertion that , with proper design elements in place, this community would have become self-maintaining and that the ownership felt by regular reader / editors would have controlled the impact of vandalism. A powerful concept and a challenging letter....
Previous Post.
Filed in: webtech wiki los-angeles
Here's my nostalgia-fest from the first year of this blog, looking back to the summers of my childhood, when we snuck through a hole in the fence onto the ancient park courts with their cracked & weedy surface and played in the afternoons....
It must be summer then. I bet the children's television will all be bumped to BBC2 too, & the kids will haul out 30 year old heavy wooden dunlop racquets that belonged to their parents during the boer war and they'll play in the park
BBC Sport:
Maria Sharapova reached the fourth round at Wimbledon with a 6-2 6-4 win over Katarina Srebotnik on Court One. The defending champion set the tone by breaking the unseeded Slovenian's serve three times in the opening set.
The world number 57 broke back for 3-1 and managed to pose more problems for the Russian second seed than she had encountered in her first two matches. Sharapova's game also had its glitches, and Srebotnik grew in confidence, but the outcome was never in doubt.
Unfortunately the Lions have taken a hammering in the first test, and Waltzing O'Driscoll will have to sit out the rest of the tour. This doesn't look good for the rest of the matches....
BBC Sport:
Here's hoping the boys can pick it up...
BBC Sport:
The Lions suffered a heavy defeat in the first Test against New Zealand after losing captain Brian O'Driscoll to a tour-ending injury. The Irishman was stretchered off after just one minute with a dislocated shoulder and the Lions never recovered. All Black fly-half Daniel Carter kicked two penalties before Ali Williams crossed after a poor Lions line-out. Sitiveni Sivivatu scored a stunning try after the break while the Lions could only add a Jonny Wilkinson penalty.
Here's hoping the boys can pick it up...
Filed in: rugby sports british-lions
I have added a link to each post so the you can post it to del.icio.us with a single click. (and so can I, when I add it to my category list!!) Excellent. The code for the link came from blog.del.icio.us, & the edits for blogger users are in the comments. This is one of the tools on the Absolutely Del.icio.us complete tool collection, where you'll find all sorts of goodies to help you have even more fun with del.icio.us.
To make space for the link, I've switched my permalink back to the timestamp, after crowing in March about how I'd moved it. Oh, well!!
Have fun posting Freshblog stuff to del.icio.us!!
Update 7/7: Have amended the link code to include my blog title in the post title that appears when you click the link. The original bookmarklet set it up that way, & I like the idea of the site's name going out on my posts. Here's that code:
Update 7/25: After finding one of my posts had been Furled, I figured I should add a one-click link for those folks too, so here it is. Thanks to Improbulus at A Consuming Experience for the code. Have fun Furling!!
Update 8/11: See other posts in Blogger Hacks: The Series
Update 11/05: Have added the "post to blinklist" link to Freshblog too.
Final Update 1/28/06: Have upgraded to link to 6 social bookmarking services and use icons for the links.
<!--begin post to del.icio.us-->
[<a href="http://del.icio.us/post?url=<$BlogItemPermalinkUrl$>
&title=<$BlogItemTitle$>" target="_blank">to Del.icio.us</a>]
<!--end post to del.icio.us-->
To make space for the link, I've switched my permalink back to the timestamp, after crowing in March about how I'd moved it. Oh, well!!
Have fun posting Freshblog stuff to del.icio.us!!
Update 7/7: Have amended the link code to include my blog title in the post title that appears when you click the link. The original bookmarklet set it up that way, & I like the idea of the site's name going out on my posts. Here's that code:
<!--begin post to del.icio.us-->
[<a href="http://del.icio.us/post?url=<$BlogItemPermalinkUrl$>
&title=<$BlogTitle$>: <$BlogItemTitle$>" target="_blank">to Del.icio.us</a>]
<!--end post to del.icio.us-->
Update 7/25: After finding one of my posts had been Furled, I figured I should add a one-click link for those folks too, so here it is. Thanks to Improbulus at A Consuming Experience for the code. Have fun Furling!!
Update 8/11: See other posts in Blogger Hacks: The Series
Update 11/05: Have added the "post to blinklist" link to Freshblog too.
Final Update 1/28/06: Have upgraded to link to 6 social bookmarking services and use icons for the links.
Inhabitat sets your feathered friends up in the lap of luxury:
Pretty cool. I wonder if the birds appreciate the design improvements?
The birdhouses comply with a contemporary standard, utilizing sustainably harvested teak certified by the Rainforest Alliance's SmartWood program. Trim is made of aluminum and stainless steel. The houses are meant to accommodate “common cavity-nesting birds,” which include chickadees, bluebirds, wrens and swallows.
Pretty cool. I wonder if the birds appreciate the design improvements?
Finally a one-click image insertion tool for blogger. Excellent. As they say on Blogger Buzz:
I'll tell you what else... No more images dropping out of archived posts because the host-server that I'm poaching them off goes and moves them, or calls them something else.
Thanks, guys! Good move!
''Now you can put a photo (or any JPG, GIF, PNG, TIF or BMP format image) into your blog posts easily and for free. From your hard drive or from the Web. How do you like that?"Excellent. No more "edit html, img, blah blah..." and no more flagrant bandwidth thievery as I copy pics off the web and paste them up here.
I'll tell you what else... No more images dropping out of archived posts because the host-server that I'm poaching them off goes and moves them, or calls them something else.
Thanks, guys! Good move!
Linkfilter: "MUni stands for Mountain Unicycling. It's also known as Rough Terrain Unicycling, All Terrain Unicycling, or even UMX. Like mountain biking, you don't need a mountain to do it. It's just the act of riding unicycles off road.
MUni has been a sort of revolution in the unicycling community, sparking a tremendous effort to build better, stronger unicycles."
er, yeah... A second wheel would be a start!!
MUni has been a sort of revolution in the unicycling community, sparking a tremendous effort to build better, stronger unicycles."
er, yeah... A second wheel would be a start!!
Alright. As the title suggests, there are now 3 ways that I'm aware of to use del.icio.us for categories in blogger. All of these methods make tags that are picked up by technorati too, because Technorati tags don't have to link to technorati. They can link to del.icio.us and technorati will find them because of the rel: tag attribute. One set of tags is therefore capable of doing two things!! One more step: Each method still requires that you bookmark your post to del.icio.us, but there are one-click ways to do that too...
Here's the methods, from lo-tech & least integrated to hi-tech & most integrated....
Update 8/26: A fourth way to add the tags especially for blogthis! users: There's an extension bookmarklet out there for blogger blogthis! that makes it possible to add tags to posts that you write that way. The script was written to generate technorati tags by Ken at Ken's Meme Deflector. I've edited it to output technorati & del.icio.us combo tags. If you want to post with blogthis but tag for categories too, this script can help.
Update 11/16: See the new "Del.icio.us Tagroll" feature as a way to export your categories into your sidebar automatically, without having to hand code a menu.
Here's the methods, from lo-tech & least integrated to hi-tech & most integrated....
- Use the tag-making bookmarklet written by Ted Ernst. This is the method I started out with & the method I wrote a how-to for. This is ideal with blogger blogthis. After installing the bookmarklet, you write a post, use the bookmarklet to generate tags, & then paste the line of tag code into your post before you publish. More on my experience here.
