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Blogging Alone
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Tuesday, December 31, 2002 |
An interesting article about weblogs at O'Reilly. Thanks for the balanced view of the history of RSS, and thanks for demo'ing weblogs through Radio UserLand. [Scripting News]
9:16:03 AM 
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I wonder if there is a way to get some of these things back into the aggregator. Even so I still find myself going to the same four or five sites for my daily browse post time spent reviewing the fifty or so channels in my aggregator. Things you miss in the aggregator.... 1. Some of Joe's thoughts, presented graphically, like:
<2003>
<seek peace>
<clarify your fear>
</move forward>
</make sense>
</be happy!> 2. The left sidebar. It was built by visitors and sometimes, it actually greets them when they return.
3. Links to some outstanding people and their websites (both sidebars).
4. Things other than text, like layout, look, and feel (i.e., style).
 Come out for air now and then... ;~)) [jenett.radio]
9:11:12 AM
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Monday, December 30, 2002 |
Next we'll find them in WalMart . . . Blogs Officially 'It'.
Many people have declared blogs officially "mainstream," especially after the whole Trent Lott debacle, however, I have the definitive proof. From the January, 2003, issue of Ladies Home Journal, I bring you "Their Heart on Their Screen."
"Teenagers used to file first kisses and missed curfews safely under lock and key in a private diary. But today's tech-savvy teens are keeping a blog (short for Web log) or online journal instead. In essence, a blog is a form of personal publishing that allows willing diarists - sometimes anonymous, usually not - to create a Web page where they can share their stories in cyberspace, and update them frequently (there are now as many as 500,000). At livejournal.com, a blog home base, of sorts, the need to build a Web page or buy software is eliminated (users only have to sign up before letting it all out). And letting it out teens are. Says the site's supervisor and develope Jesse Proulx: 'Some kids even consider blogging a new form of therapy.' " (p.88) [The Shifted Librarian]
10:02:44 AM
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R?rtoires d?ntralis?
OPML Directories. Mikel has directed my attention to Dave's revival of OPML files as directory structures in Sunday's edition of Scripting News. As Dave demonstrates, the 'inclusion' feature of OPML (the link and url node attributes) allow for a really cool decentralized directory structure, with different persons managing different levels of what appears to be a unique outline. This has a lot of potential. If you have activeRenderer installed with your copy of Radio, you can experience the same level of integration within your web browser as you can using Radio's outliner. Take a look at my OPML directories demo. [read more] [Marc Barrot: activeRenderer]
Very nice as a tool of collaboration... particularly at the moment where I am implementing a MultiAuthors Radio process. But, Marc, what if I want to have the  icon as illustration of the directory structure ? [Gilles en vrac...]
9:48:05 AM
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Sunday, December 29, 2002 |
Tracking longitudinal changes of first year weblogers. Four months of blogging. I have been keeping this weblog a bit over four months now. Originally I just wanted a bit of experience of blogging, the new thing on the web. I have got what I wanted, and something more: a new way of looking at the internet. Previously I didn't believe in the concept of large-scale co-operative technologies, but weblogs seem to have achieved something of real value to the participants.
This year I have published about 45 short pieces: columns and articles. In addition, several of my books have appeared in new editions. Thus, this has been a productive year. After I started keeping a weblog, my other writing assignments have not suffered, almost the opposite. A couple of my short pieces have resulted from ideas and writings which first appeared on this weblog.
What about next year? So far I have published 1363 postings on this weblog. I probably won't be as active next year. There are a lot of other things to do, and other writing assingments already waiting. [Universal Rule]
12:46:47 PM
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Saturday, December 28, 2002 |
Two years ago today MailToTheFuture got an XML-RPC interface. As far as I know it still works. And who says there are no Web Services. Hah. [Scripting News]
12:36:16 PM
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Wednesday, December 25, 2002 |
12/6/02: "That weblogs would play a role in the toppling of a major US political leader, is growth from the top down, and it's happening very quickly." [Scripting News]
10:08:20 AM
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Tuesday, December 24, 2002 |
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Monday, December 23, 2002 |
In and article titled "Learn by shipping" by Bob Frankston on SATN.org "I hope that that TabletPC follow Eric von Hippel's advice and observe how people (mis)use the devices and rush to make them more than just PC's with pens."
