Category: Technology

I have more than 20 blogs, and I know that is not unusual. I collect blogs in all the normal ways:

• I sign up for a Social Media site and automatically get a blog (2 or 3 including Vox).
• I sign up for a professional service and automatically get a blog (2).
• I check out a blogging service and create a blog with a Hello World post that then gets abandoned (Several).
• I maintain a good number of link blogs. They are blogs where I link to articles and other blog posts on specific topics. Each blog is a topic. In serves a similar function as del.icio.us in that I save links on specific topics, but it provides additional flexibility. I save articles on website planning, website design, website construction, website promotion, and website planning for example. My link blogs are all on Blogger, which provides a button to save to the blog as you are browsing. Again, one can save a blog post with the same effort as saving a link on del.icio.us. Some would question whether these are true blogs. (14)
• Then I have some blogs that are more traditional blogs that I write myself. (2 or 3).

It creates issues of course. No one wants to read multiple blogs from one person.

• I could write one entry and cut and paste to other blogs. I will do that with this entry to try it out.
• If one knew RSS, one could subscribe to all the feeds and send them to one group or folder.
• There are RSS tools available to merge RSS feeds, so one could create one RSS feed from many. See RSS Feed Mixers.

Some people create one blog and put everything into one blog.

• Jeremy Zawadny from Yahoo writes a blog with excellent technical perspective, but I also get his blog posts on his other passion which is learning to fly.
• Matt Cutts from Google writes a blog on SEO that is required reading for anyone promoting websites, but I also get his vacation pictures.
• Dave Winer pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software. He always has interesting perspectives on current technology. But I also get his posts on his lawsuits or travel plans.

Options include:

• Do one blog and accept that it is good to get information on the person behind the blog.
• Create different blogs on different topics.
• Treat blogs like Newspapers and only read the articles / posts of interests. A sports fan reads the sports section without a care about bridge columns, comics, or horoscopes.

I think one of the most interesting options is to add intelligence to RSS Readers to filter by tag. That way I could filter out Jeremy’s flying posts, Matt’s vacation posts, and Dave’s naked Jen posts (I am not going to explain).

And for the one that asked – I will also post this on Vox so that I am posting there as well as on Les Bain’s Blog.

I wrote an RSS Tutorial several years ago.  It is time to do an update.  I collect material from one version of the Tutorial to next.  This will be the second major update.   There are new products, new kinds of feeds, and new statistics for RSS usage. And of course, there are products and services that are now obsolete.

The Tutorial got noticed when Robert Scoble mentioned it on his blog.

My tutorial is consistently in the top 10 results on Google for the keywords “rss tutorial”.

There is of course an RSS feed from the Tutorial that announces updates.

When I created the RSS Tutorial, I put a PayPal donation option on the first page.  I was not expecting to earn money, but I was curious to see if I would get any donations.  To date, I have not received a one.

Mary Jo Foley discusses the new Google Office for Business proposal and thinks offsite storage of corporate data might be a deal breaker. She sites the Microsoft Hailstorm project as a precedent.

In the corporate world, it is more instructive to look at outsourcing. EDS and IBM do in excess of 20 billion dollars worth of outsourcing where they store corporate data at offsite data centers. Google should look to that model.

I have an old Palm.  I like it just fine.  I have taken it to geek meetings and it gets almost as much attention as the new products.  I am carrying around a dinosaur.

I wanted to start syncing it with my laptop, so I had to get a serial / USB cable and drivers from Radio Shack.  I am synced again and ready to go.

I am trying out Carbonite Backup. It is a backup system that backs up my hard drive to a Carbonite server. It is easy to set up, it backs up without worry, and stores my information off site.

I have an Amazon S3 account also, but I cannot seem to find the right software. Carbonite software backing up to Amazon S3 would be nice.

My biggest problem with Carbonite is that is does not back up external drives.

Vista?
iPhone?
Office 2007?
Microsoft Expression?
HDTV?

“Be not the first by whom the new is tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.”
Alexander Pope

I voted for my favorites blogs for bloggies today. The bloggies are the oscars for blogs. I did not vote in every category. I do not read blogs in every category. I do not read any sports blogs or teen blogs for example. But I am very fond of lifehacker, and voted for it twice.

My laptop is running hot. Every so often, it will turn off because it is overheated. The internal fan is probably getting dirty. When I get a break, I will clean the fan.

For now, when I use the laptop at my desk, I plug in an external keyboard, monitor, and external hard drive, and the laptop is off to the side. I have an external desk fan blowing on the laptop to keep it cool and running.

It is cold in the room, so I have a space heater running near my feet. I am not sure I have ever had a cooling fan and a heater running at the same time.

If reminds me of when Nixon was president, and he would run the air conditioner so he could have a fire in the fireplace.

I read about people who subscribe to hundreds of feeds. I read about techniques of getting through feeds as quickly as possible. I read how to use keyboard techniques to scan and delete more quickly. One person bragged he could get scan multiple RSS feed items every second.

Then I think about the people who are carefully writing blog posts. People who refine and polish their posts. Polish and refine so that readers can spend part of a second.

It makes one wonder.

I have been working with computers for almost 40 years.

I have two children. They started using computers at a very early age. They have been on the AOL or the Internet as long as they can remember. They are now 18 and 21. We still discuss technology, computers, and the Internet, but woe be under me if I am behind on any thing related to technology in our discussions.

And you know, I do not mind. I like the challenge, and I like that the teaching goes both ways.

The secrecy around the iPhone was so elaborate it makes you wonder whether Apple should consult with Homeland Security.

This week is both CES and MacWorld. It is the ultimate in techno-lust.

If you want me to review Vista, please send a $2,200 Acer Ferrari laptop with Vista installed. I will do full disclosure. I will find something productive to do with the laptop at the conclusion of the trial period. I will not let the loan of the laptop influence my review.