- Use pace_tua's upgraded bookmarklet, which generates the same code, but pastes it automatically into the blogger "create post" link field and therefore includes it in your post without cutting & pasting. You'll need to change your blog settings to show the link field. More on my experience here.
- If you browse with Firefox. Install the greasemonkey extension, and then run a greasemonkey script that will modify the blogger create / edit post page to include a tag creator in the form. Then just type your tags as you type your post!! This method can be bookmarklet-free, because the script adds a bookmark to del.icio.us link to the blogger publish notification window. See my revised how-to.
Update 8/26: A fourth way to add the tags especially for blogthis! users: There's an extension bookmarklet out there for blogger blogthis! that makes it possible to add tags to posts that you write that way. The script was written to generate technorati tags by Ken at Ken's Meme Deflector. I've edited it to output technorati & del.icio.us combo tags. If you want to post with blogthis but tag for categories too, this script can help.
Update 11/16: See the new "Del.icio.us Tagroll" feature as a way to export your categories into your sidebar automatically, without having to hand code a menu.
Thursday, June 23, 2005
I'm not sure how nutritious it is to have deodorant for lunch, but it must be working because here's a mod for the tag script that automates it... "BlogFresh uses a tagging script that generates an HTML string that you manually insert into your page. Well, I'm lazy. So I allowed for the Link dialog to be displayed (Settings->Formatting on Blogger) and rewrote the technorati delicious tagging script to automatically insert the HTML string into the Link input."
I'll try it & see what happens.
Filed in: categories, tags, delicious, technorati, blogger-hacks
Update 5/2/06: Comments suggest that there is a bug in the script that writes out your tags into the title of your post. Not good. Will investigate when I get chance, but in the meantime, I recommend Johan's script with a side order of Freshtags!
I'll try it & see what happens.
Filed in: categories, tags, delicious, technorati, blogger-hacks
Update 5/2/06: Comments suggest that there is a bug in the script that writes out your tags into the title of your post. Not good. Will investigate when I get chance, but in the meantime, I recommend Johan's script with a side order of Freshtags!
It is cocktail hour at Gothamist: "Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha be damned. Just cause the foursome aren't continuing their escapades in New York's hottest bars and lounges, there is no reason for Gothamist to stop. We may find the Cosmo passé, but a well-heeled Negroni or Gimlet always coordinate with our Jimmy Choo's."
Filed in: culture television NYC urban
Installed Firefox at home, and am meddling with Greasemonkey as per A Consuming Experience, Bryan Price and False Positives.
There are scripts out there to make tags that are good for either del.icio.us or Technorati. Either one adds a tag generator to the blogger new post form. To streamline the process, here's an edited script to make a single set of tags that are good for Technorati and Delicious. This works because Technorati tags don't have to link to technorati. They can link to del.icio.us and technorati will find them because of the rel: tag attribute. One set of tags is therefore capable of doing two things!!
The script makes tags that are grammatically correct for technorati but actually link to del.icio.us. Please edit it to replace my del.icio.us username with yours, try it out, & let me know whether it works....
I'm watching technorati to see whether this post shows up in their tag results...
And it works!! As a side note, it looks like you can drill back further in technorati tag searches now, so scroll down the Mozilla results to see this post!!
Update 6/24:
There are scripts out there to make tags that are good for either del.icio.us or Technorati. Either one adds a tag generator to the blogger new post form. To streamline the process, here's an edited script to make a single set of tags that are good for Technorati and Delicious. This works because Technorati tags don't have to link to technorati. They can link to del.icio.us and technorati will find them because of the rel: tag attribute. One set of tags is therefore capable of doing two things!!
The script makes tags that are grammatically correct for technorati but actually link to del.icio.us. Please edit it to replace my del.icio.us username with yours, try it out, & let me know whether it works....
I'm watching technorati to see whether this post shows up in their tag results...
And it works!! As a side note, it looks like you can drill back further in technorati tag searches now, so scroll down the Mozilla results to see this post!!
Update 6/24:
Ignore my jabber in the comments. Technorati can see multiple tags from this script just fine... it just takes a sec, and I have no patience....Update 7/16:
I've written a more detailed & hopefully more helpful how-to for this method now that I've been using it for a few weeks.
Update 7/23:The script is now listed on Greasemonkeyed.com. Awesome.
Boing Boing reports that the man who warned us of the dangers of androids in Blade Runner will soon be a virtual person himself. "An android embodiment of surrealist SF author Philip K. Dick will be demonstrated at Wired's NextFest this weekend in Chicago. The Dick bot is a collaboration between Hanson Robotics Inc, the FedEx Institute of Technology's Institute for Intelligent Systems, the Automation and Robotics Research Institute at UTA, and Dick's friend Paul Williams."
Filed in: technology, books, madness
Filed in: technology, books, madness
Dynamist Blog links to some spectacular images as evidence that "in the age of look and feel, technology and art co-operate." Virginia Postrel discusses a Princeton University contest evaluating beautiful images produced as a consequence of scientific research. "The 55 entries selected for the exibition are now online, and they're impressively diverse and beautiful."
Filed in: images, art, science, technology, design
Filed in: images, art, science, technology, design
My good friend Jimmy is blogging his comedy career at MySpace, with some great articles capturing his experiences as a stand-up comic. Visit Jimmy's Blog, then go see a show already, would you?
Filed in: friends, entertainment, comedy
Filed in: friends, entertainment, comedy
DrikoLand links to a BBC H2G2 exploration of Billy Joel's classic song We Didn't Start the Fire.
Filed in: music, history
Filed in: music, history
Upgrades at Kinja: "Kinja is undergoing system upgrades. No new posts will appear for the next few hours today. Thank you for your patience."
Filed in: kinja-digest, feeds
Filed in: kinja-digest, feeds
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Engadget : "How often is it that you’re at the, uh, “video” store and can’t narrow down a choice from a [broad] selection? Well, just download xobile’s LeapScan-based software from Vivid’s site (yes, that Vivid), and you’ll be able to aim that cameraphone at a QR-code like barcode and get linked to a hosted video trailer."
So the Valley is first on the tech scene again.
Anyway. Think of the long-term apps. What if a movie magazine printed a barcode next to their review & let you cameraphone your way to clips or other exclusive content? What about a billboard?
Pretty darn cool.
Filed in: movies, marketing, technology, wireless
So the Valley is first on the tech scene again.
Anyway. Think of the long-term apps. What if a movie magazine printed a barcode next to their review & let you cameraphone your way to clips or other exclusive content? What about a billboard?
Pretty darn cool.
Filed in: movies, marketing, technology, wireless
Gothamist: "Chaos, 35,000 pound Snapple kiwi-strawberry popsicle be thy name! The dailies round out coverage of yesterday's Snapple PR stunt gone bad, the attempted Biggest Popsicle in the World that simply melted in Union Square. In analyzing the slushy mess that spread from 17th Street, the NY Times took the bemused approach, while the Post was self-righteous and angry...."
Was any of the coverage chilly, or fruity, or sweet?.....
Boingboing links to a collection of quotes that lets you decide...
Filed in: NYC, urban, madness, marketing
Was any of the coverage chilly, or fruity, or sweet?.....
Boingboing links to a collection of quotes that lets you decide...