11:55:46 AM
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This is a follow up to the role of weblogs in helping to Out Trent Lott. Here is a snipit from the transcript of Reliable Sources on CNN. Some are skeptical but I'm hearing and reading more and more people recognize that the playing field has changed.
"IFILL: No, not strictly that. But what happened, I actually heard it from a white journalist.
A reporter for the note (ph) in ABC News Web log had been inside that room, had come back and had written it. It was just one mention of it, the quote.
As I was preparing the program for that night, I looked at it and thought, this strikes me as odd. And I read it aloud to a couple of other people, including Dan Ballis (ph) from the "Washington Post," Linda Greenhouse from "The New York Times," who were scheduled to be on the program that night, and their reaction was, what.
And so I thought, OK, I'm testing my instincts. It's not just me. So let's just -- but then, I thought it's not up to me to be an opinion reporter and to tell you what I think about it, but let's see what the viewers think.
We got hundreds, hundreds of e-mails from viewers saying either this was just a remark at a birthday party, in the vast minority, by the way, and many more from people saying things like I'm from Mississippi, I'm 80 years old, and I think it was outrageous. From people saying, Gwen, why don't you just say what Lott was thinking? You knew what Lott was thinking.
And the emotional outpouring is one of those hot buttons that I think only race brings up. It's the sort of thing that people react to in a way they don't about tax cuts, in they way they don't about Social Security.
And the debate was so large, just from my viewers, that I began to think there was more to it than that. And I know from talking to people at other news organizations, and especially African-American journalists, that they got it instantly. And it took a little longer, often, for the white colleagues to get it."[CNN Transcripts]
10:44:23 AM
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If your still shopping for me read this. Nice to see review of the Portege. On paper it seemed to me like the best convertible tablet right now. I was thinking that If I were to get a Tablet, it would be that one. [Marcus' Tablet Radio Weblog]
10:20:34 AM
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Its only fair that if the Bad Guys use it the Good guys better understand better what they are up against.
The New York Times reports that DARPA is using Groove for the TIA program:
The early version of the Total Information Awareness system employs a commercial software collaboration program called Groove... Groove makes it possible for analysts at many different government agencies to share intelligence data instantly, and it links specialized programs that are designed to look for patterns of suspicious behavior. [Matt Pope's Radio Weblog]
10:16:04 AM
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Sunday, December 22, 2002 |
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Saturday, December 21, 2002 |
Is it software?. Is it software? asks Dave. That's such a great question! From the moment I first saw an HTML form on a Web page, it was clear that boundaries were about to blur. Web pages are both documents and programs. Websites are both publications and applications. URLs are both phrases and function calls. Text is code, code is data, data is text. ... [Jon's Radio]
8:47:08 PM
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Friday, December 20, 2002 |
Blogs again get credit for helping Out Trent
3:20:44 PM
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Breaking news in my Aggregator that a milestone for me now that I'm finding myself living in my news aggregator more than any other tool.
WSJ. Lott steps down as Republican leader. [John Robb's Radio Weblog]
10:23:45 AM
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Thursday, December 19, 2002 |
We use our real world navigation skills when making our way through digital media information space. Information spaces that helps the user develop accurate mental model allow them to gain wayfinding experience rapidly.
Cognitive Models for Web Design.
 Information foraging theory seeks to explain information-seeking behavior in humans. Central to its thesis is that information foraging is an exaptation of food foraging mechanisms, therefore models of optimal foraging theory developed by anthropologists and ecologists in the study of food foraging will help us understand foraging behavior in consumers of information. These models allow us to investigate foraging behavior in relation to particular environmental conditions and the constraints of foraging for information in a dynamic ecology... (via WebDEV  )
[cognitiveArchitects News]
4:14:18 PM
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The year of the tablet, mice and things, a survey of science progress in two double ought two.
