Blogging

Wordpress.com has certainly stirred some buzz, but I’m still a fan of running my favorite blogging software on my own domains. Fortunately, it looks like the version of Wordpress driving Wordpress.com has made it into a public 2.0 beta. Before I say anything else though, I have to stress the obvious: this is beta software. If you’re running a (dare I say it) ‘mission-critical blog’, I wouldn’t recommend upgrading.

That said: the Wordpress 2.0 beta rocks. I haven’t had the chance to use Wordpress.com, but from the screenshots I’ve seen, this beta looks like it has most or all of the same new features. There is much AJAX-ification, the ability to import from a couple other blog services and a more understandable system for designating user and author rights. These aren’t the only changes, and their Codex has a more complete (though not concrete) list.

If you’ve been checking your mailbox, waiting for PhotoMatt to send you a golden ticket (or have been scouring eBay for a chance to buy one), rejoice! WordPress.com is now live and open to the public, though Matt says that the public rollout is being launched "for a bit," hinting that it could become invite-only again if demand proves too great for their servers. In the meantime, here’s your chance to join WordPress.com’s featured celebrity bloggers, Robert Scoble and Philippine President Gloria Macagapal Arroyo.

This is some pretty promising stuff — the new incarnation of Memeorandum is an automated tech and politics blog news aggregator that hopes to keep an up-to-the-minute snapshot of what’s hot in the blogosphere. The new code has only been public for a few days, so the sample size is still low — but from what I’ve checked out so far, I’m genuinely impressed. The biggest caveat is that it’s only tracking technology and politics — but within those domains it stands to be an incredibly useful tool. Essentially, stories that get linked most frequently rise to the top, then sink down again as they’re replaced by newer, hotter stories. The algorithm favors posts with some meat on their bones, and disfavors blog posts that are quick one-liners linking to something else. I’m definitely going to be utilizing this as a quick way to see at a glance what’s going on.

[Via Read/Write Web]

(I apologize in advance for the frequency of the words "Blogger" and "Word" in the following sentence.) The Blogger team have just released Blogger for Word, a Microsoft Word toolbar that lets you post to and edit your Blogger-powered blog from within Word. I’m most curious (and a little scared) to see what kind of HTML it generates–perhaps Blogger is doing some tidying up behind the scenes–but I’m sure that casual users who are familiar with Word’s editing controls will really love it. MS Word users on the Mac are out of luck, though: Blogger for Word is Windows-only. Read about it over at the Google Blog.

Via Waxy Links.

There’s no doubt that Dave Winer is a pioneer of our time, and that those of us in the weblogging industry owe him a heartfelt thank-you and pat on the back for developing Really Simple Syndication feeds, known as RSS for short. But as the self-proclaimed Rodney Dangerfield of the software industry, Winer’s whining can get really tiresome really quickly. What’s his problem? Really, simply, it comes down to the fact that he succeeded. He succeeded in creating a technology that is being adopted at a phenomenal rate, and is going to be baked-in to Microsoft’s next operating system, Vista. Sounds great, right? Well hold on there. To Winer’s insatiable dismay (those that read him regularly know that he rarely seems happy about decisions that are made by someone other than himself), Microsoft won’t be using the label "RSS" when it incorporates feeds into IE 7 and Vista.

The thing is, RSS means nothing to the average person. And worse, when the acronym is spelled out - Really Simple Syndication - it continues to be just as confusing. But if you tell someone that RSS allows you to subscribe to a feed on your favorite websites, so that new content is automatically delivered to you, they get it. FEED is the word that people latch onto in this scenario, and that’s exactly what Microsoft has determined. Now, I’m no fan of Microsoft’s historical naming abilities (Vista being the latest steaming example), however in this case they’ve got it right. Let’s remove the confusion from subscribing to feeds, and make it easy for the lay person to understand.

RSS is a great name for the technology that supports the next big thing on the internet: Feeds. Yes, there are many examples of cases where the name of the technology became the name of the product or process (MP3, CD, DVD) But, in those cases, there was not an obvious and better-suited preexisting word that suited the application as well as "feed" does for syndicated feeds. In this case, like many others, the name of the technology doesn’t really matter: do your parents record their television shows on a VHS machine, or a VCR? Really, they just tape their shows. It’s what the technology empowers us to do that is important to the end user.

Ed Bott has a well thought out take on this subject as well. Dave, I don’t mean to pick on you. Please just reconsider whether this battle is really worth waging, and ask yourself if your position really serves the public good, or simply your ego.

