Saturday, January 19, 2002

New feature: Spam-free MailTo for Radio weblogs.  [Scripting News] Hey, Dave, could we have this in Manila too? 9:27:59 PM    [Macro error: Can't call the script because the name "liveTopicsSeeAlso" hasn't been defined.]

Financial analysis of Boingo and wireless ISPs: TheDeal.com reports on Boingo in depth and talks about the market conditions for makers of equipments, wireless ISPs, and the near-term prospects for Bluetooth. [80211b News] The analyst seems fixated on comparing WiFI to Bluetooth, even though they are different wireless technologies. It makes me wonder how good this analysis really is. 9:26:24 PM    [Macro error: Can't call the script because the name "liveTopicsSeeAlso" hasn't been defined.]

Am I the only one surprised that the Radio desktop does not have a link for Editing with Radio Userland, like I can have on my Manila site? One place where I think this is really needed is in creating & writing stories. When I write a story I find that I prefer writing in the full program window that the Radio Userland application provides. Now I have the application on my PC, I should be able to use it. Update: I have figured out how I can edit stories using the Radio application. It is pretty simple, actually. All I did is switch to the Radio application, select File, Open, browse to the stories folder and dig down to the current date, and open the story's text file. Then I entered text in to the story. For now it looks like the easiest thing to do is create story from the desktop web site, and then switch to RA to actually do the editing/writing. 2:18:18 PM    [Macro error: Can't call the script because the name "liveTopicsSeeAlso" hasn't been defined.]

Capriati, Sampras dodge upsets. Defending Aussie Open women's champ needs 3 sets to advance; men's 8th seed needs 5. [USA Today : Front Page] It seems as though all of the Australian Open press for the woman's draw has been about Martina and Venus, with little mentioned about the defending champion, Jennifer Capriati. I think Jennifer is on track to repeat. 12:46:24 PM    [Macro error: Can't call the script because the name "liveTopicsSeeAlso" hasn't been defined.]

Tomorrow afternoon the Farmington Community Band will be performing at Groves High School Auditorium, along with the Birmingham Community Band. 12:26:53 PM    [Macro error: Can't call the script because the name "liveTopicsSeeAlso" hasn't been defined.]

Another idea: enhance the mail-to-weblog feature so that you can specify the category for a weblog post. 12:20:28 PM    [Macro error: Can't call the script because the name "liveTopicsSeeAlso" hasn't been defined.]

The Black Cat Orchestra: I saw these guys on TechTV a couple of weeks ago, and I have been trying to track them down ever since. What got my attention is that they have a french horn in the band. 12:19:14 PM    [Macro error: Can't call the script because the name "liveTopicsSeeAlso" hasn't been defined.]

This is a test of routing the sports commentary category to my web site. It didn't work the first time. Let's try again. 11:50:42 AM    [Macro error: Can't call the script because the name "liveTopicsSeeAlso" hasn't been defined.]

Another idea: separate themes for each category. Enhance the themes page so that it lists themes and categories, and allows me to link the two together. Combine that with a category routing feature and you can use Radio Userland to build & manage multiple web sites at multiple locations, all with Radio magic. While Userland is at it, they might as well create separate templates for each category as well. 11:42:03 AM    [Macro error: Can't call the script because the name "liveTopicsSeeAlso" hasn't been defined.]

Last night I played a little bit with Radio's imaging capabilities. Again, while I think how Radio handles images is fairly easy, it is not as easy as Manila. I think it would be cool if there were a Pictures link at the top of my desktop webite for copying images to the images folder, and creating a shortcut to the image. Radio should automatically convert the shortcut to a link for me. There is no reason why I should have to either memorize the path to the images folder, or hunt through the images hierarchy to capture the URL. 11:05:46 AM    [Macro error: Can't call the script because the name "liveTopicsSeeAlso" hasn't been defined.]

As I play more with Radio Userland, I find that I am wanting more and more features of Manila. One of Manila's features that I think is really cool is shortcuts. Basically, Manila enables me to build a database of links associated to key words. Put the key words in quotes, and Manila automatically puts in a link. For example, I have a shortcut to the 2nd Edition of my book that points to Amazon. To put that link in my text, I just write "2nd Edition" and Manila makes it 2nd Edition. Obviously, when Dave gets the Radio to Manila & Blogger link completed, I could use the Radio desktop to add entries to my Manila site, and get shortcuts with that. But I think it would be even cooler to have the shortcut feature right here on my desktop. Even more cooler would be if I could import the shortcuts that I already have from my current Manila site so that I don't have to build a new database. Or perhaps what I really want is a desktop version of Manila (or is it Frontier) that works with Radio. If Userland provided a bundled desktop version of Radio + Manila for $100, I would think it would be worth it. 10:57:39 AM    [Macro error: Can't call the script because the name "liveTopicsSeeAlso" hasn't been defined.]