Bob Morris @ Jun 1st 2008 07:48 - Category: Blogging, environment ;
Best Green Blogs is “a comprehensive resource for all things green and sustainable in the blogosphere.”
There’s hundreds of sites listed here, with a short description of each, and you can view by category too. Highly useful.
Bob Morris @ Apr 9th 2008 20:44 - Category: Blogging ;
Just got a new cell phone, an AT&T LG. It handles texting, email, and internet much better than my painfully obsolete previous phone, a Motorola V557, which was ancient, almost two years old.
Just discovered that Flickr and YouTube can be configured to take photos and video uploads from a cell phone. Nice. The pricing is $35 a month for unlimited texting and internet. BTW, Flickr just announced they will now take videos up to 90 seconds.
So, I can now video events and have it online in minutes. Ditto for photos. I also use the cell to get my Twitter stream when not at a computer. All from my little $40 after-the-rebate cell phone. Wheee.
Bob Morris @ Apr 6th 2008 07:32 - Category: Blogging ;
The NY Times says that’s precisely what some bloggers do. Doc Searls says, “Blogging doesn’t need to be a race. Really.”
With the advent of Twitter, we may see blogs increasingly be used for longish think pieces and Twitter for short, quick news. Plus, the two will begin to merge and morph.
Of course, that doesn’t help the hopelessly news-addicted (say I writing this blog post while my cell phone grabs incoming tweets from Twitter) to slow down and focus on what’s really important and separate out all the noise.
More than a few bloggers are thinking about this, the pressure to always get good posts up, whether your site is your source of income or for fun. After while it gets exhausting and burnout looms. Perhaps the best solution is to do fewer posts but make them more comprehensive. No sense in being first. even if your ad revenue soars, if your health or personal life suffers. First things need to come first.
Bob Morris @ Apr 4th 2008 10:18 - Category: Blogging Tags: twitter;
Twitter is the first social networking tool that I really like and also find genuinely useful. It exists somewhere between IM and blogging. Messages can be up to 120 characters. They go out to whoever is following you. Right now, I follow about 50 people and about the same number follow me.
It’s free, of course. You can tell it to track certain words or phrases too, like “Obama” or “climate change.” You can view your tweets on the Twitter website, with IM, or on your cell phone via texting. You can send snippets of blog posts (or any RSS) to Twitter with Twitter Feed. So, the first 120 characters of posts here automatically get sent to Twitter without me doing anything.
Why is this useful? One reason is because I frequently now learn about breaking news on Twitter first. Plus it’s fascinating and fun to see what everyone is doing. I follow tech geeks like Scoble as well as financial bloggers like Paul Kedrosky. There’s also BBC breaking news and lots more.
I’m polizeros on Twitter. To follow me, just click Follow under my picture.
Read/Write Web has an excellent list of the growing list of Twitter clients while Twitter has a wiki with lots more third-party Twitter tools.
Bob Morris @ Mar 29th 2008 20:16 - Category: Blogging ;
The long-awaited massive upgrade of WordPress (what this blog uses) has officially shipped, and it has a gaggle of useful new features. As always, I wait on new versions to make sure there are no bugs or issues as does Bluehost, where we are hosted. They have one-click upgrades for a number of products including WordPress, which certainly makes upgrading simple.
Bob Morris @ Mar 22nd 2008 17:17 - Category: Blogging ;
She said yes.
Bob Morris @ Mar 19th 2008 20:15 - Category: Blogging Tags: friendfeed;
FriendFeed will aggregates your multiple social networking sites into one feed, plus it tracks what your friends are doing. You can link blogs, Twitter, Youtube, Amazon wish lists, Google Reader shared items, Digg, and more into your FriendFeed feed.
I’m polizeros on FriendFeed.
Bob Morris @ Mar 17th 2008 18:30 - Category: Blogging ;
From the Guardian.”>From The Guardian.
Among the familiar tech and political names are blogs I’d never heard of, and they definitely appear worth exploring.
Bob Morris @ Mar 8th 2008 15:08 - Category: Blogging Tags: twitter, twitter feed;
Twitter Feed sends your blog posts to Twitter for you on a schedule of your choosing. Thus, you can find new audiences for your blog.
Twitter is the first social networking tool I’ve found that is simultaneously fun, powerful, easy to use, and not kludgy. It’s sort of like a multi-casting IM or something in between IM and email, with a limit of 160 characters per message.
(If you have no idea what I’m talking about, that’s ok too!)
Bob Morris @ Mar 4th 2008 13:45 - Category: Blogging ;
Bob Morris @ Feb 28th 2008 00:13 - Category: Blogging, Politics ;
Nader’s brand of crusade-like issue advocacy would seem perfectly suited for the Internet age. But he has a big problem: He doesn’t understand the Web.
“Doesn’t understand” is an understatement. More like “clueless and contemptuous.” I mean, he still refers to the Net as “virtual reality,” not understanding that for millions, their online and offlines lives mesh into one, without there being little separation between them.
Ron Paul doesn’t get the Net, but his hordes of libertarian geek supporters sure do, and they created a viral buzz that enabled Paul to raise tens of millions of dollars.