11:09:43 AM
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Also visit totally off the record. The soon with the new revesions it offers another view into "passalong" economics.
Tim O'Reilly clears the air wonderfully on piracy (and quotes me)..
Tim O'Reilly clears the air on piracy (and quotes me).
1) Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy,
(2) Piracy is progressive taxation;
(3) Customers want to do the right thing, if they can;
A similar data point comes from Jon Schull, the former CTO of Softlock, the company that worked with Stephen King on his eBook experiment, "Riding the Bullet". Softlock, which used a strong DRM scheme, was relying on "superdistribution" to reduce the costs of hosting the content--the idea that customers would redistribute their copies to friends, who would then simply need to download a key to unlock said copy. But most of the copies were downloaded anyway and very few were passed along. Softlock ran a customer survey to find out why there was so little "pass-along" activity. The answer, surprisingly, was that customers didn't understand that redistribution was desired. They didn't do it because they "thought it was wrong."
(4)Shoplifting is a bigger threat than piracy;
(5) File sharing networks don't threaten book, music, or film publishing. They threaten existing publishers;
(6)"Free" is eventually replaced by a higher-quality paid service;
(7)There's more than one way to do it. "
Tim summarises the study well and truly, but I have to say...it ought to be done again (and again). The world changes and the insights that can come from a systematic study of "passalong" are economically important and scientifically deep. Please contact me if you have vision and a venue. [Jon Schull's Weblog]
9:35:53 AM
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That's amazing to me I never thought I would have seen the day. Now what to do with this?
"While big-name PC makers like Hewlett-Packard and Gateway offer desktops priced as low as $399, without a monitor, smaller manufacturers are finding an audience by offering less-expensive machines, starting as low as $199."[News]
9:11:05 AM
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"As end-user client devices proliferate, users may have an array of gadgets," said Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg. "Since most users will have the bulk of their data--both personal and business--on their PCs, controlling the synchronization of that data will help determine the overall success of future devices and services." [News]
9:05:42 AM
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Wednesday, December 18, 2002 |
Now I need to figure out what these new things mean for me.
The creativeCommons RSS 2.0 module is now deployable. Thanks to everyone who commented, most of them were incorporated into the spec. At this point you may use the module in RSS feeds, and thanks to the magic of namespaces, as an extra bonus, you may also include them in other XML formats that are not RSS 2.0.
 Daniel Berlinger's Really Simple Discoverability format, aka RSD, has gone to version 1.0. Congrats to Daniel, Seth Dillingham and Brent Simmons, who all believed in the format before it caught on. This morning I released new code to bring Radio's support for RSD up to the 1.0 level. When Jake gets in later, he'll do the same for Manila. Thanks to Daniel for pursuing this. Tools for editing weblog posts will be easier to configure once there's across-the-board support for this format. For users this means word processor-like editors to write for your weblog. Turning the Web into a fantastic writing environment, one decade at a time. ";->" [Scripting News]
3:47:21 PM
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1:40:18 PM
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Most of this is about meeting the information needs of our users. We all have information needs for communication, collaboration, and entertainment. Maybe another way to slice it is Search needs, Consuming needs, and most important the need to create information, after all "the information that is most important to a user is the information that they create." [Microcontent Magizine]
Extending Aggregator Reach.
Last-minute Business RSS
"If you're an RSS junkie like I am, then your second most active program (after the browser) on the desktop is probably some form of RSS aggregator.
When I'm pressed for time - as seems to be most days now, a quick glance over the subscribed feeds in the morning prepares me for the day. My reading is a collection of weblogs and news feeds - much the same as I am sure your RSS aggregator feeds off.
But there is something missing....
Where is the Travelocity last minute travel feed for my New Years vacation, split into channels per location? See a vacation you like in your aggregator? Click on the link and 'buy now'. Yes it's advertising - but it's also information I happen to be interested in.
Where is the TOYS'R'US special offer channel for toys (with perhaps a separate channel per interest)?
