// Internet Duct Tape

Digest for June and July 2007

Posted in Monthly Digest, Technology by engtech on August 01, 2007

Monthly Digest

Every month I publish a digest post collecting the best of Internet Duct Tape. Here you go!

One Year Ago

Here are some articles that are still timeless.

IDT Labs Software Updates

IDT Labs is where I track software projects I’m working on.

  • [WORDPRESS] Akismet Auntie Spam update
    Ever have one of those weeks? Akismet has decided that all comments from me are spam and there’s nothing I can do about it, other than politely emailing the blogs I regularly post to and asking them to go dumpster diving for me. I’ve updated my Akismet Auntie Spam script for Firefox to deal with some of the issues I’ve had.
  • [THEME] Preview of themes for the Sandbox Design Competition
    The Sandbox Design Competition as come to a close. I only managed to get two designs in under the wire. You can see previews here .
  • [FLICKR] Always search for CC licenses photos
    I’ve updated my script that forces the Flickr search box to remember that you’re searching for Creative Commons licensed photos. It fixes a problem with the advanced search box.
  • List of Software
    I’ve put together a list of all the software I’ve created. I’ve oh-so-intelligently organized it by the websites they interface with. Check it out if you haven’t already.

Monthly Digest

It’s All Geek To Me

Web 2.0

Blogging Advice

Quick Blog Tips

Web Design

Best of Feeds — Link Posts

Most Popular Posts for June and July 2007

Digest for May 2007

3 comments

Community Starts with Communication: 5 Tips to Building Your Readership

Posted in Building a Community, Technology by engtech on July 31, 2007

Connect with your readers

When I first started commenting over at okdork.com, Noah Kogan would personally reply to me by email. I thought this was a little strange, even after a year of blogging this was the first time it had happened to me. I thought it was just that he was bored and killing time. It’s only now that I understand the genius of his technique: by going out of his way to contact me he went from “nameless stranger on the interweb” to a person I had one to one conversation with.

I hadn’t thought about it, but there is a different between scrawling messages on a public site and having a one on one conversation. The flame wars that are routine on some sites rarely exist in personal email. People stop being disembodied words and ideas and you remember that there is a person behind all of that typing.

There is another fringe benefit to directly emailing commenters on your blog. I’m absolutely horrible at coming back to re-read posts on other people’s sites where I’ve commented. I know there are tools to help me manage it, but I’m too lazy. I post a comment and forget about it. Direct emails bridge the gap of apathy and form a connection.

Phoning It Home

There are many WordPress plugins that will automatically send an email to all first time commenters. While it is a great low maintenance technique for reaching out to your readers, any automatic communication can be considered spam — always a bad first impression. Automatic plugins like Subscribe to Comments or Comment Relish run the risk of having your email address get caught by spam filters. Hand-crafted responses are the way to go. You want to establish a rapport and a connection, not be another reason to hit the Report Spam button.

If you are on self-hosted WordPress then I recommend the Comment Email Responder plugin (from being on the receiving side of it, I haven’t personally used it). It lets the blog owner easily respond to comments by personal email as well as on the blog. I think that direct emails in respond to comments is one of the best techniques I’ve ever heard of for standing out from the crowd. Here are five tips to help you do it better.

Tip #1: Use a separate email address for blogging only

I highly recommend using web-based Gmail. It is accessible anywhere, and has great search functions and spam filtering. You can even use Google Apps for your domain so that you’re using the Gmail interface, but your address is @domainname instead of @gmail. The best reason to have a separate email address for blogging is because it ensures some level of privacy, and it keeps your regular account from being swamped/interrupted by blogging related messages. Don’t feel like checking up on the blog? Don’t check that email account.

Tip #2: Mention your blog in your signature

Your signature should have your blog url and a direct link to subscribing to your blog by RSS or by email. This can help in all correspondence. Try not to go over a three line signature though, or to use something tacky and garish. HTML and images are most likely filtered by the recipients email software, so stick to plain text.

Quick Hacks for Signatures

Tip #3: Automatically add correspondents to your address book

If you’re using Gmail this will be done automatically, but it is possible in other mail programs as well. The goal is to build up an address book of your blog readers so that you can automatically friends them on social networking sites like Facebook and StumbleUpon. With any kind of networking, having a large address book filled with useful information can be your best asset.

WordPress Comment Ninja will do this for you.

Tip #4: Include their comment in the message

If they are a first time visitor they might not immediately know who you are without context. By quoting the comment in the message body you remind them of what is being said. There are tons of WordPress plugins for comments, like the ones I mentioned in the beginning of this article.

