New version of Windows Live Writer
Posted on September 30, 2006
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A bit of a catch-up day here. Just saw that there’s a new version of Windows Live Writer.
Changes that I care about and have noticed:
- Copy & paste works in the title area - great!
- Tagging support built-in - cool. But I already had that with a plug-in.
- Categories are in alphabetical order - thank you!
- Improved style detection - hmmm…not so much….still can’t see image URLs in CSS files so I’m not seeing my flower bullets here in preview mode…annoying. I did report this already as a bug.
- .png files are detected as an image type…great, but not a big deal. Easy enough to select “All files” anyway.
Double secret Movable Type upgrade
Posted on September 30, 2006
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I know I’ve been busy and I haven’t been keeping up (I just realized this morning that there was an upgrade to iTunes 7) but the Six Apart folks haven’t made this too easy to find:
Today we are releasing required updates for both Movable Type and Movable Type Enterprise to fix a number of vulnerabilities affecting all previous versions of the platform.
That was posted on Tuesday. I post to my blog using Windows Live Writer, so I only see the little “news” link in the Movable Type interface when I have to log in to rebuild a template or fix a setting. I approve comments directly from the link in the email. I made an upgrade to the C3 front page (which is a blog template) and that’s where I saw the news.
I understand that Six Apart doesn’t want to draw attention to a security problem until after enough people have upgraded to protect themselves. But they’re not going to get people to upgrade unless they tell them! An email would be nice.
I just upgraded this blog and C3 is in process. So far so good. Doesn’t even need a database update (upgraded from 3.31).
Nokia E62 Smartphone
Posted on September 30, 2006
Filed Under Internet & Technology | 5 Comments
Yesterday, Eric ditched his Palm Treo 650 for a Nokia E62.
I haven’t played with it much, but from what I have it’s a nice little device.
Does that say “I want to look like a Blackberry (or Motorola Q)” or what? The joystick is a little weird, and I don’t have a clue about getting around the Symbian Smartphone interface. The screen is gorgeous and bright (especially compared to my Cingular 8125).
I would say that I could stack 2 or 3 of his E62s to make one of my 8125. I never thought the 8125 was bulky, but compared to Eric’s thin, little Nokia mine is a heavy brick. Yes, I have new gadget envy. I’ll get over it. I can’t upgrade my phone until August 2007.
I like my slide-out keyboard in theory, but when I’m on the go getting to it is easier said than done. Most of the time, I’ll just write rather than type. And yes, he can sync it to his iBook. His phone is was much less expensive than mine, but mine does WiFi and his doesn’t. He also doesn’t have a camera, which I would consider a selling point. I hardly use mine, and I run the risk of not being able to go certain places with it.
On the negative, I don’t know if I can deal with the Smartphone interface (Symbian or Windows Mobile). I really like the touch screen. I’d miss it going back to a phone that can only be navigated with buttons and joysticks.
Mission Fish: eBay for nonprofits
Posted on September 30, 2006
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A few months back, I registered C3 on MissionFish, which allows eBay sellers to designate all or a portion of their listings to go to a charity. Charities must apply to be listed in this way, so eBay/MissionFish can make sure that only legitimate 501(c)(3) organizations are involved.
We didn’t make a big deal about it, but we did mention that we were a MissionFish charity in an e-newsletter.
I just listed an item on eBay with 100% of the proceeds going to C3. My Mom bought these really, really expensive sneakers (MBT Sport) last year, wore them once and hated them. I suggested putting them on eBay for C3. I wanted to do this both to raise some extra funds for the organization, as well as to understand how the process works since I’m the person that people will ask about it.
MissionFish listings have a nice little ribbon which tells buyers that a portion (or all) of the proceeds go to charity:
I’m very, very impressed at the improvements that eBay has made to the listing process. Before you had to spend some time researching before hitting the “sell” button. Now all the research you want to do happens from within the listing pages. Want to find the best category? Search for the item and it will auto-select (that’s been in for a while). Relatively new (at least since the last time I listed) is the ability to search out completed listings for similar items to find the best price, and the ability to price out what shipping would be with the major carriers.
