Tuesday, December 13, 2005

8PM Central: Arrived safely in New Orleans. 

Greetings from Atlanta at 2:28PM Eastern. Terminal T. No TMobile here, so I had to pay $7.95 to get wifi.  

Interesting discussion about the future of the ipodder.org directory. Looks like there will be a new top-level editor. Let's hope the ipodder.org domain goes with it, or at least it's redirected. About bandwidth for hosting OPML files, at least for now, I'm willing to foot the bill, I already have a community server set up that hosts files for users of the OPML Editor. I can't take on the responsibility for the content, that has to come from the community, but the space and bandwidth are not a problem for me. I already have the resources for it. If we need more bandwidth later, I have no doubt we can get the help we need. 

First sign that New Orleans ain't what it used to be. The plane I'm on is a regional commuter. The kind of plane you take to get to Madison or Jacksonville.  

Ernie posts a creative Christmas wish list from New Orleans.  

Scott, I've found that if you directly ping Technorati it picks up the changes almost immediately. I know how to do this, I'll give you a script that does it automatically every time you update. I actually have a long enough layover that I might be able to do it while I'm here in Atlanta. After selling weblogs.com I've all of a sudden become more interested in how the whole ping network works. Funny how that is.  

John Palfrey is testifying in Massachusetts tomorrow about open document formats. He's seeking suggestions on what he should talk about. Okay. I suggest RSS and OPML. You might want to mention the MetaWeblog API too. 

Good morning, checking in from SFO, first flight is at 7AM Pacific, flying to Atlanta, where I have a 3 hour layover.  

The green Technorati icon in the right margin on Scripting News has been a great success, it puts sites that are comment on the site one click away. There have been some snarky posts, but for the most part it's been good to hear what people say and to see what they find interesting.  

A test podcast done on the Archos prior to my New Orleans trip, while listening to Larry King on CNN talking about the death penalty in California. Later tonight Tookie Williams is scheduled to be executed. 

Scott, I've heard the investigative reporting justification for news organizations many times, it's a classic; but I can't say I've actually seen much of that kind of reporting. Perhaps we could begin a serious effort to uncover it and chronicle it, and take a deep look. If it's really valuable then let's do something to make sure it survives. These days I don't think there's all that much Woodward & Bernstein out there. A lot more Jayson Blair and Judith Miller. Imho. Also, consider that we don't have to send reporters overseas if we already have bloggers there. And there are other ways to pay for travel. For example, I'm going to New Orleans tomorrow out of curiosity, on my own dime. If it's really worth doing, I think it'll get done, one way or the other.  

Staci Kramer visited New Orleans in March, pre-Katrina. 

How do I blog? 

Frank Paynter asked, here's my answer.

Every day is a new outline. I browse around using my aggregator, and when I find something I want to remember, I add a link to it in my outline.

When I have something longer to write I can do it one of two ways: 1. I can create a post on one of my ancillary sites and point to it from Scripting News. These posts have comments and trackback. 2. I can create a top-level headline and add sub-heads, which is what I'm doing here.

I've never used a commercial software product to blog, I've always used something that's one-off and homebrew. Lots of programmers like me do that. I don't really know why it's that way. I guess so I can make changes to my software without breaking any users? Yeah that soulds pretty good.

I have a button which I press to create the RSS feed. That way I get to control when people with aggregators see what I write. My raw writing is on the HTML version, the RSS version is more polished.

These days I write using a Macintosh, but the software I use, which runs in the OPML Editor, works on either Mac or Windows. I could use a Windows machine if I wanted to.