Filed in: NYC, urban, madness, marketing
Sails are back, only this time they're not on the ocean. Engadget: "Cosmos 1, the world’s first solar sail, is set to launch within minutes (as in, from now) from a Russian nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea."
Interesting for so many reasons.... but esp. the launch vehicle & the propulsion method. Here's hoping it all goes to plan.
Update: It didn't. The conventional part of the machine failed. "One of the rockets propelling the solar sail-powered spacecraft, Cosmos 1, into the heavens petered out about 83 seconds into flight."
Filed in: space-flight, technology
Interesting for so many reasons.... but esp. the launch vehicle & the propulsion method. Here's hoping it all goes to plan.
Update: It didn't. The conventional part of the machine failed. "One of the rockets propelling the solar sail-powered spacecraft, Cosmos 1, into the heavens petered out about 83 seconds into flight."
Filed in: space-flight, technology
Boing Boing: "At the crack of dawn this morning, Mojave witnessed yet another First Flight, this time of the Boeing/NASA/DARPA X-37 ALTV (Approach and Landing Test Vehicle) carried on a captive-carry flight by Scaled Composites' White Knight."
Interesting...
Filed in: space-flight, technology, design
Interesting...
Filed in: space-flight, technology, design
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
blogging.la: "A bold Los Angeles Times experiment in letting readers rewrite the paper's editorials lasted all of three days. The newspaper suspended its 'Wikitorial' Web feature after some users flooded the site over the weekend with foul language and pornographic photos."
A bold attempt to integrate old and new media in an innovative way. May the next such innovation not be long in coming.
Update 6/22: Blogging LA's follow-up article.
Filed in: webtech, wiki,
A bold attempt to integrate old and new media in an innovative way. May the next such innovation not be long in coming.
Update 6/22: Blogging LA's follow-up article.
Filed in: webtech, wiki,
I'm a sucker for the geologic history of the U.S.West, esp. in the light of last week's 4 CA earthquakes & such. Yellowstone would appear to be the mother lode. American Scientist via linkfilter.net: "Yellowstone National Park is one of the more seismically active areas in the country, in large part because of a magma chamber that currently lurks beneath the park. It is that magma chamber that also drives the geothermal activity that has made Yellowstone a national treasure. Over the past 2 million years, the pressures associated with the movement of the magma, along with the slow movement of the North American plate over the stationary magma chamber, have led to cataclysmic events that, if they occurred today, would dwarf most other events in recorded history."
Filed in: history, yellowstone, nature, geology
Filed in: history, yellowstone, nature, geology
Monday, June 20, 2005
Inhabitat rocks the Murphy Bed - "Murphy beds are the original folding furniture, dating back to the turn of the century. Unfortunately, they have been around (and been neglected) for so long that most of them have a kitschy grandma look: nostalgic but not something you really want cluttering your house. Fortunately, it is possible to find fold-up furniture that will save space AND maintain your minimalist aesthetic."
Filed in: design, furniture
Filed in: design, furniture
The Truth Laid Bear has lots of new features that are well worth checking out. I'm especially interested in ubercarnival, the carnival tracker. I have not been a big visitor to carnivals because they're often so darn hard to find, but this looks v. helpful. There's also a topics section that links to what's hot right now, and a communities section for multi-blog communities.
Filed in: webtech, blogtech, cosmos
Filed in: webtech, blogtech, cosmos
or whatever it is that beta does when it isn't beta any more, even as I was online and using it....Technorati Weblog: "There's lots more to come. We are continuing to increase performance of the site and scalability of the service, and we're also actively working on a much faster system of displaying accurate blog link counts, and ways for you to do better sorting and filtering of your search results and watchlists. Keep your eyes on this space (or subscribe to this Blog!) as we launch, tweak, and tune the site to your wishes."
Looks so much cooler than it did before, & hopefully the services will be just as slick as the template.
Filed in: technorati, webtech
Looks so much cooler than it did before, & hopefully the services will be just as slick as the template.
Filed in: technorati, webtech
MetaFilter: "What Does That Mean is a newish wiki site, so could use some more content."
So let's get over there and add some!! A Wiki for the English-Language cultural idiom. Magnificent. How long 'til someone inputs the slang-guide from the booklet that comes with The Office on DVD?
Filed in: language, britain, wiki,
So let's get over there and add some!! A Wiki for the English-Language cultural idiom. Magnificent. How long 'til someone inputs the slang-guide from the booklet that comes with The Office on DVD?
Filed in: language, britain, wiki,
but they can hear her in Watford... linkfilter.net: "One of the loudest of the modern grunters is defending women's champion Maria Sharapova, who, according to the paper, makes a 100-decibel grunt, roughly the same volume as small aircraft landing nearby."
Filed in: sports, tennis, wimbledon, madness
Filed in: sports, tennis, wimbledon, madness
Engadget : "Ever want to play Monopoly in real life, but without the unfortunate side effects of being vilified in sensational anti-trust suits? Well, if you’re a London resident, you’ll apparently have a chance to give it in real life (fake) Monopoly; you’re given (fake) �15m to invest in (real) London properties, and move around the “board” as 18 GPS transmitter-equipped cabbies pick up and drop off players accordingly."
When I was a kid, they called it the Monopoly Run, and they gave a bunch of teams travel passes to see who could get 'round the board the fastest. I don't think there was any investing involved...
Looks like they still do it, although they're not putting much up online.
Filed in: games, urban, london, britnews
When I was a kid, they called it the Monopoly Run, and they gave a bunch of teams travel passes to see who could get 'round the board the fastest. I don't think there was any investing involved...
Looks like they still do it, although they're not putting much up online.
Filed in: games, urban, london, britnews
linkfilter.net: South Carolina's getting upset about people tromping about w/ GPS units... "Can we citizens stand by and allow the legislature to enact a law based on the ill-advised opinions of a few misinformed individuals?"
Filed in: madness, politics, games
Filed in: madness, politics, games
linkfilter.net: "What melody would stop him (an American) on the street if he were in a strange land, and make the home feeling well up within him, no matter how hardened he might be, or how wretchedly the tune were played?"
This is an 1895 quote with an 1895 answer... but is it still true today?
Filed in: music, entertainment, history
This is an 1895 quote with an 1895 answer... but is it still true today?
Filed in: music, entertainment, history
This post has been extended. Please check out Blogger Hacks: The Series.
Original Post: 6/20/05
Boost your blog with free add-ons and services. Here’s info and pointers to the external services that I’m using to add functions to Freshblog.
Some of this will not be news to most Freshblog readers, and I guess most of these tips & tricks aren’t really hacks, they’re add-ons, but they’re making my blogging experience much richer and adding to my traffic, so I wanted to share.
I've broken this post out into clickable sections. I'm adding the occasional new one too, so keep coming back to see what's here. Please feel free to add other ideas and pointers in the comments, or trackback to your own blogger hacks post. I’d be interested to know what works for you…
Original Post: 6/20/05
Boost your blog with free add-ons and services. Here’s info and pointers to the external services that I’m using to add functions to Freshblog.
Some of this will not be news to most Freshblog readers, and I guess most of these tips & tricks aren’t really hacks, they’re add-ons, but they’re making my blogging experience much richer and adding to my traffic, so I wanted to share.