Much of the hard left doesn’t get the Net either. Oh, they have websites and blogs, but they lock them down and control the content, often not even allowing comments on blogs. Or they use blogs solely to re-post articles from their other sites. This totally misunderstands what blogs are about.
For blogs (and websites) to be successful, they need to be two-way. The comments that readers leave and the incoming and outgoing links are what gives life to a blog. Without that, you might as well post it on your refrigerator door, for all the effect it will have.
A blog needs to leave the doors open, letting lots of stuff fly in and out, and to have a personal point of view as well. That’s why the blogs for most politicians are dull. They have few if any outgoing links, hardly ever allow criticism (or even liveliness) in the comments, and present a bland personality to the reader. Someone told them they need a blog, so they got one, but don’t know why.
More than a few websites and blogs on the hard left have the same problems, except the personality presented is militant rather than bland. But it’s still one-dimensional, with humor, wry comments, links to organizations outside themselves, and feedback from readers often being nonexistent.
Like I say, they don’t get the Net.
Bob Morris @ Feb 25th 2008 14:28 - Category: Blogging Tags: Pakistan;
Ostensibly to protect against “blasphemous” YouTube content, but more likely for political purposes, I’m guessing.
With presumably unintended consequences.
The leadership of Pakistan just created a massive Denial of Service on their own country.
Let’s hope this isn’t the prelude to increased repression there, locking the internet doors in an attempt to block information from getting out.
Bob Morris @ Feb 16th 2008 13:31 - Category: Blogging Tags: TSA;
They’re patterning them after ski trail signs; green for families and special assistance needed (beginner), blue for casual travelers (intermediate), and black for expert travelers.
This is a good idea. A family with a baby in a stroller can seriously slow down a line. Me, I can have my laptop out of the bag and personal belongings in the trays in about 20 seconds. Lines based on skill levels make sense.
This is from the TSA blog. It’s been fascinating watching their blog grow, as this behemoth and unwieldy federal agency slowly appears to be getting it that they need to be more responsive with less haphazard, bizarre restrictions that are not applied uniformly. They really do appear to be trying, and a blog is a great way to communicate.
Bob Morris @ Jan 28th 2008 10:18 - Category: Blogging Tags: Facebook;
A-list tech blogger Robert Scoble asked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, why the lousy PR and lack of response when problems happened, something which has severely impacted Facebook. The answer was quite unexpected.
I asked him why he doesn’t like going on video and seems to have difficulty dealing with the press and bloggers. He said he was shy. Asked me not to video him “I freeze up,” he told me. He did promise to meet more with bloggers and to give me a video interview when he’s back home.
It was an amazing admission.
…
Imagine what’ll he get done when he gets over his shyness.
Yes, sometimes seeming arrogance and aloofness is, at heart, shyness. Scoble, a friendly, fair blogger who is also quite capable of calling people on things, came away impressed with Zuckerberg.
Bob Morris @ Jan 22nd 2008 17:23 - Category: Blogging Tags: online images, public domain images;
A few months back I started posting more images here as they make the blog look better and more readable.
Here’s where I get most of the images for Polizeros.
Commons.wikipedia.org has over 2 million “freely usable” media files. A huge and helpful resource.
The Library of Congress new project, The Commons on Flickr.
Clipart.com. $159 a year. Download as many as you want. “8,000,000 clipart images, photos, illustrations, animations, fonts and sounds.”
Stockxpert.com “Royalty free stock photography,” and lots of it, all pro quality. Unique pricing structure as you can pay per photo, and prices (for the size photo you’ll need on the web) are a mere $1 each.
Wikipedia (where else) lists dozens of public domain images resources. Lots of good stuff here too, haven’t had time to go through all of them.
You’ll probably need to edit or tweak the images.
GIMP. Open source, multi-platform, and free. Unless you are a true Photoshop wizard, GIMP will probably do all you’ll ever need, even if the interface is a bit quirky.
Sometimes though, you need to edit an image from a computer with no image editing program. Not a problem. You can do the basic stuff online with My Imager and Pixer.
Feel free to add resources in the comments.
Bob Morris @ Jan 13th 2008 07:17 - Category: Blogging Tags: rss;
Just switched to Feedburner for the default rss feed. So, if you’re using the old one (which will always be here and works fine) you might want to switch to the Feedburner feed, which adds functionality for you and allows me to tracks things better.
If you don’t already use an rss reader, check it out! Rather than going multiple sites and blogs a day to see what’s new, just subscribe to their rss feed and read everything in one place, and it’s always updated.
I use the online Google Reader. Newsgator has desktop and online versions that are now free, and there are many more readers to choose from.
Bob Morris @ Jan 11th 2008 23:47 - Category: Blogging ;
For the “crime” of filming a confrontation by police with villagers.
The killing has sparked outrage in China, with thousands expressing outrage in Chinese Internet chat rooms, often the only outlet for public criticism of the government.
