What Fires You Up?

7/10/2003

 

Gnomedex 3.0

Gathering of the Geeks
July 25 - 26, 2003 Des Moines Iowa

Learn more: http://www.lockergnome.com
Highly recommended by cobalt - I'll be there, and you?

BJ 7/10/2003 05:57:00 PM

7/09/2003

 

What I like about blogs

1.Fast fast fast! The sites come up quickly onscreen.

2. There are few bells and whistles - this helps the speed of reception and who needs all the graphics anyway when you are looking for content.

3. The links - best sites I have found have come from the blogs. When you find one you like, check the links and permalinks they feature. Sure way to come on to similar blogs and topics of interest!

4. When you make changes to your blog, they rely on very simple host-supplied templates that are easy to use.

5. Most hosts provide templates for your blog. To change your layout, color, font, etc. there is a simple template to mess about with.

6. Blogs often have comment features. This is interesting when you can quickly give your feedback or others can comment to you on your post. Again, with the blogs, the comment feature and linkbacks are instantaneous.

7. Blogs are not easily accessed by folks that wish to monitor your blog site. The posts are so fast to update, that it is incredibly easy to speed your post along and refer to other breaking news from around the world. And just as quickly, publish the post and delete it. No record! Whilst the intelligence communities watch the bulky websites, they are not able to keep up with the sheer volumes of blogs and posts to them!

8. Bloggers often have a pared-down sensibility that allows them to focus in on subjects, provide their comments and a link - like a good editor perhaps?

9. RSS newsfeeds are easily used with blogs. Plain text in blogs helps this along.

10. Most blog hosts provide a "referrer" log for you: you can see who visited your blog within 24 hours and also how often your blog is "read" by others. Can be an ego boost!

11. Blogs provide quick ways to get photos online using the "add image" feature. This enables you to link a public URL to a posting forum quickly if you want to post a link to an image.

12. Archives: Most blogs feature the capacity to archive all your pages weekly or as often as you wish. Nice to store the past posts and comments and quickly access them if needed.

13. Blogs are great to store links for your "Favorites" and "Bookmarks". Why? When you are traveling, you've got your links right at hand when using another computer away from home.

14. Bloggers tend to be very personable folks who answer (gasp!) comments and emails right away!

15. Most blog hosts compile lists of other blogs that are recently updated. This is fun to explore.

16. Blogs are often a quick adjunct to a regular website - check them out for more current posts than the full website. You will also find that many folks have several different blogs for different reasons.

17. Blogs for me are a convenient record of my daily life and a journal of sorts. While I am not a diarist, I find that copied posts every-so-often from my blogs provide a great record of what is important to me.

18. Photo blogs are fascinating to surf! Try this one for an example: fotolog
http://www.fotolog.net.

19. Blogs are easy contact sources for shared family and friend information.

20. Blogs provide an intimate approach to the cyberworld - what many of us bloggers are so happy to have. You are in touch right away with real people, not just passive viewers.

21. Blogs are the fastest way to find breaking news from around the world. While so many were on CNN or Fox, I chose to go through technorati's current events to get the fastest updates in digest form, and link where I wished to follow further. This leads to a global perspective on world issues. Here is the URL: Technorati Current Events

This give some ideas? Actually, I was glad to sort out my favorite reasons for becomming an avid blogger - "one of those" as my brother says.

BJ 7/09/2003 02:13:00 PM

 

Read the BBC for Better US Politics News!

Here is a sample of the article today about the finger-pointing going back and forth with the US and Britain each saying the other was at fault for using the WMD argument to go to war in Iraq.

"White House 'warned over Iraq claim'

The CIA warned the US Government that claims about Iraq's nuclear ambitions were not true months before President Bush used them to make his case for war, the BBC has learned. Doubts about a claim that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from the African state of Niger were aired 10 months before Mr Bush included the allegation in his key State of the Union address this year, a CIA official has told the BBC. On Tuesday, the White House for the first time officially acknowledged that the Niger claim was wrong and suggested it should not have been used in the president's State of the Union speech in January.

This post was discovered through going to technorati current events, still my favorite site for providing quick news from a global perspective.

BJ 7/09/2003 11:16:00 AM

7/08/2003

 

A Tale of Two Fans

Actually, it is now a total of five fans running, trying to force the teeny window AC in the living room to push a little air down the hall and into my bedroom/office! If it were not just a summer sublet apartment in a student ghetto, I'd get another AC unit. BUT, financial necessity and more poignant, complete lack of funds (!) called for another solution. So, two nights in a row I successfully assembled two standing fans, and got a teeny teeny clip fan that goes on a chair next to my computer. Runs on batteries and really does work! Thanks to the Black and Decker Silent Force standing fan, the two box fans in the hall are finally doing their job for me. It is not "great", but anything beats the 96 degrees in this bedroom/office before I got the new fans. Ah strategy!

BJ 7/08/2003 08:40:00 AM