Saying a lot, saying a little… who cares?
Posts tagged rss readers
pubsubhubbub testing
Feb 18th
If this shows up in Google Reader within a minute of my clicking publish, then we know pubsubhubbub is live on staying.cool.
Fingers crossed.
Sorry for the “nothing” post.
Edit (18 Jan 2010, 2334 hrs): Just showed up on my Reader. Supposedly published at 2331 on my blog. Probably working.. now you guys get to know when I randomly write on-the-spot! 
clubbing together a month’s worth of everything into one big gigantic post
Dec 22nd
This is the 4th attempt I’m making at trying for a halfway decent beginning to a post. Have I really been reduced to saying such banalities? I can’t quite believe it. When I look at my front page, most of my recent posts are about movies. Reviews, basically. Most of my recent posts have also ended with a sign-off saying that I will have a proper update soon. This post, by virtue of being an “update”, doesn’t count as a proper post either. I have notes here, there and everywhere galore… none of which I have really expanded on. Hell, when I was going through my drafts I realized that I had a started a post last winter which I never got round to finishing.
I’m not happy with that start either, but its a start.
i should just title this r.i.p. staying.cool
Sep 21st
Among other things, the probability that random ideas pop into my head has dwindled down to zero. Which makes it a little hard to maintain a space that was somehow meant to ensure that I do not lose touch with writing. Now that I think about it, my blog will turn 5 in a month. And here I am writing about how I have nothing to write about – for the umpteenth time. There was meant to be some kind of weekly post thing going on here – which has not taken off. A large majority of posts since then have actually pretty much been mere placeholders. So I can see that my post-count is at a steady 6-8 posts a month.
I have been struggling to find a voice/tack for my blog in recent times. Indeed, going a little further back to the start of this year I see that most posts are either (1) updates about my life, highlighting what interesting things have happened to me recently, (2) movie reviews, (3) frustration at something techie, (4) non-posts lamenting the fact that – well – I have nothing to post about, (5) random news-links to fill up space, (6) recollection/memory posts. I’m pretty sure that if I continue down a little further back to a years’ worth of posts – I’ll pretty much find the same trend. I shouldn’t be very shocked – my blog has been degenerating for some time – but I am.
Yes, yes, this counts as a non-post as well.
This absolute lack of inspiration is scary. I had this page open for most of yesterday, and what I’m writing right now is the best I could come up with. Nothing else. Nada. I can see I have over 180 subscriptions in my Reader (comprising techie, movie, random, news, comment, photo, and digg feeds). None of them gave me requisite amounts of inspiration. Any thoughts I did have about posting on a topic ended in one of two thought processes: (1) Dammit, there are a crap-load of posts about it already, (2) I really don’t know enough to write about it. Yes, this is in spite of Reading about it.
Somehow I don’t feel like throwing in the towel just yet. I keep believing the fact that my blog has not been posted to in a while will eventually result my being shamed into sheer inspired genius. Even though what actually happens is that I end up writing an absolute pointless post like this one. All this Reading, and keeping in touch with current trends – and I have nothing to say about any of them beyond the 4 line comments I put up on Reader shared items. Apparently.
Maybe that is what my posts have to evolve into. Selected shared items from my Reader with my opinion/comments appended. Would keep my blog alive. And any random thoughts that do occur to me on the myriad things I Read about are blogged. Giving reason for this space to live. Maybe some of them will expand into proper “commentary” posts too.
Now that I think about it, that actually seems like a cool idea: Reader-blogging.
I have one other idea, which involves a little more effort on my part. We’ll see how it goes.