WordPress Comment Ninja will do this for you.

 

Tip #5: Have something to say

This is probably the most important tip. Don’t email your commenters unless you have something to say to them. No matter how much you want to email them that photo you just took of your cat being silly, put the keyboard down and just walk away.

This is something I struggle with daily.

Community Starts With Communication

I’ve realized that sometimes I can be pretty anti-social in what is essential a social medium. I think that emailing commenters can be a great way of encouraging discussion and building relationships with your readers, and it’s something I plan to start doing. What do you think?

 

Related Posts

Written as part of the Carnival of Circular Communication

41 comments

Best of Feeds – 58 links – programming, tips, business, code, design

Posted in Best of Feeds, Technology by engtech on July 28, 2007

RSS feeds are like cookies (that are good enough for me). Best of Feeds is a weekly collection of the best stuff I saw on the Internet this week. They’re saved on delicious and stumbleupon and cross-posted to Twitter and Tumblr as they happen and then collected together on Saturdays. I don’t blog on the weekend so read these links instead.

Subscribe to //engtech to see this every week (or get it by email).

  • [DESIGN] Color Scheme tool
    (steeldolphin.com, 3836 saves, 100 inbound links, diggs)

    • Like Adobe Kuler only not as flashy… I find it more usable if not as pretty.
    • (color, design, webdesign, tools, css)
  • [LIFEHACKS] ikea hacker
    (ikeahacker.blogspot.com, 2314 saves, 100 inbound links, diggs)

    • A blog devoted to going above and beyond the general use of ikea furniture.
    • (ikea, furniture, diy)
  • [WEBDESIGN] YSlow for Firebug
    (developer.yahoo.com, 1437 saves, 100 inbound links, 21 diggs)

    • This is an add-on from Yahoo for the essential Firebug add-on for Firefox. It gives you additional reasons why your web site is loading slowly.
    • (firefox, performance, firebug, yslow)
  • [LIFEHACKS] 10 Articles That Changed My Life
    (lifereboot.com, 1085 saves, 34 inbound links, 1039 diggs)

    • One guy writes about things he’s read on the Internet that inspired him.
    • (inspiration, lifehacks, advice)
  • [HUMOR] 15 Unfortunately Placed Ads
    (oddee.com, 821 saves, 100 inbound links, 5259 diggs)

    • Advertising doesn’t always go well with content.
    • (humor)
  • [DESIGN] Five Principles to Design By
    (bokardo.com, 787 saves, 100 inbound links, 15 diggs)

    • From the article: ” The litmus test. When people enjoy Art, they say –I like that–. When people enjoy Design, they say –That works well–. This is not by accident. Good Design is something that works well.”
    • (design, webdesign, usability)
  • [WORKPLACE] How to Win at Office Politics
    (bnet.com, 660 saves, 51 inbound links, diggs)

    • Five steps for surviving office politics.
    • (career, politics, tips, workhacks)
  • [LIFEHACKS] Motivation: Jerry Seinfeld’s productivity secret
    (lifehacker.com, 631 saves, 100 inbound links, 2524 diggs)

    • From the article: ” I’ve often said I’d rather have someone who will take action – even if small – every day as opposed to someone who swings hard once or twice a week. Seinfeld understands that daily action yields greater benefits than sitting down and trying to knock”
    • (productivity, motivation, seinfeld, tips, lifehacker)
  • [GOOGLE] Hack Attack: Back up your Google Apps data
    (lifehacker.com, 451 saves, 44 inbound links, 733 diggs)

    • Google does a good job of backing up, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.
    • (google, gmail, backup)
  • [FACEBOOK] 12 Ways to Use Facebook Professionally
    (webworkerdaily.com, 400 saves, 68 inbound links, 845 diggs)

    • Similar to what I’ve been talking about. Facebook can be more useful for connecting to your professional network than LinkedIn, so watch what you do with it.
    • (facebook, tips, business)
  • [SLEEPHACKS] How to Wake Up Without an Alarm Clock
    (wikihow.com, 354 saves, 60 inbound links, diggs)

    • From the article: ” Fingernails screeching down a blackboard, the shrill tones of the Emergency Alert System, Carrot Top: few things are as obnoxious as an alarm clock.”
    • (sleep, lifehacks, sleephacks)
  • [CODE] 19 Eponymous Laws Of Software Development
    (haacked.com, 329 saves, 72 inbound links, 77 diggs)

