b.cognosco
Where leaping to conclusions is my primary form of forward motion.
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Book Reviews
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Enabling Category-specific Stories in Radio
Automatic RSS Titles and Links
Show Category Listing for Each Post
No Joke
Shortening RSS Descriptions
wipeCloud and Other Tools
Links to Categories Macro
The Right DMCA Move -- EFF and 2600 Drop Suit
On-line Print Services and Print Patents
Blogrolling
Aggregator Redux
In Line for Outlines
Deep-seated Insecurities
WiFi at Little Airports
Blogging from the Road
Berman Proposal A Publicity Stunt
More on RSS, Blog Tools
HTML Markup Tutorial
Thursday, July 4, 2002
Paschal's Kit Rocks Radio with Aggregator on Steroids
Mark Paschal's Kit Radio Tool really rocks! It replaces the standard Radio News Aggregator with one that has filters (text, time, span), grouping, date stamping, and color coding. Using the Kit Aggregator it is now possible to subscribe to dozens of feeds, group them by interest category, filter the category by time or key words, and get only a small subset of the thousands of possible articles. This is very nice.I believe such filtering is critical to effective use of RSS and Aggregators in K-Log environments, where you may need to filter down to key articles that pertain to project- or time-specific topics. Oddly, a search for Paschal's name on the K-Logs Yahoo! Group yields zero results. I would think the other K-Loggers would have discussed this improvement.
Installation is a snap, directions are clear, and after a little experimentation use seems pretty intuitive. Oh yeah, Kit does all sorts of other things like run scripts, search weblogs, change time/date stamps on posts, edit outlines, and probably other things I don't understand. But if it didn't do anything more than give me control over the aggregator it would be a winner.
Paschal also makes Stapler, an RSS generator you can use to create feeds for sites that do't have them. Once you create the feeds Stapler will store them locally, update them, and even aggregate them into combined feeds. Pretty cool.
Another gem found courtesy of [Russ Lipton Documents Radio].
Enabling Category-specific Stories in Radio
Some months back Mark Woods at On the Mark published this article on Enabling Category-specific Stories in Radio. While not as easy as having Radio support category-specific stories directly, this function is one of the few remainining holes in using Radio for K-Log (knowledge logging) applications.Thanks to [Russ Lipton Documents Radio].
Automatic RSS Titles and Links
Andy Fragen got tired of having blank lines above his posts when he forgot to add a Title. He wrote a callback. Andy Fragen doesn't have blank lines anymore. Andy's cool.I can't make it work (I'm a Frontier idiot) but I will get it figured out. This will be a great way to have my Mail-to-Weblog posts formatted to match my active posts.
Untitled post callback.. OK, I fiddled with the untitled post macro to make it use the first sentence as the title of the post. If anyone wants the callback let me know. Actually here it is.
on untitledPost (adrpost) {
if not defined (adrpost^.title) {
adrpost^.title = string(string.firstSentence (adrpost^.text))}}Simple changes. Callbacks are great! [Surgical Diversions]
Show Category Listing for Each Post
Rick Klau points us to yet another nice K-Log feature addition to Radio -- listing the categories for each posting. I like this one. A category listing on each post makes it obvious to new readers there is a classification system here, and help them quickly visualize the structure and where to look for things of interest. Thanks for the pointer, Rick.
Many thanks to Roland Tanglao who pointed me to the comments at Jake's site that explain how to do it. It's simple - just drop a file into your Macros directory, then add one line to your item template. Took less than five minutes. (Roland's site is worth visiting for KM issues, by the way, and Jake's a developer at Userland who's got a number of good things to share re: Radio and blogs in general.)[tins ::: Rick Klau's weblog]
No Joke
This is supposed to be a joke. It's funny, but no joke.
Honest lawyers!?