Update: Turns out Reader’s nifty ‘Send To:’ feature comes in handy for this kind of thing. Its way nicer than using Postie, mostly because stripping out all the Google Reader header/footer in an email is hard. Plus, links to the original article are better than full-text. My only issue: Reader defaults to using the feed link (based on Google’s feedproxy server mostly) or else a bit.ly link. Both of which seem suboptimal. But the ‘Press This‘ functionality means I can play with these things however I want. Lets see how it goes. Have to remember to use it now 
partial -> full
Nov 10th
i’ve jumped.
from half to full.
i’m not talking about cups. or bandwagons. or jacks. or pogo-sticks. or any other random association you might make.
the fact that you’re reading this sentence in your reader, should give you a clue.
i’ve read more than a few posts, such as this, and this, this, this, this, this, this [i assume you get the idea now]; all of which play devils advocate on the topic of partial RSS vs full RSS feeds. you have those who prefer to have a summary so they can decide, those who believe some kind of freedom is being affected, talk about the possibility of spamming, and those who talk of advertising advantages. now, i personally don’t mind clicking through on a partial feed (especially given a fx extension that lets me do it in reader direct), and more than a few spammy pings convinced me a few years ago to switch into partial feeds as well. recently, i have even started putting in custom summaries [see how much i love you guys?].
i do mind having my content stolen by spammers [eg: right here].. even if only a few people read it in the first place but, i’m going to suck it up, and no, this is not because i read a lot of posts about how people don’t read partial feeds as much. at all.
i have currently enabled full feeds for everything in this blog, if you do a ‘refresh’ in reader for my feed, you should see it take effect. this is not a momentous occasion, though i’m trying my best to make it feel like one
man, do i make a big hoo-ha about the most random of things..
update: “random of things”?! and not one of you said a thing? damn, damn, damn, damn..
integrating updates
Sep 29th
google reader gets a very interesting update.
while the interface is definitely more functional, and sleek; while retaining that concept of reading all the feeds at once – which is what i liked in the first place.. i’m missing the ‘intelligent tagging’ where it guessed the tag based on what one had saved. other than that very minor glitch.. sweet. very very sweet. i didn’t know of the existence of public reader ‘pages’.. gives me some ideas
i don’t see a beta on the logo 
anymore either. interesting, but i thought that would happen when its integrated with mail, a la thunderbird.
the small touches are all there, though.. the subtle outlining of the current post thats being read, the AJAX, the ‘views’ concept from gmail being ported over, unlimited post reading (you just keep on scrolling, and scrolling, and…); even the ‘list view’.. which makes the mail integration easier.. possibly.
update: correction to what i earlier said..
Tips and tricksHere are some useful keyboard shortcuts:
- j/k: next/previous item
- n/p: scan down/up (list only)
- o/enter: expand/collapse (list only)
- s: star item
- + s: share item
- v: view original
- t: tag item
- m: mark item as read
- r: refresh
- + a: mark all as read
- 1: switch to expanded view
- 2: switch to list view
- + n/p: next/previous subscription
- + x: expand folder
- + o: open subscription or folder
- g then h: go home
- g then a: go to all items
- g then s: go to starred items
- g then t: open tag selector
- g then u: open subscription selector
the last two lead to a sub-window like so:
i’m in awe. even better than i first thought. now, for making the interface a little more customizable – like adding or removing interface details – and we’re done
today, i also discovered the existence of the ‘MyLifeBits‘ project.. which is a MS venture.
MyLifeBits is a lifetime store of everything. It is the fulfillment of Vannevar Bush’s 1945 Memex vision including full-text search, text & audio annotations, and hyperlinks. There are two parts to MyLifeBits: an experiment in lifetime storage, and a software resecarch effort.
other than the fact that i love the concept, i wonder how much easier google is making it now. currently, my mail, my news, my social network, my photos, calendar, notes and chat are all part of google. information resource indeed.
to imagine myself only digitally, or rather, electronically reminds of the asimov story ‘eyes do more than see‘. nevetheless, the concept of being purely electronic, completely online in the DRM world of today is not a great idea either 
but would i ? hell yeah.
oh, and apparently, orkut is used by dumbasses with no real life too. i foresee a lot of people blanking out their profiles. to think that orkut is invite-based to avoid this kinda thing.. tch tch.
oh well. my logic still applies. i think.