    • One of the more entertaining reads I’ve had about programming in a while. Worthy of the Best Software Writing II.
    • (programming, development, software, quotes, humor, code)
  • [ENGINEERING] Understanding Engineers: Feasibility
    (fishbowl.pastiche.org, 293 saves, 69 inbound links)

    • From the article: ” ‘Very Hard’ is usually reserved for the class of problem that if you solved it, you could change the world. Or at least build a successful business on top of your solution.”
    • (engineering, problems)
  • [RSS] Get More Out of Google Reader
    (lifehack.org, 181 saves, 26 inbound links, 83 diggs)

    • Overview of things to do with Google Reader.
    • (google, rss, googlereader)
  • [PHOTOS] Migratr
    (callingshotgun.net, 100 saves, 18 inbound links, 5 diggs)

    • Freeware app to migrate from flickr to google picassa
    • (flickr, photography, software)
  • [JAVASCRIPT] DOM JavaScript Cheat Sheet
    (wait-till-i.com, 77 saves, 25 inbound links)

    • Cheatsheet of the DOM for accessing webpage elements with Javascript. Useful for Greasemonkey hacking.
    • (javascript, dom, cheatsheet, reference, webdev)
  • [STARTUPS] Top Web Apps in Canada
    (readwriteweb.com, 70 saves, 39 inbound links, 3 diggs)

    • A look at Canadian web startups.
    • (web2.0, canada, startups)
  • [DELICIOUS] Putting the Del.icio.us Lesson into Practice, Part I
    (bokardo.com, 66 saves, 12 inbound links)

    • From the article: ” The Cold-Start Problem is when you launch your site and nobody uses it. When this happens, you’re probably focusing too much on the social value and not enough on personal value.”
    • (del.icio.us, socialnetworking, socialsoftware, design)
  • [TSHIRTS] TDigger – Digg For T-Shirts
    (tcritic.com, 63 saves, 37 inbound links, 5 diggs)

    • Frickin awesome idea. Voting for best t-shirts. I like “Malfoy is a douche bag”
    • (tshirts, digg)
  • [STARTUPS] The 5, 10, 20 year plan
    (37signals.com, 59 saves, 12 inbound links)

    • From the article: ” The best business advice I’ve ever heard was this: –Focus on the things that won’t change.– Today and ten years from now people will still want simple things that work.”
    • (business, philosophy, planning, startup)
  • [CSS] How To: Optimize Your Site with Image Sprites
    (paulstamatiou.com, 43 saves, 7 inbound links)

    • CSS hack for image sprites. I think I’m going to replace all of the icons on my site with this.
    • (css, Sprites, howto, optimization)
  • [CODE] To Those About to Hack
    (hacknot.info, 42 saves, 14 inbound links)

    • Allegory about the dangers of jumping into the code without thinking first. VERY well written.
    • (programming, development, engineering, inspiration)
  • [HIRING] Code Critique as an Interview Tool
    (hupp.org, 41 saves, 8 inbound links, 25 diggs)

    • More real world examples of how asking someone to critique a code example with known faults is more useful then getting them to write code (except for new grads)
    • (interview, programming, code, interviewing)
  • [TWITTER] Yard Sale – Twitter’s value is in casual communication
    (randsinrepose.com, 36 saves, 19 inbound links, 2 diggs)

    • Why is Twitter useful? This is a question many people ask.
    • (twitter, social, community)
  • [WORKHACK] Simple Email Hack: Get Your Questions Answered
    (instigatorblog.com, 31 saves, 4 inbound links, 14 diggs)

    • Many people don’t write effective emails. Ben has 3 tips on how to write an email and get the answer you are looking for.
    • (lifehacks, workhacks, email, tips)
  • [LISP] lispnd7.png
    (img264.imageshack.us, 29 saves, 9 inbound links)

    • I am purely in the second category. The brackets in LISP scare the crap out of me.
    • (via:raganwald, lisp, humor, funny, code)
  • [CODE] Yannis’s Law: Programmer Productivity Doubles Every 6 Years
    (t-a-w.blogspot.com, 22 saves, 5 inbound links)

    • From the article: ” f you are some sort of person making technology decisions for your company or organization – “because we have always done it that way” is terrible reason for choosing any programming-related technology.”
    • (programming, productivity, code)
  • [PHOTOGRAPHY] Copyright Virgins
    (fishbowl.pastiche.org, 20 saves, 25 inbound links, 24 diggs)