I've broken this post out into clickable sections. I'm adding the occasional new one too, so keep coming back to see what's here. Please feel free to add other ideas and pointers in the comments, or trackback to your own blogger hacks post. I’d be interested to know what works for you…
1. Categories: The biggest news ‘round here at the moment, & the post that has people linking in to Freshblog, is my how-to post that describes the use of Del.icio.us to add categories to blogger.
Del.icio.us, a social bookmarks manager lets you categorize any page that you view with any series of tags that you like, and bookmark it so that you can go back & check it out again later. They provide a bookmarklet that will post to the site. There's also code out there for making in-post "post to delicious" links like the ones you see on Freshblog. If you only bookmark your own posts, then your tags become substitute categories.
You can see your del.icio.us tags as a cloud thanks to exti.spicio.us.
There is a discussion happening about whether it is worth the effort to categorise this way, but I think once this is set up it is worth the effort, especially if your blog isn’t a single issue blog & you like to link to all sorts of material. I wonder whether Blogger, the Next Generation will get on the categories & tagging bandwagon?
2. Tagging: The side benefit of this categories method is that you also generate technorati tags into the bargain. These are keywords that are searchable in technorati & mark your post to appear in search results alongside other related posts. People are talking about how useful technorati tags actually are as search tools, since the service seems to track all instances of a give word but only display the most recent 20 posts.
To add technorati tags to your blogger posts (if you're not going to use del.icio.us for categories) use one of the two bookmarklets linked to in my how-to post to generate the code, then simply add it to your post by pasting into the "edit html" side of the create post window in blogger. Publish your post, & watch technorati grab the tags!!
3. Blogroll: I manage my blogroll with blogrolling, because it is much faster than making a manual template edit and then republishing my entire site every time I want to add or delete a link. There’s a “blogroll it” bookmarklet that can put a site on your sidebar with one click. On the downside, if their site is down, so is my blogroll, but that’s v. rare. There's also an occasional script bug when my blogroll loads where my trackback link should load,but a refresh takes care of it.
I am also reading multiple blogs at once thanks to my kinja digest and bloglines blogroll. I favor Kinja because it can find feeds using the site’s regular URL & there’s a one-click bookmarklet on offer there too. My kinja digest makes it easy read a lot of material and find post that I’d like to link to / comment on, & speeds the blogging process. Update 7/23: I'm finally coming to grips with bloglines, and investigating the use of the "clip" function as a way to save stuff that I want to blog about later.
4. Trackback: I use Haloscan to add trackback to this blog. Trackback lets a blogger who has referred to someone else’s post leave a link and an excerpt on the original post that inspired them. Upside: My trackbacks appear in search-engine results. Downside - It is a multi-step & multi-window process to send a ping with haloscan, & I have to confess that no-one has ever sent me a trackback ping (sob…) but trackback has also been eclipsed, I think, by the technorati link cosmos.
Update 7/25 - Fritz suggests some limitations of Haloscan:
A drawback from Haloscan that you don't mention in your blogger hacks is that the trackbacks aren't true trackbacks that search engines can follow. A lot of people blog, frankly, so that people will find them and bloggers know that "Google loves blogs." Search engine spiders don't follow Javascript (although there are rumors that Google has an experimental spider that parses and runs Javascript).
Hence, my links to you aren't really reciprocated with links back to me, as far as Google's search engine ranking goes.
5. Searching: Blogger offers a search utility as part of their nav-bar, but once again Technorati trumps the standard service. I have found the technorati searchlet much more effective at finding my recent posts than the blogger nav-bar search box. The added benefit, of course, is that with one click you can transform the searchlet to search all technorati listed blogs & see what other bloggers are saying about your topic. When you sign in at Technorati & claim a blog, you get the code for the searchlet box & you can past it into your sidebar. Update 6/27: The new Technorati roll-out has modified the searchlet.
My keywords on del.icio.us are also very helpful in searching for older posts, because now they’re categorized and I know that “the thing I linked to about the rusty theme park” was probably tagged “public-spaces.” This may mean more to me as the tagger than it does to a reader at this point, but it works. One searching caveat: Obviously casual grammar and punctuation are hard to find when you’re a search box…, so my fondness for three dots & a comma is getting me into trouble!
6. Traffic: How many of them are there? - I track stats with sitemeter, & I’m only scratching the surface of their data, I think, with the weekly “unique visits” & “page view” data that they send to my e-mail. I think that I could do more with my stats if I thought about it, & logged in to the site to see what other stats were on offer. My traffic is on the rise, & I’m interested to know whether that’s due to technorati tags, del.icio.us bookmarks, or having a couple of posts that people want to read…
Update 7/9 - Sitemeter now allows you to block your own visits from being counted, either by IP Address or using a cookie to block a specific browser. Excellent.
7. Inbound Tracking: Where do they come from? There’s a lot going on here. Who Links to Me will tell you, oddly enough, who links to your site. There are often 100’s of returns, & I find this less useful as I’ve been listed in more places & muddied the water with my own trackbacks &c. For me, the section that analyses blogrolling.com is the most useful because I’m still on a fairly small number of blogrolls & this page lets me know if there’s a new one!! I’m also a big fan of the truefresco referrer’s script. For a while there were problems with this tool, in that it was full of spam links that referred back to adult sites. It seems to have been clean for a while, though, and is often my first hint that there’s a new inbound link out there since it displays links back to pages that have brought traffic to your site in the last 24 hrs. One script in your template also provides separate lists for your main page & post pages. Excellent. Now on to the Granddaddy of inbound traffic tracking tools:
8. Link Cosmos: Technorati tracks the links between posts, & so can provide an automated list of who links to any given URL. I have two different cosmos links on this blog. In each post’s footer is a [link cosmos] link that works from either the main page or the post page. This will give a list of all the technorati-listed inbound links to that individual post. In the lower right-hand sidebar is a technorati speech-bubble that works from any page, & that shows all inbound links to Freshblog. The code for both the post page link & the site-wide link is from A Consuming Experience, and also appears when you register a blog with technorati & post their link-back to your blog. Update 6/27: The new Technorati roll-out has modified their claim embed to include a "who links here" link automatically.
Bloglines offers a similar service with their bloglines citations feature. I find this a little less useful, though, and it makes me look like more of a schmuck, because it lists all the times that I’ve linked to myself!!
Update 7/23: There are two new services that will track your inbound links. Icerocket and BlogPulse. Icerocket doesn't filter out self-referencing links, but BlogPulse does.
9. Outbound Tracking: Where do they go? - Mybloglog will tell you how people leave your blog, & therefore which of your posts they found interesting. I tend to pollute my own data at the moment, because I visit my site a lot when I post, but when I settle down this might be useful info. The free service tells you who went where from your blog yesterday, & includes a top 5 customizable meter to show in your sidebar. The pay service will give you today’s exit stats.
10. Favicon: How do you change the icon in the address bar of your browser to brand your site? This was the first of the add-ons that I figured out, after a couple of challenges. My how-to post describes the tools that I used and the code that you need.
11. Template: Maybe this should be the first mod on the list, to save on a whole lot of cutting and pasting, but as you see I'm using a template that is not one of the ones provided by blogger. My template came from blogskins.com, where there are more than 16,000 templates to choose from. There are lots of ways to browse for related templates once you find one that you like, so go ahead... backup your site and change your template!!
