Software / Internet

Cool Tools / Software / Internet — 1 Comment
19
Aug 04

RSS Feeds

I’m the king of missing important details, so I noticed a while back that the RSS feeds for LNS were not working then I promptly forgot this. Today I noticed it again and it took me all of two seconds to fix. The point is, the feeds are working now, which means you can just view the feeds without coming to the main page of the site.

To that end here are some cool RSS/XML tools that might help you.:

  1. Convert eBay searches into feeds with RSSAuction.com
  2. Create a calendar and share with friends in RSS
  3. Sage News Aggregator extension (plugin) for Firefox
Media / Software / Internet — 5 Comments
18
Aug 04

The trend toward commercial blogs

I’ve been watching Boing Boing pile on the ads and cluttering their front page for the past few months. They need a fresh redesign of the site if that’s what they want to do. The Boing Boing people have some ties with Denton and the Gawker Media crowd and it seems like they’re trying to do something along the same lines by placing prominent advertisements along each side of their page. Boing Boing shoots for a more eclectic and general subject matter, whereas most of Gawker Media’s sites are based on targeted themes (most likely to concentrate on a target ad base), for example: their gadget site, Gizmodo, and their porn site, Fleshbot. Is this the start of a trend toward more commercial blogging? With the proliferation of so many personal blogs is there a demand for strict content-based blogging? Do more blogs need editors to be successful? Will more blogs jump on the ad bandwagon?

Update: Most of the editors at Boing Boing are also contributors to Wired or Wired Magazine. Back in June, I speculated on the link between BB and Gawker Media because of all the gratuitous cross-posting and mentionitis going on at the time. Back then, Wired/BB contributor Xeni Jardin denied a link or deal between Boing Boing and Gawker, yet now at Nick Denton‘s website it describes Gizmodo (the gadget blog) as: “Gizmodo, a blog for the gadget obsessive, recently partnered with Wired Magazine. ” Interesting?

Edit 19:56 CST: Maybe, but Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired, points out in the comments below that there is no money changing hands between Gawker/BB/Wired and that the relationship could be best characterized as that of mutual admiration:

“I’m a big fan of Gizmodo (and Nick’s other projects), so when we launched Gadget Lab, our weekly email newsletter, we agreed to highlight some Gizmodo content in exchange for a link on their site. Just a trade, with no money changing hands.”

This may all be true, although I would argue that since all three groups derive most of their income from advertising revenue that this amounts to a de facto business relationship as items of value are being exchanged as part of an agreement. It goes without saying that I do not have a problem with business of this type, only that it is important to know that such relationships exist.

Related:

  1. How Can I Sex Up This Blog Business?
  2. Estimated revenue represented by the Gawker stable
  3. Business 2.0’s blog fantasy
Liberties / Software / Internet / Technology — Comments Off on Untitled
29
Jul 04

Untitled

  1. How to Remove Internet Explorer via BB
  2. RFID Hack Could Allow Retail Fraud: “As a proof of concept, Grunwald also added a “cookie” function to RFDump that allows a store to track the number of times a shopper enters or picks up an item. An audience member pointed out that that had serious implications for personal privacy. “You are exactly correct,” Grunwald said. “It is a very scary thing.”
  3. Guerrilla Drive-in Theatres. Awesome.
Software / Internet — 1 Comment
27
Jul 04

MovableType license changes

I was looking over the new features in MT 3.1 today and saw they had made some changes to the license structure for MT. Too late for my little website, but I am glad they finally came to their senses. I still think the price point is a little high, however we’ll reserve judgment as long as they keep releasing new features in a timely manner. I’m not entirely sure they changed anything since you can still only have one author in the free personal version. I think they just made the restricted personal version less prominent. Bogus! You should still use WordPress unless you’re dying to give away your money.

Film and motion pictures / Software / Internet — Comments Off on A Passion for Visual Effects
20
Jul 04

A Passion for Visual Effects

Check out what one young guy has done using Adobe After Effects and Premiere to create incredible special effects.

Cool Tools / Software / Internet — Comments Off on Gmail notifier extension for Firefox
19
Jul 04

Gmail notifier extension for Firefox

This little add-on for Firefox will check your gmail account and notify you via the browser window in two places. Then you just click the icon to login to gmail. Find out more about it here.

Music / Psychology / Software / Internet — Comments Off on Two cultures of Piracy
19
Jul 04

Two cultures of Piracy

Japan and America, Two “Cultures of Piracy”:

    Following the logic of the Japanese companies, Condry asks his students whether there are some forms of music they would always pay for and finds that many of them cite music which struggles to survive in the marketplace or where they have a strong identification with the artists. He suggests that like the Japanese fans, American college students are swayed by loyalty and recipricality rather than legality. The solution to the music industry crisis, he argues, is cultural not legal or economic and it involves changing the relations between music producers and consumers to emphasize shared interests rather than economic exploitation. Imagine that!
Military and defense / Software / Internet — Comments Off on Stigmergy
19
Jul 04

Stigmergy

Understanding group behavior and strategies of ants and terrorists, via Defensetech. Global Guerrillas: STIGMERGIC LEARNING AND GLOBAL GUERRILLAS

Literature / Quotations / Software / Internet — 4 Comments
14
Jul 04

Quipsmart.com

Due mainly to my love for those concise nuggets of human thought we call quotations, I am starting a site called quipsmart whose subject will be famous quotes and quotations. The challenge is to do something different than the fifteen or so main quotation compiling websites. Initially, I will focus on tracking down an exhaustive and comprehensive selection of quotations by a few select individuals and build out from there. I may need some volunteers if anyone is interested in helping. My other goal is to provide definitive sources for each quotations, which is something I have always appreciated when searching for a specific quotation. Other ideas include: the automatic linking of words to quotation authors and subjects, and hard to find quotations.

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