Category: Tech

Finding a Small Spot at the Table

kidstableThe last couple of days have been watershed days for Newsome.Org. We got a link from Scoble yesterday and then tonight we made our first appearance on Memeorandum. While that may be business as usual for veteran and highly read bloggers, it’s a happy event indeed for a relatively new blog like mine.

More importantly, it demonstrates that in the blogosphere if you keep on doing your thing, you can and will get noticed. You don’t even have to do anything outrageous or stupid. Just have something to say, read and consider some of the blogging suggestions that blog experts write, try to be as interesting and helpful as possible and, most importantly, be patient.

Having made a preliminary pass through Scoble’s feeds as part of my Scoblefeeds A-Z project, one of my initial impressions is that there is still a lot of room at the blogging table- much more room that I thought when I started blogging here. The road is open and traffic is moving. If you like to write, it’s a good time to start a blog.

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Firefox Development Map

firefoxNow that I’ve pretty much switched to Firefox for all of my internet browsing, I was interested to see the development plans and priorities for future versions.

I find Version 1.5 to be stable and, with the addition of extensions and Greasemonkey scripts, very configurable. Integrated RSS functionality is a top priority for Version 2. If implemented well, that will be very useful.

Without some radical move, like going open source, I don’t see how Microsoft can keep up with Firefox in the implemention race. I was originally pulling for Firefox to make a dent in the browser market in order to create competition. Now I’m pulling for Internet Explorer to stay in the game for the same reason.

Interesting times for internet users. As long as both products stay in the game, the users win.

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There's One in Every Wiki

I love Wikipedia, the collaborative web based encyclopedia. Many of my posts link there for discussions and defintions of terms I use.

There are some recent blog posts about Adam Curry, one of the veejays from MTV back when there was actually some M on the TV, and a leading figure in the development of podcasting. Some have alleged that Adam edited the Wikipedia entry on podcasting to remove credit for the development of podcasting from other people and to “inflate” his role in podcast creation.

I don’t know beans about the development of podcasting, but I know that self-policing is a key component of any collective endeavor- message board, wiki, whatever. Once a system of self-policing is in place, the potential for abuse is greatly lessened. Again, I love Wikipedia. I hope the creators and users will leave politics and competition out of this and do whatever’s necessary to respect and protect the accuracy and integrity of Wikipedia.

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ScobleFeeds A-Z: The B’s

This is part two of my A-Z review of Scoble’s feeds. The rules and criteria are here.

First, some housekeeping. I have decided that Bloglines is worthless. Most of the posts in the feeds I imported there appear to be months old- even though most of the blogs have many newer posts. For some reason, Bloglines is not picking up all the posts in a feed. So I dumped Bloglines and imported Scoble’s OPML file into FeedDemon. Hopefully this will work better- it can’t be any worse. I’d prefer a web based reader for this task, but if Bloglines is representative of how those work, I’ll pass.

Now, for my favorite feed from the B’s:

Bernie DeKoven’s FunLog (RSS Feed)

Bernie DeKoven’s FunLog is a blog about fun. It’s that simple. With a world full of blogs about technology, politics, music, Web 2.0 (whatever the hell that is) and other “important stuff” it’s refreshing to find a blog about origami, croquet, cubicle bowling and other “fun” stuff.

Honorable Mention:

Blog Maverick (RSS Feed)

BoingBoing (RSS Feed) (ineligible because I, like everyone else, already read it)

Blog Consulting & Professional Blogging a View from the Isle ( RSS Feed) (Might have warranted a tie, but got a much deserved too long name penalty)

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Why Doesn't Drudge Blog?

As I have mentioned before, blogging software represents an evolutionary leap in web site content management. The right software and the right template make adding, editing, archiving and removing content a whole lot easier than it used to be. It also makes for a visually appealing and well organized web site.

So, given all of that, why does the Drudge Report still look like this? I used to start there first for breaking news, but good blog layouts have spoiled me and now I find his page to be very hard to read. A good blog makeover would do wonders for that page.

I would actually prefer a current RSS feed, but even if that’s not going to happen, a new layout would suffice.

Drudge, you’re still the man, but you need to fix your page in a big way. Set up a blog format, with sidebars and archives. Heck, do a podcast if you’re so inclined. You’ve got good content, but it’s just too hard to access and read.

Blog and blog now.

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The Only Reason You Need

To be very careful who you buy from on the internet.

I don’t want to scare my friends who, despite all of my work here and over dinner, continue to believe that the internet is merely a large scale scam populated only by people who want to rob you and steal your indentity. Some of my friends place bungee jumping and internet buying in the same risk category.

Having said that, one of my long-standing rules is to either buy from a known entity like Amazon, Newegg, etc. (even if the item costs a few more dollars there) or do an extensive Google and Newsgroup search on the seller. In fact, I feel much more comfortable buying something from a high feedback (number and percentage) seller on eBay than from some company I’ve never heard of.

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TIVO Deathwatch: A Potpourri of Bad Decisions

Every time I promise myself to abandon my TIVO deathwatch, something else ludicrous happens.

nailcoffinSince it’s been awhile, let me say again that I love my HDTV DirecTIVO. Even though many of them fail early and often (one of mine included), TIVOs are great. But once DirecTV needlessly abandoned it in favor of its own branded box, TIVO has been running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to make deals to save itself.

Some of the deals make sense, some don’t. But nothing, perhaps in the history of space and time, is as dumb as this- TIVO is all fired up about its upcoming ad search service. That’s right, soon we’ll be able to search the ads we bought our TIVOs to avoid. TIVO thinks advertisers will engage in a lucrative bidding war for the most desirable keywords. Maybe we’ll even get to search for our favorite infomercial. Dionne Warwick will rocket (back?) to stardom. Maybe next week TIVO will announce a searchable spam index (normally I would consider that humor, but in this case consider it a prediction).

