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Updated: 12/3/2002; 1:02:47 PM.

   Friday, June 14, 2002
Impressed with Radio

I copied Radio from the D: drive of my home computer onto the C:drive of my laptop that I am taking with me on vacation, then, as advised by Lawrence Lee, ran Andy Fragen's myFixFilePathsAndAddresses script. Had to download the script using Opera because IE was treating it as text, and had to manually change the MyPictures setting, but otherwise it seems to have worked. We'll see, but I am impressed to start.

Going Dark

I'm going out of town for a couple of weeks. I may try to copy Radio over to the laptop that I'll be bringing with me, but I don't know if I dare. So don't be surprised if there aren't any entries for a couple of weeks. Check back around July 4.

Why I Bought Radio

Well, today I finally anted up that $40 to Userland and purchased Radio. I did this just after losing half an hour's work to the click away from the browser and lose your work feature that Scott Johnson warns so eloquently about. Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C -- I'm doing my best to remember. Actually, half the time now I compose in NoteTab then copy to the edit window. I guess I should  blame the whole thing on Scott - it was his writing that convinced me to try Radio in the first place.

I fought against buying Radio. I have another blog going using Movable Type, and it is very easy to do categories, change styles, add pictures, send out notifications, and just enter text. It just works, and I had it figured out enough to use after about 30 minutes, and it only took me 30 minutes to change the template to something I can live with. With Radio on the other hand, I still haven't figured out how to change the templates (as you can see), or how all the different files are inter-related. I have lost work several times. Things often don't work the way I think they should, and sometimes it seems like the program just sits there when I have told it do something. Technical support is iffy, although someone named Lawrence Lee seems to do a great job responding sometime. So why buy Radio?

I like playing with toys, and it's clear that Radio is going to be a great toy. As an experienced software development manager, I shudder in fear sometimes at Dave Winer's new feature of the day approach, especially as he builds up his user base - the costs of a mistake are probably growing logarithmically. However, I feel like I am living on the cutting edge (sometimes the bleeding edge) of what is happening with web logging, and that is lots of fun. Plus, I am getting to learn a lot, which is also fun. Finally, it's only $40 bucks. I've spent a lot more for a lot worse toys.

What's a weblog?

I don't understand the current media obsession with weblogs, and I am quite tired of reading about them, and tired of the obsessions some people have about trying to straighten other people out about them. Still, after reading my weblog, both this one, and the family one that I am keeping, my mother asked me what a weblog was. I told her, and referred her to the history of weblogs document on the Userland site. Still, I saw the article that Dave Winer pointed to today, What We're Doing When We Blog, and I agree with him - it is a nice concise description of the whole phenomenon. Mom, are you reading? :-)


© Copyright 2002 Tim Bishop aka Geodog.
 
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Links
jenett.radio.randomizer - click to visit a random Radio weblog - for
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