Even O'Reilly has yet to catch on to what is possible. Why can't I get this as an RSS feed also? Or monitor new career opportunities from here using my aggregator?" [O'Reilly Network, via Scripting News]
I wouldn't want my aggregator to go wholly commercial so I'd have to be able to control this completely. But let's figure out the authentication side of this while we're at it so that I can one-click into my account with those sites.
Then, of course, I want recent additions to my home library's collection in subjects of my choosing.... [The Shifted Librarian]
12:28:53 PM
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Voice Over IP Goes Home.
From Slate, an article about Vonage, a new entrant in the Internet telephony market. The difference between these guys and the other players? Vonage lets you plug a regular telephone into your broadband connection - and voila - dial tone. Flat rate $40/month for unlimited calling, call waiting, voicemail, caller ID.
On its own, that's pretty revolutionary. (It would cut my monthly calling by about half.) But the more exciting prospects are that as this technology takes hold in the house, home telephones will actually get smarter. Think about telephone technology today - all of the innovation (if you can call it that) has gone into clearer signals without wires. The focus has been on the signal - not on the data. The only real evolution with home telephones has been Caller ID - and that's been around for nearly 10 years.
Once your phone calls are coming in over the Internet, phone handsets could simultaneously match an incoming call with the Google reverse lookup of the caller's name and address. Or let's say you call a pizza delivery service - at the same time you're calling, you could see an interactive menu on your screen. A few taps and you're done.
This kind of innovation already exists in the corporate market. One of my customers in the UK uses our software to provide a real-time feed to their VOIP handsets displaying the caller's name, profile, all activities the firm has had with the caller in the past 90 days, and other relevant data that makes the recipient of the call informed about who they're talking to. It's possible because the VOIP handset can send data via XML to our application server. (They match the incoming caller's number to our database, then use the search result match to send XML data back to the handset, which the handset then translates to presentable text. Very cool.)
Just think about what will happen when you can do the same from a home phone. [tins ::: Rick Klau's weblog]
11:14:45 AM
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Ok if outlines are about creating "really cool decentralized directory structures then I'm starting to catch on to their role.
R?rtoires d?ntralis?
OPML Directories. Mikel has directed my attention to Dave's revival of OPML files as directory structures in Sunday's edition of Scripting News. As Dave demonstrates, the 'inclusion' feature of OPML (the link and url node attributes) allow for a really cool decentralized directory structure, with different persons managing different levels of what appears to be a unique outline. This has a lot of potential. If you have activeRenderer installed with your copy of Radio, you can experience the same level of integration within your web browser as you can using Radio's outliner. Take a look at my OPML directories demo. [read more] [Marc Barrot: activeRenderer]
Very nice as a tool of collaboration... particularly at the moment where I am implementing a MultiAuthors Radio process. But, Marc, what if I want to have the icon as illustration of the directory structure ? [Gilles en vrac...]
9:52:51 AM
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Microsoft 'X#' On Tap? One source close to the company said that Microsoft has held internal discussions to kick around ideas for XML-specific language, referred to internally as "X#." I have been thinking a programming language, based in XML, can open some very interesting possibilities. Such as, the ability to add user-level tools, on an XML instruction set, for easily manipulating and coordinating "Web Objects" into personalized, dynamic, web apps. [Brain Off]
9:42:42 AM
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Tuesday, December 17, 2002 |
News.Com: "America Online has quietly secured a patent that could shake up the competitive landscape for instant messaging software." [Scripting News]
8:36:43 PM
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this looks like it could be fun. How do I get on the beta list? Sam Gentile: It's quite amazing to me, in the matter of minutes, to pull all the data out of my Groove space with a simple C# program. [Matt Pope's Radio Weblog]
10:57:57 AM
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I played with this in the store and it was way more fun than I expected.
