PunditMania

Merge 2 wordpress.com accounts into one « WordPress.com Forums

2010-11-15T18:22:00.000+01:00

This source was useful to me in getting my WordPress accounts merged:

Merge 2 wordpress.com accounts into one « WordPress.com Forums: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Bloglines is Continuing via Ask.com and MerchantCircle

2010-11-11T14:13:00.000+01:00

Bloglines: writes contrary to its own previous reports that it is shutting down that is in fact continuing:

"We’re happy to announce that Ask.com has entered into an agreement with MerchantCircle to keep Bloglines up and running! That means your news feeds will remain available (with your same password) indefinitely. Ask.com will maintain the current Bloglines service as-is until at least December 1, 2010 after which the service will transition wholly to MerchantCircle.

You can read more detail about MerchantCircle and its plans for the service at the MerchantCircle blog and the Ask.com blog.

Stay tuned for an email coming soon that will provide more information. In the meantime, please continue to check back here for updates, or send an email to bloglines@merchantcircle.com."

Bit.ly for LawPundit and Megaliths.net

2010-11-11T13:54:00.000+01:00

LawPundit at lawpundit.com
LawPundit at Blogspot
Megaliths.net

Google For Educators - Blogger

2010-06-16T13:10:00.000+02:00

Google For Educators - Blogger

Blogging without Internet in Africa - Joe Litobarski's Blog

2010-06-15T00:02:00.000+02:00

Blogging without Internet in Africa - Joe Litobarski's Blog

The New York Times Plans a Blogger-Friendly Pay Wall. Link All You Like! | Peter Kafka | MediaMemo | AllThingsD

2010-05-25T16:34:00.000+02:00

The New York Times Plans a Blogger-Friendly Pay Wall. Link All You Like! | Peter Kafka | MediaMemo | AllThingsD

BBC News - Britons spend nearly 'one day a month online'

2010-05-20T02:32:00.000+02:00

BBC News - Britons spend nearly 'one day a month online'

Technology News: Blogosphere: Every Twitterer Can Be a Pundit Now

2010-05-11T02:43:00.000+02:00

Technology News: Blogosphere: Every Twitterer Can Be a Pundit Now

Blogger in Draft: The Blogger Template Designer

2010-03-27T19:44:00.000+01:00

Blogger in Draft: The Blogger Template Designer

WordPress Founder: Open Source Is About People, Not Technology

2010-03-25T12:50:00.000+01:00

WordPress Founder: Open Source Is About People, Not Technology

"We’ve discovered a lot of great ideas here at The Economist Innovation Conference in Berkeley, California. Pixar’s President spoke on how the company creates great films and Paola Antonelli of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) discussed the history of the @ symbol, among other presentations and workshops.

Now one of the biggest forces in social media, founder of WordPress Matt Mullenweg, has taken the stage to speak about the open source movement, the origins of WordPress (WordPress), and how it has fostered innovation.

Here are my notes on his talk:"

Go to Ben Parr at Mashable to see those notes.

How to Blog

2010-03-08T18:02:00.000+01:00

How to Blog

Blog-World Watch: Does Blogging Get You Google Placement

2010-03-08T17:23:00.000+01:00

Blog-World Watch: Does Blogging Get You Google Placement

Adding Buzz this Button for Blogger Blogspot Blogs | QwertyWEB

2010-02-19T14:48:00.000+01:00

Adding Buzz this Button for Blogger Blogspot Blogs | QwertyWEB

How To Ease the Pressure of Blogging

2010-02-01T12:39:00.000+01:00

How To Ease the Pressure of Blogging

Bill Gates Joins the Blogging World - Reviews by PC Magazine

2010-01-21T16:32:00.000+01:00

Bill Gates Joins the Blogging World - Reviews by PC Magazine

The Top Ten VC Blogs (New And Improved)

2010-01-15T02:20:00.000+01:00

The Top Ten VC Blogs (New And Improved)

20 Best Marketing And Social Media Blogs By Women - Forbes.com

2010-01-15T02:11:00.001+01:00

20 Best Marketing And Social Media Blogs By Women - Forbes.com

The Promise and Permission of Hyperlinks | Jeff Sexton Writes - StumbleUpon

2010-01-15T02:11:00.000+01:00

The Promise and Permission of Hyperlinks | Jeff Sexton Writes - StumbleUpon

2010: The Future Of Fashion Blogging | Independent Fashion Bloggers

2010-01-05T00:13:00.000+01:00

2010: The Future Of Fashion Blogging | Independent Fashion Bloggers:

"fashion bloggers have a unique situation that other bloggers will never truly understand. We have to be full out techies like the “tech bloggers” and we have to stay up to date on the latest trends and news in the fashion industry like the “fashion writers”. We are passionate about the two fastest changing industries in the world…fashion and technology; which is exactly why we have to stay one step ahead of the competition to make sure our blogs survive the future. So what are the 2010 fashion blogging trends to look forward to?"

Blog Services Review 2010 - TopTenREVIEWS

2009-12-23T22:08:00.000+01:00

Blog Services Review 2010 - TopTenREVIEWS:

"2010 Blog Services Review Comparisons"

Poken Overview - Do You Poken

2009-12-03T15:28:00.000+01:00

Poken Overview - Do You Poken

Using Facebook in a Blog

2009-12-03T12:46:00.001+01:00

See THE Blogger's Guide to Facebook

Ultimate Collection of WordPress Plugins

2009-12-01T22:21:00.000+01:00

Ultimate Collection of WordPress Plugins

AdesBlog.com » 15 Tips to Unclog Your Blog : Breaking Blogger’s Block

2009-12-01T01:22:00.000+01:00

AdesBlog.com » 15 Tips to Unclog Your Blog : Breaking Blogger’s Block

Notes from the Summit – Getting the Attention of Firestarters at iElectrify.com

2009-11-29T22:22:00.000+01:00

Notes from the Summit – Getting the Attention of Firestarters at iElectrify.com

25 Blogs To Help You Stay Current With Social Media | FreelanceFolder

2009-11-29T20:29:00.000+01:00

25 Blogs To Help You Stay Current With Social Media | FreelanceFolder

What Are You TALKING About?

2009-11-20T00:31:00.000+01:00

What Are You TALKING About?

11 Ways to Influence People Online and Make Them Take Action

2009-11-17T21:59:00.000+01:00

11 Ways to Influence People Online and Make Them Take Action

Internet addiction can harm real relationships

2009-11-16T02:03:00.000+01:00

Internet addiction can harm real relationships

TwitterBar Useful for posting Twitter Tweets : See the Widget

2009-10-24T00:06:00.000+02:00

TwitterBar

Embed this widget See full results for TwitterBar

For all Blogger Bloggers : New and Improved Blogger Editor Now Available : Check it Out

2009-10-24T00:02:00.000+02:00

For all Blogger Bloggers, there is a new and improved Blogger Editor now available. Check it out at http://is.gd/4ye4M.

Find Your IP Address and give it a Unique Nonaneticon - plus Legal and Policy Aspects of IP Numbers

2007-01-31T15:20:00.001+01:00

IP Addresses are Unique, but...

IP Addresses are unique but, as noted by the NRO, they "are not property, cannot be bought,sold, traded…, [are] provided on non-permanent basis for use and [are] returned to [the] provider when no longer required." Moreover, they are shifting from the old, soon to be overcrowded IPv4 address form such as 205.150.58.7 (limit 4 billion addresses, of which only 1.5 billion are left) to the new IPv6 form 2001:0503:OC27:0000:0000:0000:0000 (16 billion addresses).

Get a Unique Nonaneticon for Your IP Address

Alex Mayrhofer informs us at his blog, that he is, among other things, co-author of an RFC at IETF. Alex at his NoNa.Net website not only has a useful (to us) personal world-wide city mapping service (try it here), but he also has a feature at his page which can create a unique if not necessarily exclusive nonaneticon for one's IP Address using the least significant 25 bits of the address (33554432 possibilities). We write "unique but not necessarily exclusive" because every device that connects to the internet must have a unique IP address, so that this can also be a router, a switch or a server of an ISP provider, so that IP addresses can be "dynamic" (temporarily assigned) and not "static" (permanently assigned)".

When you visit the NoNa.Net site here, you will see a small icon which asks you to guess what you think it is. We guessed - before we knew it was a graphic representation of our IP Address - and wagered the idea that the icon looked a bit and a byte like a coffee cup, so we guessed "cup", and received the following automated answer from Alex on the resulting page:

_____________________________________________________


	nonaneticon - to you it looks like a 'cup' the creativity of coincidence :: Why always try to be creative when coincidences can provide surprisingly 'semi-creative' results? The tiny 5x5 pixel icon above is rendered using a technical requirement of any internet connection, namely the client ip address of your web browser's connection. A binary, world wide unique number of 32 digits, more or less randomly assigned, depending on where and how you connect to the internet. the internet equivalent of the inkblot test? :: It's close to impossible to choose a specific ip address. It usually does not matter at all which one you use, but it matters here. It determines how your icon looks like. What it resembles is up to your imagination. 33554432 different ones - even more chances :: Despite an ip address may look short (and even memorizeable) there are 33554432 different nonaneticons (using the least significant 25 bits of the address). Not all ip addresses out of this range are in use, but anyway only a very small percentage of that range has been explored by visitors yet.

_____________________________________________________

Find your IP Address and detailed information about it here: english, deutsch or here. Note at the first two sites linked there that the second "d" in address is stricken out and colored red because "address" is spelled "Adresse" with only one "d" in German.

Here is the first result- as an example for this process - that we obtained at ip-adress.com (you need not enter anything, this all happens automatically). To make this image, we captured the screen result, cut out this section via Paint Shop Pro (Corel), adding a border, and then saved it as a .png via Image Optimizer (Xat.com):

Here is the second result - as an example for this process - that we obtained at the IP locator at geobytes.com (you need not enter anything, this all happens automatically). To make this image, we captured the screen result, cut out this section via Paint Shop Pro (Corel), adding a border, and then saved it as a .png via Image Optimizer (Xat.com):

Note in both examples - as will usually be the case for most users - that the exact location of the user can not be found, but only the location of the service provider, who has a range of IP addresses that are temporarily assigned. Note also that these alleged geographic locations can be random in a given geographical area and can vary considerably, not actually showing the user location at all, but only nearly.