11. Syndication: How to make it easy for people to handle your feeds? Add a section to your sidebar that has links to your feeds, as well as one-click links for your readers to add your material to popular feedreaders. To give your readers options, it's useful to have an RSS feed as well as the atom feed that blogger automatically provides. 2Rss.com has a tool that will generate an RSS feed for you, although they'll include an advertisement with your material unless you pay. Better still, use feedburner to generate a smart-feed that can work with both RSS & Atom, and manually edit your blogger template's meta-tags to point feed-seeking readers there instead of to the default atom feed. Easier than it sounds, I promise. See how-to. Feedburner format your feed v. nicely on it's own page, and include all sorts of one-click subscription options for people to syndicate your stuff. Check it out.
Graphics: The more observant amongst you will have noticed that I'm not exactly Mr. Photoshop. Here's a couple of resources that help me get around my graphical challenge!!
New Freshblog logo produced using the CoolArchive logo generator. Easy, quick, and with lots more options than other logo-makers that I tried. I suppose you want one of those little two-tone rectangular buttons that bloggers like to use to link to places too, huh? Well, here's a buttonmaker tool that will make one for you.
This sounds like a lot of bells & whistles, & a lot of time & effort to make them work, but many of these services make use of bookmarklets, which are making my information management challenges less challenging!! Please let me know what works for you & whether there's anything out there that makes your blogging more straightforward.
Filed in: how-to, blogger, blogging, blogspot, technorati, blogger-hacks
Boing Boing: "Abandoned.ru has galleries of explorations of rotting Soviet-era buildings, from educational institutes to radio telescopes to cement plants in the Moscow countryside." Further to the exploration of an ageing theme park that preoccupied the blogosphere a while back, this is further photographic evidence that buildings have a useful life, and that something comes after...
Filed in: public-spaces, architecture, industry, images
Filed in: public-spaces, architecture, industry, images
Sunday, June 19, 2005
A Welsh View: "Six Nevada librarians hope to earn a place in the Guinness Book of World Records after reading aloud for 100 consecutive hours.
The team attempted to break the 81-hour, read-aloud record set by a group of Australian librarians by reading nonstop from Monday morning until Friday. "
Filed in: madness, books, harry-potter
The team attempted to break the 81-hour, read-aloud record set by a group of Australian librarians by reading nonstop from Monday morning until Friday. "
Filed in: madness, books, harry-potter
New York Times: "In the opening sequence of the new Star Wars movie, 'Episode III: Revenge of the Sith,' two Jedi knights fight their way through an enemy starship to rescue a hostage. Ever since I saw the movie, I have been annoying friends with a trivia question: 'Who is the enemy? What organization owns this vessel?' We ought to know. In 1977, we all knew who owned the Death Star (the Empire) and who owned the Millennium Falcon (Han Solo). But when I ask my question about the new film, everyone reacts in the same way: with a sudden intake of breath and a sideways dart of the eyes, followed by lengthy cogitation. Some confess that they have no idea. Others think out loud for a while, developing and rejecting various theories. Only a few have come up with the right answer. "
Here's the thing. Ep I should not exist. The prime plot points (the conspiracy has existed for a long time, Palpatine replaces Valorum as Chancellor, & a boy who is a Midichlorian magnet is discovered in the boonies) could be accomplished in 15 minutes at the beginning of episode II. With a quick "10 years later" subtitle, Ep II could then in fact be Ep I, (perhaps without the whole "elephant surfing on planet lurve" scenes), & then there could be a whole war movie in between II & III that gets us to where we need to be whether or not we have cartoon network.... Then this thing would make sense.
Filed in: star-wars, sci-fi
Here's the thing. Ep I should not exist. The prime plot points (the conspiracy has existed for a long time, Palpatine replaces Valorum as Chancellor, & a boy who is a Midichlorian magnet is discovered in the boonies) could be accomplished in 15 minutes at the beginning of episode II. With a quick "10 years later" subtitle, Ep II could then in fact be Ep I, (perhaps without the whole "elephant surfing on planet lurve" scenes), & then there could be a whole war movie in between II & III that gets us to where we need to be whether or not we have cartoon network.... Then this thing would make sense.
Filed in: star-wars, sci-fi
Saturday, June 18, 2005
core77 tells us How the Batsuit Works: "Unlike other superheroes who possess super powers, Batman relies on superior gadgetry to overcome Gotham Cities criminal underground."
Update 6/22: What would it cost to get the training and the equipment to be Batman?
Filed in: entertainment, movies, gadgets, technology, design
Update 6/22: What would it cost to get the training and the equipment to be Batman?
Filed in: entertainment, movies, gadgets, technology, design
I'll never really escape my previous life.... MetaFilter presents "100 Milestone Documents. High-quality viewable and downloadable documents of American History, from 1776 to 1965. Of course the usual suspects are available, but you can also see items like the Patent for the Cotton Gin (1794) and the Check for the Purchase of Alaska (1868). Also downloadable PDFs, transcripts, and background information on each document."
Check it out, for sure!!
Filed in: history
Check it out, for sure!!
Filed in: history
Friday, June 17, 2005
but I can't catch my 'phone. Engadget : "Sharp’s got a new GX25 Ferrari edition phone available on Vodafone in the UK, should you be headed over to Old Blighty any time soon. It’s got Bluetooth, a VGA camera, 262k QVGA display, and that classic shiny fire-engine red exterior with the horsey emblem."
Man this thing is hot looking!!! I'm not one to go for brands or names or such, & the likelihood of me ever owning a Ferrari that you can drive is slender at best, but I sure would like one of these!!! Check it out at Vodaphone UK.
Filed in: gadgets, technology, marketing,
Man this thing is hot looking!!! I'm not one to go for brands or names or such, & the likelihood of me ever owning a Ferrari that you can drive is slender at best, but I sure would like one of these!!! Check it out at Vodaphone UK.
Filed in: gadgets, technology, marketing,
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Mark at Escape From Obsession has seen a big jump in traffic since he started using Technorati tags, & he's considering the next step: "I've been toying around with introducing categories into the mix but with Blogger not yet supporting categories, it seems like an awful lot of hassle. Driko has a good article on using del.icio.us to tag keywords and include categories in his blog [which is powered by Blogger]. Driko has linked to another, more comprehensive, article regarding using del.icio.us and categories. Beelerspace has a beginner's guide to using del.icio.us. It's well written and gives a good overview of the service."
There's also an excellent list of upgrades that ought to be part of Blogger, the next generation.
Interesting that Mark credits Technorati tags with such an impact. I wonder how much of my jump in traffic is tag related & how much is due to a couple of posts that actually say something useful?
Filed in: technorati, tagging, categories, freshblog
There's also an excellent list of upgrades that ought to be part of Blogger, the next generation.
Interesting that Mark credits Technorati tags with such an impact. I wonder how much of my jump in traffic is tag related & how much is due to a couple of posts that actually say something useful?
Filed in: technorati, tagging, categories, freshblog
A story we've been following here at Freshblog may turn out to have been a big publicity stunt. Scotsman.com: "A Dalek that has been missing for more than a week after it was allegedly stolen from a tourist site turned up safe and well [June 14th] on top of a mythic landmark in Somerset. The owners of the 5ft Dalek issued a 500stlg reward after it was stolen from Wookey Hole Caves, near Wells, last Monday.