Microsoft unveils entertainment software. The company is set to announce on Tuesday the availability of new personal entertainment software for Windows XP, featuring tools for handling music, movies and photos on the PC. [CNET News.com]
10:36:26 AM
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The outline tool may be adding some muck to the html source. Extra table tags? Maybe I need to understand OPML better.
just spoke to dave. Tool Installed
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After a few install hiccups I got the outliner2weblog tool up and running. I've been talking with Dave about this for a long time, and the first impression is excellent.
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No more writing in the outliner and copy/pasting to the edit box :)
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One outline represents a single post. Leaving it open allows me to edit it whenever needed.
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Install snags
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Blogger API needed to be enabled
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[Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog]
2:39:21 AM
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Monday, December 16, 2002 |
More talk about Outliners and Weblogs.
A milestone today, My Weblog Outliner has a tester, Adam Curry. I'm waiting to hear from him if it worked. My notes are on my Radio weblog, written with MWO of course. [Scripting News]
11:09:21 AM
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Saturday, December 14, 2002 |
This could be used for passive authoring of information seeking behavior.
memigo : mining the web
This is cool, a news recommendation engine, based on collaborative filtering (ala Amazon's recommendations).
I want to keep using Radio though. It would be cool if:
- the News Aggregator kept track of click-throughs/ratings on news stories
- this tracking was uploaded to the recommendation service once a day (via REST or xmlrpc)
- the recommendation service catalogs, analyses, etc.
- News Aggregators could periodically pull down recommendations, as an RSS feed perhaps
[Brain Off]
1:57:04 PM
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Friday, December 13, 2002 |
Interesting story about a social computing an trust networks.
MPN (Matrix Public Net) is a peer2peer network, based on people that trust each other . . . Part of the MPN is a XMMS/Winamp-Plugin that puts newsblocks into your music, whether it is Internet radio or MP3s from your hard disk/CD-ROM. The news are coming from your friends and other trustworthies (and from the friends of those, and so on). [Freshmeat]
1:38:48 PM
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LMS and LCMS: What's the Difference?. Leonard Greenberg writes about the differences between a LMS and LCMS (thats: Learning Management System and Learning Content Management System). To quote: If you?re confused about the differences between a learning management system (LMS) and a learning content management... [Column Two] [thomas n. burg | randg?e]
11:34:49 AM
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The students thoughts are worth a read. These kids don't know a time before the web existed while I remember the days before VCRs and only three channels on TV. That's the fundamental difference between Internalizes and Adopters and as a software developer it is critical to stay in touch with both.
students' thoughts on blogging. I asked my web design students to tell me what they thought a blog was. Their answers are on the... [mamamusings] [thomas n. burg | randg?e]
9:55:41 AM
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Weblog metrics: "Chris Gulker has a writeup on weblog metrics, using UserLand's top 100 Radio weblogs and the Blogging Ecosystem as data sources, which basically says you have to be famous to get lots of hits. Also that the top 10 Radio weblogs don't link out much, which is interesting, considering that one particular Manila weblog does most of the linking on the ecosystem ;-)" [Second p0st] [Universal Rule]
9:47:54 AM
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Butterfly wingstrokes. Boing Boing Blog points to What flight engineers can learn from butterfly wingstrokes:
This is the first time that anyone has captured images that show what the wing beats of free-flying insects do to the air they flutter on. (Other visual studies have used tethered insects, moths, for example, glued to a lightweight rod.) The red admiral butterflies, moving without restraint, show an extraordinary agility and complexity in their flight. Not only do they use many different wing strokes, they use them on successive wing beats.
"One insect uses all the known aerodynamic methods that anybody has conjectured," said Dr. Adrian L. R. Thomas, an author with Dr. Robert B. Srygley, now a visiting researcher at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, of a report published today in the journal Nature. "That's a big surprise." [Universal Rule]
9:45:33 AM
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When someone says outline it takes me back to grade school writing lessons which for me was not a good experience. One third grade teacher (link to the work when I was the third grade teacher) brought me to a meeting with my parents after multiple warnings that they should work with me each week to learn to spell the ten assigned words. I was learning the ten words but still was the only third grader to flunk spelling three 6 weeks in a row. We get to this meeting and the teacher pulls out our test called "Dictation" On each on I correctly spelled the ten words assigned that week. However most all of the other words in each of the ten sentences were horribly misspelled.