[Memepool]
Shortening RSS Descriptions
This thread in the Userland DG is about creating a callback to truncate the default RSS descritpions in Radio. By default, Radio puts an entire post into the RSS. I wanted to send out only the first sentence. This helped. Thanks to Rick Klau for guidance.wipeCloud and Other Tools
A collection of Radio scripts and tools for more advanced users from Andy Fragen.
Links to Categories Macro
A DG thread that covers two things -- scripts from both Paschal and Phil Wolff for rendering a link-list of categories in a side bar, and Paschal's script for posting the relevant categories as a part of each post.The Right DMCA Move -- EFF and 2600 Drop Suit
The DMCA is an overwrought, overly burdensome, ill-conceived piece of protectionist legislation -- one that suffers the fundamental flaw of attempting to regulate specific technologies rather than behaviors. But this is the right move. 2600's reputation and public persona would have doomed the case.
Mainstream America and organizations need to vote with their pocketbooks, and need to inform their legislators that the Internet is not about business opportunities for Hollywood. 2600 and EFF have fired the first shots, but they can't win the war. It's time for the rest of us to step up.
Hacker Mag 2600 Drops DMCA Fight. SiliconValley.Internet.com Jul 4 2002 1:27AM ET [Moreover - IP and patents news]
On-line Print Services and Print Patents
Cafepress.com lets you design and sell swag for your company, your blog, or your company blog. Upload your graphics, pick the product mix, set the price, link back. They appear to produce and sell ad specialities on demand. High margin stuff for them. I don't know about quality. Maybe I'll buy something and see.
VistaPrint of Waltham, MA has a lot of online print goods. Price grid is confusing but looks like 250 4/1 cards for under $30. What is the difference between the different business card levels? And why does the site only support MSIE. Bad.
Frank found a patent they list -- No. 6,247,011 -- and they claim over 1 million customers. Looks like another silly printing process patent.
Update: I found this on while searching for info on the patent Digital-Net and Insty-Prints.
Blogrolling
blogrolling.com, a web service for managing blogroll lists. I don't think this is any easier than Radio's outliner function -- since that lets you edit a text file -- but it looks like a good solution for other blog software that lacks a good blogroll feature.Aggregator Redux
I've been using AmphetaDesk while on the road. I think it has some configuration options I haven't quite grasped yet. I know Morbus Iff is going to add grouping in the next release. Some aging and auto-delete control would be nice, too.Nothing beats being able to post directly to the weblog, though. I miss that. It's a pain to have to do the cut-and-paste routine 2-3 times to get the URL, the title, the copy, etc. How do other weblogs do that? Do blogger and such have aggregator facilities or some interface element that lets users post from third-party aggregators?
In Line for Outlines
I'm starting to wonder if I could use the Outliner in Radio as a text editor -- I really like the blogroll trick. I'm wondering if there is a stand-alone version of it that would run on my laptop. I'm wondering if I could understand enough about OPML files to use it as a source for editing my weblog entries when I'm away from Radio. I saw a couple of docs in the DL on how to use renderers to read OPML files into HTML pages. I'm wondering if I really need to learn still another format. I'm wondering if my energy isn't better spent figuring out what to write instead of worrying about how to write it.
Deep-seated Insecurities
I like the idea of remote access. I'm gonna do it. Soon. I don't like the security issues. I think I'll have to setup a special machine that runs only the apps I want to access remotely, and has no access to other network resources. I'll have to figure out the stupid Windoze Users and Groups permissions so the machine runs in something less than Administrator mode. Lots of programs don't seem to run well like that. I don't know if that's my fault or the programmer's.If I do this I guess I'll be a "remote" user all the time, huh? Even from my primary machine I'll be accessing Radio over the network. Wonder if there are any performance issues. I'll have to experiment.
