Most blogs are general in nature. Some blogs are very specific. In the realm of the extremely specific is this blog which is either a total spam attempt by the same folks who like to flood your email, or it is a legitimate blog site. You decide. We have to blame Ernie the Attorney for bringing it up.
With our creation of the Bloscars (more on this later), perhaps we should consider a separate award category. Most specific? Most obviously spam? Perhaps a new Internet word needs to be coined. Blam? Another: those who create a blog solely to push a product: Blammers.
Monday, September 22, 2003
Sunday, September 21, 2003
Blogs, copyright and Hitler
Simon Waldman has a quiet little British blog he calls Words of Waldman. Recently, as he was going through some old magazines from the 1930's, he ran across an article in Homes and Gardens about Hitler and what a nice chap he was. It occurred to Simon that this would be a good blog subject. That is, how public perceptions are created by media perceptions. So, he scanned the article and made it part of his post.
In response, Homes and Gardens demanded that he take the post down. "This piece, text and photographs is still in copyright and any unauthorized reproduction is an infringement of copyright. In the circumstances I must request you to remove this article from your website. Sorry that I had to take this stance, but am sure you will appreciate the legal situation."
Simon did take it down, but sent Homes and Gardens an email: "These are interesting and important historical documents. As you are clearly aware. They should be widely available for as many people as possible to learn from them. That they can be, instantly, is one of the great beauties of the internet. I'm afraid as well, that simply getting them taken off my site is unlikely to be the end of it. These are digital files. They have been seen by thousands of people. It is incredibly easy for people to copy them and put them up on their site anywhere in the world. As of now, I have no idea how many versions there might be on the web."
Well, Simon knew how the Internet works. The corporate world apparently does not. In trying to apply a very weak and nonsensical copyright claim, Homes and Gardens insured that their embarrassing article would be seen a thousand-fold more times than if they had kept quiet. Mmmm..... let me pick just one of the many places you can see the article. Ok, how about here?
As for Simon, he is a bit bewildered by all the attention this has brought his blog. "I don't know...for a couple of years I blog away in a quiet little backwater of the blogsphere, barely registering among the Technorati, writing my all matter of things to a daily audience barely big enough to fill a minibus. Then all I do is scan in a few old magazine pages and put them up...and before you know it...global media exposure."
You gotta love blogging. It can turn any of us into a journalist with something important to say. By the way, here is one of Home and Gardens "copyrighted" photos from the article. Notice how enforcing their copyright magically made everything disappear?
In response, Homes and Gardens demanded that he take the post down. "This piece, text and photographs is still in copyright and any unauthorized reproduction is an infringement of copyright. In the circumstances I must request you to remove this article from your website. Sorry that I had to take this stance, but am sure you will appreciate the legal situation."
Simon did take it down, but sent Homes and Gardens an email: "These are interesting and important historical documents. As you are clearly aware. They should be widely available for as many people as possible to learn from them. That they can be, instantly, is one of the great beauties of the internet. I'm afraid as well, that simply getting them taken off my site is unlikely to be the end of it. These are digital files. They have been seen by thousands of people. It is incredibly easy for people to copy them and put them up on their site anywhere in the world. As of now, I have no idea how many versions there might be on the web."
Well, Simon knew how the Internet works. The corporate world apparently does not. In trying to apply a very weak and nonsensical copyright claim, Homes and Gardens insured that their embarrassing article would be seen a thousand-fold more times than if they had kept quiet. Mmmm..... let me pick just one of the many places you can see the article. Ok, how about here?
As for Simon, he is a bit bewildered by all the attention this has brought his blog. "I don't know...for a couple of years I blog away in a quiet little backwater of the blogsphere, barely registering among the Technorati, writing my all matter of things to a daily audience barely big enough to fill a minibus. Then all I do is scan in a few old magazine pages and put them up...and before you know it...global media exposure."
You gotta love blogging. It can turn any of us into a journalist with something important to say. By the way, here is one of Home and Gardens "copyrighted" photos from the article. Notice how enforcing their copyright magically made everything disappear?
Making your own RSS feeds
Since Blogger Pro no longer exists, and since standard Blogger does not include RSS feed creation (yet, but it's coming), and since anyone signing up for a new account with Blogger gets an "in-between" version somewhere between Pro and regular Blogger, let's look at RSS feeds and how to create them for any blog.
There are plenty of technical papers out there on RSS creation, but precious little information in the "RSS for Dummies" vein. Enter the Blog Bloke who put together his own RSS feed and shares the simple approach on how he managed to do it.
There are plenty of technical papers out there on RSS creation, but precious little information in the "RSS for Dummies" vein. Enter the Blog Bloke who put together his own RSS feed and shares the simple approach on how he managed to do it.
Saturday, September 20, 2003
Live blogging, a promising trend?
