[Back-dated from 2/2/04 to 8/26/03]
Yahoo News is now available via RSS feed. Praise the code. Link, Discuss [Boing Boing Blog] 

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[Back-dated from 2/2/04 to 8/24/03]
I know a few people who are in the magazine business read my weblog, so this is for them: here's David Card, another Jupiter Media analyst (those guys have good stuff on their blogs -- I wish all analysts wrote blogs) talking about how to get more subscribers.[The Scobleizer Weblog] 

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[Back-dated from 2/2/04 to 8/20/03]
New Radio macro: Monthly Archive links. David Phillips has written a new Radio macro that creates links to Radio's monthly archive pages. You can see how the macro works on David's weblog. By lawrence@userland.com (Lawrence Lee). [UserLand Product News] 

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[Back-dated from 2/2/04 to 8/19/03]
Enkoder for hiding your mailto links. Hiveware provides an interesting web form that will generate javascript you can use on your website to hide a mailto: link but have it function just the same. Web page scraping is probably the most common source of my spam.  I waited too long to remove my email address from my personal site.
[Alan Kleymeyer's Radio Weblog] 

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[Back-dated from 10/7/03 to 8/18]
Radio post index script updated. The publisher of the All That Jazz weblog called my attention to a problem with my Radio post index script: It only worked if weblog entry permalinks ended with html. I've updated the script to look for the #renderedFileExtension directive, using it to define the file extension when present, so PHP pages and other formats can be supported. [Workbench] 

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[Back-dated from 2/2/04 to 8/18/03]
RSS Hitting Critical Mass. Dan Gillmore has an article taking a 30,000 feet view of RSS and the critical mass it is gathering. Worth a read I think. [FS Consulting Inc's Weblog] 

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[Back-dated from 10/7/03 to 8/14]
Add navigator links to a Radio category. Radio UserLand tip: When using a category to publish a separate weblog, create a #navigatorLinks.xml file in that category's subfolder in wwwcategories (or copy the one in the www folder).

By editing that file directly with a text editor, you can give the category its own navigator links.

Jenny Levine has written a tutorial on editing navigator links that shows what this file should contain. [Workbench]

 

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[Back-dated from 10/7/03 to 8/14]
Why yah wanna learn CSS.

Zeldman's WDW2003 Keynote (see post) includes a slide that points to one of the awesome CSS Zen Garden designs. I haven't checked back in a while, but there are some real doozies. Favorites so far:

• Stormweather - my favorite of Shea's designs
• Dead or Alive - quite nice, subtle, well balanced
• Not So Minimal - not as flashy or stylish as some of the others, but clean and well crafted
• Zunflower - the overlapping columns is quite nice
• What Lies Beneath - soft spot for funky horizontals, very creative
• White Lily - beautifully designed

I haven't really done much visual design work in the past year or two, and probably won't be having much time in the near future, with work, classes, and projects piled (and piling), but still quite inspirational (and humbling). I'm tempted to try my hand at this when I need to procrastinate blow off some steam... but it'd probably be rather embarrassing.

[random($foo)]

THis is a GREAT project to help educate people about CSS.  On-going and kick-ass.  Thanks Leonard!

[Marc's Voice] 

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[Back-dated from 10/7/03 to 8/13]
Future-proofing your URLs.

Brainstorms and Raves gathers a number of resources to help you generate Friendly, Lasting URLs.

[Radio Free Blogistan] 

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[Back-dated from 10/7/03 to 8/12]
Radio has blog-to-email.

John Robb reminds me that Radio and Manila both have blog-to-email bridges (and both have post-by-email as well), in response to my Weblog-to-email plug-in? query.

Radio users can go to http://127.0.0.1:5335/system/pages/prefs?page=5.12 to turn on a service that sends weblog headlines by email to an address you specify. When I tried using this feature I ran into a problem: it stopped mailiing me after the first few. Then I forgot about it. I should try it again sometime when I'm tinkering with Radio some more.

John also reminded me of Mark Pasc's phenomenal set of plug-ins for Radio.

Now that John is independent of UserLand, it's good to see his enthusiasm for Radio undiminished. When he returned at his Mindplex site, Burningbird alluded to some disagreements with him in the past and John said something like, "she's confusing me with my old job."

But here's the thing, isn't that the tricky part of a job like that as an official blogger for a company (whether it's a weblog-software company or not)? We are either to assume that the person is the job, or that the job-centric persona is in some ways less authentic than the real off-duty "me" inside.

To put it more simply, an employee blogging for one's company on one's company's own server is ignoring Robb's Law.

[Radio Free Blogistan] 

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[Back-dated from 10/7/03 to 8/12]
TrackBack for Radio is released. The TrackBack feature for Radio UserLand has been released. Radio supports both inbound and outbound TrackBack pings. For outbound TrackBack, all you have to do is enable the feature, and Radio will do the rest. Inbound TrackBack works similarly to comments -- a TrackBack link next to each post opens a pop-up window which displays inbound pings. Here's a post in my Radio weblog which has a pop-up window that displays incoming TrackBack pings. To enable TrackBack for Radio, follow the instructions on this page. [Jake's Radio 'Blog] 

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[Back-dated from 10/7/03 to 8/11]
daily show rdf. Lisa has 3 Daily Show rss feeds. They don't validate in my Manila based aggregator :( [Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog] 

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[Back-dated from 10/7/03 to 8/9]
Lockergnome Takes on RSS.

