...by the inmates...for the inmates...
Wednesday, February 11, 2004Search Engine Watch 2003 Award Winners, Part 1
ClickZ's sister site, Search Engine Watch, released its annual list of outstanding Web search services for 2003. Your favorites are among them, but there were also surprises and controversial predictions for the coming year.
Methodology
Outstanding Search Service
[ClickZ]
Marc Barrot's Radio Documentation
Marc Barrot, the activeRenderer King, contributes to the wealth of Radio UserLand documentation.
New Radio Documentation Resource. Radio's documentation is plentyful, but scattered all over Userland's sites and the whole Web: it can be difficult for new users, even programmers, to locate the exact piece of information they are looking for.Being bugged by activeRenderer users with Radio related questions, I've tried to add a small contribution: The updated Radio Userland Facts page describes all Radio features, includes a navigation directory through Userland's rich online documentation, and a Radio docs query widget.
I'll eventually update the documentation Directory with all suggested links. [Radio UserLand Messages]
Scott Shuda Markets Radio UserLand
Scott Shuda, UserLand's new CFO, bolsters his marketing pitch with comments from the faithful. Though lacking some basic features (spell checker, post to the past, etc.) and suffering from stability issues (crashing on shutdown, etc.), I still use Radio. Although you wouldn't know it if from my posting hiatus, Radio (particularly the news aggregator and outliner) is a constant companion. Good software value for $40.
Advantages of Radio's Desktop Website. UserLand Radio's desktop weblog approach clearly distinguishes it from today's other leading weblog applications. Because the Radio application and your weblog content reside on your own computer, Radio is in effect both an Internet client and a web server. This gives Radio users the following advantages:
Integrated News Aggregator: Radio UserLand is not only a powerful weblog editor but also includes an integrated news aggregator. Located just one click away from your desktop website (Screen shot.), Radio's news aggregator works automatically to read news feeds that you're subscribed to, whether 2 or more than 200, and posts the headlines to a single, easy to view page. (Screen shot.)
When you see an item in Radio's news aggregator that you want to amplify with your own comments, or pass on to others in your organization or interest group, all you need do is click on the "POST" button and that item is immediately copied to the editing box of your desktop website. You can edit the entry or provide your own comments and then, with one more click, publish the item and your comments to your own weblog.
It would be a major challenge for a hosted weblog company to provide this level of integrated functionality. Imagine the processing hardware necessary to maintain the ever changing subscription lists and news feeds for even 10,000 simultanious users! Then, there is the issue of constantly downloading all that dynamic content to users. Radio UserLand avoids these problems with a grid computing model by putting the power of personal web publishing on each user's desktop.
Security and Control over Weblog Content: Because your weblog content is stored in the Radio:root database on your own PC, each user is in control of his or her own weblog and content. When you make changes on your local copy of Radio, those changes are updated or "served" to the online website hosted by UserLand. The data resides in two places, but the individual user is in control - any changes you make to Radio on your PC will be followed on your online website. This gives users tremendous control over their personal website and advanced users are always inventing new formats and functionality for their Radio weblogs.
Because your Radio content exists in two places (on your PC and online), users can take precautions to protect their data. Steve Hooker, whose weblog can be found at http://www.cybersaps.org/, writes, "My pictures and blog items of my children are now in two places (six actually - the server's version, my local copy of Radio's version and within the folder from my digital camera; then, there's the two back up versions, one locally, one on the server; and, of course, I have two mirrored hard disks, and numerous off site CD back ups). Were I using a hosted solution, my pictures and blogged items would be in just one place far out of my control. I'd only have my digicam's directory and one instance of my items in a proprietary version on someone else's machine, with no portability, and my hard disk back up of those pictures, but no blogged items locally."
Portability: Steve Hooker writes, "If anything ever happens to Radio UserLand, or if I just I wanted to do it, I can create backups and export all my years of family blogging for storage and security. I want my kids to be able to see that content for the next 100 years. For this my blogged items must remain portable, accessible, malleable. Being locked in to a single weblog solution would be a bad thing."
Categories and Multiple Weblogs: Anyone wishing to blog about more than one area of interest will appreciate Radio's category feature. Every copy of Radio will support an unlimited number of categories and each categories is in essence, a seperate weblog with a different URL address and its own independent RSS feed. Some Radio users have used this feature to use one copy of Radio to create and maintain two or more completely seperate blogs at different domains (link).
Work Offline: Because the Radio application resides on your PC and not on a server accessable only through a live Internet connection, weblogging with Radio is possible anywhere you have access to your PC. Just open Radio, draft your posts and upstream the next time you are online. You can also read your new aggregator while offline. One neat trick is logging on in the morning, then disconnecting for the train ride into work. During the ride, you can read through your news feed, check posts made by other bloggers you read, then draft your own posts and update the public version of your weblog as soon as you log in at work.
Speed Advantages: With Radio running on your PC, changes to your posts or your site settings are almost immediate. Updates to the public version of your site may take a few moments, but your instructions have been recorded and won't be lost due to a bad Internet connection or problems with your host's servers. [Radio UserLand Messages]
