John Robb Suggests Furl

"I really like Furl.  It allows me to create a searchable clipping library from articles I find using RSS (which for major media publications is usually just headlines +).  One more item for inclusion in my personal digital dashboard." -John Robb 

James Joyce RSS Feed

June 16th is the hundredth anniversary of Bloomsday which is the day written about in Ulysses. Jason White is feeding the who book, page by page out through an Ulysses RSS feed. Here's you chance to read the classic in an entirely new document format. Any RSS book clubs starting up?

As Shifted Librarian says "Offer good through June 14, 2006.  ;-)"

Firefly Fancy

Was Tinkerbell inspired by fireflies? If I was a television news producer, I'd get a shot of the fireflies and tell people to turn off their sets and go into their yards. My backyard and all of my neighbors' trees are aglow. Hundreds of glows alight the sky announcing that summer is here! Better than fireworks.

Review posted to RealSimpleSyndication.com

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Feeds make it easier to learn about what you don't know. While there is a lot of talk about the echo chamber of blogs, I find that the RSS feeds of blogs, major media and other sites keep me informed of topics and from a prespective that broadens my world. Even before RSS feeds I was a big fan of mylinks.com for this reason.

For more than a year I've been learning about this world of feeds and about the blogsphere. I've been promoting RSS to friends and co-workers, so they ask me how to get started. For these people I send them a link to web aggregators like Bloglines or FastBuzz.

These web based services allow users to start without having to install software on their machines. Installing software is too hard, especially in the corporate, locked down Windows world, so a web service is perfect. Getting started on either of these services is easy, but most people prefer the usability of Bloglines. These services are still not as easy as mylinks.com, but still a place to start and a good place to maintain an account.

For more advanced users and for myself, I use FeedDemon. While it is not free, it is worth the shareware fee. I enjoy a well designed piece of software and Nick Bradbury has an elegant design with FeedDemon, so I highly recommend trying the trial version.

FeedDemon is a desktop aggregator that installs on your windows computer. With hundreds of preloaded feeds, it is easy to get started and learn about what you don't know. Like all good desktop aggregators, it intergrates with a web browser, so I'm creating this review while browsing in FeedDemon. Using the built in browser to surf, it makes it very easy to subscribe to new feeds and to seamlessly switch between the RSS and web world. Like all good software, I keep finding new features and uses for getting the most out of my feeds. I've tried over twenty other programs (like browser toolbars) and FeedDemon remains my recommendation. While I use FeedDemon everyday, it has not yet reached Tivo status but with each revision it is getting there.

Having praised two aggregators, I still don't believe we have seen the best. To start, I am extremely concerned about a growing number of desktop RSS programs requiring feed owners to pay for increasing bandwidth. Desktop aggregators allow you to work offline, speed and flexibility. Web aggregators allow you to go on vacation and not miss any feeds. In addition, you can access them from home, work, laptop or your sister's computer. So both have their strengths and weaknesses. I think the best will be a desktop program that pulls in feeds from a web service, allows panel and mixed displays, works as smart as my Tivo and is as easy to get started with as mylinks.com.

Regardless of how you start, feeds will change your use of the internet.

HEMS: Blogging and RSS

I've been blogging using Blogger for more than a year. The new update to Blogger makes many of the improvements that I need except two.

While waiting for Blogger to update, I also tried TypePad.com. I must say that I'm very impressed with TypePad but it does not support RSS 2.0. I'm committed to RSS 2.0 for work I do on Bletter. So I did not move to TypePad, but I found their use of categories to be just what I needed.

Add to this mix that I'm still working on my book and Internet Design. I took a week off from work three years ago to write the book and the software to write it. Writing the software helped me learn more. So I want to continue to write about Internet Design.

And in the meantime, I've mean updating that software called HEMS (HTML Entry Management System). It now supports RSS and will soon support blogging. While my initial plans were to support minimal blogs, I've now decided to support more blogging features so I can write more for my book.

So instead of moving to TypePad, you'll see this blog move to HEMS by the end of the year. This will also probably mean that I'll have to either upgrade my hosting agreement or find a new hosting company.

I'll probably also start a new blog on HEMS or it will just become a category of this blog.