Alleged kidnappers then left a ransom note pinned to a plunger arm that had been severed from the prop. The Dalek was found early today at the top of Glastonbury Tor and is now being ferried down via a stretcher. Staff from Wookey Holes Caves have denied that the theft was part of an elaborate stunt to boost ticket sales for a Doctor Who Convention they are staging this weekend."
Was it trying to communicate with the mothership, or wake its colleagues from their underground bunker? Perhaps we'll never know...
Wasting Police time, perhaps?
Filed in: marketing, doctor-who, sci-fi, madness
Alleged kidnappers then left a ransom note pinned to a plunger arm that had been severed from the prop. The Dalek was found early today at the top of Glastonbury Tor and is now being ferried down via a stretcher. Staff from Wookey Holes Caves have denied that the theft was part of an elaborate stunt to boost ticket sales for a Doctor Who Convention they are staging this weekend."
Was it trying to communicate with the mothership, or wake its colleagues from their underground bunker? Perhaps we'll never know...
Wasting Police time, perhaps?
Filed in: marketing, doctor-who, sci-fi, madness
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
In an effort to make my first blog searchable and more closely tied with this one, I have claimed it on Technorati and added a search box. I'm hoping that if I have occasion to look for an earlier post again (see "Wheelsurf" post below) that the searchlet will make life easier.
Filed in: freshblog
Filed in: freshblog
Rebecca Blood links to this list of 100 non-fiction titles "written about, or by an author from, the Western United States." Interesting selections....
Filed in: books, history
Filed in: books, history
Boing Boing: "Activity surrounding Kryptos, the cryptographic puzzle at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, continues to surge. Elonka Dunin who runs a comprehensive Kryptos site, told The Guardian that she used to see 500 visitors a day but recently got 30,000 visits in 24 hours. Of course, interest in cracking Kryptos skyrocketed once it was revealed that The Da Vinci Code dustjacket references the puzzle and that it's part of the plot of Dan Brown's next bestseller, The Solomon Key."
Last I read, it was the end of the thing that couldn't be cracked. Let's check out the website to see the latest...
Update: There's also a javascript tool to help you test solutions at John's Kryptos Simulator.
Filed in: kryptos, puzzles, codes, games
Last I read, it was the end of the thing that couldn't be cracked. Let's check out the website to see the latest...
Update: There's also a javascript tool to help you test solutions at John's Kryptos Simulator.
Filed in: kryptos, puzzles, codes, games
MetaFilter: "The Wheelsurf is a motorised monocycle powered by a chainsaw engine. Designed by Brazilian engineer Tito Lucas Ott, the rider sits inside the turning wheel, and steers by leaning the whole machine into corners – hence 'surfing'. The wheelsurfer takes practice to master and you need to be relatively well coordinated."
How are you going to get to the store?
Wheelsurf... (We'll surf...geddit?... groan.)
Update: Core77 blogs the Wheelsurf too.
Update2: My Crimsonblog post about the Trikke & the Segway.
Filed in: transport, madness, gadgets, technology
How are you going to get to the store?
Wheelsurf... (We'll surf...geddit?... groan.)
Update: Core77 blogs the Wheelsurf too.
Update2: My Crimsonblog post about the Trikke & the Segway.
Filed in: transport, madness, gadgets, technology
A Welsh View presents "A video of the Koenigsegg CCR breaking the world speed record for a production car."
Filed in: transport, automotive
Some suggestion that this method of categorising posts isn't universally effective? Koranteng's Toli: "When you do, say, technorati.com/tag/how-to, you don't get the freshblog thing in the technorati list, although you can get to it from the delicious list, so I kind of miss the point of what they are documenting in those two pages ..."
I've commented up the post to try to clarify the point, and thought a bit more about what a technorati tag is & what it does. Technorati bill tags as "The real-time web, organized by you"
If you do a search for how-to, for example, Technorati acknowledge that "700 posts from 217 blogs match this tag" but only display the 20 posts most recently tagged with that term in their search results. In fact, the technorati tag homepage only promises to point to "current tags." Tag search results are mostly useful for seeing what's going on right now rather than as a searchable archive.
Update: Another blog tries it out. Tor's Rants now has categories using this method. The links are there, although they may be somewhat obscured by an e-bay ad.....
Update 6/15: And another. Daniel's Blog is categorising with del.icio.us too. I'm not sure how I feel about his duplication of my whole post, or about being confused with an historical figure, but at least there's a link back here...
Filed in: technorati, tags, delicious, categories
I've commented up the post to try to clarify the point, and thought a bit more about what a technorati tag is & what it does. Technorati bill tags as "The real-time web, organized by you"
If you do a search for how-to, for example, Technorati acknowledge that "700 posts from 217 blogs match this tag" but only display the 20 posts most recently tagged with that term in their search results. In fact, the technorati tag homepage only promises to point to "current tags." Tag search results are mostly useful for seeing what's going on right now rather than as a searchable archive.
Update: Another blog tries it out. Tor's Rants now has categories using this method. The links are there, although they may be somewhat obscured by an e-bay ad.....
Update 6/15: And another. Daniel's Blog is categorising with del.icio.us too. I'm not sure how I feel about his duplication of my whole post, or about being confused with an historical figure, but at least there's a link back here...
Filed in: technorati, tags, delicious, categories
Tour de France 2005: "Subaru is running a sweepstakes to send 2 lucky winners to France, equipped with bike, camera, laptop, and cellphone, to blog the 2nd and 3rd week of the 2005 Tour de France live."
Excellent!! What a chance for a bloggy vacation!! Summer in France as an internet sports-journalist...
Filed in: sports, cycling, blogging
Excellent!! What a chance for a bloggy vacation!! Summer in France as an internet sports-journalist...
Filed in: sports, cycling, blogging
Monday, June 13, 2005
A Welsh View reports that the music of Christina Aguilera was used as torture in Guantanamo Bay. Endless comic potential within what is obviously a v. serious subject.....
Filed in: music, entertainment, politics
Filed in: music, entertainment, politics
Boing Boing links to come classic radio broadcasts that have been reformatted for the information age. Check out radio memories to see what's available.
Filed in: podcasting, webtech, entertainment, media,
Filed in: podcasting, webtech, entertainment, media,
Sunday, June 12, 2005
Boing Boing: "'Flying Dog Ales (based out of Colorado) is making a tribute beer to Hunter S. Thompson. Ralph Steadman, who did the artwork for Hunter's books, is designing a unique four pack case for this limited edition brew."
Also see HST obituary.
Filed in: politics, culture, books
Also see HST obituary.
Filed in: politics, culture, books
Saturday, June 11, 2005
core77.com: "TurnOn is a unique circular living module designed to accommodate multiple functions associated with the house.'" Check out the pic. Instead of climbing the stairs to bed, you just walk up the wall. My question is about storage. Where do your sheets & pillow go when you walk it back around into a living room in the morning?
Filed in: public-spaces, architecture, design
Filed in: public-spaces, architecture, design
BBC SPORT: "The Lions slumped to their first-ever defeat to the New Zealand Maori in their third tour match in Hamilton. A late Brian O'Driscoll try was not enough to save the Lions after Leon MacDonald had crossed for the inspired Maori in the second half. The misfiring Lions spent much of the game defending and lost prop Andrew Sheridan to the sin-bin for a punch at the end of the first half..."
