The Last Word

Rebirth!

2006-12-04T10:30:00.000-08:00

Eventualy there comes a time when something old has to give way for something new, because the new is just too friggin' good compared to the old. There are times when it is hard to let go, but what has to be done, has to be done! Now, is that time ...

Since I've come back to the blogging part time, I have been seeing flaws with this Blogger just a bit too much. Cumbursome and annoying at times. Script heavy pages take minutes to load, when they should take only seconds, and small nitty gritties like that here and there. Waiting for that Beta link to show up was getting trying, and the code making up whatever you're reading right now is just too complicated and interesting for me to remove it completely. Hence, the result was pretty obvious and didn't need much thought.

I'm going to take this opportunity to unveil The Last Word (Beta) to all the readers of The Last Word. Quietly and secretly, behind closed doors and darkened windows, I had been working to get it up and running as fast as possible. I wanted it to look its part and place, and better than this. Most of all, I wanted a blog on the new Beta Blogger. So instead of waiting anymore, I went ahead and created one from scratch :)

So without making you wait for too long, here's the link again -- The Last Word (Beta). A grand welcome is waiting for you there!

The template editor explored

2006-11-25T10:08:00.000-08:00

I know I know, everyone one of the bleet (copyright belongs to Avatar) has been taking apart the template editor and having a look under the hood, but because of reasons I have stated again and again, I have been a little behind the fray. However, I just spent the last 10-15 minutes pouring over the 5-6 Blogger Help pages which deal with Page Element Tags for Layouts, Widget Tags for Layouts and Layout Data Tags (I am giving the names so that people can refer to these pages for information on the new cool stuff you can do!).

The gold mine of data

What I read, got me jumping in my bed! The biggest and best thing is that maximum number of things have now been made into proper referenceable variables! :D This is the best thing that Blogger could have done, since now we don't have to create special layouts and then use a PHP page to extract the data we want. We can simply call in the data using the Blogger specified variable, and voila! Our work is done. For example, now instead of writing a loop to do a regexp check for the existence of the author's details in the comments, I can just check the commentors display name using a conditional widget tag (another coolness!) and change the CSS of that particular comment blog if it matches! That reduces my code lines to 1/4th, and has no chance of breaking because I'm using data directly from Blogger! Isn't that cool!? :D

I remember Avatar and I talking about this in the good ol' days, about how Blogger needs more data variables, so that we can use it to get content directly off Blogger. Before this, the way was to directly make calls to the Blogger API,which was cumbursome and just plain stupid. Now we don't have to do any of it! :)

Widgets themselves have been designed as methods and functions, limited to HTML itself. The same bit of code can be reused everywhere and anywhere we feel like. No more constant copy-pasting bits of code here and there. This offers a much more centralised editing zone, so that you can make your layout once and for all, and just change the widget content and CSS in the head area, without having to touch the arrangement of your page! Saves all the non-code friendly people (the coding muggles! :P) a lot of headache, and the bleet too, because they can name their methods something, and just reference them with one line. No more getting confused in tons of lines of code (my current template code is too big for me to mess with!).

One more thing which I liked is that you can make a widget from the Page Layout view, let Blogger handle the heavy duty coding for it, and then switch to the Edit HTML tab, expand the widget, and do the fine tuning yourself. So if you're a nitpicker, but don't like getting your hands dirty in code, this is the perfect way out! :)

Reloaded fo'sho!

This has been one solid upgrade from Blogger, and I don't care what people say about things being underwhelming and the new Blogger being a disappointment. I see tremendous potential and much more scope of creativity now that all new (and never before easily available) data has been laid out in front of us to break apart and use. I will not be able to immediately delve into this, but expect to see some neat stuff in the future, because my post-its are already beginning to fill up idea outlines! :)

Did you find something in the new templates editing process that I've missed, that helped you in some way? Don't be shy! Let me know, and I'll mention it in this post!

A secret not so secret

2006-11-20T05:59:00.000-08:00

We know Google keeps secrets, and big ones at that! But well, something you just can't hide I guess! Check out SearchMash. I don't know how many people know about it, but its a playground for Google developers to test out and play with things. I guess they test out things that will eventually become a part of Google, maybe even become Google 2.0? :P

However, my intention was not to enlighten people about SearchMash (although you can go have a whirl, its quite cool! :P ). My intention was to tell you about what one can achieve by using SearchMash in a way Google didn't want you to know. Again, since Google didn't want you to know, they can easily change it and/or remove it as they please! So don't make mission critical applications using this. Now to the good stuff!

Google to the rescue!

I remember crying countless number of times of a Google JSON feed for their data, in the same fashion Yahoo! provides JSON(P) feeds for almost all their services. Turns out that Google has always offered it, just never told us! :( So now, through SearchMash you can get your dose of JSON filled with Google content, including their main Web Search! Yep, you heard that right! No more restricted access to just blogs! :) Now there can literally be a Native Web Search, and very easily too! But how do you get the stuff? Glad you asked :)

You use the following query, replacing [term] with what you're searching for:

http://www.searchmash.com/results/[item]

Or you can use:

http://www.searchmash.com/results/[item]?i=11&n=10

Which returns 10 results starting from the 11th results! Now this is something that can really be exploited nicely by people. No more working with their SOAP API to pull results, just use simple JSON and get creative :)

A more (just a little more) detailed explanation is given at Google Operating System. Go ahead and check it out! :)

Let's face it

2006-11-18T07:13:00.000-08:00

I remember saying that social network sites just aren't worth it, and with blogs coming up, people waste their time. But ever since I've left home, and friends and people I got to know there in the past 10 to 11 years, the significance of these has come to light. They really help in keeping touch with people who've gone far away and you've lost contact with. Chances are, they'll show up in atleast one of the networks, and presto! You found your long lost friend again! :) But now that I've used the likes of hi5, Orkut and Facebook (my favourite! Haven't given others a whirl, its hard enough keeping track on these), I think I've figured some of the key ingredients which make one of them my favourite, and not the other.

They aren't perfect!

There still are problems with these networks however, and I am not asking you to signup for any of the above right now. The biggest annoyance is the crazily profuse amount of mails you'll suddenly start receiving, alerting you of friend requests, group events, and what nots! There are options to turn these off, but the initial reaction is that you're being spammed. The second is that random people will start adding you, and before you know it, your friends circle is full (if you fall for the noob mistake) of people who you don't want, tucking away the important people in a corner. Facebook does things right by actually asking you to estabilish relationship or a relating factor with the person you're trying to add. Once the other persons confirms that, he/she is added! These network sites should take steps to put barriers of similar kinds, so that you don't have a 1000 new 'friends' in a couple of days. Hi5 suffers from this, so beware!