Legal and Policy Aspects of IP Addresses

An important paper on Legal and Policy Aspects of Internet Number Resources was recently presented in Edinburgh, Scotland (Sept. 6, 2006) to the Sixth Computer Law World Conference by Raymond A. Plzak, President and CEO of ARIN (American Registry for Internet Numbers) and Stephen M. Ryan, Esq., General Counsel, American Registry for Internet Numbers. The contents of the paper are described as follows in their introduction:

"First, we provide background on what IP addresses are....

Second, we describe the history of the evolution of Regional Internet Registries (“RIRs”).... We also describe the more recent creation of the Number Resource Organization (“NRO”) ....

Third, we describe the open and transparent public policy process that currently creates Internet number resource allocation policies....

Fourth, we address and contrast the legal nature of domain names, which is increasingly well understood and settled, and IP addresses, which is equally clear but different from domain names, but which has not yet been the subject of a definitive judicial review." [emphasis addded]

[Just as an aside, one should be aware in this regard that IP addresses are considered personal data in Europe and that misuse of them can put you in jail. See the Wikipedia, January 31, 2007.]

The paper by Plzak and Ryan contains interesting observations concerning the internet as a new type of territorial geography:

"It may be useful for lawyers to conceive of the Internet’s “geography” by analogy to the more familiar concept of nation states. The “nations” of the Internet do not end at national borders. Networks are the new “nations.” The “frontiers” of these Internet “nations” are border routers between networks. The “treaties” are voluntary peering relationships between networks. The Internet has a dynamic geography. New “nations”/networks are formed each day. New “borders”/border routers are established hourly. Routing tables are changed by the minute, and all of this activity takes place in most parts of the world without government control or intervention, and with no centralized control, although in some countries Internet activities inside the country are carefully controlled.

Courts struggling to adapt to the Internet have stated as much. In ACLU v. Reno, 217 F. 3d 162 (3rd Circuit 2000) the Court stated:

"The Internet has an international, geographically-borderless nature [citation omitted]...Indeed, the Internet negates geometry...it is fundamentally and profoundly anti-spacial. You can not say where it is or describe its memorable shape and proportions or tell a stranger how to get there. But you can find things in it without knowing where they are. The [Internet] is ambient – nowhere in particular and elsewhere at once." [Citation omitted."

Such statements definitely give the reader cause to again read Lawrence Lessig's CODE and other Laws of Cyberspace.

In any case, in this new territorial geography called the internet, as Plzak and Ryan write, examining the prevailing case law, domain names ARE property, but IP addresses are not:

"Not a single reported decision has indicated any plaintiff has successfully argued they should be permitted to “own” an IP address, in the manner famous trademark domain names can be “owned.”"

Hotel Chatter and Jaunted

2007-01-30T18:13:00.000+01:00

Two potentially interesting blogs for travelers:

HotelChatter

and Jaunted,
which calls itself
"The Pop Culture Travel Guide".

Both have been written up in the newspapers.

Definitely good.

Gallery Photo Album Organizer :Your photos on your website

2006-11-15T20:33:00.000+01:00

Gallery is an "open source web based photo album organizer" which offers the opportunity for geeks and nerds "to blend photo management seamlessly" into their websites or blogs. Take a look

Free Wikis at PBWIKI

2006-02-15T23:51:00.000+01:00

PBWIKI offers free wikis:

Get a free wiki at PBwiki.com.

Check out the PBwiki tour!

The Wiki Anoniblog Offers Blogging Tips Anonymously

2006-01-13T19:53:00.000+01:00

Via K.C. Jones and TechWeb News we discover that the wiki anoniblog offers blog tips anonymously.

Jones writes:

"A new collaborative Web site offers tips on blogging more anonymously for people who live in countries that restrict free speech -- or for those who want to write freely about their companies without the risk of getting fired.

The wiki, launched this week, is called anoniblog [the Anoniblogging Wiki]."

Read more here.

Good God it's Google

2005-11-06T16:55:00.000+01:00

Steve Lohr in his November 6, 2005 article at the NY Times, "Just Googling It Is Striking Fear Into Companies" writes about the fact that even the largest retailer in the US, Wal-Mart, is wary of Google these days. Read the article to find out why.
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Blogs Bloggers BCRA Campaign Finance Law FEC Freedom of Speech & Press

2005-10-26T13:21:00.000+02:00

VoteLaw has a posting about a one-page order just issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit which has "declined to reconsider a decision requiring the FEC to write new rules to carry out a 2002 campaign finance law". Reference is made to a Boston Globe AP article of October 24, 2005 titled "Appeals court declines to review decision on campaign finance rules".

This is a development of utmost importance to blogging. What is the background?

The Bloglines Blog (see also WingedPig) has a posting about the fact that the FEC (Federal Election Commission) has been reviewing regulations concerning political speech on the Internet, including blogging.

The Committee on House Administration held a hearing on the topic on September 22, 2005.

The issues involved are found in this statement by Committee Chairman Robert W. Ney which we have excerpted:

"The Committee is meeting today to hear testimony on the subject of regulation of political speech and activity on the Internet....

The Bi-Partisan Campaign Reform Act (McCain-Feingold or BCRA) required the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to develop regulations to implement the Act. The Commission determined that Congress did not intend for BCRA to cover Internet communications and, therefore, adopted regulations that exempted them.

Congressman Shays and Meehan, believing the FEC regulations did not follow the intent of BCRA, sued the Commission. The Court [see material below] agreed with the Congressmen, and ordered the FEC to rewrite the rules.

As a result of this lawsuit and Court decision, the FEC was forced to rewrite the rules that cover communications on the Internet. That new rulemaking began in March 2005.

While this new rulemaking was going on, some Members of Congress were making clear that they did not intend for BCRA to cover the Internet, and that they did not want the FEC regulating these communications. In March, Congressman Conyers and 13 of his colleagues wrote to the FEC seeking an exemption for web logs or blogs....

Identical bills were also introduced in both bodies to preserve the exemption – in the Senate by Minority Leader Harry Reid and in the House by Jeb Hensarling (R-TX). Their bill language was adopted by this committee, and included in H.R. 1316, the Pence-Wynn bill, reported by the committee on June 8, 2005.

These bi-partisan congressional endorsements of the exemption show there still some issues on which both sides of the aisle can agree. We’ll later hear from two witnesses who operate blogs, one conservative and one liberal, who probably do not agree on anything except that they do not want the FEC to be regulating what they say or do on their websites.

The debate here then is not between Republicans and Democrats or liberals and conservatives. Instead, the debate here is between those who favor regulation and those who do not...."

The court decision in question was described at the hearing by Scott E. Thomas, Chairman, Federal Election Commission as follows [we quote footnote 1 at the linked source]:

"The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia concluded that the Commission’s broad Internet exemption would “severely undermine [the Federal Election Campaign Act’s] purposes,” and would permit “rampant circumvention of the campaign finance laws and foster corruption or the appearance of corruption.” Shays v. FEC, 337 F. Supp. 2d 28, 70 (D.D.C. 2004), aff’d, 414 F.3d 76 (D.C. Cir. 2005), petition for rehearing en banc filed (Aug. 29, 2005). Though the district court held some 15 regulations invalid, it nonetheless indicated that pending resolution of the litigation and adoption of needed revisions by the FEC, the challenged regulations remain in effect. Shays v. FEC, 340 F. Supp. 2d 39, 54 (D.D.C. 2004)."

This is the court decision which the D.C. Appeals Court declined to reconsider.

Here are the issues:

Thomas points out in his testimony that the Internet should be regulated by the BCRA because the Internet is becoming a major player on the political scene.

Vice Chairman Michael E. Toner of the FEC testified that political speech on the internet should not be regulated and that the BCRA was never intended to apply to the internet.

Commissioner Ellen L. Weintraub of the FEC emphasized that "the focus of the FEC is campaign finance. We are not the speech police." Hence, Weintraub indicates that the proposed rules will in fact regulate the internet, but that substantial exemptions will be made.

Bradley A. Smith, Professor of Law at Capital University Law School, and former Chairman of the FEC, testified that the "the on-line community has reason to be concerned" and that "there is a sizeable and powerful lobby both in and out of Congress that clearly wants to regulate the internet....A regulated internet will strengthen those who already have political power and influence; a deregulated internet will boost the influence of ordinary Americans who just want to play by the rules...." Smith particularly points to the inherent conflicts created between internet regulation and press freedom, the resolution of which is a controversial matter. For the position of blogs, see The Volokh Conspiracy.

Lawrence Noble, Executive Director and General Counsel of the Center for Responsive Politics, testified that: "There is little doubt that the Internet can be used in much the same way television, radio and the print media have been before; as an avenue for the spending of large amounts of undisclosed soft money to finance various forms of political ads aimed at electing or defeating Federal candidates. "

Michael J. Krempasky of RedState.org provided testimony from one side of the political spectrum of blogging and Duncan Black of Eschaton provided testimony from the other side. Both stated that blogs should be exempted from the BCRA.

Some links to the history of this topic are:
CNet News.com
beSpacific
Volokh Conspiracy
pbaHQ
CDT
In the Agora
Michelle Malkin
Democracy Project
InstaPundit
Ask Jeeves Blog
Captain's Quarters
Bainbridge
Patterico
Newspaperindex

Given this court decision and barring Congressional action, there will now be much, much more about this matter on the blogosphere, you can be sure.

Technorati Tags:

internet law, political speech, campaign contributions, blogs, blogging, bloggers, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, FEC, Federal Election Commission, Campaign Finance Law, Campaign Reform Act, BCRA, legal, House Administration, Committee on House Administration, McCain-Feingold, Pence-Wynn, communications, Internet, Kaulin, web logs, campaign finance, online community, internet regulation.

Crossposted to LawPundit.
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Test of Link Feature at Blogger

2005-10-24T21:03:00.000+02:00

This is a test to see how the new link feature at Blogger works Link to This Page at LawPundit.