With MissionFish, you click a button that lets you add the charity of your choice. You have to register a credit card at the time of the listing (separate from your eBay credit card) so when you receive payment for the item from your buyer, the money you promised the charity is automatically deducted and sent to the charity, minus the fees. MissionFish handles the tax letter for the seller. I’ve used the “ask a question” feature in eBay to send a personal “thanks!” to the folks who have sold/listed for us. If we directly list items, eBay eats the listing fees. I decided to list under my personal account because I have a 100% feedback rating and it would look a little weird for a colon cancer nonprofit to be auctioning off sneakers, don’t you think?
So…anyone want to buy a pair of shoes for a good cause?
RSS feeds on the go: Newsgator Go!
Posted on September 24, 2006
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After a lengthly beta process, Newsgator has released their PocketPC client, which they’re calling Newsgator Go!
I’ve played around with a few of the betas, right up to a release candidate sent out in early September. I doubt I’ll spend the $30 on it.
Why not?
Well, first of all, I have nothing against the developer, Kevin Crawley. He is a very nice guy and has been extremely responsive on the Newsgator forums and in the few emails I exchanged with him at the beginning. And for what it is, it’s not half bad. It’s certainly a huge improvement over the initial version I trashed months ago.
The problem is that it goes against the way I like to read feeds. I have a lot of feeds in my Newsgator subscription. More feeds than any human being can keep up with on a daily basis. I don’t even try. I treat my feed list as a smaller, personalized-just-for-me version of the Internet itself. I subscribe to most any feed that even remotely interests me in the topics that I like. Sometimes, I even get ahead and catch up a bit. Most of the time I don’t. Right now, Newsgator Online tells me that I have 3,487 unread articles. Wow, that’s a good day. I’ve seen it as high as 14,000 before. This isn’t email where I have a desire to read every word addressed to me (that isn’t spam or selling me something, of course). I have a folder in FeedDemon that I call *Must Read (the * is so it will appear at the top of the list of folders). This a very small list of those feeds that I really do want to keep up with on a daily basis. There’s maybe 50-60 feeds in there. A manageable amount, considering the fact that not every blog posts daily.
When I say to myself, “Self, I’d like to sit down and browse some feeds,” I want all 700 or so feeds available for my skimming pleasure. Doesn’t mean I want to read them all, won’t even try. But I never know what category I’m in the mood to read about when I’m in the mood to see what’s going on in my personal, pre-selected blogosphere so I want all my options open. Or maybe I want to read what is going on in one particular category and clean out any unread feeds in that category. I do throw out dead feeds from time to time, or feeds that have lost my interest.
So why not Newsgator Go? The way it works is that it syncs the whole enchilada with the mothership (Newsgator) when you click a “sync” button. With as many feeds as I have, over an EDGE connection on my PDA, that can take a loooonnnnng time. And there’s a bit of delay that I see a spinning beach ball and I can’t even start reading anything yet. Then it goes through, starting at the top. By the time I’ve fully updated my feeds the urge to read them has passed. I don’t feel a need to “catch up” by reading already-synced content. I want the new stuff.
I still find myself reading feeds on-the-go through Newsgator’s scaled-down-for-mobile-browsers HTML version. Plain vanilla, no clipping, no reading jump links in Squeezer, no offline reading, but it’s there in its entirety, fast and up-to-date when I want it.
My feedreader is like a personalized version of the Sunday New York Times. Most folks don’t feel a requirement read every single page in that paper each week, do they? You read some sections line-by-line, some pages you skim, some you skip over altogether. Come Monday morning, most of the newspaper, even the unread parts, are in the pile for recycling. Fresh start for next Sunday.
Is it worth paying $30 so I can just sync my little “*Must Reads” folder? Likely not.
It would be nice if Newsgator Go! allowed me to sync a folder on demand. I want to read about what’s going on in my favorite blogs in my ‘green widgets’ folder, then let me just update that folder (or pick a feed and just update that) and get my instant gratification. I’d also love to be able to customize the font. I have very good eyesight, I prefer my fonts a little smaller on the screen so I can get more at one time without scrolling. Maybe in future versions, and then I’ll re-evaluate.
tags: Newsgator, Newsgator+Go!, RSS, feeds, blogs, mobile, PocketPC