Somehow my contempt for the word Outline is derived from that experience.
I'm starting to see the ability to collapse and expand is something different. If that is what they mean by Outline I just might play along nicely.
Outline promotion.
This hasn't been said often or emphatically enough, so I'll boldface it: Blogs are outlines, and blogging is a form of outlining. This occurred to me during the panel on weblogs at Supernova on Tuesday.
I was writing in an outliner, and I was doing it fast ? about as fast as it can be done. And I'm not saying that because I'm vain about my typing. I'm saying it because I was using a tool that greatly speeds the process: an outliner. Radio Userland's, to be precise.
In the Weblog session, Dave said "Weblogs are the word processors of the Web." It's no coincidence that my favorite word processor, one I still use, is MORE, the direct ancestor of the Radio outliner. Even some of the keyboard commands are the same.
One of the cool things about an outliner like Radio's is the way it lets you organize what you say by processes like promote/demote, collpase/expand and hoist/dehoist. I won't explain them here, but I will tell you they are very handy once you get to know them. They even help me organize what I'm thinking and writing about, which is saying a lot.
In fact, I just used outlining features to quickly reorganize my blog/outline after moving (actually copying) all of my Day 1 reporting over to its own "story page, where it should have been in the first place. [Later... I just added Day 2] [The Doc Searls Weblog]
9:41:47 AM
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I guess from where they are now "leap" might not be the word I would use for a 20 percent uptick.
Semel paints bright future for Yahoo. The Web portal's CEO tells investors that marketing revenue will leap by 20 percent next year--and paid subscriber numbers will zoom past 2 million. [CNET News.com]
9:25:52 AM
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I didn't go in person to the SuperNova conference but followed it in real time by reading the post from those who did including Phil. I got a sense of Doc and Dave being in the same room. Dave seemed a bit of an instigator. Docs recording style changed from day one to day two. I think day two was more effective for reading and rereading after the show but day one in real time gave more of a playful picture that seemed to communicate the sense but worked in real time but now reading the entire transcript instead of getting it piecemeal looses something. This was an eye opening experience for me. After, the morning session I had read so much and enjoyed my self thoroughly. I even had a case of conference exhaustion, that tiered feeling when you fill yourself too full from taking in and thinking too much.
SuperNova conference afterglow..
Did I learn more about decentralization?
No. No one talked for more than 30 seconds about decentralization proper. . . .
There has been serious work involving decentralization in business practice. Every management discipline is affected. Organization design (see chaordics and the Chaordic Commons). Front line supervision. Project management (see Hal Macober's Reforming Project Management). Marketing communications (Gonzo Marketing - The Cluetrain Manifesto). Industrial operations. Knowledge management (klogs and klognets). Lending and banking (Grameen microlending). Insurance. Labor relations. Retailing. Product mangement (Blue Sky Radio). Let's bring the best from each focus and see if patterns emerge.
Did the activities provoke interesting thoughts and insights?
Quite a few, but none to make my jaw drop.
Some speakers weren't really prepared. The guy from Microsoft was driven from the stage by righteous hecklers. He might have avoided this if he had spoken directly to the conference topic instead of giving the generic .Net PowerPoint deck.
Were the hallway experiences good?
Damn good! I met lots of my favorite bloggers, lots of interesting and engaged curioius people. Perhaps a little too homogenous, but that can change.
As these things go, it was a fine 1.0. I look forward to the next one. [a klog apart]
9:15:05 AM
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Thursday, December 12, 2002 |
I sure wish Dave would explain the significance of the outline, I still don't get it. Please help.
Doc: "Blogs are outlines, and blogging is a form of outlining." [Scripting News]
6:58:25 PM
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Wednesday, December 11, 2002 |
New links to blogs in the last 24 hours technorati report titled interestngblogs
3:00:52 PM
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Tuesday, December 10, 2002 |
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Monday, December 09, 2002 |
Communities of practice pitfalls.