Technorati adds Blog Finder

2005-09-24T18:35:00.000+02:00

Technorati has added a Blog Finder (beta) based on its tags directory. The HTML they use for that is different than for the normal tags previously used.
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LIFT Text Transcoder - Web Pages in Text-Only Version

2005-09-19T12:19:00.000+02:00

The LIFT Text Transcoder makes it possible to convert web pages to text-only versions. The manual states:

"LIFT Text Transcoder (or transcoder) is a web application that converts a web page into its text-only version on-the-fly by eliminating all page layout that is present in the original page and by hiding many accessibility defects.
The transcoder is useful for the website visitor, since it removes some accessibility issues and small defects like missing image ALTs or forms that are not properly linearized or flash objects. It can be used also by the web developer to determine if the reading order of the information presented in the page makes sense when read in the order that would be followed by a screen reader or speech browser.

LIFT Text Transcoder (enter a URL at that page to try it out) is especially useful for people and situations where:

- graphics cannot be seen (e.g. blind persons, text-only browsers, ...);
- sizes of the page elements have to changed (e.g. a low-vision persons that maximizes the browser windows to enlarge its contents; a PDA user who has to fit everything on a small screen);
- size of text that has to be changed (e.g. a low-vision person; a presenter that has to project a web page to an audience via a projector);
-links and buttons have to be easily located and operated (e.g. a person with motor disabilities that cannot move his/her hand with precision, like somebody with a broken arm);
-form fields need to be easily layed out to be used (e.g. a low vision person using a screen magnifier that restricts his/her field of vision)."

The options that are available for each text-only page so produced are:

"Change the current font size: larger | default | smaller
Current color mode is Black on White, other available modes: Yellow on Black | Black on Cream
Show textual links as buttons
Do not move navbars
Open not handled documents directly
Hide the Text/Graphical View Panel
Hide Text Only Options
Open the original version of this page."

Cross-posted to LawPundit.
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Google Blog Search

2005-09-16T00:02:00.000+02:00

Google has launched a blog search function at

Google Blog Search.

The same results in somewhat different format can be obtained at the Blogger Blog Search Beta, which is of course not limited to Blogger blogs.
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RSS Readers

2005-09-01T14:52:00.000+02:00

Chris Sherman reviews RSS Readers in Choosing an RSS Reader, a September 1, 2005 article at Search Engine Watch.
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Blogging in Malaysia

2005-08-22T13:56:00.000+02:00

The Oxford Business Group has an August 22, 2005 article entitled The New Blogocracy covering blogging in Malaysia.

An excerpt from that article states:

"The recent news that a group of five online diarists, or 'bloggers', participated in a 24-hour 'blogathon' to raise money for charity highlighted the important role these online journals now play in disseminating information to the Malaysian public."
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Apophenia and Blogs - The Bridge between the Digital and the Physical

2005-08-07T13:05:00.000+02:00

Danah Boyd, a former Googleite and Bloggerite now a Yahootite, blogging at zephoria ipseity, has the blog motto "apophenia :: making connections where none previously existed ". She studies "how people negotiate their presentation of self in mediated social contexts to an unknown audience" in media such as blogs. She is "fascinated by moments when people don't realize the bridge between the digital and the physical." Those out there who think that digital communication is not "real" human communication should read some of these posts. Great Stuff.
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Podcasting as a New Podium

2005-07-25T16:28:00.000+02:00

Virginia Heffernan has a nice July 22, 2005 article at the New York Times on podcasting entitled The Podcast as a New Podium. Here is a sample paragraph:

"On "Catholic Insider" Father Vonhögen leads audio tours of Rome, which he often visits, and parses the Vatican's reaction to the new Harry Potter novel; he also boasts about how many subscribers he has, as all podcasters do. Recently he told a reporter: "On Sunday, in my church, I can reach about 500 people. But with my podcasts I can reach about 15,000 listeners or more.""
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Solving Template Problems Arising since the Introduction of Blogger Images

2005-07-17T11:39:00.000+02:00

The introduction of Blogger Images has caused some template problems for numerous users because as Blogger Buzz writes:

"In order to provide the layout options in our newly released Blogger Images we had to wrap all posts in a

tag."

This tag is NOT found in your templates, but shows up first when you view the source code of one of your Blogger blog pages.

The solution is to go to your Blogger blog dashboard and set the newly added "Enable float alignment" option in the blog settings to NO.

That will solve template problems but will create left and right alignment problems for the new Blogger Images feature.

Hat Tip to FamilyGreenberg.com.

Blogger Dashboard Update Feature Finally Fixed

2005-07-17T09:56:00.000+02:00

The Blogger Dashboard update feature has finally been fixed, after months and months of being disabled. Bloggers can now once again tell from the Blogger Dashboard how many posts they have posted for each blog and when their last posting for each blog was made. It used to also be possible to see how many words a blogger had posted, but this feature appears to have been discarded for this newly fixed Dashboard version.

Blogger Blog at Blogger Buzz

2005-03-15T19:44:00.000+01:00

We spotted a new blogger blog at Blogger Buzz.

Google Bombing

2005-02-26T15:41:00.000+01:00

As we have recently stated, we have shifted from Google to Yahoo as our search engine of choice because of the fact that Google searches were too often resulting in sites that LINK to the desired page rather than the page itself.

A commentator informed us as to why the current Google search algorithm is faulty, precisely because it places too much emphasis on links, rather than paying more attention to what a site is about, even at the simplest level of the URL itself.

This emphasis on links has resulted, at its worst, in what is called Google Bombing, utilizing the principle that if enough sites link to any given site using the same link word or phrase, then that site will come up first on the Google results page.

Some links to Google Bombing are.

Adam Mathes - the original Google Bomber

Word Spy - definition of Google Bombing

A superb lengthy article by John Hiler on Google Blombing at Microcontent News - The Online Magazine for Weblogs, Webzines, and Publishing

Infothought - Seth Finkelstein's blog

The Underground Dailectic - blog

Links and Law - links

Blog-Fearing ALA President Bitten by the Blogs

2005-02-26T15:33:00.000+01:00

The Law Pundit has frequented libraries since his early days and has quite a private library of his own, so that he is certainly no enemy of good libraries.

However, we see that Google's digitization of millions of books for online access by "the masses" has the poor library people up in arms. Indeed, particularly the rise of the masses in blogs seems to be a cause for the librarians' wrath.

Michael Gorman, president-elect of the American Library Association, and Dean of Library Services, Madden Library, California State University, Fresno, has an appropriately blog-fearing article in the Library Journal of February 25, 2005 entitled Revenge of the Blog People!.

Gorman has made the mistake of attacking bloggers (this is generally done only by those who really understand nothing about blogging), and also the present posting is his reaping of the fruits of the seeds he himself has sown.

Here is how Gorman describes blogs:

"A blog is a species of interactive electronic diary by means of which the unpublishable, untrammeled by editors or the rules of grammar, can communicate their thoughts via the web. (Though it sounds like something you would find stuck in a drain, the ugly neologism blog is a contraction of "web log.") Until recently, I had not spent much time thinking about blogs or Blog People."

What a stupid thing to write. It is rather hard to believe that the president-elect of the ALA could be this out of touch with reality.

Not having learned from experience, he writes the above article defiantly after bloggers had already criticized him previously for questioning the usefulness of Google book digitization, by which he called into question the usefulness of digital availability of such information to all citizens. Some people still do not understand "democracy" in its core value.

With uninformed people like this at the head of the main US library institution, the demise of libraries is not far off. Mark our words that the next decades will be marked by massive library closings since all the world will doing their research on the screen. Blog Bitten People such as Gorman will have accelerated this development.

The entire controversy reminds us of the Egyptology library at the University of Trier in Germany, our former abode as Lecturer in Law. That library is kept unter lock and key like the safe of a bank to make sure that unauthorized persons do not obtain access to books which might be used to upset the dusty applecarts of the virtually mothballed academic disciplines which deal with this region of the world.

Freedom of Information is simply not something relished by information monopolists.

Gorman wirtes:

"In the eyes of bloggers, my sin lay in suggesting that Google is OK at giving access to random bits of information but would be terrible at giving access to the recorded knowledge that is the substance of scholarly books. I went further and came up with the unoriginal idea that the thing to do with a scholarly book is to read it, preferably not on a screen. It turns out that the Blog People (or their subclass who are interested in computers and the glorification of information) have a fanatical belief in the transforming power of digitization and a consequent horror of, and contempt for, heretics who do not share that belief."

Horror, no. Contempt, yes.

BlogBib Goes Biblio Blog

2005-02-26T14:40:00.000+01:00

BlogBib, An Annotated Bibliography on Weblogs and Blogging, with a Focus on Library/Librarian Blogs..., by Susan Herzog, Information Literacy Librarian @ Eastern Connecticut State University has an excellent series of postings on blogging in 8 PARTS.

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Articles & Interviews About Blogs
Part 3: BlogBib: Blogging @Your Library
Part 4: BlogBib: Blogging Tools
Part 5: BlogBib: Select Librarian/Library Blogs
Part 6: BlogBib: Books on Blogging
Part 7: BlogBib: Studies on Blogging
Part 8: BlogBib: Presentations on Blogging

This is must read about blogging.

The FeedBurner Weblog - Burning Questions

2005-02-17T18:06:00.000+01:00

We have just subscribed to Burning Questions the offical FeedBurner Weblog, which has 934 subscribing readers as of this date +1 for our subscription. Take a look. The last posting there was on RSS Metrics and Podcasting.

Giving Google the Goodbyes

2005-02-17T16:46:00.000+01:00

What has Google recently done to its search algorithm? It is a disaster.

There is an old wisdom which holds that "power corrupts" and "absolute power corrupts absolutely". And Google appears to be corrupted - absolutely.

Whereas most of the world has increasingly been singing the praises of Google, we have become increasingly wary of this search engine whose overly smart but increasingly complicated algorithms are perhaps beginning to run asunder.

Until about a week ago, the entry of "lawpundit" into Google expectedly returned the blog "LawPundit" as the first search listing, as it should be, since there are no competing websites or blogs with that name.