The TSA, that pesky (but very necessary) organization that makes us take off our shoes at the airport, has a new public face in the form of the Evolution of Security blog. By visiting the site and participating in the discussion through comments, the public helps the TSA in improving security measures. It plans to learn from its readers through the blog and will make changes to its policies accordingly.

Though blog-readers have a chance to post questions, it doesn’t mean the TSA will give you a direct answer. Instead the TSA “will challenge you with new ideas and involve you in upcoming changes.” Though it means we may still have to take off our shoes at security checkpoints, its nice to know that the TSA is doing what it can to make the flying experience better.

The blog, which was just launched yesterday, features a number bloggers whose names range from “Bob” all the way to the very rare “Jim”, and though their names sound ordinary, many of these people are anything but average. Take, for example, Ethel, who graduated from MIT with Biology, Computer Science, and Electrical Engineering degrees. She also worked with NASA on an artificial gravity system , which reminds us: we should probably buy one of those when space travel becomes the norm.

[via Gadling]

Marc Andreessen of Ning is our hero. Ning, the online platform that allows users to create and maintain their own social networks, seems to have a few naughtier communities its midst. We’d be more shocked to hear it didn’t, quite frankly. This is the internet, after all.

Some do find it surprising, however. Enough people, in fact, that Andreessen issued a statement on his blog today.

Andreessen’s response is calm and well-argued. The short version: People who violate the terms of service will be dealt with accordingly. People who do things that are outright illegal will be reported to the authorities. He isn’t, as he puts it, “pro-porn” but is “pro-freedom.”

The Ning blog outlines a little bit about the “Red Light District.” Adult-oriented sites must have warning pages, and must not appear in the search results on Ning.com. Additional tips are given on keeping non-adult sites free of racier material.

Interestingly enough, some of the high-traffic sites that Valleywag pegged as being pornographic simply aren’t. (We will warn you some are, so if you’re not supposed to be checking out that type of site for whatever reason, don’t.) The most noticeable mis-categorization: GirlonGirl, a site where you can vote for the sexiest (fully clothed) girl. The other? Pomoworld, which looks a bit like Pornoworld if you squint. It’s dedicated to a post-modernistic lifestyle.

Cheers to Andreessen and Ning for taking a position on the issue, and explaining that position like a rational (dare we say it?) adult.

[via blog.pmarca.com]

You have until tonight at Midnight (MST) to buy all basic JumpBoxes for just $24.99. What is a JumpBox? It’s an easily installable server application, similar to BitNami. In their library of downloadable JumpBoxes, JumpBox has applications for Document Management, Blogging, Bug Tracking, CRM, and Development, among others.

What sets JumpBoxes apart from other server products is they are aimed at Virtual Environments. Using virtualization, IT managers and other curious geeks can try out server software packages without having to use existing hardware, therefore softening the cost of adoption. Also, unlike most open source solutions, JumpBoxes are supported by a company that will give you technical support. This added support feature takes a bit of the unknown factor of many of these open source packages.

JumpBox is attempting lower costs and save time for those responsible for getting IT software solutions up and running.

Does anyone have any experience with JumpBoxes? Sound off in the comments!

I remember being excited at the AJAX enhancements to WordPress’s admin back end with the last major 2.0 update, but what about the front end theme and UI? Unless you either do some digging and find an AJAX’ed theme or build one yourself, your WordPress blog will look just as boring as everyone else’s. Right?

Wrong: AjaxWp brings some UI sexiness to your WordPress blog. Basically, through minimal configuration, this WordPress plugin brings that no-page-refresh effect to your entire blog. There are actually two basic configuration options, ‘quick’ and ‘optimized’, and the author has posted extensive instructions for both. Optimized, as you might expect, is a more efficient method and offers a smaller footprint, but requires a bit more PHP ninja work, so chose wisely, young padawan.

AjaxWp is offered from Gianni Milanesi’s blog, and as you might expect, it’s used on the blog itself so you can see it in action before you start digging into your own site.

The term certainly doesn’t roll off the tongue as well as ‘feedback’, but in this case, that’s an advantage. ‘Freedbacking’, a melding of ‘free’ and ‘feedback’, is a new tag proposed by Lockergnome’s Chris Pirillo that bloggers can use to let developers know their apps are being talked about. The idea is that by using a 100% made-up term that search engines have never heard of, users who have something (ideally constructive) to say can get their message to developers much more easily. While most companies and developers already have feedback systems established such as forums and email, a public discourse through blogging and the use of a specialized tag brings the discussion to a whole new level.

At least that’s the idea. The new tag, while already being put to use, is still in its infancy, so time will tell as to how widely accepted it becomes and how much value the system offers. I, for one, am excited at the possibility of opening the door between developers and their users just a little bit wider.

[via Wired]