Blogging can't keep circles together. They become specific, and is a good way to get to know 'new' people, and create your niche, get your thoughts across in a specific group. Hence, social networks are required. Its all part of the Web 2.0 boom (no longer a boom :P ), and like everything else, only a few companies got it right. Facebook got it right to quite an extent, by first putting restrictions on who could join, then opening up to everyone but again limiting to only certain types. For all these reasons, if you're looking to start with a network, I'll suggest giving Facebook a trial run.

What do you think about these social network sites? Are they really worth the time? Have they helped you in anyway? :)

The big fuss!

2006-11-17T02:49:00.000-08:00

It seems the human nature to cringe and not accept anything in its entirety takes many different forms and in different facets! I have not been following the Blogger Beta developments that closely, and my attempts to do the same have been met with a lethargic failure. Just too much has happened in too short a period of time for me to keep tab. So I have left that part go, and just following whatever happens in the present! Hence, if I say something here which seems to clash with some estabilished fact, please forgive my ignorance and do not start a flame war in the comments! And do point me in the right direction! :)

The word on the street

Now, coming to the point at hand. Before Blogger Beta, there was seldom a day we would not hear someone say 'I wish Blogger could ...' or 'Why can't Blogger have ...'. Now, Blogger answered our queries with a solid comeback and threw so many features at us that we didn't know where to start working and fixing up our blogs to incorporate those said new features. Not to mention Blogger made it easy on themselves by handing out transitions only in sets. So my question now is that why are people cringing that Blogger Beta isn't good enough? Where is it that Blogger has missed out?

Categories, next generation blogging feeds, better bridging of the gap between code and non-coders, and what not. Blogger definitely made it easier for everyone to blog! And eventually, they released the new HTML editor which helped coders also join the fray in their own way. Why then do we say that Blogger's set of features are industry standard and they could have done better than what they currently have?

The reality

True, the update came in late, and following the posts on Bloggeratto, it seems like Blogger is planning another update (Avatar calls in Blogger 3.0). What more can we ask for? Updates upon updates, which seem to be going in the right direction. Why do we then call the update underwhelming?

We shouldn't be greedy now, and take the updates as they come, and trust Blogger to keep the good times rolling. Blogger is, as singpolyma has stated, way ahead of any other blogging platform out there, even if the features are at par (and not ahead) with them.

But at the moment, we need a reality check ... Does Blogger need any immediate updates that some of us asking for? Or can we do something to bridge the gap ourselves, and not be lazy? :P

The magic behind the scenes

2006-10-29T01:38:00.000-08:00

Being in college for about a month and half now, I have been able to understand what the difference between an adhoc programmer and a programmer who thinks is. I've also understood some parts of where to focus on when you're actually making a usable application, if you think that the application will come under heavy use by a lot of different people! I know I have made quite a few posts on how the design and the visual aspect of your blog should be appealing and good, but here, I'm going to slightly deviate from my preaching, and going to stick with giving my opinion only till the blog aspect, as I believe that people will want information only till where it helps their blog! :)

When people set out to make their blog, it's easy to go for the visual styles and make it one of the the most attractive (visually) blogs around. However, there are too many blogs that I've seen which lack from a proper base from the functional point of view. There will be times when a simple thing such as a search for posts will be missing. Thankfully, the sudden focus on categories and tags pushed people to implement them for their own blogs, otherwise for a good amount of time, I had seen good blogs lacking this basic organising feature. And these are the kind of things that actually make a blog particularly usable. A site which lacks visual appeal but makes up for it by offering myriad traversing and searching features, will (in my opinion) attract more viewers than a non-functional but good looking site.

There are quite a few hacks which work towards strengthening the above mentioned things on your blog. I can try and list out the few must haves that I think you should include in your code:

Author Comment Highlighting - goes one up on my hack
Native Blog Search - is what put me on the bloggerhacking map! :P
Aditya's/Asynchronous Blogger Categories Index - uses del.icio.us and some fancy pants javascript to categorise your blog

These are surely not all the ones you need, but I've been away for quite a while, hence don't know which are the ones that have come up newly. Feel free to refer me to the new hacks that have come up, and if I think they fit my definition of a back-end hack, I'll add it to that list! :)

Guess who's back?

2006-10-22T10:02:00.000-07:00

Its been quite a long outing, hasn’t it? I didn’t expect to be gone for so long honestly! But what to do? Other commitments forced the situation. But now, I hope to be able to come back again! Ofcourse, I'll not be in my full glory, as I was before I entered college, but I shall keep a tab on everything that's happening in the bloggerosphere, and keep everyone updated with my thoughts, opinions, and the odd innovation! :)

So you can consider this as a return post! And if you're happy that I'm back, please leave a comment! :) As Alex has always pointed out, I'm a comment freak, and just love to get them! :)

Thanks for sticking by, and its good to see all of you again! Enjoy! :)

The season of hiatuses

2006-08-23T00:10:00.000-07:00

I had mentioned this in the past, and I'm going to confirm it today. I am going into a little hibernation of sorts. College starts for me in about 5 days, and I will be very busy to be able to find time. However, you can be sure to see me around since I'll be monitoring the developments, especially with Blogger beta :) But I'll not be active, or well, as active as I was recently.

I'll be back once everything is settled and kicking, however it might take some time! So, I'll see you around! :) I'll take a page out of Kirk's book, and leave you with a song! :) Tata!

Estranged (Guns 'N Roses)

When you're talkin to yourself
And nobody's home
You can fool yourself
You came in this world alone
(Alone)

So nobody ever told you baby
How it was gonna be
So what'll happen to you baby
Guess we'll have to wait and see
One, two

Old at heart but I'm only 28
And I'm much too young
To let love break my heart
Young at heart but it's getting much too late
To find ourselves so far apart

I don't know how you're s'posed
To find me lately
An what more could you ask from me
How could you say that I never needed you
When you took everything
Said you took everything from me

Young at heart an it gets so hard to wait
When no one I know can seem to help me now
Old at heart but I musn't hesitate
If I'm to find my own way out

Still talkin' to myself and nobody's home
(Alone)

So nobody ever told us baby
How it was gonna be
So what'll happen to us baby
Guess we'll have to wait and see

When I find out all the reasons
Maybe I'll find another way
Find another day
With all the changing seasons of my life
Maybe I'll get it right next time
An now that you've been broken down
Got your head out of the clouds
You're back down on the ground
And you don't talk so loud
An you don't walk so proud
Any more, and what for

Well I jumped into the river too many times
to make it home
I'm out here on my own, an drifting all alone
If it doesn't show give it time
To read between the lines
'Cause I see the storm getting closer
And the waves they get so high
Seems everything We've ever known's here
Why must it drift away and die

I'll never find anyone to replace you
Guess I'll have to make it thru, this time
Oh this time
Without you

I knew the storm was getting closer
And all my friends said I was high
But everything we've ever known's here
I never wanted it to die

Google motto: Simplify everything!