What we now find is that the entry of "lawpundit" into the Google search box no longer turns up that blog but an absolutely confused mess of websites that LINK to the blog. There appears to be no rhyme or reason to the listing whatsoever and many of the sites who do link to our blog are not very important, since some of them are our own LESSER, seldom used, blogs.

Or to put it another way, when looking for the blog LawPundit on Google, Google is useless. Even keying the words "LawPundit" and "Blog" does not provide the desired result. Something has gone very badly bonkers in the algorithm of the Google search system in the last week or two.

Our tolerance level for nonsense is low. We do not wait long. We have installed both the Yahoo and MSN toolbars and are going to give Google the boot. Yahoo's first four results for LawPundit are perfect:

1. http://www.lawpundit.com/blog/lawpundit.htm - the LawPundit blog page
2. http://www.lawpundit.com - the LawPundit website index page
3. http://lawpundit.blogspot.com - the previous LawPundit blogspot location
4. http://feeds.feedburner.com/lawpundit - the FeedBurner RSS feed

That's the way it should be. For any entered artificial keyword such as lawpundit, we - at the least - expect the search engine to find the comparably named URLs and RSSs and rank them ahead of sites that merely LINK to them. God forbid.

Goodbye Google. Yahoo is now our toolbar of choice. It has some new features we were not even aware of, such as an anti-spyware button which permits immediate scans of the hard disk. Terrific. And the search results are just as good, if not better now.

Giving Google the Goodbyes....

Crossposted to LawPundit.

Brilliant Button Maker

2005-02-05T01:52:00.000+01:00

Via the German law blog Streitsache, we point to a site which automatizes the making of buttons for blogs. See the Brilliant Button Maker by LucaZappa.com.

NOFOLLOW - a new attribute against spam

2005-02-04T13:47:00.000+01:00

The Google Blog has the simplest explanation we have found of the new "nofollow" attribute on URLs as a means of preventing comment spam and similar URL spam abuses.

Not only have the major blog software makers signed on to this project, but MSN Search, Yahoo and also Wikipedia (1.4 Beta 6) are on board.

Do you follow?

Trackback for blogs by CNET

2005-01-22T15:21:00.000+01:00

TMCnet.com has a January 20, 2005 story via the Business Wire from CNET News.com entitled CNET News.com Introduces TrackBack, Linking Blog Commentary to CNET News.com Stories. As written there:

"TrackBack is an emerging protocol that allows Web sites to automatically store records of any links which occur between them. For example, for each article produced by CNET News.com, TrackBack automatically creates and posts records of any blogs that link to that article. As a result, readers can easily find the blogs that discuss the story, gaining multi-faceted insight on the issues that interest them. In turn, bloggers using TrackBack gain visibility before the audience of one of the most popular news sources on the Web when they link to a CNET News.com story, and the CNET News.com editorial team gains valuable feedback to their stories and insight on which topics are generating the most buzz, so they can expand their coverage of those topics.

The TrackBack protocol was introduced by Six Apart, makers of the Movable Type publishing platform and TypePad personal weblogging service, and is free to use. "We're pleased CNET News.com has chosen TrackBack to link blog comments with their news articles," said Ben Trott, Six Apart's co-founder and CTO and creator of the TrackBack protocol."

We are regular CNET website readers, for example, try this January 21, 2005 News.com article by Charles Cooper "When blogging can get you locked up", covering blogging dangers around the world.

Here is a description of CNET operations from that same article:

"CNET Networks, Inc. (http://www.cnetnetworks.com/) is a premier global interactive content company that informs, entertains, and connects large, engaged audiences around topics of high information need or personal passion. The company focuses on three categories -- personal technology, games and entertainment, and business technology - and includes such leading brands as:
CNET, [the computer and digital hardware site par excellence]
ZDNet, [technology news, blogs, downloads, white papers, reviews, prices]
TechRepublic, [e.g. their free download (to registered users) of "48 questions you need to answer for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance (according to the auditors)", a useful download for corporations and their legal staffs and counsel.]
MP3.com [music]
GameSpot, [games]
CNET Download.com, [downloads, but also analysis, e.g. their feature today is "The problem with porn We don't care whether you frequent adult sites, but we do want to help you keep spyware off your machine. Our newest spyware horror story describes how surfing for smut took a costly toll."]
CNET News.com, [e.g. today's article: "How Significant Is SCO's Win?" by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols writing "How significant was The SCO Group Inc.'s victory in its discovery motion over IBM in the companies' ongoing battle over Linux copyright and Unix contract issues? It depends on which analysts and lawyers you talk to about Magistrate Judge Brooke Wells' decision."]
Webshots, [digital photos]
Computer Shopper magazine, [technology products] and
CNET Channel [structured and standardized product information for electronic catalogs in the IT industry]. With a strong presence in the US, Asia and Europe, CNET Networks has operations in 12 countries. "

Crossposted to LawPundit.

Enterprise Blogging

2005-01-14T14:02:00.000+01:00

The FreePint Newsletter has an article by Laurel A. Clyde evaluating the current status of Enterprise Blogging.

The article is based on the Enterprise Blogging presentation at the December 2004 Online Information conference in London .

Clyde, e.g., cites to one law firm's experience with blogging.

Crossposted to LawPundit.
Via TVC Aert.

Six Apart buys Live Journal

2005-01-09T08:24:00.000+01:00

Om Malik on Broadband (Om is senior writer with Business 2.0 magazine) reports that Live Journal is to be purchased by Six Apart, a story also found under the catchy title Turmoil in blogland in an article by Danah Boyd at Salon.com. Of course, Live Journal also has something to say about the deal as does Six Apart at Mena's Corner.

Blog News at Blogosphere News

2005-01-07T22:51:00.000+01:00

The newly created Blogosphere News reports on blog news.

Citizen Journalists and Tsunami Coverage a Watershed

2005-01-07T21:43:00.000+01:00

Steve Outing in Poynter Online and the article Taking Tsunami Coverage into Their Own Hands delivers his opinion and that of his colleague Dan Gillmor that the tsunami marks a watershed in the development of "citizen journalists".

Video Blogging (Vlogging) On its Way

2005-01-07T19:06:00.000+01:00

As we might guess from the coming Vloggercon 2005 on January 22, 2005 in New York City at the Parsons School of Design, another new direction in blogging is going to be video blogging, something that Adrian Miles at VLOG 2.1 calls not Vlogging but "Vogging". Adrian even has his Vogma, a vogging manifesto, which has run into some legitimate criticism from Mike Slone to which Adrian has written a reply.

We think that the term vlogging will remain the term of art. Indeed, Jeff Jarvis at Buzz Machine already commented in detail on vlogging and vlogging software late in 2002.

As just announced at the CES 2005 in Las Vegas, Serious Magic at Vlog.com (pages still substantially under construction) will be introducing what it calls the world's first video blogging software Vlog It! in February, which will make vlogging possible by anyone, allegedly even those with no video experience or technical skills.

At the moment, there are still very vew vbloggers out there. See VideoBlogging.info which is trying to maintain a list of Videobloggers

It will be interesting to see whether vlogging will be incorporated into the existing blogosphere or whether it will create a vlogosphere of its own.

Bill Gates on Blogs, RSS, IP Law and IT at CES 2005

2005-01-06T18:36:00.000+01:00

Via the Law Pundit FeedDirect Newsfeed of Blogging News we are taken to Search Engine Watch and Search Engine News who comment on a January 5, 2005 News.com article by Michael Kannellos (Staff Writer, CNET News.com) entitled "Gates taking a seat in your den", which contains a Q&A session with Bill Gates at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2005) in Las Vegas.

Gates comments on blogs, RSS, intellectual property law (IP Law) and other new developments in information technology around the world. Read the article here.

Crossposted to LawPundit.

SEA-EAT - The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Blog

2005-01-05T21:16:00.000+01:00

The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Blog also known as "SEA-EAT" ("I saw the sea eat my wife and kids")
was set up as a clearinghouse to mobilize help for tsunami victims.

It has had over a million hits in its first nine days, showing the tremendous practical use to which blogs can be put.

Crossposted to LawPundit.

Weblogs, Inc. - Weblogs for business - The Future is Here

2005-01-05T19:51:00.000+01:00

Weblogs, Inc. - Weblogs for business - is going blogs in a big way. As written at the Weblogs, Inc. blog:

"Weblogs, Inc. is dedicated to creating trade Weblogs (a.k.a. blogs) across niche industries in which user’s participation is an essential component of the resulting product...."

Take a look at AutoBlog, a member of the Weblogs, Inc. Network to see what's coming...actually, it is already here.

Weblogs, Inc. writes further:

"Partnering is better than owning. Our goal is to partner with individual bloggers, letting them do what they do best (writing, creating community, researching) and support them with what we do best (upgrading the software that drives their Web site, generating revenue, running the business). We split the profits 50/50 with each of our bloggers taking out only hard costs (i.e., sales commissions, credit card fees)."

The Weblogs, Inc. Network currently includes the following blogs:

Blogs for Consumers
Autoblog
Blogging Baby
Engadget
Gadling
hack a day
Joystiq
Luxist
TUAW (Apple - Unofficial)

Technology Blogs
Apple (Unofficial)
CSS
Digital Photography
Flash Insider
Google (Unofficial)
Grid Computing
JavaScript
Microsoft (Unofficial)
Office
Open Source
Peer-to-Peer
Photoshop (Unofficial)
RSS
SAS (Unofficial)
Search Engine Marketing
Social Software
Spam
Tablet PCs
VoIP
Yahoo (Unofficial)

Blogs for Wireless Technology
Bluetooth
Engadget: Cellphones
Engadget: GPS
RFID
Ultra Wideband
WiFi
The WiMAX Weblog
Engadget: Wireless
Wireless Dev
Wireless

Blogs for Video Games
Blogging E3
Engadget: Gaming
Joystiq
Playstation 3
Video Games
Xbox 2

Media & Entertainment Blogs
Art
Design
Digital Music
Documentary Film
Droxy (Digital Radio)
Independent Film
Magazine Design
Nanopublishing

Business Blogs
The Mortgages Weblog
Online Finance
Outsourcing

Life Sciences Blogs
The Cancer Blog
The Diabetes Blog
Medical Informatics
Telemedicine

Personal Blogs
Brian Alvey
Jason Calacanis
Blog Maverick
Gordon Gould
Judith Meskill

Events Blogs
Blogging E3
Blogging ETech
Future of Music
Blogging Milken
Blogging Sundance
Blogging Web 2.0

Other Blogs
Weblogs, Inc.

