Friday, February 14, 2003

I personally know so few bloggers Why is that? Part of the reason for this is because I haven't had the time to attend various events where bloggers are congregating. I hope that as the year progresses, I can find/make time to get more involved. But there's a deeper truth here. Blogging is still very underground! I'm talking it up with friends and family, but people look at me like I'm from another planet. "Who wants to read a weblog about someone's cat?" they say, which is exactly what people said about websites in the early 1990s. All I can say it, look what the web has become since then, and then you can appreciate the potential for weblogs. Just yesterday, I went to lunch with a bunch o' good Macr folk, and when someone mentioned a weblog they read, I asked them more about it. Turns out, no one around the table uses a news aggreagator, and no one has a weblog. They snickered for a sec when I used the term "blogosphere", until they realized I used it seriously, and that there is a whole new world for them to explore. (Hey, if any of you are reading this, give me a ping!) 10:40:10 AM

Harvard: We are waking up and linking to each other. Dave Winer, a pioneer in weblogs, has accepted a post at Harvard, to spread the gospel of blogging for personal, business, and legal uses. Tlowhe poster be is right, weblogs in knowledge management isn't unique to Harvard, but it is really nice to see such a high-profile knowledge brand pushing the blogosphere forward. Berkman Center Executive Director John Palfrey mentioned the new Harvard blogs initiative at his blog today. It got a nice mention at the Washington Post, too. John says: "We're convinced that blogging, evangelized by Dave [Winer] and others here, can help spread the wealth of knowledge from school to school; from student to student; and from elsewhere into Harvard and vice-versa. The Web, e-mail and other basic Net-based apps generally have had this effect to some extent. But not in a wholly satisfying manner. I wouldn't bet again blogs making the next big step forward." I would love to see Harvard "wake up" in this way. As a student, I would love to use blogs to engage other students and professors from all around the university. And, after yesterday's experience with the blogosphere, I am even more excited about what a fully blogging Harvard would be like. This would be particularly important for Harvard's current curricular review and recent curricular reforms. Basically, students like myself find out about changes after they've been made, and we generally find out about them from The Harvard Crimson, not the university itself. Our student government has hardly any communication with the student body; they're essentially like high school student government, in that they yell at you to vote for about a week and then stay the hell away from you. The format of the UC's webpage has finally been updated, but it still has no useful information (and still doesn't reflect changes in UC offices). It's a joke. I would love it if, when curricular changes are debated, the UC wrote something on a blog, advocating their position(s). And I'd like it if I could read administrators and professors opinions. I wish the debates would take place in the open in an easily accessible way. Perhaps blogging could help make that happen. [A Copyfighter's Musings] 10:26:02 AM

Blosxom goes 1.0 It is difficult to argue with the simplicity of blosxom. A tiny CGI script that adds blogging server capabilities to your apache-style web server. Put text and image files in a folder, and blosxom serves them up as a blog, automatically sorting items by date, adding permalinks, serving up an RSS version as well. The OS X installer is a really nice touch, and is the clear separation between hobby and commercial software. Rael Dornfest's Free Software blogging engine, Blosxom, now has a really nifty OS X installer. Blosxom, implemented in a startlingly tiny amount of perl, does just about everything you could ask for, and uses your favorite text-editor and filesystem to edit and store your entries. LinkDiscuss (via Raelity Bytes) [Boing Boing] The one-two punch on Mac OS is Blosxom and NetNewsWire, and they should really collaborate to produce a single installer for both. Then, my dad could install it and be blogging in minutes! 9:48:42 AM

Technorati Anywhere! The name kinda sucks, but the concept is pretty cool. Once you have this bookmarklet installed, go to any URL, then click the bookmarklet to see who's linking to that URL (as tracked via Technorati). I whipped up a little tool this evening that I thought y'all might like. It's called the Technorati Anywhere! bookmarklet. What it does is simple - the bookmarklet opens a new window or tab in your browser with the list of links (and short excerpts) of people who link to the page you're viewing. It is a new way of instantly checking sources and finding out the credibility of the page you're currently viewing. If you don't like your browser opening new windows or tabs, here's a version of Technorati Anywhere! that shows the results in the current window. It works with recent versions of IE, Netscape, Mozilla, and Safari. The only requirement is that you have Javascript enabled. To install it, do the following, depending on the browser you have: For IE 5.5 and above users: Right click on one of the links above, and then click on "Add to Favorites..." Since there's some Javascript in the bookmark, IE will tell you that "You're adding a favorite that may not be safe." Click OK, and you're done, it is in your favorites. For Netscape 6 and above and Mozilla 1.0 and above users: Drag the link into your bookmark bar. Alternatively, you can right click on the link and then click on "Add bookmark". For Safari users: Drag the link into your bookmark bar. That's it! I hope you enjoy it. I like it better than the Technorati Sidebar I created a while back, and the instant gratification... [Sifry's Alerts] 9:43:36 AM