Here is an interesting idea. Not a new idea, but newly interesting because of the subject of the blog: John Cleese (Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, etc.).
Cleese was the keynote speaker at SunNetworks and Mark Jones was there blogging live and in full color for InfoWorld's TechWatch (but misspelling Fawlty Towers). Cleese's subject was about mistakes and how they are a part of life and need to be acknowledged. Here is what I consider the fascinating part of live blogging: capturing ideas as they happen and distributing the ideas planet-wide. Here are a few Cleeseisms that might have been lost without blogging technology:
"Remember this: It's practically impossible after a really good idea emerges to recall exactly what the process was that gave birth to it."
"A man who is afraid to make mistakes is unlikely to make anything."
"Today's protected system is tomorrow's unprotected system. So does that make today's system a mistake? Well, yes, if it's a Windows System. "
Cleese was the keynote speaker at SunNetworks and Mark Jones was there blogging live and in full color for InfoWorld's TechWatch (but misspelling Fawlty Towers). Cleese's subject was about mistakes and how they are a part of life and need to be acknowledged. Here is what I consider the fascinating part of live blogging: capturing ideas as they happen and distributing the ideas planet-wide. Here are a few Cleeseisms that might have been lost without blogging technology:
"Remember this: It's practically impossible after a really good idea emerges to recall exactly what the process was that gave birth to it."
"A man who is afraid to make mistakes is unlikely to make anything."
"Today's protected system is tomorrow's unprotected system. So does that make today's system a mistake? Well, yes, if it's a Windows System. "
TV station invites live reports from bloggers
"Send us your live reports from the scene! WVEC.com is compiling a "blog" (Web log) of public comments on Hurricane Isabel."
Taking advantage of the blogger's tendency to want be in the middle of things, WVEC had a very large response to their call for blog reporting on Hurricane Isabel. From damage descriptions like "We have a 10 foot by 20 foot hole in our yard where our sea wall breached and sucked out the ground" to minutes old digital photos, the blogging community kept everyone up to date on the hurricane.
Taking advantage of the blogger's tendency to want be in the middle of things, WVEC had a very large response to their call for blog reporting on Hurricane Isabel. From damage descriptions like "We have a 10 foot by 20 foot hole in our yard where our sea wall breached and sucked out the ground" to minutes old digital photos, the blogging community kept everyone up to date on the hurricane.
Friday, September 19, 2003
So, what features of former Pro are lacking in regular Blogger?
Since we had the issue come up in the Blogger Forum about why RSS is not available, I thought we might look into this a little. The best way to get information is from fellow bloggers. Radio Free Blogistan (a former Blogger blog, if I remember correctly), asked the same question. If you follow the links there to Steve Jensen (Blogger/Google guru/inventor) and Jason Shellen (ditto) you get as close to the source as you will find.
The upshot? RSS is coming to all Blogger users "relatively soon." Meanwhile, if you weren't aware, regular Blogger users can now have headlines. Go to your settings page and turn them on. A blog is not a blog without a headline.
BTW: one of the comments to Xian's post was "Now if they could only add some commenting as well." Amen.
The upshot? RSS is coming to all Blogger users "relatively soon." Meanwhile, if you weren't aware, regular Blogger users can now have headlines. Go to your settings page and turn them on. A blog is not a blog without a headline.
BTW: one of the comments to Xian's post was "Now if they could only add some commenting as well." Amen.
Finding out who's linking to you
One of the most interesting things about blogging is finding out whether other bloggers think you're interesting. After all, blogging is like any other type of writing, you want an audience. The bigger your audience, the more (apparently) interesting you are. And how do you measure the degree of interest? --By the number of people who either link to you or mention you in a blog.
There are several ways to keep track of who is talking about your blog. Today, we'll look at Technorati which is a service that tracks blog links. If you enter your blog's URL, it will search for links and for blogs that mention your blog site. This can serve two purposes for you: it can enable you to jump to the blog that mentions you to see what they had to say, and it can give you an instant picture of how "important" your blog is. This importance factor is the same measure Google uses to rank your site. If you look at la-legal.com, for example, through Technorati's eyes, this is what you get:
The return show there are 50 "inbound links" and 32 "inbound blogs" to the site. Technorati then displays a summary of who posted and the context which you can order by freshness or by "blog authority." Blog authority is the ranking the blog that mentions you or links to you has.
The Technorati basic service is free. Technorati has more advanced features for a nominal price of $5-$10 per year. These services include watch lists and comparisons of competing sites along with objective measurements of your site's performance.
Technorati is not the only source for this type of information. We plan an article for the near future that compares and reviews link reporting services.