Lockergnome's RSS Resource

"For a while now, you've probably been hearing all sorts of things about RSS; we are just beginning to see its power and potential. Information on this 'new' syndication format has (to this point) been scattered and somewhat tricky to understand. We're aiming to change that trend with this particular Lockergnome resource.

This was designed to be driven by several contributors, but only fellow evangelists and technologists need apply. Experts and novices should be able to turn here for the latest updates, and we'll keep expanding and fine-tuning the 'About' page until our fingers bleed." [via C:PIRILLO.EXE]

This is a great new resource about RSS! If you're still on the fence or don't quite "get it" yet, try tracking this site and see if it helps. You can always count on Chris Pirillo's work, so this will most likely become one of the foremost sites for following syndication.

For those of us who are already addicted to RSS, there are several feeds from which to choose, one covering all of the content and one for each section:

• All Content
• Help
• News
• Software

You know what to do!

[The Shifted Librarian] 

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[Back-dated from 10/7/03 to 8/9]
What is RSS?. I'm ready to roll out my latest effort, which was designed to help you understand just how RSS (and other syndication efforts) are continuing to change the way we access information online. The designer and I have been nipping and tucking code for the past few hours, so if you run into a bug / quirk, let us know and we'll get it squished ASAP. We're looking to fill Lockergnome's RSS Resource with as much help, tools, links, and news as possible. You're welcome to join us as a regular contributor or a content passerby.... [C:PIRILLO.EXE] 

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[back-dated from 10/5/03]
Karlin notes the downside of moving domains in the weblog world.  Sorry, should have noted this in my weblog.  You do lose the contextual rankings you get from places like Technorati (I went from the #30 weblog in the top #100 to off the list), blogroll links, and RSS subscriptions (the latter two problems can be partially fixed via a redirect).  This type of contextual loss will only increase as time goes on, so it is better to bite the bullet and get your own domain now rather than later. [John Robb's Weblog] 

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[back-dated from 10/5/03]
Writing UserTalk scripts without a handler. UserTalk programming tip (via Brent Simmons): If a script has no parameters, it doesn't need a handler method (a method defined with the on keyword that is executed when the script is called).

When a script lacks a handler, the top-level lines of the script will be executed when the script is called with no parameters. The following two versions of a workspace.displayTime script are functionally identical:

[Workbench] 

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[back-dated from 10/5/03]
TrackBack for Radio. TrackBack is a set of specifications published by SixApart, the company that develops Movable Type. It's used notify another site that a post in your site points to a post on the other site.

The notification is called a ping. Often TrackBack pings are displayed in a pop-up window linked next to the post that received the ping.

Radio UserLand's supports both outgoing and incoming TrackBack pings. Outgoing pings are made automatically based on links in your weblog posts. Incoming pings are displayed similarly to comments, in a pop-up window via a link next to the post which received the ping.

Here's a post in a Radio site which has a pop-up window that displays incoming TrackBack pings.

How to turn on TrackBack in your Radio site 

Here's how to turn on TrackBack in your Radio weblog:

1. Update Radio.root.

2. Go to your Item Template prefs page, and add the following macro to your Item Template where you want the TrackBack link and counter to appear:

<%trackbackLink%>

This macro will render as a link to the pop-up window that displays TrackBack pings for each post.

3. Click the Submit button at the bottom of the page.

4. Go to the TrackBack prefs page, check the box to enable TrackBack, check the box to add TrackBack links to each post in your weblog, and then click the Submit button at the bottom of the page.

TrackBack is now enabled -- your weblog posts will appear with a TrackBack link, which opens a pop-up window displaying incoming pings.

How to ping 

Radio sends outgoing pings automatically when posts are published by looking for links in the post, and send pings to sites you've linked to if they support TrackBack.

You can send TrackBack pings to sites which aren't linked to directly, by pasting the permalink URL for the post you want to ping into the URLs to Ping field on the Desktop Website Home Page.

See also 

Radio UserLand: How to Enable the Comments feature

Benjamin and Mena Trott: TrackBack Specification

By Jake Savin. [Radio UserLand Messages] 

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[back-dated from 10/5/03]
TrackBack for Radio is released. Radio supports both inbound and outbound TrackBack pings. For outbound TrackBack, all you have to do is enable the feature, and Radio will do the rest. Inbound TrackBack works similarly to comments -- a TrackBack link next to each post opens a pop-up window which displays inbound pings. To enable TrackBack for Radio, follow the instructions on this page. By lawrence@userland.com (Lawrence Lee). [UserLand Product News] 

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[back-dated from 10/5/03]
Nathan Ashby-Kuhlman has rules for URLs. I wish everyone followed these rules, but sadly they don't. [The Scobleizer Weblog] 

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[back-dated from 10/5/03]
Dave Pollard: "Secrets of Breakout Blogs.[The Scobleizer Weblog] 

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