The BBC Lions Tour Blog is full of commiseration and comment. Next is Wellington on June 15th. Let's see how the Lions make out...
Filed in: sports, rugby, british-lions
The BBC Lions Tour Blog is full of commiseration and comment. Next is Wellington on June 15th. Let's see how the Lions make out...
Filed in: sports, rugby, british-lions
Oh no, I'm blogging about blogging again... Is that a #3, or a #10?
Anyway, since this blog is finding its way with new content and my new interests, I have been discouraged to see that my profile still reflects last fall's pre-election posts and such. Well, in the course of changing my name and updating my interests, I ran across this Blogger Help article that explains why my recent posts and post count haven't updated since November. "Stats collection has been temporarily turned off, so you will not see your post count or recent posts updating on your dashboard or profile. We plan to restore this functionality soon but have needed to turn this feature off for now in order to stabilize our database servers. Once we get this restored, these items will update automatically."
OK. Looking forward to it.
Filed in: blogger
Anyway, since this blog is finding its way with new content and my new interests, I have been discouraged to see that my profile still reflects last fall's pre-election posts and such. Well, in the course of changing my name and updating my interests, I ran across this Blogger Help article that explains why my recent posts and post count haven't updated since November. "Stats collection has been temporarily turned off, so you will not see your post count or recent posts updating on your dashboard or profile. We plan to restore this functionality soon but have needed to turn this feature off for now in order to stabilize our database servers. Once we get this restored, these items will update automatically."
OK. Looking forward to it.
Filed in: blogger
Birthday honors are coming, and there'll be enoblement happening to the left and the right. So what's with all the different titles? Just what's the difference, and who's more important? Welsh View has the scoop.
Filed in: history, britnews
Filed in: history, britnews
Seth Godin with the statistical scoop on the next big thing. "6000 shows listed on Feedburner, up from 500 in November"?? How many by the end of the year, I wonder?
Filed in: podcasting, webtech
Filed in: podcasting, webtech
I'm fascinated by the sale of things that don't really exist... or perhaps I mean the existence of things that you can't touch, move, or use outside of their specific context....but that you still pay for. In this vein, BoingBoing points out that "GamePal.com will rent you a pre-played character for the massively multiplayer game of your choice, already leveled-up to the point where the game starts to get really fun, without having to do all that tedious grinding."
Filed in: webtech, games, retail
Filed in: webtech, games, retail
Friday, June 10, 2005
You know... sharper wits, quicker reflexes, all that good stuff. Clive Thompson notes that other drivers are suggesting that Danica's only been successful coz she's smaller, and points out that we seem less willing to reward her for it...... collision detection: "Danica Patrick freaks many people out because the idea of someone excelling at a sport because they're smaller is so very, very freaky. It violates our idea of what a winner ought to look like. We don't merely want someone to excel -- we want winners to be a certain type: A grotesquely goliath victor prancing through the end-zone with the sort of mincing, self-glorying idiocy of today's top major-league figures."
Filed in: danica-patrick, sports, indy-500
Filed in: danica-patrick, sports, indy-500
MinJungKim.com: An article that goes into detail about the fourteen cyclical steps to bloggy madness and egomania. I'm a 3 and a 10 all at once, which can't be good.
"#3. You become a stats whore.
Daily stats/referrals and meme participation for webrings, quizlists, personality profiles, and the occasional sepia toned webcam photo to make you look all “emo” and “sultry” and “sensitive” or at least a little bit thinner."
"#10. You take a step back and metablog about blogging and what blogging has done about your blogging. You become pedantically navelgazingly annoying."
via Squarks.
Update: 6/11 - A graphic to illustrate the point with great brevity and impact, via Binary Bonsai. "Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = ...."
Filed in: blogging
"#3. You become a stats whore.
Daily stats/referrals and meme participation for webrings, quizlists, personality profiles, and the occasional sepia toned webcam photo to make you look all “emo” and “sultry” and “sensitive” or at least a little bit thinner."
"#10. You take a step back and metablog about blogging and what blogging has done about your blogging. You become pedantically navelgazingly annoying."
via Squarks.
Update: 6/11 - A graphic to illustrate the point with great brevity and impact, via Binary Bonsai. "Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = ...."
Filed in: blogging
Inhabitat, with the scoop on some very cool sci-fi "live in the ocean" submarine houses: "For those of you out there who have Jacques Cousteau fantasies, a semi-submerged floating house may be just the thing you need. Italian architect Giancarlo Zema specializes in marine aquatic architecture – and currently offers two different types of floating, semi-submerged houses that are designed to be docked in atolls and sheltered bays so that the inhabitants can spend their leisure time viewing underwater sea life."
Check out the pics!!
Filed in: madness, public-spaces, design
Check out the pics!!
Filed in: madness, public-spaces, design
Autons? Interactive municipal doo-dads, at any rate. Engadget: "A group of British artists were commissioned to create a line of interactive street furniture with unique personalities, including solar-powered robotic trash bins and benches that flock together."
Filed in: public-spaces, urban, madness
Filed in: public-spaces, urban, madness
or breakfast, or something... You’re It!: "Water is easier to explain than breakfast because water exists independently of any community — its existence can be derived by independent observers. Breakfast exists only because of and among people who say it does — it is an applied category, and therefore contingent on various ways of generating and enforcing shared understanding..."
Filed in: tags, tagging
Filed in: tags, tagging
Boing Boing: has "instructions for building your own "Ultimate Water Gun," which ingeniously combines a gold Evel Knievel helmet, a vintage fire extinguisher, and a whole lotta water to make a head-mounted water-weapon of doom. "
That'd go down a treat at the water park. Maybe we could recover the Dalek's severed limb and incorporate it, for maximum "death-ray" vibes....
Filed in: madness, summer, gadgets, toys
That'd go down a treat at the water park. Maybe we could recover the Dalek's severed limb and incorporate it, for maximum "death-ray" vibes....
Filed in: madness, summer, gadgets, toys
Technorati beta is up for the public, with a host of new features and much clearer widgets. Check out the search page, for example, where there's now seperate search interfaces for keyword, website URL and tags. Who knows what this does to my little sidebar search widget. Like buses, I'm sure there'll be another one along any second!!
So check it out. Test the beta. As they say on the Technorati Blog: "We've improved the user experience, making Technorati accessible to more people and, specifically, people who are new to blogging. We've tried to make it very simple to understand what Technorati is all about, and make it easy to understand how we're different from other search engines...."
Filed in: technorati, blogtech, search, tags, tagging, feeds, webtech
So check it out. Test the beta. As they say on the Technorati Blog: "We've improved the user experience, making Technorati accessible to more people and, specifically, people who are new to blogging. We've tried to make it very simple to understand what Technorati is all about, and make it easy to understand how we're different from other search engines...."
Filed in: technorati, blogtech, search, tags, tagging, feeds, webtech
Thursday, June 09, 2005
MetaFilter reports that "after the theft of a Dalek from a UK tourist attraction, its 'kidnappers' have delivered a ransom note - and its severed plunger...."
Man that Dalek'll be really riled when it wakes up....
Update 6/11: BoingBoing has a copy of the ransom note. Funny is not the word!!
Update 6/16: The Dalek has been located.
Filed in: doctor-who, sci-fi, television, madness
Man that Dalek'll be really riled when it wakes up....