What about a software VPN? Doesn't Windoze have something built-in? It would be nice to have access to my files -- at least a subset of files. Ugh. Document management. Versions. Keeping track. Argh-h-h-h. Must be a better way. Anyone have a suggestion for accessible doc storage? I know X-Drive and all those silly "hard drive in the sky" operations have shut down, and I don't know that I trusted them anyway. I guess putting them in a pwd-protected subdirectory on my web host is about as good as it gets. But then there's uploading, file management, versions, keeping track. Ugh.
Maybe I just share out the D: drive on the host machine, mount that across the network and store my project docs and stuff there. Wouldn't be too hard to have a projects or work folder. Since my other machines wouldn't be on when I was gone there would be no chance of getting to them.
WiFi at Little Airports
I'm in the Lincoln, NE airport. Why can't they put WiFi (who calls it "wiffy"?) in little airports? Can't be that hard. All the business-user bandwidth hogs would clog it up in a big airpot, but there are only two gates in LNK (can you geuss what they're called?) and only a handful of people sitting here with laptops. We could easily share a DSL or cable line. What about some warchalking at regional airports? Does the FAA really think 802.11 will bring down the flight line? It can't be any worse than cell phones.Tuesday, July 2, 2002
Blogging from the Road
Things are moving along in sunny Lincoln. They need rain here, though. Getting my transition plan in place. Finally nailed down a schedule for final site visits with vendors and have a schedule for sending all the pertinent contracts, audits, and miscellany to the new team.
Didn't get to review Manila. Bummer. The Manila guy here took off for vacation. I was really looking forward to getting a peek under the hood and asking some questions from someone who has been a Manila site admin. Found a few blogs that look interesting this week. Dan Rosenbaum at Over the Edge has made a couple of recommendations, as well. I haven't had time to check them out but will do so later and post accordingly.
Found BookNotes for fans of traditionally produced books. Craig has a background in library book binding -- an area that I really enjoy and don't know nearly enough about. Bindery is still plagued by quality problems in the demand-driven production world. Craig's from my home state -- Texas. Maybe I should give him a call sometime.
Also found this site by Mark Bernstein, Chief Scientist at Eastgate Systems and creator of a Macintosh hypertext tool, TinderBox. Weblog is mostly personal stuff, but has a separate blog for TinderBox. Mark has an amusing quote on his site:
"You'd think the purpose of a roof is to keep rain off the television." -- Bob Frankston, on the net industry's fixation on entertainment.
I need to look up Bob Frankston. Mark's site pointed me to elegant hack, a site on information architecture run by Christina Wodtke. Seems pretty good. She reviewed 3,600 sites for a C/Net award panel, and seems to have done lots of web design for a variety of art nouveau dot.com design firms.
Another privacy blog -- Privacy Parts. Haven't spent much time viewing it. No insight into how useful it is. Just listed it so I wouldn't forget. We'll see.
Picked this up from Steve Pilgrim:
SHOWING MY IGNORANCE
What's the difference between a VPN and an Intranet?Paolo is covering Intranets. What are the big picture differences between intranets and VPN's?
I'm writing something about how Intranets are developing, and I made a few drawings to better illustrate the concept. Maybe somebody is interested... [Paolo Valdemarin: Paolo's Weblog]
Has a nice group of set theory-style pics showing how Intranets sprout KLogs. And Paolo's site points to RadioTools, a site that has some interesting tools; RSSDistiller will let you create RSS fees from web sites (like WhatTheyThink.com) and RemoteEdit will do an out-and-back conversion of Radio Templates to HTML pages so you can edit in standard editors. Doesn't look like either program has been updated in a while. I'll test next week. Hope I don't blow anything up.
Monday, July 1, 2002
Berman Proposal A Publicity Stunt
Cory Doctorow has skipped a beat with his Letters of Marque post on Congressman Berman's "Safe Harbor" speech to the Computer and Communications Industry Association. First, this is nothing more than a publicity stunt by an incumbent Congressman campaigning in a new district. Berman knows full well such an idea would never gain any support. He's just waving a banner to see how many people will screech. Like any good PR hack, he knows that bad publicity is better than no publicity at all.For the record, I support copyright protection. What I do not support is prior restraint, treating customers like criminals, or using the acts of a few to mandate wholesale monitoring and control structures for the many. No rational person would ever suggest legalizing unregulated vigilantism on the part of businesses. There are better ways to solve this problem. We've spent 200 years developing the rule of law. Only an idiot would throw it out over this.