ABC News: People of the Year: Bloggers

2005-01-04T01:56:00.000+01:00

ABC News has named Bloggers People of the Year.

That choice well understands the impact blogs are having and will continue to have on local, regional and world affairs. See also boing boing and popdex for more.

Crossposted to Law Pundit.

Blogs going Mainstream

2005-01-03T23:35:00.000+01:00

Blogs going Mainstream

Jennifer LeClaire of EcommerceTimes, part of the ECT News Network, has a January 3, 2005 article which also appears on Technology News at TechNewsWorld indicating that blogging is going bigtime, referring to surveys by Pew Internet & American Life Project.

See - in .pdf format - the full article of the January 2005, Data Memo at Pew Internet on The state of blogging by Lee Rainie, PIP Director.

Rainie writes that "By the end of 2004 blogs had established themselves as a key part of online culture."

What is most interesting is that the number of blog readers increased in 2004 by a much greater percentage than the number of bloggers, clear evidence that blogging is becoming an integral part of what internet users regularly read online.

Blogs Report on SE Asian Tsunamis

2004-12-31T18:09:00.000+01:00

Blog reporting regarding the SE Asian tsunamis is covered by John Schwartz in the Dec. 28, 2004 Technology Page of the New York Times online at Blogs Provide Raw Details From Scene of the Disaster.

Schwartz refers particularly to BoingBoing for keeping up on blogs and sites having information on the tsunamis.

Update, January 1, 2005

For technical information and some excellent maps concerning the earthquake leading to the tsunamis,
see the pages of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)

There is also a report at Nature about how the earthquake moved islands.

To read about how this giant earthquake sped up the Earth's rotation see Nature.

No Escape from Blogs

2004-12-31T17:26:00.000+01:00

Why There's No Escaping the Blog is a "Tech Trends" article at Fortune Magazine by David Kirkpatrick and Daniel Roth.

They write in a lengthy article and one of the best on blogging that:

"According to blog search-engine and measurement firm Technorati, 23,000 new weblogs are created every day—or about one every three seconds. Each blog adds to an inescapable trend fueled by the Internet: the democratization of power and opinion. Blogs are just the latest tool that makes it harder for corporations and other institutions to control and dictate their message. An amateur media is springing up, and the smart are adapting."

...

"These are still the early days of blogging, and the form is still morphing. Blogs that host music and video are popping up, people are starting to blog text and photos from their phones, and sites like NewsGator, using a technology called RSS, allow people to subscribe to blogs. Plus, an arms race is building behind the scenes."

Read the whole thing.

Browse Blogs by Author's Birthday

2004-12-18T14:53:00.000+01:00

Browse Blogs by Author's Birthday

For all of you out there interested in astrology (even if only for fun), Globe of Blogs has a feature where you can browse blogs by the author's birthday - and also by geographic location.

Blogger Database Server Problems ?

2004-12-14T18:05:00.000+01:00

Is Blogger having server problems?

In response to our e-mail question to Blogger.com support regarding what appeared to be a "broken" update feature in Blogger, we today received the following reply:

"Hi there,

We have had to temporarily disable stats collection, which means that post
stats and links will not be updating correctly on your dashboard or
profile. We plan to restore this functionality in the short term but have
needed to stop collecting the information for now in order to stabilize
the database servers. We apologize for any inconvenience this problem has
caused.

Sincerely,

Blogger Support"

When an operation the size of Google needs to "stabilize" its Blogger database servers, then naturally we are curious about the health of Google and Blogger. What goes on there? At least the bloggers should have been notified of the situation without having had to ask.

Crossposted to LawPundit

A Browsable Blog Index by Categories

2004-12-10T15:18:00.000+01:00

A Browsable Blog Index by Categories

QuackTrack, not a name to necessarily attract a serious readership,
claims to be the "world's largest browsable blog index"

It divides the blogs into 26 main categories (with subcategories this is 1,157 catergories). The main categories are:

art, corporate, crafts, culture, drugs, education, food and drink, health and medicine, history, hobbies, Internet, law, literature, media, meta, music, news, philosophy, places, politics, religion, social, society, specialist, sports and travel.

In law, for example, 1,427 blogs in 28 subcategories are listed as of today (there is some duplication in the categories):

International Law (European Law, e.g. Law Pundit)
Legal Practice (Business Law, Conveyancing law, Elder Law, Family Law, Immigration Law, Intellectual Property Law (Copyright, DMCA, Licensing, Patent, Trademark), Mediation/Arbitration, Military Law, Tax Law)
Legal Study (Constitutional Law, Forensic Law)
National Law (UK law, US Law)
Religious Law
Tribal Law

The site is useful for browsing blogs by categories.

Blogthings - Cool Stuff To Put In Your Blog

2004-11-24T13:29:00.000+01:00

Blogthings - Cool Stuff To Put In Your Blog

Blogthings specializes in various kinds of things to put up on blogs, including quizzes, horoscopes, name generators, etc.

Effect of Blogging on the World

2004-11-19T22:06:00.000+01:00

Effect of Blogging on the World

Perry de Havilland of Samizdata.net: was a speaker at "Democracy & the Blogosphere" hosted by the Adam Smith Institute in London on 16 November 2004. Perry noted that most of the speakers were luke warm on the influence of blogging on the world, whereas, as de Havilland writes:

"I did a speech saying that the Internet - and therefore blogging (because blogging is the user-friendly front-end of the Internet - it is for me anyway) is destined (also big deal) to change the entire course of human history."

We definitely agree that blogging is still in its infancy and has a long way to go, but what will make blogging a tremendous world power of the future is its ability to put people into close contact with one another who would otherwise never come into contact at all - and this on an international scale. This development is in the making.... Through blogging, interest groups and alliances will be formed that previously were impossible - some good, and some bad, of course.

Currently, blogging is still pretty much an individual one-man sport, giving many - often opinionated - persons the opportunity to put their views out to the world, but as many bloggers are learning - that is often not enough. Ideas demand audiences and audiences demand a good show. Hence, real dialogue, teamwork and communicative cooperation are increasingly marking the blog world. Many blogs are going from one-man shows to multi-player team productions.

We might note as an aside that one of the most remarkable developments in blogging is the general resistance of older established mainstream academia (except for the younger generations of people who studied law) to enter the blogging scene - we think this is because they are either ignorant of blogging or too afraid to blog. But we think that this will change. The old non-blogging generation will retire and die out and the new blogging generation will take over.

Crossposted to LawPundit.

Multilingual Services for Web Bloggers at Blogger

2004-11-19T18:35:00.000+01:00

Multilingual Services for Web Bloggers at Blogger

Via Sifry's Alerts we read in the November 15, 2004 article by Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service, at InfoWorld that "Blogger goes multilingual". Blogger is now available in nine languages as the first phase of "internationalization".

Crossposted to LawPundit.

Weblog Award Competition at Deutsche Welle

2004-11-15T09:31:00.000+01:00

Weblog Award Competition at Deutsche Welle

Deutsche Welle ("the German Wave") has a November 14, 2004 article entitled What the US Could Learn About Blogging in talking about its own Best of the Blogs awards ("the BOBs") to be awarded in seven languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, German, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

For those interested in this competition, see
nominees.

Yahoo! Search blog: News Search and RSS

2004-10-27T23:59:00.000+02:00

The Yahoo! Search blog has announced "the public launch of RSS on Yahoo! News Search" and in that same posting has some tricks for advanced searches.

See also SearchEngineWatch.

Common Craft - A Blog for Online Community Strategies

2004-10-18T13:33:00.000+02:00

Common Craft - A Blog for Online Community Strategies

Common Craft - Online Community Strategies is a blog devoted to "Online Community Strategies", including blogging.

Recent postings include a comparison of blogs and message boards with a well-designed color chart of comparison.

Periodic Table of Blogs

2004-10-16T22:48:00.000+02:00

Periodic Table of Blogs

The SaltwaterPizza Blog has a posting on unusual periodic tables which is fun.

There is even a Periodic Table of Blogs, which is interesting, even though not true to the actual periodic table of elements.

They missed
the Kaulins Revised Periodic Table of Elements

and many other periodic table variants at Periodic Tables.

Bloggers at Political Party Conventions

2004-07-27T13:27:00.000+02:00

Bloggers at Political Party Conventions

Under the title Bloggers go mainstream at US conventions, BBC reports on the newsworthiness of political party conventions and devotes a lot of copy to the emergence of blogging.

35 Bloggers were accredited for the Democratic Party convention in Boston including Karl-Thomas Musselman, a 19-year delegate from Texas, who not only used his blog Musselman for America to run for the office but also blogs directly from the convention.

Punditmania predicts that the day will come - not very far off - that even most members of Congress will have to have blogs in order to stay in touch with their constituents. Or they will have to answer the question: "why do you NOT have a blog?".

WordPress Encoder Widget

2004-07-17T13:01:00.000+02:00

WordPress Encoder Widget

Encode HTML Entities with the WordPress Encoder Widget.

For example, if in HTML code you write the following command

WordPress Encoder Widget

the result on the website page is as follows

WordPress Encoder Widget

If you want to show the actual text code of the command rather than the result of the command, then you have to use the following code

WordPress Encoder Widget

The WordPress Encoder Widget converts the code for the programmer automatically.

New Blogger Post Editing Features

2004-07-17T10:42:00.000+02:00

New Blogger Post Editing Features

The July, 2004 Newsletter "Blogger Buzz" from Blogger announces implementation of a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) post editor which now allows selection of:

fonts, text sizes, bold face, italic, text colors, easy hyperlink, align left, center, right, justify text, ordered lists, unordered lists, blockquotes, and undo.