2006-08-22T05:56:00.000-07:00

It has become commonplace for people to see a new Google service being launched in Beta, with minimalistic features, and hordes of people rushing to signup (whether or not they'll use it) to make it on the user list before the signups are closed off. Google is probably as synonymous with minimalism as it is with search, and that is the simple reason why Google has reached where it has, and will continue to go furthur :)

Simple is goog, err... good!

Every Google service has basic features. But if you look closely, they are the features that you usually use. Take Google Talk for example. It started out absolutely naked, with nothing but instant messaging and voice features. The client was small, but it got its purpose done beautifully - offering you an effective way to communicate. It doesn't matter if they don't have environments and winks/nudges. Nor does it matter that you don't have a snazzy glassy interface with rows of shortcuts on your left which you'll never use. Google gave you what it thought you needed the most, and slowly, the more you asked them, the more they added.

GMail, is fabulous. It does exactly what mail should do. Leave the junk out, be fast, be searchable, and be able to store loads of it. It doesn't need tons of flashing blimping ads, or 10 different folders. It doesn't need a calendar and a notepad integrated with it. A webmail should remain just that, a web-mail. My father recently switched over from Yahoo! to GMail, having switched to Yahoo! from Hotmail about a year back.

Its so simple to have 5 different services, and connect them via little threads, that it makes you think why in the world couldn't companies get it right before Google did. You use what you want to use, and if you don't, you just have a link to see for it. It's that simple!

Google listens

Google has an amazing track record of listening to its users. Unlike others, it seems Google has an internal voting system where every request gets piled onto its list, and every now and then, the leading request is implemented. GMail got POP (no other service offers it for free), GTalk got file-transfer, (don't flame me :-P) Blogger got labels, and so on...

The only thing that bothers me is that Google pushes out features which are incomplete, with the beta tag and continues working on it. But there is a hint of cleverness there too. You can get a feature that way which you know is constantly being improved, even if it is behind the scenes. Some get impatient, but most welcome the changes when they arrive.

You might not notice, but its easier to work on a clean sheet rather than an already used one. And Google offers that clean sheet. Although none but the real power users can truly take advantage of it. Hence, Google draws a little on it so that you have something to start with while others work on it. Back to the basics, comes to mind. And believe it or not, but its the simpler things which really appeal to the masses for their ease of use and less 'overwhelming' first impressions :)

The day after yesterday

2006-08-16T22:45:00.000-07:00

All (or most) of the ruckus, tensions, nail-biting scenarios and curiosities are now slowly dying down. It seems Google still has the ability to excite with new releases :) That is good news, because if Avatar gets it right (again), we have a few more surprises to come. Thats a good thing also, because there are quite a few still niggling things which are just beginning to come up to my throat.

Also, this sudden unforeseen update is forcing me to put a hold to my hacks which I was going to release. I want to see exactly how they finally shape their page structure, the code adding and page loading algorithms. Avatar rightly said that the update killed off an amazing categories hack that I was about to release via Bloggeratto. But I guess its better this way, with the native categories. However, I shall continue to stick with my ABCI till they release category feeds. Not to mention the pain of categorising all the posts again! Kirk has managed to make the cut and the transition to the new system. He's the only one who I know has done so from the mainstream blogs. Avatar, John, I and a few others are still waiting for that golden link to appear.

I hope they release their new raw template editing tools soon enough, because their Google Pages layout editor (which they've transported here) is really bad. To the basic user, it'll be optimum, but for serious template modders ... it's far from adequate. You can see for yourself by getting a Beta Blogger Blog ;) and going to the template editor (the layout link from the new dashboard). See what I mean?

That being the state of things... all I have to say is, 'C'mon guys!! Stop teasing us!'

Blogger relaunch, more stuff that caught my eye!

2006-08-15T09:30:00.000-07:00

So, the previous post was done up with a lot of excitement, hence I didn't get to play around much. Many of the features have been listed out by the big blogs itself, so I am not going to dwell on them. However, being of the hacker vein, I went straight to where I saw my business. The template editor. Immediately I saw the difference. Some of them are listed here, and the updates with time are listed here :)

The template

There is a new template editor in the works, as I was greeted to it the moment I stepped in. Currently its not out, and you can revert back to the classic editor look. They are furthur tweaking the way we edit our templates! :) Going from old to new needs a change, and Blogger offers to back your template for you. Are we looking at a possible template backing system, a la Wordpress?

As far as the new features go, there have to be new tags with them too now, isn't it? So, I went looking for them! And I found them in plenty. You see, I noticed that when you're signed in to Blogger beta, and you'll looking at your blog, you'll see many small editing icons pop up, and your archives show in a different way too...

So, the template tags that I found new, had a curious I18N prepended to their name. [Update]: As pointed out by Anonymous commenter, the prefix is for internationalisation of certain text. These will change depending on the language selection of the viewer of the blog. Here they are:

Post Footer Tags

<$I18NPostedByAuthorNickname$>
<$I18NAtTimeWithPermalink$>
<$I18NLinksToThisPost$>

Comments/Backlinks Tags

<$I18NNumComments$>
<$I18NLinksToThisPost$>
<$I18NPostedByBacklinkAuthor$>
<$I18NHome$>

Sidebar Tags (seem like titles to each section in the sidebar)

<$I18NHome$>
<$I18NPreviousPosts$>
<$I18NArchives$>
<$BlogFeedsVertical$> - not working as of 16/08

The conclusion

Though I'll keep this post updated as more and more things keep showing up, what is bothering me is that most of the things that we spent learning and understanding might slowly get faded out as Blogger starts to adopt new naming (hopefully not) and new page structures. This could be a pain for people like me who've taken a few things for granted. Let's see what turns out. Blogger has officially not defined those tags, so if anyone out there knows (or thinks they know) what these tags do, don't hesitate to leave a comment with your thoughts, I'll update the post with them!