Update 6/11: BoingBoing has a copy of the ransom note. Funny is not the word!!
Update 6/16: The Dalek has been located.
Filed in: doctor-who, sci-fi, television, madness
...we just got made, boys.
Sandhill Trek exposes my feeble efforts at anonymity & has me blogrolled by name... Ah well, in retrospect the decision to blog anonymously does seem sort of silly.... Maybe I'll change my name!!
Filed in: bio, jrfj44
Sandhill Trek exposes my feeble efforts at anonymity & has me blogrolled by name... Ah well, in retrospect the decision to blog anonymously does seem sort of silly.... Maybe I'll change my name!!
Filed in: bio, jrfj44
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
In inbound tracking mode, as I am, I've added a link to the lower right-hand sidebar to track my Bloglines Citations. This has shown 1 link that I didn't know about. Unfortunately the system also shows every instance of me linking to myself (in reference to an older post, for instance) but that's OK, I guess. Extra tools are cool. Next step is to add my blogroll to bloglines as a duplicate digest.
Update: 6/8 - Done. Here's a link to my bloglines feeds and my new, as yet unused, bloglines blog.
Filed in: bloglines, inbounds, cosmos
Update: 6/8 - Done. Here's a link to my bloglines feeds and my new, as yet unused, bloglines blog.
Filed in: bloglines, inbounds, cosmos
for possible podcasting purposes....
Filed in: podcasting, webtech
Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. Learn more about Audacity...
Filed in: podcasting, webtech
The Google themed art today is in celebration of Frank Lloyd Wright's birthday. They have a ton of links to Wright sites, and so do I, in a post from last summer. Happy Birthday Frank. Thanks for all the landmarks!!
Filed in: architecture, culture, history
Filed in: architecture, culture, history
Mid week & grass-track, but still.... Bring on the tests!! BBC SPORT: "The Lions subdued a dogged Taranaki to ease away to an ultimately comfortable victory in the second match of their New Zealand tour.
After trailing 7-6 at the interval to Chris Masoe's try, the visitors scored four of their own in the second half.
Captain Martin Corry, wing Shane Horgan and full-back Geordan Murphy, with two, all crossed the Taranaki line.
Fly-half Charlie Hodgson, who enjoyed a superb match, kicked 16 points to rub in the tourists' second-half dominance. "
Filed in: rugby, sports, british-lions
After trailing 7-6 at the interval to Chris Masoe's try, the visitors scored four of their own in the second half.
Captain Martin Corry, wing Shane Horgan and full-back Geordan Murphy, with two, all crossed the Taranaki line.
Fly-half Charlie Hodgson, who enjoyed a superb match, kicked 16 points to rub in the tourists' second-half dominance. "
Filed in: rugby, sports, british-lions
core77 has this for programmers: "The Das Keyboard is a dark grey keyboard with no markings on it....Shouldn't your keyboard reflect your status as one of the [programming] elite?'" Is there also a clerical application if you're the king o' the memo?
Filed in: design, technology
Filed in: design, technology
Squarks waxes lyrical as the new visitors come: "Just a quick note about something that's been missed and remissed. While kicking around some rustingly odd blogging machinery, one of the little whirrrrrs began; followed by quirkly-strange gauge movements --- apparently some others had been scampering around this place and dropped a priorly unnoticed story or 2. Dropped tales, stories and clues left by whispers of markings in the dust on this personal computing floor...."
I'm equally grateful for the traffic and the kind words!!
Filed in: inbounds, cosmos, freshblog
I'm equally grateful for the traffic and the kind words!!
Filed in: inbounds, cosmos, freshblog
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Beth Kanter has set up a whole blogspot blog just to test the categories method. Check out TestingCategories to see how the process is going: "This blog is just for testing the instructions that I found on FRESHBLOG on how to add categories to blogger. This procedure is a lot of steps, but it is free...."
Also: The original how-to has been bookmarked to del.icio.us by 12 different people.
Update 6/8: Melly, whose comments pushed me to clarify the how-to, is categorising with del.icio.us at at All Kinds of Writing. Spread the word!!
Filed in: categories, blogger, blogspot,
Also: The original how-to has been bookmarked to del.icio.us by 12 different people.
Update 6/8: Melly, whose comments pushed me to clarify the how-to, is categorising with del.icio.us at at All Kinds of Writing. Spread the word!!
Filed in: categories, blogger, blogspot,
According to Squarks, which I found through the cosmos link on my categories how-to, tag clouds are the new mullets. Formerly cool but now ubiquitous and shameful. Maybe I'm not ahead of the curve after all? Where's the clippers?
Looks like the June posts at Squarks, & the one that links here, are down for a while, but if Technorati can see it I guess it must exist & will be back in good time....
Update 6/8: Squarks is back. Here's the post that discusses categories on blogger.
Filed in: tags, tagging, categories
Looks like the June posts at Squarks, & the one that links here, are down for a while, but if Technorati can see it I guess it must exist & will be back in good time....
Update 6/8: Squarks is back. Here's the post that discusses categories on blogger.
Filed in: tags, tagging, categories
Binary Bonsai: "My words for Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith are not quite as pleasant as I would have liked, but nor are they as searing as I had expected. All in all Episode III is not entirely a waste of time." A huge review. Check it out.
Filed in: reviews, sci-fi, star-wars
Filed in: reviews, sci-fi, star-wars
referred to in the early days of Freshblog, is back again. Connect to the fun via A Welsh View.
Filed in: madness, flugtag, transport
Filed in: madness, flugtag, transport
Sunday, June 05, 2005
Freshblog benefits from another Ted Ernst suggestion. Ted points out that I can bookmark my older posts on del.icio.us without opening them in blogger to add the tags. This had never occurred to me (duh!) and is helpful because someone getting into my del.icio.us page & categories can find my older posts from there. I went back as far as the end of March so far, helped no end by some apparent upgrades.
First, there's the "click to choose your tags" interface that seems to have replaced the usual reverse chronological list of my posts. Instead I get a list of my tags, with the frequently used ones in bold, and suggested tags highlighted at the top of the page. Is del.icio.us parsing my posts?
Also in upgrade-ville, it seems there are now options for displaying the tag list in the sidebar, (were they always there?) including alphabetical, popular and cloud. I have selected cloud, which is as close as we'll get right now to an extisp.icio.us map since the del.icio.us makeover seems to have disrupted the map-making tool's ability to read their site. Hopefully it will be up and rockin' again soon.
Watch for more old posts appearing on my del.icio.us!! Thanks for the suggestion, Ted!!
Filed in: delicious, tagging, freshblog, tags, categories
First, there's the "click to choose your tags" interface that seems to have replaced the usual reverse chronological list of my posts. Instead I get a list of my tags, with the frequently used ones in bold, and suggested tags highlighted at the top of the page. Is del.icio.us parsing my posts?
Also in upgrade-ville, it seems there are now options for displaying the tag list in the sidebar, (were they always there?) including alphabetical, popular and cloud. I have selected cloud, which is as close as we'll get right now to an extisp.icio.us map since the del.icio.us makeover seems to have disrupted the map-making tool's ability to read their site. Hopefully it will be up and rockin' again soon.
Watch for more old posts appearing on my del.icio.us!! Thanks for the suggestion, Ted!!
Filed in: delicious, tagging, freshblog, tags, categories
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