CogBlogged from ‘January, 2004’

Finally got around to some revamps to a web slide show template I’ve been rolling for a few years, the “jClicker” (little “j” is for JavaScript). We do many many photos for our many events at work, and this has been a very handy way to organize photos into a slide show format. The main site includes a step-by-step construction guide. Basically, all one has to do is to assemble your image files (any web format), write some captions and edit one text file to control the settings and define the order of the slide show. Previously, one had to actually write incrementing numbers for the lists (arrays) manage the image files, menus names, and captions, but a email from a user generated a beautiful idea– just have a running self-incrementing counter (javascript- “i++;) before each section that lists the next slides image file, menu name, and caption. Now deleting, [...]

I’ve raved before about Kung-Log, Adriaan Tijsseling’s amazingly sleek Mac OXS application for doing just about all the MovableType composing and editing. Change is on the way and it is good- Adriaan is at work on a new version, re-named “ecto”. In fact, I am “ecto”-ing this entry now in beta version 0.1.5, and it is packed with even more features, interface refinements, and options to ease the process of MT blogging. This is a closed beta now (I loved Kung-Blog so much I made the requested donation for it, and that was a nice key to get early beta access to ecto), and a public beta version is supposed to be out very soon. And get this, it should spread wide– there will be a future version for Windows. Adriaan seems to release a new beta version every other day, so it is on the fast track. I’ll miss [...]

Ari Paparo assembled a longer than you might expected list of web search tools for specifically searching weblogs and/or RSS feeds. My new theory on blogging is that whenever I can’t find a particular piece of information on Google I should just create it myself. What’s the point of all this easy-to-use publishing technology if you don’t publish stuff, right? You’ve got everything from Bligz, Blogdigger, Bloghop, Fastbuzz, Pepys, yadda, yadda, down to Technorati and more. As if we needed it, but one more sign of the spread of the blog meme. I have generally found Feedster one of the more useful, but have yet to poke around many of the others listed here… And you gotta like a guy who blogs “I am King of the World” (for being top of a google search on a typo??)