Regular Updates

(Updates Feed)

As many of us have been complaining about the lack of an HTML editor with the new Blogger, they have now posted their reply on their Buzz blog. The update is only days away, as they put it. Straight from the horses mouth:
Fortunately, it's always been part of our plan to introduce a new Edit HTML system for Blogger in beta. This system will not only let folks have the degree of customizability they desire, but it will let you create templates that are customizable with the Layouts system. Right now we are finishing the first version of this system and will be introducing in the "days not weeks" timeframe.
This is really getting exciting.
They have improved their spell check. It uses the same engine as the one GMail uses! Finally, deliverance for the post editor! :)
Venkataramani has made a post about small squiggles that Blogger has quietly added in. Do check them out, they'll surely make your hour! :)
Completely forgot to mention this. Blogger has upped their navbar search to now show results as proper posts in your main posts column. Discovered by Kirk, it sure does threaten to outrun my hack! But Arr! If its a fight ye want laddies, then its a fight yer gonna get! Yo ho ho!
I don't know how important this is, but the comments page is served over encrypted and secure pages! Check it out! Go to any comment page of a blog which has made the switch, and you'll see the all to familiar https:// in your address bar. I wonder how and why this is so!
Kirk (Phydeaux3) has noticed that the Blogger sign has undergone a slight change. We are still trying to figure out what its about, but if you have any theories, leave a comment at his post, or here! [-] It now seems like Blogger is celebrating its birthday.
[Exclusive Update]: It seems like post permalinks no longer change with the title. It stays constant at what it was when created initially. Hence, if your title was 'Crazy', then your permalink will remain 'blog/year/month/crazy.html', even if you change the title to 'Crazy Dog'. Thats cool! It'll let people change titles if they feel like doing so later on! Cool! :)
As Goldman points out, Blogger now allows removal of pictures from the servers. When you go to delete a post with pictures, Blogger will give you a list of the pictures uploaded in relation to that post, so that you can remove them! :)

- This post will not be furthur updated. I was away for too long, and have lost track. Please keep track of Freshblog and Bloggeratto for the latest updates -

The great Blogger relaunch, part deux!

2006-08-15T03:50:00.000-07:00

Haha! Google is doing is again, and this time, its got me laughing all the way into the sunset! :) When was the last time you saw a product go into Beta after being launched, twice! :-P But heck, I'm really not complaining!

I have been out the whole day today because of Independence Day (happy I-Day to my Indian readers), and when I checked my mails about 10 mins back, I was bombarded by the news! Blogger has gone back to Beta, and they're pipelining many features which I'm dying to tell you about. Chances are you've already read them either on Bloggeratto or Freshblog, but I'm just going to get my excitement out here! :)

The features cometh

So, the new features that Blogger is now offering in limited release are as follows:

THE BIG KAHUNA!!: Yes! The categories are finally here!! Wohoo! Ofcourse, they're called labels. I'm sure Avatar is fuming somewhere in his house right about now! Hehe! But atleast now we have native categories. No more hacking for categories!
Drag and Drop Template editor: Now you see where the Google Pages trick comes in. People who've been using it will be familiar with this new way of designing your template, and new comers will be surprised at the simplicity by which they can now design their templates.
Privatise your blog: You can now seriously limit who can see your blog. Earlier privatising methods could fail, but now there is little chance that they will! Yay for private blog owners! (like me! :D) You can add members the normal way, and also decide your viewers by their e-mail address.
Feeded the future: Take a hike all you coComments and the likes, Blogger now offers native feeds of all comments on a blog, or comments per posts. This should also remove a few hacks that people have been coming up with.
Dashboard revamp: The dashboard is now going to look sleeker and more attractive. Thats good, because people will atleast not cringe everytime they have to look at it! :) The most used commands are now a click away!
No more spinning: I'm tired of seeing the spinner every time something is loading, so now Blogger has removed it. Not saying they removed it for me! :) I've yet to test it out, but I hope they've managed to AJAXify it!

The martyrs

Ofcourse, as I predicted, this would mean the death of countless hacks. Comment Feeds and Categories are ones I can mention off the top of my head. The new template editor now takes Psycho Template Editor out of the equation. How's that for picking off services Google style! ;)

Ok, so now I'm off to try out the new Blogger, and don't worry. As they say, everybody will get it soon enough. I guess we now know exactly what Blogger had been doing with the downtimes and the server crashes. Enjoy yourself guys, the revolution has begun! Happy Independence Day!

Google planning server farm in India

2006-08-10T22:53:00.000-07:00

Going through the newspaper this morning, I came across this article which said that Google might set up a server farm in the country soon. This would be Google's 7th server farm worldwide, and 2nd in Asia (the first one being in Taiwan, after a deal with India didn't fall through). It's a good thing that Google is finally looking at India as a potential market, especially after the Google China fiasco. As the article states, Google has been very 'cagey' about its deals and plans. There is no photography allowed in their farms. It's because of this nature of Google that its hard to confirm anything until the first brick is laid. The approximate cost of the data centre will be 1 Billion US dollars.

This ofcourse does mean that searches will become faster for us. Not that they weren't fast before, but it'll reduce Google's costs as well :P Also, this might be the initial scent of things to come for India, like extending Google Local to Indian territories, and probably allow India to browse through Google Proxies? There are a lot of possibilities when there is a native server farm in the country. This move comes hot on the heels of a sudden boom in the rise of the number of internet users in the country. With big and small players alike, the costs have come down significantly and hence, many more people can afford it now.

Google has had a presence in the market as much as organising annual code making/breaking competitions in Bangalore, in which thousands of hopefuls participate. The winner is given an opportunity to join Google and work for them. Google has been synonymous with search mainly in our country, since none of the other features have managed to get localised. In fact, Yahoo! has managed to enter the markets Google should have, by offering services through mobile phones, in a tie up with Nokia. Microsoft has only had a mild promotion of their Windows XP Media Centre edition.

This step in by Google will surely alert the other players, and push them that much closer to moving here. This is only better and better for India, as the world recognises India as a market just waiting to be tapped. :)

And yes, happy anniversary to the PC. It was today, in 1981/82 that the first PC was unveiled by IBM! :)

Resources

Google will set up server farm in India

An IDE is what we need!

2006-08-06T05:58:00.000-07:00

Web development has been a hot area for quite a while now. Slowly and steadily, there are people coming from all parts of society to try their hand at it to suit their individual needs. For example, us bloggers are constantly on the lookout for an idea or an application which would help us extend the threshold of limitations we face due to various reasons. Web Applications have become as integral to our daily internet experience as the Web browser. Anything that is programmed to do a certain thing is an App! Think, how many of those today!

Why aren't there more?

The biggest problem is resources. There are many people I know who are as talented as heck, but don't have enough resources to show off their skills and develop what they have in mind. Take Stephen here for example. He's today easily at the forefront of lightweight application development, and was recently acknowledged for the same. If you read that interview, you'd see how important the fact that Ning was free, was. If it was like other services, and charged from the ground up, we would probably have never seen a Stephen. Well, not until he got enough resources at least!

