Most people I like are good at self-deprecation and hate taking themselves seriously. It eases my own stage-fright to log the more intimate stuff people occasionally still want in counting you at 7 1/4 on a good day.
The real figures are flattering, but I know some of you prefer to keep up on the adventures of others with RSS-XML, if possible.
Fewer people each year ask me what RSS is -- here's the BBC's fine explanation again -- they now take it for granted as an invaluable development on the Net.
Testerday's 'test' is there because my own RSS feed is slightly screwed up: you still get me along with other bloggers who use feeds and all the news in Really Simple Syndication newsreaders. But if you click further to open an entry in a web browser, as many do, the title links are bust.
Sorry. I'll "mend" them later this week, don't fancy doing this by hand for more than 700 entries, or even just the ones that talk sense.
Most of my links work fine, I dunno just when the title ones broke, but suspect it's a combination of changes I've made, including getting new Macs and shifting stuff, and changes by one of my site's hosts. The Radio UserLand discussion forum is great ... as big haystacks go!
It's a bugger, not helped by some people's ability to skirt the issue when they have a problem.
I'm as far as having seen where my difficulty lies, I've bookmarked what I need to sort it out. This will take time. Not now.
However, life with search engines would be so much easier -- I've known this ever since being a Mac newbie -- if only people who run into problems specified just what's wrong in their requests for assistance, but just as in life, they don't!
They bury info you need to help, instead of coming straight out with it, up top. With people, that's OK, if time-consuming, but for something as stupid as your average search engine, looking for key terms, the problem has to be prominent and clearly stated.
I can't even make a short technical point without a quick generalisation about the human condition!
I'm glad to see word of the Firefox browser and its RSS capabilities making headway in the Windows world. It's getting close to my number one Mac browser even, but bugs me over a few details so I still prefer others I've raved about sometimes.
For Mac-heads who care and have taken up the Tiger operating system, again a couple of MacDev Center articles to check out:
"For some (guess who), Safari RSS is the answer to all of humanity's problems, from poverty and hunger to the overly frequent appearance of pop-up windows on screens. To others, Safari RSS is the weirdest and most useless combination of technologies ever thought of in the computing world."
Of good, clear tech writers in the O'Reilly gang, François de Kermadec gets a mention here so often he must be one of my big three favourites for humour as well as skill and clarity -- though I can't guess who sees Safari RSS as a way of dealing with Africa's humanitarian problems. Does Bob Geldof use it or something (he "today unveiled plans for a re-enactment of the second world war mass sailing across the English channel to Dunkirk in support of his anti-poverty goals" (Guardian)?
De Kermadec's limited his own ambitions to 'Everything You Wanted to Know About Safari RSS': part one (MacDev, May 31) and part two (MacDev, June 3). Enjoy, if required. You can read me, if you want, on Safari RSS once I've dealt with the mess.
Of possible interest to other Radio bloggers: Userland's own software interface is a good one, with tremendous potential built into it, but last night's browsing for answers taught me that many Mac bloggers, like me, prefer to avoid it as such, and use the blog editor (MarsEdit) and newsreader (NetNewsWire) from Ranchero.
If Ranchero's software has had an unsolicited ad on my pages since forever, it's for one reason only: it doesn't come any better and has seen nothing but one improvement after another.
7:39:04 PM link 
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