Does anyone, anywhere think this is a good thing? I wish Steven Hawking would write a series of books on how TIVO went from the best digital product of the past 10 years to a company that believes ad searching is a good feature.

More evidence that TIVO has lost it:

1) According to Tom Rogers, President and CEO of TiVo, ad searching is a new and innovative advertising solution that will result in a better user experience for the viewer.

2) TIVO’s much discussed (and sleep inducing to me) deal to make content available to video iPods might just get it sued by one of the networks TIVO has been catering to by adding all sorts of DRM features to the content we record. You can’t please all the people all the time, but can TIVO actually manage to displease all the people all the time?

3) The photos of TIVO’s other new deal (with Yahoo, Fandango (whatever that is) and Live365 (which [use to host] Rancho Radio)) look like the rebirth of WebTV, only without Microsoft pushing it. If TIVO wants to make a deal that just might save it, go do a Media PC-like, HDTV-inclusive deal with, that’s right, Microsoft.

Marketwatch has an article that basically says TIVO is doing too many deals and too little thoughtful planning. I’ve been saying the same thing (though less eloquently) for some time. Maybe it’s too late for TIVO. If not, it will be soon if it doesn’t stop thrashing around for a life saving deal and decide what it wants to be and to whom.

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PC World Looks at Web Based Email

PC World has an article on the upcoming improvements to Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail. While not my primary email application, I use both services for one thing or another and am looking forward to the upcoming improvements.

Along with Gmail, these are the most popular web based email services. I never managed an invitation to beta test either service so this is the best I can do for a report.

It’s a little hard to tell so far, but it looks like the new Hotmail (renamed Windows Live Mail) will strongly and naturally resemble Outlook. That will be convenient for those of us who use Outlook for email.

The main feature that I will be looking for is the ability to check email from the web based service via Outlook when I’m at home. Right now I do that with both Gmail and Hotmail. Currently, you have to pay for an upgrade to Yahoo! Mail in order to have Outlook access. I don’t know if that will change with the new version. If it doesn’t, that is a significant disadvantage.

While I like most things Google, including Gmail, its unusual (perhaps evolutionary, perhaps not) folder and inbox structure would make me hesitant to use it as my primary email application. Given all of the above, my money is on Hotmail to win this race.

The bottom line is that we have 3 major web-based email providers engaged in a feature and service war for our business. That is a very good thing for consumers.

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ScobleFeeds A-Z: A Couple of A’s

I mentioned yesterday that Scoble has updated his blogroll, and that I was looking forward to mining it for new blogs to read.

I have decided to A-Z it sort of like I am doing with my songs on the Err Bear Music page. Once or twice a week I’ll post my favorite feed from a letter of the alphabet. There may be ties and there may be some letters with no selection.

A couple of rules:

1) I am going to skip all blogs with names that begin with a “.” the same way I skip all the aaa whatevers in the Yellow Pages.

2) I am looking for blogs that interest me, and I am not interested in all things. I am not a coder (anymore), I don’t use Linux (anymore) and I care nada about politics and cellphones. I like personal tech, music and a bunch of other stuff. Accordingly, there will be some great blogs I skip over solely because of the subject matter and some lesser known blogs I select for the same reason.

3) If I already read a blog daily, it is ineligible, though it will get an honorable mention inclusion. This is about mining new blogs.

4) My descriptions of the blog will be intentionally short. You can learn more by subscribing to the feed than you can by reading what I think about it.

So without no further adieu, the A pick(s).

There are lots and lots of A’s so we’re going to start out with a tie:

A blog doesn’t need a clever name (RSS feed)

Ask Dave Taylor! (RSS feed)

A blog doesn’t need a clever name covers a lot of stuff: tech, music, politics, etc. I’m not interested in all of it, but even the stuff I don’t care about is packaged in a way that makes it readable. I think I will learn some stuff I don’t know here, as well as more about stuff I do know.

Ask Dave Taylor! is exactly the kind of blog my ‘Tweeners should read. He answers questions about tech stuff in a way that’s easy to understand. I’m going to refer a lot of my 40 something friends to this site as a way to begin the journey from luddite to geek.

Honorable Mention:

A VC (RSS Feed) (ineligible because I’ve read Fred’s excellent blog for a long time and this is a blog mining experiment).

A Welsh View (RSS Feed) (for the same reason)

Addicted to Digital Media (RSS Feed)

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Dem Good Feeds

It’s hard to promote your blog to the right people without seeming pushy or arrogant. More on that later, as my year-long 2006 project gets firmed up, named and announced here.

But it’s also pretty hard to find good blogs to read. I am constantly looking for interesting and informative blogs to read. I have about 20 in my Onfolio feedlist, and I’d love to have about 30 more, as I once again reconsider my prior position and find that I get the large majority of my web content via newsreaders.

Lucky for all of us, Scoble has updated his blogroll. He posted his OMPL file which will allow you to import his feeds into your newsreader. I want to keep my Onfolio list smaller, so I imported Scoble’s entire list into my Bloglines account. Now I have a ton of feeds to review at my leisure and I can import the ones I really like into my permanent Onfolio list.

As I go through the list, I’ll post notes about the ones I like the most.

The fact that A-Listers like Scoble are out looking for new blogs to read is encouraging. The fact that he has compiled a list of feeds is also encouraging. More chances to get read and more chances to read.

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