Blogger thus now has a special "compose page" in addition to an "html-editing page" in addition to a "Preview" and "Hide Preview" page..

One problem with the new features is that Blogger now changes html edited text automatically to its own specifications, which is supremely annoying to anyone used to writing html-code in a particular unique manner.

For example,
a line coded by hand as

New Blogger Post Editing Features

is changed automatically to

New Blogger Post Editing Features

This is fine until such a page must be edited in any way, in which case the html coder is forced to learn and adopt the Google html coding system, with which he is now faced. This kind of coding tyrrany is totally unnecessary.

Blogs in Education

2004-07-07T15:18:00.000+02:00

Blogs in Education

Punditmania has found an excellent article on Blogging by Bobby Hobgood, LEARN NC's Teacher Education Specialist. It is found under the rubric "Teacher time savers: Web-based productivity tools". The article is well worth a read for its basic premise that "Blogs are great tools for use in education".

Blogstreet Services

2004-07-04T11:25:00.000+02:00

Blogstreet Services

I sent an inquiry to Blogstreet about their services and notices concerning inactive accounts, particularly since the site has recently been revamped. Here is their reply of July 3, 2004:

We do send notifications about inactive accounts after 30 days. However, we definitely appreciate your interest in the site.

RSS.Blogstreet aggregates RSS feeds and sends updates in the form of mails in your INBOX. Further, it not only provides you facilities to look at other popular RSS feeds on our service but also lets you subscribe to subscriptions of other users (provided they are public).

Other features include posting interesting updates to your Weblog, exploring blog neighbourhood of other bloggers etc. We hereby take this opportunity to invite you to use our service to the fullest.

BlogOn 2004 July 23 Berkeley California

2004-06-28T16:54:00.000+02:00

BlogOn 2004 July 23 Berkeley California

This just in from Becky Sniffen....

"A new blogging & social media conference called BlogOn 2004 ... takes place July 23 in Berkeley, CA. BlogOn explores the business end of blogging, seeking to marry the inventiveness of blogging companies to the investors and tech leaders who will support the humble blog’s rise to the top of the corporate communications ladder. Prominent technology conference host Chris Shipley, along with speakers from the best-known blogging companies, will illuminate the business stories behind social media: the business models that will succeed and fail, the impact of the blogging phenomenon on tech and business culture, the ways in which new social media technologies will drive the next-generation Web, and how corporations can best use this rising technological toolset to achieve their goals."

Spam accounts for 2/3 of all mail

2004-06-11T15:22:00.000+02:00

Spam accounts for 2/3 of all mail

The recent issue (7, 2004) of the German language PC Magazin reports that Brightmail, the spam filter specialist, filtered 96 billion e-mails for its customers, of which 64% were spam, up from 50% in July 2003, and 60% in January 2004.

The Brightmail website reports for May, 2004 that it hit the 100 billion mark for filtered e-mails, of which 64% were spam. 3.3 billion e-mails were fraudulent.

Internet Alive and Kicking - 63 million internet registrations

2004-06-11T10:16:00.000+02:00

Internet Alive and Kicking - 63 million internet registrations

The Asia Pacific Media Network carries a June 9, 2004 article from the South China Morning Post reporting that worldwide internet address registrations had surged to 63 million in the first quarter of the year 2004, up 4.7 million from the previous quarter - a record increase.

The Internet is alive and kicking.

Catherine Seipp on Bloggers on National Review Online

2004-06-04T00:39:00.000+02:00

Catherine Seipp on Bloggers on National Review Online

At the National Review Online, at her "From the Left Coast" column, Catherine Seipp, who also has a blog at Cathy's World, has an intersting article on politics, color and blogging.

OK, so why was I not invited?

Read the article to understand my question.

RSS at the New York Times

2004-06-04T00:27:00.000+02:00

RSS at the New York Times

Here is a NY Times article by John R. Quain of June 3, 2004 handling RSS feeds. The article is by no means complete but has some useful information about "fine-tuning your filter for online information".

Online Journalism - Learn the Lessons of Blogs

2004-06-03T18:44:00.000+02:00

Online Journalism - Learn the Lessons of Blogs

Dan Froomkin is posting a series of articles on how to improve online journalism.

His first article includes discussion of Learn the lessons of blogs.

This is definitely worth a read for all bloggers and non-blogging journalists as also for those running media outfits and information and content services.

Blogging Software Compared

2004-05-25T21:21:00.000+02:00

Blogging Software Compared

Via TVC Alert at the Virtual Chase we are directed to a blog comparison chart at Asymptomatic
and a blog comparison of:
b2Evolution, bBlog, Blosxom, Expression Engine, MovableType, Nucleus, Pivot pMachine Pro, Serendipity SPIP, .Text, TextPattern, and WordPress. Definitely worth a look.

Internet Content Testable by Google Search

2004-05-04T20:48:00.000+02:00

Internet Content Testable by Google Search

Here are our Google Hits of May 3, 2004 for various terms selected by us.
A lot can be learned about the general content of the internet by testing it through the Google Search Engine.

Keyword Term Number of Google Hits

Google Hits May 3, 2004
for English Terms

the 5,750,000,000
of 3,830,000,000
and 3,790,000,000
to 3,640,000,000
a 3,550,000,000
in 3,120,000,000
for 2,200,000,000
.com 1,940,000,000
www 1,910,000,000
on 1,530,000,000
I 1,330,000,000
with 1,260,000,000
this 1,250,000,000
is 1,160,000,000
at 1,130,000,000
it 1,110,000,000
all 1,010,000,000
from 943,000,000
your 795,000,000
home 795,000,000
new 745,000,000
html 744,000,000
not 697,000,000
more 691,000,000
us 665,000,000
no 651,000,000
about 587,000,000
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next 351,000,000
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only 341,000,000
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he 313,000,000
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first 310,000,000
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system 229,000,000
products 229,000,000
used 224,000,000
download 217,000,000
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dvd 212,000,000
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games 209,000,000
order 208,000,000
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books 202,000,000
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her 188,000,000
computer 187,000,000
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through 186,000,000
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cd 180,000,000
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car 163,000,000
tv 162,000,000
research 161,000,000
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terms 157,000,000
black 157,000,000
edu 155,000,000
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women 151,000,000
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sports 150,000,000
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personal 138,000,000
phone 138,000,000
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Amazon 136,000,000
file 136,000,000
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technology 134,000,000
pictures 133,000,000
photos 131,000,000
end 128,000,000
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Yahoo 127,000,000
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project 125,000,000
live 125,000,000
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love 122,000,000
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porn 90,700,000
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sign 85,500,000
hours 84,000,000
Microsoft 83,800,000
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password 83,100,000
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less 81,300,000
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things 79,900,000
hardware 79,300,000
head 76,800,000
land 76,700,000
entertainment 76,600,000
night 76,500,000
future 76,400,000
logo 75,600,000
database 74,900,000
space 74,900,000
Mr. 74,800,000
enter 74,300,000
interest 73,400,000
paper 72,700,000
daily 72,500,000
try 72,400,000
stock 71,900,000
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away 70,200,000
Europe 69,500,000
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green 67,600,000
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trade 67,000,000
Sony 66,400,000
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golf 65,500,000
faq 65,400,000
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third 64,200,000
basic 63,400,000
record 62,700,000
menu 62,200,000
finance 61,400,000
close 61,300,000
nature 61,000,000
God 60,800,000
click 58,700,000
sell 58,000,000
tour 57,500,000
talk 56,800,000
bank 56,300,000
camera 56,300,000
death 55,800,000
win 55,600,000
commercial 55,400,000
water 55,400,000
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cat 53,600,000
effect 52,100,000
domain 51,900,000
gif 51,900,000
watch 51,300,000
advice 49,600,000
loss 49,200,000
yellow 47,200,000
communications 47,000,000
standards 46,900,000
editor 46,600,000
motor 46,300,000
doc 46,100,000
Google 45,700,000
fire 45,000,000
browser 44,600,000
law 44,500,000
have 44,000,000
class 43,800,000
deal 43,300,000
dog 42,600,000
brown 42,100,000
by 41,900,000
purpose 41,900,000
earth 41,700,000
client 41,600,000
silver 41,600,000
happy 41,200,000
political 41,200,000
oil 41,200,000
wish 41,100,000
font 41,100,000
some 41,000,000
football 41,000,000
graphics 40,400,000
xml 40,100,000
medicine 40,300,000
investment 38,400,000
ftp 38,100,000
here 37,300,000
blog 36,000,000
retail 35,400,000
cam 34,900,000
foot 34,600,000
IBM 34,500,000
messages 34,200,000
restaurant 33,000,000
teaching 32,300,000
gray/grey 32,600,000
AOL 30,200,000
orange 30,200,000
racing 30,200,000
hear 29,500,000
are 28,900,000
farm 28,600,000
peace 28,500,000
baseball 27,500,000
wind 27,200,000
or 25,200,000
tennis 25,200,000
horse 25,000,000
basketball 24,900,000
now 24,700,000
breakfast 24,700,000
freedom 24,300,000
profit 24,100,000
soccer 23,100,000
she 23,000,000
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boat 22,400,000
wholesale 22,400,000
cooking 21,200,000
agriculture 21,000,000
drink 20,200,000
music 20,100,000
newspaper 19,900,000
today 19,800,000
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headlines 19,000,000
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yesterday 16,600,000
ancient 15,900,000
blue 15,800,000
tomorrow 14,900,000
swimming 14,700,000
smile 13,100,000
present 12,800,000
worst 12,700,000
prayer 12,100,000
luck 11,800,000
politics 11,700,000
religion 7,600,000
png 5,620,000
tolerance 2,170,000
megalithic 266,000
megaliths 86,900
blawg 80,600
stars stones
scholars 31,700
Andis Kaulins 4,170
decipherment
megaliths 807
megaliths astronomy
geodetics 38

Toolbars Tested and Compared

2004-04-20T22:54:00.000+02:00

Toolbars Tested and Compared

"REVIEW: Toolbars Offer More Than Searches" is an article by ANICK JESDANUN of Associated Press which appeared in the Miami Herald on April 19, 2004 (free registration required to view article).

