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  • 1 min read

What’s the best Blogging client on Windows?

You can do your blogging by typing into a web browser form provided by the Movable Type service. But boy is that clumsy and awful. So for a while now I've used so-called " blogging clients" which provide a nice rich interface to write and edit the posts, and then use the server's APIs to actually send the update or change up to the server. On Mac, I use the fairly wonderful Ecto for OS X - Recommended! On Windows, I tried all the free ones that I found recommended, and only w.bloggar was stable enough to actually use, although I didn't like the user interface. I also tried tried ShartMT and Ecto for Windows. Despite my best efforts, neither one was stable enough to use. In the end, I found and am now using the BlogJet - Clean and simple.

  • 1 min read

[JAVAONE] Worldwide gathering of the Java faithful

47385231_153147920_0[1].jpg What a difference this conference is from the ones I usually go to. Ten thousand or so fairly hard-core Java programmers, more or less around the clock, learning about Java in all it's mysterious variety. 47390844_153169275_0[1].jpg

  • We get to learn how Sun thinks about its stewardship of Java

  • We get to see the latest new features, concepts, directions of all the multitude of parts of the java universe

  • We get to dive deep, really, really deep, into many nooks and crannies of the technology platform

  • 1 min read

Amusing junk mail story

About 3 months ago I subscribed to Atlantic Magazine, which I really like, by the way. On a lark, I gave my name as "Pito Atlantic Salas" because, well, it amused me. It's taken about 3 months and I've received my first bit of Atlantic generated junk mail today: Pitoatlantic Technorati Tags: funny, junkmail, spam

  • 1 min read

Yahoo IM Spam

I have IM accounts on Yahoo, AOL and MSN. Actually I use the AOL by far the most, but I have an occasional correspondent on Yahoo and MSN. By the way, on Mac OS X, I use the terrific client "Adium" which talks all those protocols, and is free. It is a nice UI on to the well known GAIM (GNU AIM) open source project. Almost daily I get one or two new IM pings from unknown people, or more likely, robots, with some kind of a spam element, which I have to block to stop. The weird thing is, the IM Spamis always from Yahoo , never from AOL or MSN. Are they doing something different? Technorati Tags: IM, spam

  • 1 min read

Distributed philanthropy network

I came across a good story about ModestNeeds.org from Deborah Finn's blog, where she says:

"In other words, although philanthropy no longer looks like it did in the time when most people lived in small towns and interacted on a face-to-face basis, it is an activity and a spirit that is alive and well. I would love to see John and Paul deploying their skills as researchers to document the ModestNeeds phenomenon and its implications." (from Deborah Finn)

Check it out: ModestNeeds.org Technorati Tags: philantropy

  • 1 min read

What if we all vote on the truth, part 3

Just a final follow up on this interesting story (actually more of an event than a story because it was over so quickly:) Jeff Jarvis of Buzzmachine has an interesting view on why the Wikitorial experiment (seems to have) failed, and how to do it differently:

"The LA Times didn't understand what it was doing and made three criticial mistakes. […] 1. Collaboration vs. argument […], 2. Care and feeding […], 3. Newspaper ego […]" (from Buzzmachine)

Technorati Tags: wiki, wikipedia

  • 2 min read

What if we all vote on the truth, part 2

I wrote a few days ago about the coming LA Times initiative to create something they are calling "Wikitorials." Well they've done it, and the results are quite interesting: Someone going by the name Hank Ramey (a real name?) does a complete 'rewrite' of the LA Times Editorial. A really provocative idea. However it's not at all clear what was rewritten though, so the effort is kind of loss. For the more sophisticated Wiki user, a little digging reveals highly sophisticated edit trails which let you see what changes were made by one person or another. But as you can see here, it's still hard to tell what's going on, and who's opinion is where. Look particularly at the times of each of these edits on the edit history and you can see several people pulling one way or another. I am not sure how that will work over the slightly longer term. Picture 1-3 There is also a "Discussions" area where readers can comment and discuss the Wikitorial page. You can see near the bottom, a pretty thoughtful mini essay: "Editorials without annotations are meaningless":

"When I see an editorial with no name attached, several questions about the writer of the editorial pop into my mind before I ever consider the content of the editorial. How old is she or he? What is the writer's educational background including the amount of study of economics, science, and the law, as opposed to literature, philosophy and culture."

A very interesting experiment , for sure, and worth following. One commenter correctly points out that there is a real risk that this wiki, like many, will get corrupted by vandals etc. (Written Saturday afternoon) Late breaking news (Sunday Night): The Wikitorials have been taken down by the LA Times:

"Where is the Wikitorial? Unfortunately, we have had to remove this feature, at least temporarily, because a few readers were flooding the site with inappropriate material. Thanks and apologies to the thousands of people who logged on in the right spirit." (from LA Times Wikitorial Page)

Technorati Tags: journalism, wiki, wikipedia

  • 1 min read

Distributed network of service providers

Not computer service providers, but folks like carpenters and plumbers…. I came across ServiceMagic, which is a pretty cool site for locating and hiring people to work on projects around the house. I needed three doors repaired and on a lark I posted the project on this site. I had a phone call in 5 minutes, and 2 more within the hour. I chose one of them to come by and give me a free estimate in 2 days. So that's pretty impressive, considering usually you don't even get a call back. Now lets see the quality of the service! Technorati Tags: home, useful, recommended

  • 1 min read

Making money with aggregators

Francois, reacting to something written by Jason Calcanis, makes a very good point in this discussion about feed and blog aggregators needing to have a way to make money: Jason:

"A number of people have asked me how I handle folks lifting our RSS Feeds and putting advertising against them. The first step I take is sending an email like the one below letting people know what we allow and what we don't allow. I always CC our legal counsel and include a screen shot."

Francois:

"Where it breaks down for me is in the scenario of a company selling an aggregator to its end users (and there are some of them out there). In effect, and according to Jason's logic, that company is also making money from someone else's content."

Technorati Tags: blog, IP, strategy