Got My Laptop

Why does anyone get a new computer? My old computer and even the one before that still does most of the stuff I need: email, web browsing, compose javascripts, help with money matters, create web pages, FTP, blog, read email including spam and play some games. So why a laptop? Primarily because it is a laptop. It can be mobile and wireless. I can type this while I'm at the beach. Or at work. Or on the Metro. Or anywhere. And I'll figure out wireless. That is where technology is going and so is culture. Battery going low, more later.

Easy Solution for SPAM

I've had the same email account for years. I can not tell you how many, but before Netscape was the most popular web browser.

In the years since I signed up with my ISP, they've changed their main domain name several times. So now I get email under the name raydaly@xxxx.com and raydaly@yyyy.com and raydaly@zzzz.net. I've only used the xxxx.com address myself. So any email to the other accounts I know is spam (several hundred per day).

The easy solution requires a small amount of background. Most bulk email is usually batched to an ISP. So hundreds of email address could be in the message sent to one email server. So the same email that goes to any unused accounts contains spam for many other people.

Easy solution. Why don't ISPs look for an email sent to a "never used account" and then just stuff that email into a delete box before it gets sent into peoples' inbox. Certainly every ISP has these spam only addresses and could implement this.

Is this too simple to be a solution? Maybe. Or maybe spammer have figured a way around it. But I think it would work to cut an awful lot of spam. Something has to work soon.

SharePoint: First Step to Integrating with Intranet

Due to cost and product design, most organizations will install SharePoint for employees and not the public. This will require companies to consider how to intergrate with their existing intranet. This is the first step that is fairly simple to take even for companies considering a fast migration to SharePoint from their intranet.

This idea is to use SharePoint to be the search engine for your intranet. Microsoft has done a very good job with search and it is a perfect way to introduce SharePoint to your intranet audience.

First, you need to set up a new portal. This requires a new virtual IIS server. When you set this up, make sure to go into the properties and use the security tab to allow anonymous access. Make sure to note the user name here. You'll need it in step three.

So now you have a new virtual server and you need to set up it up as a SharePoint Portal. You do this from the SharePoint Central Admin page. Obviously, this will take a few minutes.

Third, you need to set up the new portal access. Again from the Central Admin page click on -----. Set up the user name from step one for access. At this point you should now have unresticted access to the new portal. Test this.

Fourth, you now need to set up the search. Go into the Site Settings and set up SharePoint to search your intranet. [I'll do a graphic, step by step later.] You should now be able to search your intranet from within your SharePoint. Click on a link from a search result and you should see a page from your intranet.

Fifth, you probably want to delete the default areas (Topics, News and Sites) that SharePoint sets up for your new portal. This is going to depend on your intranet design and SharePoint skills. This would give you a portal just used for searching.

Finally, now you need to get to the SharePoint search from within your intranet. This is the HTML code you need to put into a page on your intranet.

Search: 

[Note: ????.??? will have to be corrected later.]

Open the page where you put this form. Do the search and you should be searching using SharePoint. Great, your intranet users can now get a test of SharePoint.

Hope this works for you. Next we'll get your people to start using alerts in their searches. NOTE: A more detail document will be done when I have a test setup ready.

SharePoint As New Media

Can SharePoint be a new way of expression? I'm rather sure that it is. Instead of a web site composed of HTML pages, SharePoint stores nearly everything in a MS SQL database, the majority of the content is MS Office documents and pulls things out using web parts. Obviously different than HTML. Maybe as different as television is from radio.

Anyways, I'm taking a class on SharePoint this week and I'll keep notes here.

Darknet: More to Come

Several bloggers pointed me to J.D. Lasica book/wiki Darknet. After a quick read of the first chapter, I'm sure that I'll have many more comments. First because of the subject matter and second because I need to get the "web book" I've been working on the web for comments.

My first impression is that Lasica misses the broad point that "Movies, Music and Television" are all content for the internet. As Eric McLuhan pointed out in his book, "Electric Language : Understanding the Message", the content of the internet is all media. This is based on the Marshall McLuhan "law" that the content of new media is old media. Understanding this make understanding the darknet easier.

My second impression is that we have always made our own media. More on that later.