So, why should only people with the money be allowed to be counted among the cream of web developers? Any serious developer takes pains to learn their language and then apply it. That should be reason enough for them to be given the suitable conditions and resources to allow them to write and program the way they want to.

The helping hand

We need more services like Ning, which tackle various aspects of Web Development, and offer everything which a prospective developer might need. All the person now needs to bring, is the knowledge and skills. Thats not such a small thing to bring, but atleast a person like that won't be hardpressed for resources to make what they want to.

Even if the developer just has one thing to contribute, there's nothing to say that someone else won't use that to start something new. This is where Ning excels, by offering the ability to clone apps and use them. Ofcourse, Ning hasn't been utilised properly ever since its entered the market except by a few handful of people. But its those handfuls who might make tomorrow's next killer application, with the skills they develop and gain by working on small apps at Ning.

A playground of geeks

A repository of modules, ready to use widgets, blocks of code, classes, methods ... in short all the resources that a developer could need is what is going to be probably the next big area for companies to tackle. An Integrated Development Environment for the web will be the next bookmarking/tagging phenomenon. Atleast, it should be. There is nothing to lose from this, only lots and lots of gains.

The only resources that a service like this needs is lots and lots of space and a decent amount of bandwidth. We know that Yahoo! and Google are both in the best spot to launch a service like this of their own, or probably acquire one and give it the boost it needs.

Create the ultimate playground for geeks to thrash about in, and they'll come aplenty. There are ideas just waiting for a stage with the right equipment. One of them, might revolutionise the internet again, who knows!

Resources

A Chat with Stephen Paul Weber
Ning

The modern revolution

2006-08-01T22:38:00.000-07:00

I remember once someone said, 'The beast is waking', talking about Microsoft and sudden spat of changes that have undergone. I'm being very optimistic when I try to say something like that for our very dear and beloved Blogger. It all started with a series of upgrades as pointed out by the Blogger Status blog. We knew something was happening, but couldn't point to anything except them trying to upgrade it from ageing servers.

But with the latest development, the signs are too many to ignore! As I said in my comment over at Phydeaux3, I really do think the plans have started, or are very close to begin rolling. As Avatar points out in his post:

Because a lot of creativity is put at work when thinking about categories that is still the number one feature that blogger lacks and cannot provide at this time because not having enough server power at the disposal of the blogger platform so it can get upgraded as it should. the Blogger System it is now in constant upgrading and tweaking, some features come and go without no one noticing them, and other are still waiting their moment.

On the road to Blogger 2.0

I am keeping that belief that soon we'll be seeing back to back launches of features within Blogger. My theory is that Google realizes that its neglected its most widely used service for too long, and others have overtaken it long back. With MSN Spaces Live going, well, live today; Google is going to begin upping the pace of upgrades, while trying to keep a low profile (like it always has) until the day of launch!

Keep your eyes peeled to the horizon! You won't wanna miss the new dawn!

Asynchronous Backlinks!

2006-07-31T10:20:00.000-07:00

If you remember, quite a while back I had posted about Static content vs. Dynamic Content. In that post, I had tried to give an example as to what would make good dynamic content. Something that needs asynchronocity to be useful. If you don't remember, well, let's jog your memory a little.

We must try to seperate the things which need to be loaded on the fly, and things which should allow the viewer to be taken to a seperate page. I'm going to restrict myself to the blog environment, since I'm most familiar with use of asychronocity in blogs. In blogs, things which should be loaded asynchronously are the things which are secondary to the primary data. For example, related posts. It'd be perfectly logical to load a post which is related the one a viewer is currently reading, so that he can read it in context, rather than load it in a seperate page and take it out of context. This is a tremendoes usability upgrade, since all the information is available to the viewer without the need to switch pages. The same logic is followed in Heads Up Displays (HUD ). This does increase productivity, since it takes away a lot of clicks and keypresses.

So you see the example of making backlinks asynchronous? :) Yes! That was an idea back then, which I wanted to work on. But being as lazy as I am, never got around to it. But since then, I've been fiddling around with AJAX for my Native Search Suggestions and hence have gotten a good understanding of how it works and how to make it work. So, now I'll reveal my Asynchronous Backlinks! :)

Introduction

This is not to be confused with Recursive Backlinks by Greg. That has a completely different purpose, though is asynchronous too. AB works to make browsing backlinked posts faster, especially if they're from the same blog. Actually, only if they're from the same blog. This works great for someone like me who links back to his own posts a lot. If you don't link to your own posts, then this is definitely not for you. The reason is because the hack is limited by rules of AJAX. I can't access content from sites not on my domain. I could PHP my way around it, but I think its not fair to steal clicks and hits away from someone elses site that way.

Ok, so you like what you see? Want to try it out first? Here's a good page to try it out on. Native Blog Search. That is one the most linked to pages on this blog. Check out the backlinks, try all of them, and keep an eye to the bottom right of your screen. You'll see what I mean! :P

You wanna implement it now? Cool! :)

Implementation

Start by getting yourself a copy of Prototype.js. You're going to need this. Host it yourself (Google Pages is a fantastic way to do so!), or you can grab the one off Jscripts. I'll try and keep that updated, but don't count on it. Once you do that, add these lines in (I take the Jscripts script by default) as indicated

To the <head> area, and

function showResponse(output){
var main = output.responseText;
var s = main.indexOf('');
var e = main.indexOf('');
var out = main.slice(s,e); // Only the post to be written
out = out.replace('[Double click the box to close]</p>";
$('aload').style.display="block"
}

function showFailure(){
$('aload').innerHTML="The page either cannot be loaded or there has been an error. Please double click the link to be taken to the requested page";
$('aload').style.display="block"
}
/* `````````````````` EO ABL ````````````````````` */`
</script>

After the </body> of your template. Now find your <$BlogItemBody$> tag, and replace that with

Done? Good, thats a lot of work done! :) Now, find the code for your backlinks. People have different codes for their backlinks, so I won't ask you to put any lines in. Just alter them. Add an onclick="req('<$BlogBacklinkURL$>" statement to the link which points to the backlink URL, and change the href to make it point to #. Add a <div id="aload"></div> wherever you want to show the output. Thats it! You're done! Need an explanation? Ok!

Explanation

The first thing you have to pay attention to is the two commented statements that you've wrapped your post body tag with. They are used by the script to detect exactly which part to print out. You can use any other line or code to demarkate, but remember, it should be unique. If it clashes with anything before its intended target, you'll get a messed up output.

That is all that is there to it really. The script just makes an AJAX call to the page pointed to by your backlink. If its in your domain, the returned text is filtered out and shown to you. You can add script.aculo.us effects like I have to make it more appealing, but that is all there is to it really! Too simple for you? Go ahead, expand it, lets see what you can come up with! :)

One page to help them all!