Jesdanun tested a number of toolbars, outlining the strengths and weaknesses of each: Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, AOL, Dogpile, Ask Jeeves, Alexa, AltaVista, EarthLink, GGSearch, GuruNet.

The article is a valuable read.

The Future of Blogging and Web Feeds (e.g RSS and ATOM)

2004-03-01T18:41:00.000+01:00

The Future of Blogging and Web Feeds (e.g RSS and ATOM)

Two articles at Newsday.com contain AP reports involving blogging on the one hand and web feeds on the other. Although apparently contradictory, the news reports are in fact complimentary.

Anick Jesdanun writes in an article entitled
Study: Blogging Still Infrequent
that blogging is not as pervasive as it was expected to be, although the expectation that everyone will "blog" privately is in my opinion a false expectation. The world can not merely consist of "writers", there must be "readers" as well.

The fact is that blogging types of communication and their offshoots are expanding.

In an article by Frank Bajak entitled Enthusiasts Call Web Feed Next Big Thing, we find important discussion of one of the spin-offs of blogging, i.e. the increasing popularity of web feeds by RSS or competing ATOM technology (used by Google's Blogger).

I myself already have the reasonably priced news aggregator Newsgator integrated into Outlook and can confirm what Bajak writes in his article, that web feeds via RSS, ATOM and coming technologies are here to stay.

Moreover, web feeds of blogs will be one of our major sources of news and information in the future, and I predict that web feeds will become one of the primary methods of information interchange in the sciences and a host of other areas where "subscription" to selected information and sources is an effective alternative to more antiquated methods of data gathering.

BlogShares - LawPundit

2004-01-26T01:44:00.000+01:00

At BlogShares - LawPundit
we were amazed to find that what is billed as a "fantasy blog market" actually gives a great amount of superb information about a blog - information which is often not found on the more "serious" blog analysis sites. This is curious. Nevertheless, we can heartily recommend Blogshares as a great source of information about blogs.

Here are some interesting - excerpted and truncated stats, for example, for LawPundit as of January 26, 2004.

GeneralURL http://www.lawpundit.com/blog/lawpundit.htm
News feed Syndic8.com

StatisticsIncoming Links 42
Outgoing Links 258
Outgoing Link Value B$22.68
Market Share 0.0044 %

Top 100 Incoming LinksThis is a list of the most valuable incoming links at the time OTHER blogs are indexed. It is indicative of FUTURE value not CURRENT value.

Vertretbar.de (B$450.58)
Lenz Blog (B$318.61)
Transblawg (B$231.44)
Airblogger (B$227.26)
Bag and Baggage (B$226.06)
Corp Law Blog (B$202.65)
unbillable hours (B$179.61)
.......... (B$168.88)
Delaware Law Office (B$162.62)
Disability Law Blog (B$153.36)
OfficialPundit (B$146.33)
TVPundit (B$143.44)
jurabilis - Yet Another Lawyer's Blawg (B$142.91)
WordPundit (B$141.40)
StarPundit (B$139.28)
VoicePundit (B$132.28)
Vertretbar.de (B$128.31)
JournalPundit (B$124.47)
ArchaeoPundit (B$123.81)
WatchPundit (B$112.85)
SportPundit (B$110.00)
SportPundit (B$107.60)
Inter Alia (B$105.25)
LiteraryPundit (B$98.53)
Notes from the (Legal) Underground (B$95.16)
Tax & Business Law Commentary (B$88.33)
ArtsPundit (B$84.64)
Disability Law Blog (B$78.72)
GolfPundit (B$75.63)
Southern Appeal (B$74.90)
LenzBlog Deutsch (B$58.93)
jurabilis - bLAWg - Alexander Hartmann (B$57.01)
Transblawg (B$49.16)
vertretbar.de (B$47.83)
The Blogbook (B$44.80)
Politics & Law (B$39.19)
The Blogbook (B$32.72)
PunditMania (B$25.88)
Classical Values (B$24.00)
The Blogbook - Style (B$18.33)
The Blogbook - Citations (B$18.33)
The Blogbook - Legal Ethics (B$18.03)
PunditMania (B$7.91)
All Outgoing Links
This is a list of all recognised outgoing links from this blog. It may not be accurate or complete.

A Fistful of Euros
AdamPolselli.com
All About Latvia
All Things Distributed
Amidst a tangled web
Amy Campbell's Weblog
Andrew McLaughlin
Andrew Raff: Shameless Self Promotion
ArchaeoPundit
ArtsPundit
Asymmetrical Information
AtlanticBlog
Bag and Baggage
BarlowFriendz
BeldarBlog
Benefitsblog
bIPlog
blo.gs
blog 702
blog.org
blogcount
Blogger
bloglet
Blogmatrix
Blogroots
Blogwise
Boing Boing Blog
Bot a Blog
Burningbird
BuzzMachine
By No Other
Calblog
CamBlog
Carlson's Chronicles
Chad Dickerson
Channeling Cupertino
Christopher Lydon
Civilization Pundit
Classical Values
CNet News
Code The Web Socket
Common Craft - Online Communication Planning
commonplaces
ComPundit
Consensus at Lawyerpoint
Cooped Up
Corp Law Blog
Crescat Sententia
Critical Mass
Cronaca
Crooked Timber
Cyberspaces: Words-Not-Deeds
Daily Dish
Daily Kos
damnum absque injuria
Dan Gillmor's eJournal
Daniel W. Drezner
David Harris' Science and Literature
David's Blogware
Daypop Top 40
Dean's World
DeanLand.WebLogs.Com
debbie's blog - Debbie Weil is publisher of award-winning WordBizReport.com
Delaware Law Office
DennisKennedy.blog
Diary Date
Digital Practice of Law
Disability Law Blog
Discourse.net
disLEXia 3000 blog
Disruptive Technology
Donna Wentworth
Dowbrigade Weblog
E M E R G I C . o r g
e-Government @large
e-Learning
Eaton Portal
EdCone.com
Edublog News
Educational Bloggers' Network
eLawyer Blog
En Banc
Enetation UK
EuroPundits
Family Medicine Notes
Fedlawyerguy.org
Feedreader - new.media.tool
Feedster
Feedster
Freedom to Tinker
Freespace
Furdlog
Geo URL
Gideon's Promise
Gizmodo
Google Weblog
Gotzeblogged
gtetxs
Halley's Comment
HaloScan.com - Free Weblog and Website Commenting
Handakte WebLAWg
Heath Row's Media Diet
homoLudens
house of warwick
How Appealing
Ignatz
Incoming Signals
Incorporation Blog.com
Infothought
Instapundit.com
Insurance Defense Blog
Insurance Law & Disruptive Technologies
Internet Marketing for Lawyers
Invisible Adjunct
ionarts
Ipse Dixit
ItSeemstoMe
Jack Bog's Blog
James Farmer's Radio Weblog
Jarrett House North
JayAllen.org
Jeffrey Zeldman Presents
Jim Flowers' Radio Weblog
JoanneJacobs.com
Joel on Software
John Palfrey
JournalPundit
jurabilis - Yet Another Lawyer's Blawg
JURIST's Paper Chase
KevinSmokler.com
Knowledge Aforethought
Knowledge Bridge
kottke.org
L.T. Smash - Live from the Sandbox
La-Legal annotated
Larry Bouthillier's eLearning and eContent Blog
Law Offices of Erik J. Heels
LawMarketing Blog by Larry Bodine
LawMeme
Lawrence Lessig
LawSites
LAWTECH GURU BLOG by Jeff Beard
Leah's Law Library Weblog
Legal Outreach
Lenz Blog
lightningfield.com
LiteraryPundit
livefree
London Underground blog
Mandarin Daily
Marc's Voice
MarketingWonk
Master of None
Mathemagenic
Matthew Yglesias
MetaFilter
MEX Blog
mirabilis.ca
Mitch Kapor
modern art notes
Movable Type
MyShingle.com
NathanNewman.org - News and Views
net.law.blog
nickdenton.org
NITLE Census News
Notes from the (Legal) Underground
OfficialPundit
Ohio Edublogging
Oliver Kamm
Oliver Willis: Like Kryptonite To Stupid
Out of Lascaux
Out-of-the-Box Lawyering
Overlawyered.com
Oxblog politics review
participo
PDF for Lawyers
Pejmanesque
pMachine
Power Line
ProfessorBainbridge.com
Prometheus 6
PunditMania
Radio Userland
Rantingprofs
Ray Ozzie's Weblog
rogueclassicism
Rory Perry's Weblog
Samizdata.net
Sasha and Andrew's Roundtable
Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment
SCOTUSblog
Scripting News
scriptygoddess.com
Seblogging
Sifry's Alerts
SlashDot.Org
SocialDynamX
Solomonia
SportPundit
StarPundit
stickbugblog
Susan's Blogware
Taegan Goddard's Political Wire
Tales of Hoffman
Talking Points Memo
TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime
techdirt
Textism
The Corner
The Doc Searls Weblog
The Edge Of England's Sword
The FuzzyBlog!
The Green[e]house Effect: a Weblog
The Legal Reader
The LitiGator
The ResourceShelf
The Roller Weblogger
The Scobleizer Weblog
The Southern California Law Blog
The Speculist
thinking with my fingers
Tillers on Evidence
Tim Blair
tins ::: Rick Klau's weblog
Tom Watson - Labour MP
tonypierce.com + busblog
Transblawg
TRIAL.COM Litigation News
TVPundit
twise.com
TypePad
U.S.S. Clueless
UK Criminal Justice Weblog
unbillable hours
VentureBlog
Venturpreneur
VERFLIXT UND ZUGENEWST
Vertretbar.de
Viking Pundit
VoicePundit
WatchBlog: 2004 Election News, Opinion and Commentary
WatchPundit
webloggED
Weblogs.com
Weekend Pundit
Wendy Seltzer's Weblog
White Rose
Windley's Enterprise Computing Weblog
Wizbang
Wordblog
WordPundit
www.gadgetguy.de via carmina
X-log
Zogby Blog
[BLOG]@IP::JUR

The Guardian Blog Awards 2 - a Thank You for our Analysis of the Awards

2004-01-13T15:22:00.000+01:00

Punditmaina also received a very nice e-mail about our posting on the Guardian blog awards, stating, among other things:

"I had to write to say thanks so much for posting a great comment...."