There are several ways to keep track of who is talking about your blog. Today, we'll look at Technorati which is a service that tracks blog links. If you enter your blog's URL, it will search for links and for blogs that mention your blog site. This can serve two purposes for you: it can enable you to jump to the blog that mentions you to see what they had to say, and it can give you an instant picture of how "important" your blog is. This importance factor is the same measure Google uses to rank your site. If you look at la-legal.com, for example, through Technorati's eyes, this is what you get:
The return show there are 50 "inbound links" and 32 "inbound blogs" to the site. Technorati then displays a summary of who posted and the context which you can order by freshness or by "blog authority." Blog authority is the ranking the blog that mentions you or links to you has.
The Technorati basic service is free. Technorati has more advanced features for a nominal price of $5-$10 per year. These services include watch lists and comparisons of competing sites along with objective measurements of your site's performance.
Technorati is not the only source for this type of information. We plan an article for the near future that compares and reviews link reporting services.
Thursday, September 18, 2003
Adobe Reader 6 has annoying ads
Another upgrade, another problem. The newest upgrade to Adobe's free reader, now called Adobe Reader instead of Adobe Acrobat Reader (good move) has an unfortunate "feature" --it has a colored box on its toolbar that cycles ads for Adobe products. Fuzzblog, an interesting tech-oriented Blogger powered blog seemed especially upset by the self-contained spam.
Fortunately, Planet PDF explains an easy fix to turn this annoying feature off. Under "Preferences" and then "Startup" there is a check box labeled "Show messages and automatically update." Sounds like that should be a good thing, right? Unclick this and the ads are gone for good.
Fortunately, Planet PDF explains an easy fix to turn this annoying feature off. Under "Preferences" and then "Startup" there is a check box labeled "Show messages and automatically update." Sounds like that should be a good thing, right? Unclick this and the ads are gone for good.
Newspapers getting into RSS feeds
Some of the major newspapers are discovering that creating RSS feeds for their publications leads to an easy way to distribute news. "RSS is getting a boost from the popularity -- even on newspaper sites -- of blogging, or Web logging. Many bloggers, who write online journals that typically link to other Web sites, use RSS because it's an easy way to aggregate headlines from a large number of sources."
Tuesday, September 16, 2003
Free toolbars: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Are the free toolbars available from several sources handy utilities or a backend pipeline into your computer and your privacy? As they say, it depends on how you look at it.
The Good. I use the Google toolbar. It has several good features that enhance searching and it has the ability to display a page's page rank based on Google's assessment of the site's importance. For bloggers, this is a handy way to keep up with rankings. The Google toolbar also includes a pop-up stopper that works well and can be selectively set to allow popups for sites you choose.
The Ugly. I have to say the Yahoo! Companion qualifies for the Ugly category not because of its looks, which are marginally OK, or even its name, (companion?), but because its search is limited solely to Yahoo! listed sites.
The AltaVista toolbar also qualifies as Ugly at this time, although it is very close to being good. It has all the necessary features, including a pop-up stopper and the ability to translate a site into any of ten languages. However, its only shortcoming at this point is that it lacks a certain amount of accuracy in its info button which is supposed to take you to weather forecasts and so on. Also, its method for ranking sites seems to provide only outdated information. I do have to say that the AltaVista toolbar is worth looking at and may rank as Good for many people.
The Bad. There are several toolbars and utilities that are nothing but spyware that are designed to track your habits and clutter your computer with ads. One of the worst offenders is Xupiter. I won't even post a link to them, but I will post a link to a site that explains how to get rid of Xupiter if you are unfortunate enough to be infected with this parasite. There are many more that are similar, so beware.
The Good. I use the Google toolbar. It has several good features that enhance searching and it has the ability to display a page's page rank based on Google's assessment of the site's importance. For bloggers, this is a handy way to keep up with rankings. The Google toolbar also includes a pop-up stopper that works well and can be selectively set to allow popups for sites you choose.
The Ugly. I have to say the Yahoo! Companion qualifies for the Ugly category not because of its looks, which are marginally OK, or even its name, (companion?), but because its search is limited solely to Yahoo! listed sites.
The AltaVista toolbar also qualifies as Ugly at this time, although it is very close to being good. It has all the necessary features, including a pop-up stopper and the ability to translate a site into any of ten languages. However, its only shortcoming at this point is that it lacks a certain amount of accuracy in its info button which is supposed to take you to weather forecasts and so on. Also, its method for ranking sites seems to provide only outdated information. I do have to say that the AltaVista toolbar is worth looking at and may rank as Good for many people.
The Bad. There are several toolbars and utilities that are nothing but spyware that are designed to track your habits and clutter your computer with ads. One of the worst offenders is Xupiter. I won't even post a link to them, but I will post a link to a site that explains how to get rid of Xupiter if you are unfortunate enough to be infected with this parasite. There are many more that are similar, so beware.
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