2006-07-27T23:33:00.000-07:00

Its about time Google slowly started catering to the people out there who are hounding message boards, forums, help groups and blogs trying desperately to get some ounce of help regarding their problems!

Google announced a lord of the help pages, which has help topics to every service that they provide. This place will be a haven for those who are sick of hunting around the place looking to get help. Ofcourse, every service has had its Help link in the top-right, in perfect Google style in the past. But this one will link to all of them from one page itself. Kinda like consolidating everything.

Google's blog post:

Those of us in user support had a pet peeve: there was no single place that held all of Google's help information at your fingertips. So we decided to build one -- and now you can visit Google Help to find tips, tricks, and troubleshooting solutions for just about every Google product and service. We don't want you to have to work hard to find anything, so we also added an A-Z guide in case you do know exactly what you're looking for.

From the Support page you can also visit the Help Center of your choice to discover answers to frequently asked questions and link to our interactive help groups to discuss various features with other Google users. So remember to keep google.com/support handy, and enjoy.

Although there is no added relief for Blogger users, since the Blogger help link on that page links back to the Beige, Blue and Orange help pages that we've come to despise here at Blogger. So still the contact e-mail for Blogger eludes us! But I guess they are not going to give out one because they know how much e-mail they'll have to deal with if they do :-P That's not much of a problem! If you have a problem not listed, you can always drop in at the Blogger Help Group, and someone will be very glad to help you! :) Give the support page a visit! It's dying to help you... :)

Resources

Google Support
Blogger Help Group
Google Blog Announcement

Is Dvorak for real?

2006-07-20T01:45:00.000-07:00

I was just reading through this article on the PC Magazine's site but John C. Dvorak, some hotshot blabber mouth about how he thinks CSS, very politely, sucks! The more I read, the more I was laughing to myself, and although I have no two hoots about making this a rant post, I am personally very tired of people writing or being opinionated about something they very clearly have no clue about!

Why CSS bugs him?

Because he's an idiot. As simple as that. He tries to base his argument on the fact that every browser interprets CSS differently, and hence its not really standard. Well, I guess someone forgot to introduce him to a little something we have had going on for two years now called the Browser Wars! Duh! Every browser does interpret it differently, and thats why every one of them is not W3C standards compliant. Opera comes close, but still doesn't hit 100%. Firefox and IE7 are a long shot, but they're getting there slowly!

His other argument (and this one really cracked me up!) was this. I'd like to quote him just so that people don't say I cheated:

The first problem is the idea of "cascading." It means what it says: falling—as in falling apart. You set a parameter for a style element, and that setting falls to the next element unless you provide it with a different element definition. This sounds like a great idea until you try to deconstruct the sheet. You need a road map. One element cascades from here, another from there. One wrong change and all hell breaks loose. If your Internet connection happens to lose a bit of CSS data, you get a mess on your screen.

ROFLMAOOL!! Next thing which you can expect him to say is that he will not write HTML markup, because if he misses one closing tag, the whole thing will fall apart, or maybe that he'll never code a program for more than a 100 lines, because if he misses a colon, he'll get mucked! That brings me back to my title ... is Dvorak for real?

Everyone loses here, from users who can't understand why things look screwy, to developers who can't get CSS to do the job right, to baffled content providers. And what's being done about it? Nothing! Another fine mess from the standards bodies.

Baffled content providers? Mess from the standards bodies? Right! I don't know what third grade content providers he has been in touch with who can't get CSS to work because really, its one of the easiest things. You just need practice. And there is nothing wrong with the standards. That's why they are the standards. Don't blame the W3C, blame the browsers who refused to stick to them!

The best there is

CSS is making it big quite rapidly, with the W3C just recently releasing a draft of the new properties its going to include in CSS3. It's an exciting time for people like us, who (unlike Dvorak) know what we do, and what every change can do for us! CSS is probably the best thing to happen to the field of web designing. It makes life so much simpler when you have to design tons of pages for one web-site!

Let's not bad mouth such a good thing now, shall we? If it wasn't for CSS, the internet would be much less beautiful, and more like the roadkill outside your front door! Just that an article like this appearing on a respected site's page, throws me a little off!

Resources

Why CSS Bugs Me - PC Magazine Article
Digg Article - Read the people's comments
W3C - The World Wide Web Consortium

Indian blogs blocked!

2006-07-17T20:57:00.000-07:00

All blogs have been restored except for the ones that they were initially trying to block. Since Airtel was the last to block, I'm guessing they're the last to restore, which means all other ISPs would have fixed all of it by now! If your blog viewing isn't up and running, give a call to your ISP! Happy blogging!

This is crazy! Till yesterday, I could see my blog and all other blogs on Blogspot perfectly, and when Phydeaux3 pointed out a Blogger Help Discussion Topic about how many people from India were unable to open the domain Blogspot, I confirmed that I still could, and hence it was only ISP specific. Obviously not. As of this morning and of making this post, I can't see my blog, Phydeaux3 or Bloggeratto. ~~A well known redirecter, PKblogs too seems to have been taken down~~ Its working again! I tried it out at 4:15 PM IST, thanks to Effendi!.

The Reason

The reason out is that the government is trying to crack down on terrorist blogs, and this is only temporary. They have sent out notices to the ISPs asking them to block out those domains for the time-being, while they can sort it out. Someone at digg who took the initiative to find out has put up:

Two sources, one inside the Government of India and the other kind of inside/outside have confirmed to the Mutiny, that ISPs are being instructed to 'control' access to blogspot. It seems that some blogs are being used by some terror units (read SIMI) to communicate.

There is a crack down in place. IP numbers are being physically located and identified. All should come back to normal once this operation is over. There is no ban in place. Livejournal and Wordpress have been spared. No reason given.

Now I know you are not going to believe this, so I'm going to quote what she said, "This operation is limited to certain parts of India. Bloggers in Andaman, Nicobar and Lakhsadeep islands are not affected." I thought she was joking but I didn't hear the reciprocal laughter from the other end of the phone line.

Their reasons seem fair enough, but at the end of the day, you have to wonder how this helps India continue the run up to their campaign for Right To Information act recently introduced.

Democracy and RTI

Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking

Apparently, there are more ways than one in which the RTI act is taking hit. Now, the blocked blogs creates a furthur sense of hypocrisy when you hear those little public service advertisements asking us to wake up to a new India. Is this is how a democracy runs? By blocking content and not saying a word about it to anyone?