The Guardian Blog Awards

2004-01-13T14:51:00.000+01:00

In response to my recent posting in Punditmaina on the - in my opinion - very poor recent Guardian blog awards, I received the following commentary by e-mail (the identity of the writer is not divulged since this e-mail was sent to me personally):

Having followed a link ... I was interested to read your less than glowing comments of a number of the sites recommended for awards by the Guardian...." Clearly, the Guardian were looking for originality, common interest, insight or maybe just plain humorous. This was contained in some of these sites in abundance, which is more than can be said for the parts I read of your site. All you have been able to do is to churn out your own opinion (often very negative) of other peoples efforts. I am not in the market to trash other peoples attempts to lighten life or educate the masses, but I feel your attempts are banal and uninformative. If you feel others blogs are not worth visiting, I would suggest you keep it to yourself. At least most of them have done something worthwhile, which is more than can be said for your sad effort."

Here was the general tenor of my general answer to that e-mail, taking out some items that might identify its sender:

When the Guardian - a newspaper read throughout the world - makes blog award selections to be read by the public - they better be good - or they should expect PUBLISHED criticism. The fact that you suggest that people having a different opinion than the Guardian should have no right to publish THEIR opinion - but only that the Guardian's opinion should be published - says some very negative things about your state of mind concerning people's freedom of speech - other than your own, of course."

Is it not remarkable that some people truly think that their opinions should be published and others' not, simply because they disagree with them. What is this world coming to?

Blogs - Youth is on its Way

2004-01-11T21:06:00.000+01:00

Emily Nussbaum's January 11, 2004 article in the New York Times at My So-Called Blog confirms the growing popularity of blogs among the younger generation.

Indeed, the average age of bloggers is now under 30, i.e. 29.

Best British Blogs from the Guardian

2004-01-10T15:34:00.000+01:00

Best British Blogs from the Guardian

Simon Waldman, chair of the judges, reports on the Guardian's 2nd British Blog Awards at The best of British blogging.

Their first choice for blog design is the blog The Big Smoker. I found this choice to be a bit of a disappointment - the blog pages are not even centered on the screen - which is just sloppiness in programming. Just because each blog posting has a nicely affixed graphic does not make a blog a design champion. We found this blog to be good, but it would never be our pick. Frankly we find the design stodgy and boring.

The Guardian placed The Bunker second in the design category, another blog which is not even centered on the screen. When the mouse cursor runs over the funny nearly invisible boxes at the top of the blog page, one is not sure whether these are links or whether the screen is just doing a blip. The colored text boxes are nicely done, but this blog too can not be regarded as a blog champion by any means.

The NYCLondon.com photography blog was chosen first in the category of best use of photography. In a day of color photography, I find it hard to select black-and-white photography as being top. Perhaps black and white mirrors how the Guardian sees the world, as the blog also has photos of anti-war protesters prominently displayed. We do not think awards of this kind should be jaded by political allegiances. Some of the photos are nice, but we would never have picked this blog for this award. As someone who has lived in New York, my view of the Big Apple is vastly different than this collection, although some of the photos are definitely good.

Camerantics (the URL given by the Guardian is false) was also considered for the photography award, commended by the Guardian and is surely the far more interesting photo site as each day of the blog is marked by a new unique photo resembling wallpaper - if that is one's bag.

Apparently Nothing.com was also commended in the photography category, with some good shots. It was a bit more than "apparently nothing" - I am not sure it was a lot more.

I am quite appalled by the backwardness of the Guardian's selections which bypass the entire emerging realm of mobile photosnapping (moblogging) which are a mark of our times and so I can only say that none of the above sites would figure in my selection of best photography on the web - they are good - but they do not represent what is going on in the mass of the new media and internet world.

Teenager blogs were also selected by the Guardian - I am not competent to comment on those. The kids themselves should decide which blogs they think are great.

In the "best specialist" category the Guardian considered the excellent London Underground Tube Diary, which has a nice design, good photos and readable text postings. One can see immediately that this site is "alive". Strangely, the Guardian did not give the award there but went to Pepys' Diary, a nice site but not even remotely comparable to the overall effort and quality of the London Underground blog. One can surmise that the Guardian is still engaged in a love affair with an age that is long past and perhaps it is time to give some more sensible priority to OUR own modern day.

Beyond Northern Iraq was the blog chosen as the winner in the category of "best written". I find the January 9, 2004 posting "juvenile" and would not visit this site again - as a lover of the "best" of British humour, this is the kind of somewhat off-color humour I can live without, thank you. Postings like that do not improve my life, nor am I interested in reading about the trails and travails of boarding or not boarding airplanes, the most recent posting at that blog.

Call Centre Confidential is humorous and informative but was only commended by the Guardian, as Belle de Jour, Diary of a Call Girl, took the blue ribbon. Selections like the latter convince me that your average Guardian reader must lead the life of a dullard, getting his vicarious kicks by reading about things he would not speak to mama about. Sex sells everywhere, but I am not sure that blog awards should be given for it.

A Special Award was given for LinkMachineGo, but I am not into mindless profanity and what is merely a link collection of news. See the December 18, 2003 posting at that site. Sorry, not my bag. Perhaps there will come a day when people will realize that gutter-level swearing is neither the mark of intelligence nor creativity, nor anything else positive for that matter - but I am not optimistic about that development in the near future.

Your average man, as Berlusconi stated, has the intelligence of a 14-year old. Perhaps this explains most of these awards.

All in all, we thought that a country that produced all that stuff that Paxman (The English) writes about could do better than what the Guardian has selected.

I am going to blogroll the London Underground and in the future will look elsewhere - other than to the Guardian - to other "best blog" lists for top new blog material. This brought very little.

Blogging at Macromedia

2004-01-07T19:26:00.000+01:00

At Brian Chin's blog Buzzworthy we find an article on The business of blogging which discusses the fact that Macromedia uses blogging very successfully.

PunditMania

Merge 2 wordpress.com accounts into one « WordPress.com Forums

Bloglines is Continuing via Ask.com and MerchantCircle

Bit.ly for LawPundit and Megaliths.net

Google For Educators - Blogger

Blogging without Internet in Africa - Joe Litobarski's Blog

The New York Times Plans a Blogger-Friendly Pay Wall. Link All You Like! | Peter Kafka | MediaMemo | AllThingsD

BBC News - Britons spend nearly 'one day a month online'

Technology News: Blogosphere: Every Twitterer Can Be a Pundit Now

Blogger in Draft: The Blogger Template Designer

WordPress Founder: Open Source Is About People, Not Technology

How to Blog

Blog-World Watch: Does Blogging Get You Google Placement

Adding Buzz this Button for Blogger Blogspot Blogs | QwertyWEB

How To Ease the Pressure of Blogging

Bill Gates Joins the Blogging World - Reviews by PC Magazine

The Top Ten VC Blogs (New And Improved)

20 Best Marketing And Social Media Blogs By Women - Forbes.com

The Promise and Permission of Hyperlinks | Jeff Sexton Writes - StumbleUpon

2010: The Future Of Fashion Blogging | Independent Fashion Bloggers

Blog Services Review 2010 - TopTenREVIEWS

Poken Overview - Do You Poken

Using Facebook in a Blog

Ultimate Collection of WordPress Plugins

AdesBlog.com » 15 Tips to Unclog Your Blog : Breaking Blogger’s Block

Notes from the Summit – Getting the Attention of Firestarters at iElectrify.com

25 Blogs To Help You Stay Current With Social Media | FreelanceFolder

What Are You TALKING About?

11 Ways to Influence People Online and Make Them Take Action

Internet addiction can harm real relationships

TwitterBar Useful for posting Twitter Tweets : See the Widget

For all Blogger Bloggers : New and Improved Blogger Editor Now Available : Check it Out

Find Your IP Address and give it a Unique Nonaneticon - plus Legal and Policy Aspects of IP Numbers

nonaneticon - to you it looks like a 'cup'

Hotel Chatter and Jaunted

Gallery Photo Album Organizer :Your photos on your website

Free Wikis at PBWIKI

The Wiki Anoniblog Offers Blogging Tips Anonymously

Good God it's Google

Blogs Bloggers BCRA Campaign Finance Law FEC Freedom of Speech & Press

Test of Link Feature at Blogger

Technorati adds Blog Finder

LIFT Text Transcoder - Web Pages in Text-Only Version

Google Blog Search

RSS Readers

Blogging in Malaysia

Apophenia and Blogs - The Bridge between the Digital and the Physical

Podcasting as a New Podium

Solving Template Problems Arising since the Introduction of Blogger Images

Blogger Dashboard Update Feature Finally Fixed

Blogger Blog at Blogger Buzz

Google Bombing

Blog-Fearing ALA President Bitten by the Blogs

BlogBib Goes Biblio Blog

The FeedBurner Weblog - Burning Questions

Giving Google the Goodbyes

Brilliant Button Maker

NOFOLLOW - a new attribute against spam

Trackback for blogs by CNET

Enterprise Blogging

Six Apart buys Live Journal

Blog News at Blogosphere News

Citizen Journalists and Tsunami Coverage a Watershed

Video Blogging (Vlogging) On its Way

Bill Gates on Blogs, RSS, IP Law and IT at CES 2005

SEA-EAT - The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Blog

Weblogs, Inc. - Weblogs for business - The Future is Here

ABC News: People of the Year: Bloggers

Blogs going Mainstream

Blogs Report on SE Asian Tsunamis

No Escape from Blogs

Browse Blogs by Author's Birthday

Blogger Database Server Problems ?

A Browsable Blog Index by Categories

Blogthings - Cool Stuff To Put In Your Blog

Effect of Blogging on the World

Multilingual Services for Web Bloggers at Blogger

Weblog Award Competition at Deutsche Welle

Yahoo! Search blog: News Search and RSS

Common Craft - A Blog for Online Community Strategies