A review of Berman's speech shows that his entire economic argument is based on worldwide figures for the piracy of mass produced hard goods --
There is no doubt that piracy causes substantial harm to copyright owners. The evidence is everywhere and the numbers are staggering. In 2001, the U.S. recording industry lost $4.2 billion to hard-goods piracy worldwide, the U.S. movie industry lost $3 billion to videocassette piracy, and the U.S. entertainment software industry lost $1.9 billion due to piracy in just fourteen countries. In 2000, hard- goods piracy cost the U.S. business software industry alone $11.8 billion.
He readily admits there are no reliable figures to gauge the actual economic impact of P2P piracy. He extrapolates his extraordinary claims from a Viant study, The Copyright Crusade, on P2P network piracy. The study indicates that online piracy is a serious issue and worthy of considerable effort. But it in no way suggests, authorizes, endorses, or supports the outrageous claims of Mr. Berman.
InfoWorld quotes Berman as claiming that "billions" of files are pirated each month, yet he has little supporting evidence. The childish statements by his spokeswomen in the same article, and the admission that the bill has little chance of passing noted in a brief review at IEEE-USA are clear indicators of Berman's disingenuous nature.
A review of the CCIA site shows no mention of the Berman fiasco and, given the organization's stand on other Internet-related issues, it seems unlikely they would support such a stupid proposal. Moreover, if Berman really wanted something this asinine put into law he certainly wouldn't announce it in public. He sits on the House Judiciary Committee and the Subcommittee on the Courts, Internet, and Intellectual Property, and could easily broker an amendment to some unrelated bill if that were his real intent.
Berman also claims: "Internet piracy threatens to undermine the symbiosis between the technology and media industries."
My question is just who is this vaunted symbiosis supposed to benefit? This reminds me of Bob Frankston's quote [via Mark Bernstein] on the net industry's fixation on entertainment -- "You'd think the purpose of a roof is to keep rain off the television."
It is unfortunate that a legislator who is directly responsible for Internet regulation has no more regard for the truth than Congressman Berman has shown. For whatever else he may have done, Mr. Berman has shown himself a shallow, feckless shill for the RIAA and Hollywood fatcats, and someone who has little connection to real-world Internet users, their issues, or their concerns. Rather than fanning the flames of his PR effort, we should be reaching out to the constituents of CA28 and letting them know they have a poser in Congress. And that, come election time, Mr. Berman should be sent to the unemployment line. Perhaps it's time to support one of Mr. Berman's opponents. The Unofficial List of Candidates for the November 5 General Election provided by the California Secretary of State lists Berman's opponents as follows:
DAVID R. HERNANDEZ, JR. -- Republican
P.O. BOX 3245
NORTH HOLLYWOOD, CA 91609
BUSINESS: (818) 761-1820
E-MAIL: drhassoc@earthlink.net
Insurance Adjuster
KELLEY L. ROSS -- Libertarian
13403 WEDDINGTON STREET
VAN NUYS, CA 91401
BUSINESS: (818) 788-8647
E-MAIL: kross@friesian.com
College Philosophy Teacher
More on RSS, Blog Tools
Dorothea at Caveat Lector has some outstanding explanatory posts on HTML, RSS, and other items. This one is on RSS and has some good resources I missed when I made my earlier post.HTML Markup Tutorial
Dorothea sends us to school on html markup. I just browsed (it's late), but it looks like soem easy-to-grasp explanations of some things -- like DIV tags and such -- that may as well be Greek to me.And don't miss this follow-up.
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