Sure, I understand that anything that goes public goes to the terrorists out there too, who are (supposedly) the targets in this sudden spat of idiosyncracy. But maybe a word to us would have atleast let us know what is happening. The RTI act seems to be failing miserably, as is the democracy in the biggest democracy in the world.

We have nothing to do right now but wait for this to pass, because as they have said, it'll pass eventually. Since the main domain has been blocked, no RSS feeds or content will get through to anyone. Thankfully for everyone, I use Feedburner (which thankfully has access to Blogspot) and hence if you subscribe to my feed, you can continue to get updates whether the blog is blocked or not!

I shall keep updating this post as the developments continue!

[Update]:: The block is slowly being lifted now! Apparently it was a gross misunderstanding on the part of the ISPs, or they were just trying to suck up a bit too well! Here's Avatar's article

[Update]: PKblogs is back up for us! Although, I'd still suggest The Cloak

Native Search, now with Suggestions!

2006-07-12T11:30:00.000-07:00

I really don't know what to say about this! Definitely a much needed upgrade to the now age-ing hack, this spanned out of someone giving me an offhand feedback (I don't remember at the moment who it was, but thanks!). I managed to work it up because of my latest fascination with PHP and Ning. But just to make things clear, I am not releasing this as a public hack. This is to add functionality on this blog, a feature showcase that it can be done and to show a few people that hackers are still ahead! :)

Native Search Suggest is to Native Search for Google Suggest is to Google search. It feeds off people using it on the blog, and becomes more useful the more it's used. As you start typing your search terms, a list of matching search terms will pop up that people have been searching for on the blog, which you can select using your cursor keys or mouse. In time, I'll add the display of frequency of searches made per term as well. That should tell you which are the most hot terms on the blog! :) Terms which don't return any results are not suggested, and any additions are reflected immediately! Suggestions are sorted by frequency of their use (thanks to Stephen for the code!)

I was quite surprised when Google didn't include a suggest in their AJAX Search API, and well, I'm an impatient guy. So I decided to add it for myself. That makes it Google AJAX Search 0 - 1 Native Search! I must admit, I'll release this as a hack if enough people request it, because it'll need some extra bit of work which I won't put in unless I see people interested.

Effects courtesy of Script.aculo.us by Thomas Fuchs, and Ning for hosting my PHP. Go ahead, give it a whirl!

I love Macs, but...

2006-07-10T20:58:00.000-07:00

You hear it everyday from people. There are countless debates about it throughout the Internet, with people literally dishing out all they have at the other to prove their point and make it seem a better argument. Industry leaders are divided on their opinions, yet they remain neutral to not give too much away. There are fanatics that come in hordes to overwhelm anyone brave enough to raise a voice against the white glass fruit, but still, why the do the double digits elude the ones with the undisputed better operating system?

Misconceptions that plagueth

Today, everybody is using the computer. And they are using it in more than one ways. Computers are such an integral part of people's

Microsoft still thinks semi-transparent windows are cool!

lives, that they don't realise what will happen to them if it crashes and they lose every bit of data that it holds. Ask me, someone who is not new to crashes. I literally stop talking to people for a whole day, lock myself in my room. Yes, those are pseudo withdrawal symptoms, but thats besides the point. The point is that being empowered by computers, there are many who think they really know everything they need to know to make an educated decision regarding their computer.

Unfortunately, that's not true. To prove it, ask anyone what they know about Apple and their Operating System, OS X. If you're not greeted with the astounded 'Apple has an operating system?', then 99/100 times they'll tell you that Apple's OS X is meant for graphic designers. Strange, isn't it? Apart from their record shattering iPod sales, people barely know what all Apple to offer. Being the only mainstream (Linux is not that mainstream yet) which offers such high levels of scripting capabilities (AppleScript), OS X is still considered a designer's computer. Its saddening.

Fewer people will know that Apple actually invented the concept of an Operating System! Yep! News to you? *Phsshhhh*

Trying to find information for this post, I bumped into a forum topic which makes a lot of the points that I'd want to make. Misconceptions reign supreme that if people switch, there are going to be major compatibility issues, and it'll hamper their working. Hehe! They couldn't be more wrong. Macs make working so simple, that you'd really not want to go back to working on a Windows machine. You just need an initial handy guide that can give you the information you can use. Here's a good resource to try out if anything till here in this post has fired you up! Remember switching to Firefox? Didn't you hesitate? There are going to be a few cobwebs, for sure. But once you get the hang of it, you'll see your productivity increase!

The industrial handicap

Apple didn't realize the potential of their product when they invented it. Unfortunately, Gates did. Thats why today Windows stands industry preferred Operating System, when very clearly, OS X is a better OS. Every bench mark test, head-to-head comparison table points the same way. But because Windows got there first, and captivated audiences first, they've managed to keep ahead of the competition.

Jobs tried and succeeded (to a limit) to put Apple on the map, but the backlog created is too big for one man to do it alone. People slowly need to be awakened to what Macs really are, and what they can actually do. Now with Apple allowing dual boots, people will be more open to trying to change their OS of choice, since they don't lose anything if they don't like OS X.

These are simple strategies that they seem to be adopting to battle the biggest example of an industrial handicap you'll see faced by a clearly better product. The most I can do is argue the point wherever it comes up. But Microsoft fan boys always have one argument that seems to negate everything. 95% of the computers on Earth run on Windows. Who knows, the Alien mother ship which might invade Earth in a century from now will be running Windows Vista? (Which means its prone to viruses! Hehe!)

The last word

There's no vendetta against anyone here. Its a simple fact that drives the argument. If you can get something better, then why not? I'll be switching the day I start earning, but till then I'll have to continue using Windows machines I guess. I hope to get a Powerbook, or a Macbook Pro after I graduate from college! :) I hope to turn over a few people in that span!

Resources

Apple's share of the apple and how a small number is not a bad thing, since Apple is a brand. Dell has a share of 5%, so how bad is 3.9%?
Tiger Review by a convert
Macs in the workplace
Apple OS X
Crash course in switching

Where go the hacks?

2006-07-09T04:45:00.000-07:00

As Avatar points out that he knows a little more than all of us regarding all the new features that Blogger has in store for us, and believe me, this really is a much needed stint of upgrades for Blogger. It's good to see that Google has finally diverted its attention to the now ageing blogging platform. The native support of comment editing via the dashboard sure does punch Jasper's script in the gut, and as Phydeaux3 (in the comments) noted, it looks strikingly similar to the userscript implementation. There can be a few inferences from this, but I really like to be cynical, since it helps me to extend my post beyond one paragraph.

Is Blogger slowly starting to wipe out hacks, in preparation for some big close down on such freedom regarding customization of one's blog?

