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TrackBack Is There for Radio/UserLand

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Finally! A test site now proves that Radio/UserLand weblogs are TrackBack enabled. And it works! Got Trackback? Yup!

My blog entry here was created by using the MovableType bookmarklet tool that automatically dissected the test source, found the embedded RDF TrackBack data, and provided the ping address directly to my blog editing environment. The proof of my ping should be registered right here

It work, and it works across different blog systems. This opens the door for maybe a lot more TrackBack activity…

Blog Pile

Dullest Blog in the World (over-blogging)

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If ever I think I am blogging too many things, I can use the dullest blog in the world as my reference point.

Very tongue-in-cheek (we hope), this blog includes fascinating tidbits such as:

Taking a short break July 2
I was doing some things. After a while I decided to stop doing them and take a short break. At the end of the break I started doing the things again.
Hanging up a damp towel June 27
I had a towel in my hands. It was a bit damp. I hung it over the bannister so that it would dry off.
Picking up a piece of rubbish June 19
I saw that there was a small piece of rubbish on the ground. I stooped over and picked it up. Seeing a litter bin nearby I carried the item a short distance and deposited it in the bin.

and on and on it goes, loaded with comments to boot. While obviously sarcastic, look at this as an example of trying to blog way too much (I would have skipped the towel entry).

<tiphat>Credit to the very last line of the iCite entry, Would a blog by any other name still smell like a blog by any other name? itself a worthy read.</tiphat>

Blog Pile

Google Alert: Another RSS Feeder (and good all around resource)

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Another gem of a resource that has a hook or two into the RSS game, is the free Google Alert service.

Google Alert runs daily Google searches for you and emails you whenever new results appear. Many people use Google Alert to keep track of what the web is saying about them, their interests or any projects they are involved in.

Even if you have no clue or interest in RSS, Google Alert is an extremely useful tool to keep you in tune into web resources that cover areas that interest you.

<tiphat>Found a link to this via some long last path to an entry at IDBlog.</tiphat>

Blog Pile

Bonus Feature for MT Bookmarklet

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Scott Leslie recently posted some well deserved praise for Bookmarklets (little Javascripts to perform tasks), citing them as vastly under-used but powerful tools in your web browser.

The MovableType Bookmarklet makes blogging any website a snap, see our Blogging with the MT Bookmarklet summary.

But by pure accident, I discovered this tool has an added bonus.

The MT Bookmarklet tool is even a bit more powerful because it can also grab a portion of text from the page you are viewing, and include that in your blog editing form.

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NaDa: Does Nothing for Everybody

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On an extremely light note… hurry now and download your copy of NaDa, only 1k! “Nada does nothing for everybody”.

Most products we see on the market want to increase our productivity, organize our screen joyfully or make wonders with our sound card, but NaDa™ does nothing. This is a revolutionary whole new approach, a concept far beyond what you usually expect from the software industry. Download it and forget it.

Compatible with all Mac OSs, including OS’ÄÝX Jaguar, all Windows™ versions, all flavors of UNIX/Linux, Amiga, BeOS, everything you can think of, because we strongly believe that NaDa™ does nothing for everybody.

<tiphat>Thanks to WebWord</tiphat>

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Splitting Up MT Category Archives

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I absolutely love MovableType for publishing this weblog, and know there is quite a bit more to dig into. One thing that has bothered me is in creating my category archives, they potentially have no end in sight for how long they will get to be. They just grow and grow as you add more to your blog. And I loathe slow-loading, ever scrolling web pages.

For example, my learning objects category now has 34 posts and I see quite a few more to come. It is getting fat.

It is not too much to ask that there be some tools to break up the categories into segments, e,.g pagination. The idea would be to have a set amount of content per page (x posts), and some sort of drop down menu, or next/previous link, or even the google-style numbered sets that would self-organiize a long category archive.

Here I describe the cheap route I took.

Blog Pile

Taking a Dog Nap July 25-27

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Cogdogblog will be off-line between July 24 (6:00 pm PST) to July 28 (7:00 AM PST). There is some new power generator going in the building, and they are pulling the plug on all computers, networks, and servers. What will we do? Take a blog-break and going outside to chase some cats 😉

Blog Pile

DirectorWeb sports a new RSS feed

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I have just hacked together a script to generate RSS feeds for the items posted to the front of Director Web, our long standing web resource site for users of Macromedia Director.

Although, I have not touched the inside of Director for about a year or two, this site still generates a pile of traffic, largely driven by the posted submissions for announcements to the front page.

It was just a little work (dusting off long forgotten perl) to add some code to create RSS feeds.

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Weblog Ethics (There is room for that, eh?)

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As an excerpt from a new book on blogging, Rebecca Blood’s Weblog Ethics is certainly timely. Especially given the current recess fighting over “de-publishing”. But more than that, Rebecca’s wisdom rings true as one of the early bloggers (see Rebecca’s Pocket for may more gems) and is sound advice for those new to the blog scene (this cogdog puppy just arrived a few months back).

(A tip of the blog hat to Ten Reasons Why for leading me to this site).

Rebecca’s book along with the recently posted final version of weblog definition by Jill Walker give a more robust picture of the weblog universe.

So peruse the list of concepts for weblog ethics, and absorb them, not as pure truths, but wise advice.