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.
Friday, December 31, 2004
No Escape from Blogs
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.
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.
Saturday, December 18, 2004
Browse Blogs by Author's Birthday
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.
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.
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Blogger Database Server Problems ?
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
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
Friday, December 10, 2004
A Browsable Blog Index by Categories
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.
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.
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
Blogthings - Cool Stuff To Put In Your Blog
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.
Blogthings specializes in various kinds of things to put up on blogs, including quizzes, horoscopes, name generators, etc.
Friday, November 19, 2004
Effect of Blogging on the World
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.
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
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.
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.
Monday, November 15, 2004
Weblog Award Competition at Deutsche Welle
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.
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.
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
Yahoo! Search blog: News Search and RSS
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.
See also SearchEngineWatch.
Monday, October 18, 2004
Common Craft - A Blog for Online Community Strategies
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.
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.
Saturday, October 16, 2004
Periodic Table of Blogs
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.
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.
Tuesday, July 27, 2004
Bloggers at Political Party Conventions
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?".
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?".
Saturday, July 17, 2004
WordPress Encoder Widget
WordPress Encoder Widget
Encode HTML Entities with the WordPress Encoder Widget.
For example, if in HTML code you write the following command
<span ><b>WordPress Encoder Widget</b></span>
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
<span style="color:#ff6600;"><b>WordPress Encoder Widget</b></span>
The WordPress Encoder Widget converts the code for the programmer automatically.
Encode HTML Entities with the WordPress Encoder Widget.
For example, if in HTML code you write the following command
<span ><b>WordPress Encoder Widget</b></span>
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
<span style="color:#ff6600;"><b>WordPress Encoder Widget</b></span>
The WordPress Encoder Widget converts the code for the programmer automatically.
New Blogger Post Editing Features
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
<font color=#ff6600"><b>New Blogger Post Editing Features</b></font>
is changed automatically to
<span ><b>New Blogger Post Editing Features</b></span>
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.
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
<font color=#ff6600"><b>New Blogger Post Editing Features</b></font>
is changed automatically to
<span ><b>New Blogger Post Editing Features</b></span>
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.
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