Steve Pilgrim: Weblogs

RELOCATION NOTICE - WE'RE MOVING!

This may not work, but assuming it does, you need to change your bookmarks, favorites and blogrolls. It is 11:50pm CDT on Saturday, July 20, 2002. If all goes well, this site will be relocated within the next few hours.

This weblog is leaving http://radio.weblogs.com/0100740/.

Look for it at: http://www.rodentregatta.com/

Thanks, Steve Pilgrim

WHEN THINGS OF INTEREST COME TO ME VIA DAYPOP

I always wonder where they originated. As I understand it, Daypop ranks the top 40 posts to weblogs based upon how often the posts are read or linked to or something. This implied that if something begins to run up the charts at Daypop, a bunch of weblogs are covering or repeating the item. Yet, I can't find where I missed this one in the weblogs I read today. It's no big deal. I continue to try to figure out how all these weblogs align with (and against) each other.

This was worth reading, though, and none of the weblogs I read today picked it up.

Poynter.org - The ABCs and XYZs of Weblogs [Daypop Top 40]

LINKING TO THOSE WHO LINK

Is this similar to Mark Pilgrim's "Further Reading on Today's Posts" where he indicates who has linked to his site? How is that accomplished?

Referrer List Locally -- More Ways to Weave the Blog. Linkback Referrers. [Blunt Force Trauma]

KEEP THEM COMING
It's great that the web lets you learn from the pro's in so many fields

Is it sharp or not? I've started posting images from my Nikon Coolpix 5700. I've now shot about 500 images. When everything goes well, the camera is awesome. It does take some getting used to the focus and manual settings, though. I'm still learning about the camera and probably will be for years. But, right out of the box you can see that it makes pretty darn nice and clear images. All of the images posted so far are unretouched images straight off of the camera. I think in the few hundred images I've posted so far you'll see a good range of different types of subjects. You'll also see that I used flash a lot (I bought a new Nikon SB-50DX flash that is pretty nice). [Scobleizer Radio Weblog]

THERE'S BUSINESS BLOGGING TO BE DONE

Building Business Relationships via the Blog. If you read only one post today, make it this one. [Blunt Force Trauma]

SMALL BUSINESS KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
Note the this post and the next

Traction and Radio. Roland Tanglao liked my review of Traction, but reconsidered when Jim McGee pointed out that Traction is a whole lot more expensive: ... [Jon's Radio]

THIS SEEMS LIKE A VERY SENSIBLE APPROACH

for evaluating knowledge management tools as they might be applied in small organizations. We also do some small business consulting and advisory work and our clients want a tool, but often lack the disciplines to use them well. Terry says this, "But Radio is still a lot closer to reaching the mythical Zero Contribution Barrier that I believe is critical to any long-term KM success."

Radio vs. Traction -- A Personal View. Jim McGee asked, so I thought I'd try to find an answer. [Blunt Force Trauma]

A GOOD BIBLIOGRAPHY

Conclusion. Due to a long-standing bug in Radio, I am unable to include the full text of this post here, for fear of damaging your News page. Please click the item title to read this post safely. [dive into mark]

I SUPPOSE THIS IS ALL VERY IMPORTANT

I just don't recall covering this in any of our 29 lessons.

No tables for Lycos. Lycos Europe will be moving to a new design that validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional and uses CSS for layout.... [Buzz]

IF DESIGN DID NOT MATTER...

airlines wouldn't spend so much painting airplanes. Politicians wouldn't spend so much on banners, handbills and signs. Companies wouldn't spend so much on corporate identity packages. Imagine the cost of changing a logo or color at a place like Federal Express.

I'm confident that part of what draws me into a weblog or web site is the design. I know good design when I see it, but I surely do wish I could create it!