As it is now

Blogger currently boasts of the greatest customizability of all the other blogging platforms. Blogger literally opens itself to any sort of hackery and implementation that one might think up of. This makes Blogger the choice platform for the high end power users. You'll find some of the brightest and most creative coders using Blogger. This is good! A blog is meant to be personal, and what better way than to give full freedom to the users. The pitfall is just a simple navbar on top, which can (legally) be removed by hosting on your own domain or FTP server.

It lacks a few features which has become a necessity over the past few years, but there are hackers popping every day who are trying to bridge that gap as well with their elite scripts and codes. Blogger never stops us using those, even if it means we max out their servers sometimes trying to test them out, or implementing them!

How much easier and better can it get?

What they are trying

Slowly as Blogger roles out the new features like categories (the biggest hacking area for us hackers), a lot of hacks will go out of use. We'll then have to try and think up of new ways of doing things, and if there is something Blogger has missed out, script our way around it. Of course, nothing can truly wipe out scripters and hackers, since a power platform such as Wordpress itself has countless hacks, it will surely make hacking a little less fun since many of the features which saw our creativity being tested to the limit, will get implemented natively!

This will be the situation which I am predicting people like Avatar will be waiting for. It will soon become a playground for the thinkers, rather than the coders. In the 6-7 months that I've been coding, I've come to realize that if you can think it, you can code it. The key word being think. There is much more value in the market for thinkers rather than slogging programmers.

Blogger is slowly trying to rope in the majority of the crowd by making itself rich with the features which are now taken for granted in every blogging platform, but in the process, its also turning the tide of what we perceive as a power user today!

I'm still standing!

2006-07-08T09:11:00.000-07:00

Unlike Avatar, I have received no e-mails or comments asking me where the hell I am! Yet, I just wanted to put this up and let the people know that I am not dead! I am just a little busy with pre-college preperations, spending time with friends and the general mid-year crisis. I know I might have presented views on plans on taking a hiatus from blogging, especially with college starting in a month and a half, but I have since back-tracked on those plans. I realised blogging and hacking is a part of me that won't die! :)

So for the moment, this is just a temporary lean period, that promises to go away the moment I'm in college, and in the groove of things! Though I am going to reduce the frequency of posts, to keep them particularly on topic and full of useful information, and only when I really need to say something about something! :) (Or a hack release here and there)

So thats all! Thanks for the support (or just hanging on to my feed! :P)

Blogger Hacking :: Going Multiple

2006-07-01T11:05:00.000-07:00

This is probably one of the neatest things you can do with your blog. Include all of them on the same page! COOOOOL!!

Okay, seriously! This the perfect way of integrating all your blogs into one page. Having different columns for your different blogs. Not overdoing it by including all your 10 blogs on the same page, you can use this method to have a column for your Personal blog, with (say) your Cookery blog, and your Tech blog. Not many people try and use this, and that is why I wanted to just bring it up.

Blogger documentation

Yes! Blogger Help has a documentation about integrating your Blogger blogs into one place. Although the methods it has given, doesn't seem to work since I have tried them in the past. It says to include just the basic post format and then the one of the four lines based on your blogs configuration. However, none of them have worked for me, so I decied to provide my own methods of including multiple blogs with your mail blog.

Framing your blogs

The easiest and ugliest way to include multiple blogs is to include them in frames, or slightly neater, IFrames. The problem with IFrames being that browser compatibility is low, and they're virtually un-style-able (woo!! a new word! :D). The advantages being you can include any page in the IFrame and you can make all your changes to the blog seperately without affecting the display of your main blog.

I personally don't recommend this method, but its a good one to keep in mind.

Digest 'em feeds

This one is the easiest and almost perfect way of including a second blog. Just use Feeddigest's feed syndication to convert the feed of that blog to HTML, and then display it on your page. The advantages with this being that you need virtually no coding knowledge, and all your settings can be set automatically by Feeddigest for you. The look can be perfectly styled, and suited to your blog.

The downer being that unless you're paying for Feeddigest, your digest will not get updated that often. Hence, updates to your (side)blog will not show up immediately. It completely depends on the Feeddigest server. Also, their system is known to go down once in a while (due to upgrades or overload, or whatever reason they can throw at us). If you want immediate updating, this is the closest thing you can do to going manual and giving yourself the ultimate power, which brings me to my final method.

Going manual

The best (if you're a power user) and most effective way to display posts from your other blogs on your main blog, is to take matters into your own hands. You can burn your ATOM into an RSS using Feedburner, and then use Stephen's fantastic XOXOTools to conver it to JSON. Then using a simple script, write it out on your page. Their is only one downfall, which is easy to avoid. You will need to code the script which writes out the data in the JSON. You could do that yourself, or ask someone (even me!) to write it out for you.

The advantages, on the contrary are major. You have complete control of whatever's happening. The display, positioning, styling, linking ... everything! The display is updated almost immediately (or as soon as Feedburner updates, which is very quick). This method is used to set up the "Latest Updated" (in the sidebar). I just leave out the post content, and display the titles for it. So you have a taste of what it can be like!

Having multiple blogs on one page really works to create awareness of your other stuff around the web, and helps you micromanage them properly. So go ahead, try it! :)

Digg 3.0! Amore!

2006-06-26T09:02:00.000-07:00

Hot on the heels of the Slashdot redesign, the newest version of digg is out, and I have just one simple word for it! Amazing!! This is nothing close to the Slashdot update, which did as much for them as cosmetic surgery does for your brains. The new interface is not only much more organised, they have finally got their RSS feeds all sorted out (previously they all pointed to headlines from the main page). Many more options to narrow down news articles to exactly what you want to read, and the oh-so-sweet new digg Spy tool which auto-updates to show you digg working, live! You can see stories being updated, commented and rated in real time, which is practically every second!

Absolutely stunning!

This is absolutely how you upgrade the most read site on the Internet. Digg is now faster, and doesn't kill my Firefox when kept open for more than 10 minutes. Its looks beautiful, with simple shades of yellow, blue, silver, smoke white and the likes. CSS and Javascript being top notch, I didn't get more than 4 errors from Firebug.

It's actually become one of those pages which you'd want to constantly keep opened in a tab. Add it to the list of GMail and Netvibes. I'm going to do that the moment I get my new laptop! I need to take a breath! *Phoo!!*

Ok! Starting again! :-P I have not been able to find (in my brief skimming through their pages) for an official feature list or a changelog of any kind. Although, people who've kept up with the update would have tracked down The Digg Blog which opened with the launch of the new version. Here is someone really catching on the wave for a free ride. Keep a look out for that blog rising up the charts.

As you can see, I have only praises for the new digg. Perfect example of how to improve on perfection! Great work fella's! You've been dugg!