 Making communities of practice fly. Diane Le Moult has written an excellent summary on how to make CoPs work. This is written from her direct experience, and highlights a number of very useful guidelines: 10 fundamental questions you need to ask before starting a CoP: [...]
[...] Finally, we identified 10 classic pitfalls you have to be aware of:
- Ignore moods and demands of members: People participate primarily for themselves, not for you or an executive demanding certain results.
Therefore always have an open ear for the members, motivate them to shape their community.
- Not enough content: You have to reach a critical mass which differs. If there is not enough interesting content, people will work less in the community, contribute less. That?s a real vicious circle!
- Too strict or too loose: People need leadership but don?t want to be cramped. Due to the voluntary character of communities, finding the right way is a challenging task.
- No scope: People need room for innovation and creation but also noticeable landmarks for orientation.
- No aims: Communicate your estimated aims and outputs and be open to discuss.
- Only technical platform: ?First invest in travel and in beer, then in information technology? (from EFQM Benchmark KM).
- No Admin response: Assure that people are heard when they have problems and get useful answers.
- No support (help and training): Effectiveness needs constant support and trainings - especially for the key members.
- Only extrinsic motivation: It is impossible to achieve quality results when the members don?t have a natural interest and need for these.
- Bad moderation: Even the best experts need qualified moderation and facilitation.
... [Column Two via thomas n. burg | randgänge]
Very good points, though I'd say that properly taking them into consideration probably requires considerable experience.
(Ever notice how enumerations and bullet lists seem so good at traveling from one aggregator to the next? Something to remember.) [Seb's Open Research]
10:28:08 AM
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RssDistiller: vital tool for Radio Users.
Last time I checked out RssDistiller from evectors I wasn't really into RSS very much. It was just after I started using Radio and, frankly, I was more interested in messing around with it and what it could do. What did I care about feeds? Also creating patterns to distill sites is a bit of an art, who has the time?
Well of course I'm a little older and wiser now. RSS has grown to be very important to my thinking and to how I think business should be done. So important that tools to get non-RSS delivered content into feeds are vitally important. Of course, this is exactly what RssDistiller does.
To create a feed from a website you point RssDistiller at the site and specify patterns marking the start and end of the areas RssDistiller should look at, and then the start and end of each "item" it should create. RssDistiller will then turn that into a valid feed.
For example the following patterns are how i configure a feed for a website that I use:
- ignore text before: <body
- ignore text after: </body
- start pattern: <p>
- end pattern: </p><br />
- item template: ##text##
fiddly, but worth it.
RssDistiller is definitely worth checking out. [Curiouser and curiouser!]
10:27:14 AM
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Friday, December 06, 2002 |
Where do you think Phil will end up next?
Phil Windley, Utah's CIO Resigns. A public loss..
The Utah Government Information blog:
Utah's CIO Resigns Phil Windley, Utah's Chief Information Officer, resigned Wednesday, saying he had "become an impediment to implementing our vision for eGovernment and an efficient and effective information technology infrastructure."
I met him at the Digital ID conference. He thinks deeply about the balance of public interests raised by this technology. He argues that the heavy lifting of creating a customer/citizen-centered view of state databases suggests a single sign-on and perhaps a single digital ID.
He's a friend to enterprise blogging, encouraging everyone in his org to start weblogs.He blogged his resignation and posted a follow-up.
Windley's leaving hurts. There aren't so many clueful executives in eGovernment that we can afford the loss. [a klog apart]
1:38:38 PM
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Thursday, December 05, 2002 |
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Wednesday, December 04, 2002 |
Understanding the Microprocessor: "This article, which is the first in a series, is aimed at providing the reader with the kind of background that he or she needs to understand the CPU technology coverage on Ars and on other sites. And with Itanium2, Yamhill, AMD's Hammer, and other new chips on the horizon, there's quite a bit of such coverage coming up." [Ars Technica] [Universal Rule]
1:33:47 PM
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Tuesday, December 03, 2002 |
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