Why to build your own template. During a spell of blogsurfing yesterday, I repeatedly ran across links to Paul Andrews’s blog. The other end of one such link spurred me to do what Jonathon Delacour calls “fossicking around” in the blog archives. Only then did I... [Caveat Lector]

MORE RESOURCES FROM MERYL

Free XHTML and CSS Courses. Yes, Virginia, there are still good stuf available for *free* on the 'net. Latest is the Westciv Self-paced Course on HTML 4.0 and XHTML for CSS. Sounds like they'll be [meryl's notes]

MARK SUGGESTS; JONATHON OBLIGES & COMMENTS

Day 29: Making everything searchable. Due to a long-standing bug in Radio, I am unable to include the full text of this post here, for fear of damaging your News page. Please click the item title to read this post safely. [dive into mark]

A DIFFERENT APPROACH TO BLOGROLLING

Linkless. I just dropped the [Links] section on the navigation bar for this site. I went in to drop BurningBird and looked over the list and realized how out of date it was. Too much work to keep it up to date so now I am just gonna let Google do the work, with the addition of the "related sites" link under [misc]. [BitWorking]

WHILE THERE IS EXCELLENT POLITICAL PUNDITRY
Keep an eye on the comments to this post; things might get interesting
as someone attempts to gain notoriety!

in these links, I have to admit that part of my fascination with some of the high-traffic bloggers has to do with their site designs. You see, I'm trying to inch closer to the renaming of this weblog and its move to a new domain. Ideas seem to flood in when reading all of these non-techie weblogs.

IS IT POSSIBLE FOR LIBERALISM TO BE RIGHT EVEN IF KATIE COURIC ISN'T? Mickey Kaus dares to ask the question, as he notes that Ann Coulter was right about the "airhead" issue. Plus, Jack Shafer zeroes in on hypocritical crony capitalism by The New York Times.

I have to say, I find the "airhead" controversy even less enlightening than the "trifecta" controversy. But hey, I'm on vacation, so this stuff seems less important to me than usual.

The Times story is likely to have legs, though, and illustrates why it's going to be harder than many pundits think for the left to pillory Bush and the Republicans for financial chicanery -- the left sold its financial soul long ago. They're down to trading puts and calls on it now.

UPDATE: If you're less bored with the "trifecta" story than I am (like, you know, if you're not on vacation) Brendan Nyhan has an update over at SpinSanity.Com. I have to say, I find the Al Gore trifecta story the funniest part of this whole long-running affair. [InstaPundit]

MORE ON HTML

Fixing Your(tm) Web Site with Dr. HTML. Fixing Your^tm Web Site with Dr. HTML

One of the goals of this site is to provide you with tools to help you fix your Web site.

It's not easy to take a Web site that's underperforming and make it better. There are aesthetic issues, marketing issues and, most importantly, technical issues. That's where Doctor HTML can come in to help. You can't fix the technical issues if you don't know what they are.

[Web Pages That Suck -- Examples of Bad Web Design]

START DECORATING THE CAKE

at Fireland. You can get world reaction here. I don't know either of these people, but I've often wondered if Joshua Allen is related in any way to Dean Allen. (This is probably another of those all over the board posts, but both Joshua and Dean are terrific designers.) Anyhow, I wish Joshua and Alexis all the best.

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS

gets added to the shopping list. Terry Frazier weighed in with a comment and an educational post about my question earlier today. I also got a comment from Dave Rogers. Thanks to both of you! Oh, and Rob made a couple of great suggestions without coming right out and calling me a dummy. If you haven't already, check out the apple cores for permalinks.

ONLY THREE DAYS ARE LEFT
I hope there's a sequel

Day 27: Using real headers. Due to a long-standing bug in Radio, I am unable to include the full text of this post here, for fear of damaging your News page. Please click the item title to read this post safely. [dive into mark]

ANOTHER LOSS

So Long, and thanks for all the posts. What a marvelous party this has been, and what wonderful people I've met, but it's time, and past, for me to move on. This posting will be Burningbird's last. I wasn't sure how to close the weblog down. [Burningbird]

THERE'S AN ENTIRE SCIENCE DEVOTED TO WHAT LINKS LOOK LIKE?
Design details are numerous

Hyperlinks should be seen but not heard. With all the underlines disrupting the flow of the prose, reading link-rich hypertext can be difficult, akin to reading some [kottke.org]

SUMMER IS CLEAN UP, PAINT UP, FIX UP SEASON
Another great-looking design by Stacy Tabb

SAMIZDATA HAS MOVED and has a new site designed by the lovely and talented Stacy Tabb of Sekimori. Visit it, admire it, and set your bookmark accordingly. [InstaPundit]

HER FRIENDS AREN'T THAT INTERESTING?