Bob Morris @ Jan 10th 2008 10:37 - Category: Blogging ;
Conservative blog Red State is going boo hoo, we need $80,000 to upgrade our site because it’s in Drupal and liberals are the best Drupal coders, not conservatives. So we need to switch platforms, sob sob, so send us money.
Jamie blogs at Intoxination,which runs under Drupal. He’s also the WordPress wizard who singlehandedly does all the coding for Crooks and Liars and Firedoglake. He rips the flimsy and deceptive Red State plea to shreds, amply showing precisely how lame they are.
I worked hard developing this site. I spent countless hours to bring you the new IntoxiNation - now can I have $80,000? I mean it took me about 3 hours last night and 4 hours today to get it done so $80,000 should be about right.
Did we mentioned RedState is now owned by a large publishing company with actual financial resources? Yet they still beg for money to implement such deeply complicated features such as WYSIWYG editors. Watching Jamie mock them is quite fun. He uses unfair tactics like actual facts to demonstrate what bozos they are at Red State. Sort of like shooting fish in a barrel, actually.
The truth of the matter is it appears Red State’s advertising is way down and they are looking for excuses to get more money in. Fine - just ask for it. Don’t sit there and act like people are fools.
Bob Morris @ Jan 3rd 2008 18:43 - Category: Blogging Tags: Fouad al-Farhan, Free Foaud;
Saudi Arabia’s most popular blogger has been detained for “interrogation” after criticizing corruption and calling for reform on his blog.
Condemnation of the arrest has been immediate and worldwide. You can track what’s happening both on Free Foaud and on his blog (now being updated by friends.)
“An injury to one is an injury to all.” Free Foaud.
Bob Morris @ Jan 1st 2008 07:22 - Category: Blogging Tags: Hoosgot;
Bob Morris @ Dec 15th 2007 21:00 - Category: Blogging Tags: tags;
Many of the categories have been converted to tags, and you can view the tag cloud in the left hand column, right above the new Category dropdown.
Also, each post now lists the categories and tags clearly. For example, this post has a category of “blogging” and a tag of “tags”. Both are clickable.
I’m migrating Polizeros towards using the categories for major topics and tags for everything else. This latest version of WordPress allows both the tag cloud and category dropdown to be created by simply dragging their respective widgets into the template. Nice.
Big thanks to Jamie at IntoxiNation for his help in the php coding.
Bob Morris @ May 22nd 2007 00:15 - Category: Blogging ;
The deluge of comment spam on blogs mean spam killer plugins like Askimet will get false positives. When this happens, good comments get lost because there’s too many spam comments in the queue to go through all of them. (This blog has gotten upwards of 1,500 spam comments a day at times.)
Scoble, a major tech blogger, says comment spam is becoming a major problem for him, both in the sheer number of them and the problem of finding the good comments that got flagged as spam.
His blog runs on WordPress.com, which doesn’t support plugins. This blog runs WordPress.org, which does. So I’ve installed a Captcha plugin. You’ll now have to type in a word to get your comment to post (if you haven’t previously been approved.)
This should cut the comment spam way down. Finding false positives will be much easier now.
Bob Morris @ May 9th 2007 00:08 - Category: Blogging ;
WordPress.com blogs have had free stats for a while. Now WordPress has made this available for self-hosted WordPress.org blogs. Just install the plugin and you’ll get stats on views, referrers, top posts, search engine phrases, outgoing clicks, and incoming links as a tab off Dashboard.
Plus, all the stats activity happens on their servers not yours. This is yet another great tool from the always amazing WordPress, who are continually coming up with ways to make WP even better.
(Read the FAQ. Polizeros stats didn’t work until WP tech support referred me to the FAQ and said to add a function in the footer, now it works fine.)
Bob Morris @ Jan 9th 2007 08:21 - Category: Blogging ;
As I write this, all Blogger blogs are returning a “500 Internal Server error” which means about a zillion blogs, including some quite large ones, are down. This makes me realize this stuff can happen to any web hosting service. Last night this blog (and about 210,000 others) were down because our host, BlueHost, had to move their router across the parking lot from one building to another.
So, there is much gnashing of teeth in Blogger-dom now. Let’s hope Google fixes the problem quickly.
The Net is like phone service, it’s a basic part of our lives.
Bob Morris @ Sep 30th 2006 00:07 - Category: Blogging ;
The new version of Google Reader is one of the best RSS readers I’ve seen, online or desktop. The previous version was kludgy, this one is intuitive and powerful. They’ve done a stellar job on this, check it out.
Me, I prefer to use bookmarks to read blogs, with the bookmarks open in the left side. I’ve got about 50 blogs there and scan through them a couple of times a day. No RSS reader can give you the same look and feel as being on the actual site. Plus, bookmarks are faster. I use Foxmarks to keep my bookmarks in sync across computers. Thus, changing a bookmark on one of my desktop computers automatically gets updated on the laptop. Plus, you can log onto FoxMarks when using someone else’s computer and access all your bookmarks there. So, in a way, this works like an RSS reader.
But I will be using Google Reader more, and look forward to what they will be doing next version.
[tags]Google Reader[/tags]
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