I've got some friends who aren't that interesting as well! (After editing, the sentence became: When she looks at blogs she sees the weblogs she knows; and misses the enormity of the medium.)

I'm beginning to get the impression that there is some kind of history that colors Dave's view of the book or Rebecca or something said in the past. What I can tell you is that this comment about "her friends" doesn't flow naturally from a reading of Rebecca's book.

Morning coffee notes. [Scripting News]

AN INTERESTING PERSPECTIVE
"Dave" is back - I mean really back; it's great!

As with any product or service, the novice simply has to dig around, experiment, ask questions and watch others to learn why one product or service is good or bad or better or worse for the need or want. Take digital cameras as an example. A novice user of a digital camera would probably be overwhelmed (or would seriously undervalue) the features of a truly high end digital camera.

The same is true with weblogging. Radio Userland may be the right software for hackers or programmers or whatever they want to be called. Movable Type may be the right choice for some other skill level or interest level or whatever. How can the novice determine that? Just this morning I heard of another tool for weblogging that I've not even seen mentioned in six months of fairly intensive weblogging. Somebody ought to take a minute or two and elaborate on the lines of dileniation between all these products. We novices could then stay out of the hair of those who have contempt for us!!!

I found Rebecca Blood's book worthwhile. I am a novice. I admit that. However, novices need resources such as Rebecca's particularly if they are coming from some field other than software development, website development and whatever other spins people want to put on the names for those people and industries involved in computer work.

I owe every bit of my weblog to "Dave Winer" and the people who are users of the Radio Userland product. There are things about the tool and the "community(?)" I don't like. Those things don't prevent me from learning more, using the tool more and wishing for the stuff that I don't like to change. It is easy for me to see how a pioneer in the weblogging area we're talking about might not need the same resource that I need. Does that then make that resource bad? I don't think so. You really need to read all of what Dave had to say this morning. Some of it has been edited since I first saw the beginnings of the post in the news aggregator. Here's an excerpt:

It's the software. In 2002, we're beginning to get to a category of software, with lines of delineation -- Movable Type is different from Manila, and Radio is different from Blogger, if one wanted to study a category, the products are lining up to accomodate. Other than that there's little that each blog has in common with other blogs. It's like trying to figure out what word processing documents have in common. People did try to do that in the late 70s and early 80s, but then the market exploded, and that ended all speculation.

Of all the books in process, I hold the most hope for the BlogRoots folks: Meg, Matt, and PB. They put enough time into it (the O'Reilly book was a rush job) and they (appear to) have the right premise. It would have been possible for a philosophical book to have lasting value, but to do so, they should have gotten a social butterfly to edit it, one who crosses all the lines with ease, someone who likes everyone and who everyone likes, but somehow doesn't have to kiss ass to do it. (Note: I am not that person, as you can see I don't suffer fools without complaining, I don't write to make friends, and I know it.) [Scripting News]

HOW MANY BLOGGING TOOLS ARE THERE?
And to think, some people still handcode their entire weblog

Sunlog and uni.tb. The new Sunlog 2.2 is now ready for download. It's blogging software based on PHP and MySQL, and (as far as I know) is the first blogging package to support... [PapaScott]

WOULDN'T IT BE GREAT

if all the Blogger users had RSS feeds? Why would you "turn off" your RSS feed if you are a Movable Type user? I'm told the default installation of Movable Type includes the RSS feed. What advantage do they gain when they remove it?