    • A look at creative commons licensing and the case of Virgin Mobile using flickr photos in ads.
    • (flickr, copyright, creativecommons, CC, photography)
  • [WEBDEV] Page not found again! 404 in depth
    (ventureskills.wordpress.com, 18 saves, 8 inbound links)

    • Does your site have a 404 landing page? It should.
    • (404, webdesign, error, usability)
  • [CODE] The Business Advantage of Rails
    (gilesbowkett.blogspot.com, 16 saves, 8 inbound links, 19 diggs)

    • From the article: ” You want to bias your corporate culture against wasting time, and against putting up with problems that could be solved gracefully and easily.”
    • (programming, business, ruby, rails, rubyonrails)
  • [LAPTOPS] How to Use Your Laptop Outside
    (webworkerdaily.com, 15 saves, 13 inbound links, 1 diggs)

    • A few tips for being able to SEE your laptop in the summer sun. via:lifehacker.com
    • (tips, laptop, outside)
  • [BOOKS] Why Harry Potter Won’t be a Bestseller
    (huffingtonpost.com, 15 saves, 64 inbound links, 3111 diggs)

    • Did you know that “children’s books” are banned from the NYTimes bestseller list because they sell too well?
    • (books)
  • [SMO] Thanks for submitting my post to programming.reddit.com
    (weblog.raganwald.com, 14 saves, 7 inbound links)

    • Are all of these social networking sites destroying the fragment of the web by siloing comments somewhere else other than the original article that is being commented on?
    • (digg, reddit, del.icio.us, socialsoftware)
  • [HIGH TECH] California HQ Pics
    (paulstamatiou.com, 13 saves, 8 inbound links, 74 diggs)

    • Workspace photos from the cube farms of Digg, Flickr, Facebook…
    • (office, web2.0, photos)
  • [MOVIES] Reviewing the summer blockbusters of 2008
    (slate.com, 12 saves, 21 inbound links, 14 diggs)

    • Tired of this years crop? A sneak peak at next years movies.
    • (movies, lists, 2008)
  • [GAMERS] Best free indie games?
    (ask.metafilter.com, 10 saves, 2 inbound links)

    • Some free games that metafilter recommends.
    • (games, free, indie)
  • [WIKIPEDIA] Top 20 Creative Ways to Use Wikipedia (Part 1)
    (friedbeef.com, 9 saves, 5 diggs)

    • Wikipedia: the comic book, some Firefox extensions, different mashups and ways to search.
    • (wikipedia, hacks)
  • [TSHIRTS] Tshirt War
    (tcritic.com, 9 saves, 7 inbound links)

    • Like kittenwar, vote for the best between any two tshirts.
    • (tshirts)
  • [CODE] Ancient Wisdom
    (weblog.raganwald.com, 9 saves, )

    • frameworks evolve from dealing with the problem space, then aren’t designed or created willy-nilly.
    • (programming, frameworks)
  • [DESIGN] Win a Scholarship for Your Web Design Entry
    (collegescholarships.org, 8 saves, 13 inbound links)

    • College Scholarships is offering $5000 for a contest ending Aug 15th. Very good list of judges including Chris Pearson, Bryan Veloso, Darren Rowse, Jonathan Snook, and Paul Stamatiou.
    • (webdesign, scholarship, design, css)
  • [HIGH TECH] Haggling about the price
    (weblog.raganwald.com, 5 saves, )

    • From the article: ” And trust me on this one, if it’s about the money, you are on the road of perpetual unhappiness, where every well is dry and every inn is full, and your journey never ends.”
    • (ethics, workplace)
  • [FACEBOOK] Facebook penetration of corporate America
    (nbrightside.com, 3 saves, )

    • Google and Sun have the highest percentage of total employees on their Facebook network.
    • (business, web2.0, facebook)
  • [WRITING] Get Anyone to Read Every Word You Write With These 7 Steps
    (copyblogger.com, 3 saves, 11 inbound links, 11 diggs)

    • What does “omit the unnecessary words” really mean?
    • (writing, blogging)
  • [JAVASCRIPT] Liveblogging JavaScript Performance / Yahoo Performance Sessions From OSCON 07
    (gilesbowkett.blogspot.com, 3 saves, )

    • There are some killer javascript tips embedded in those notes.
    • (javascript, greasemonkey)
  • [TSHIRTS/GAMERS] Top Ten Video Game T-Shirts
    (tcritic.com, 2 saves, 3 inbound links, 5 diggs)

    • T-shirts for gamers, mostly old school Nintendo.
    • (gamers, tshirts)
  • [WEB2.0] What’s the Deal with Counting Users?
    (neomeme.net, )

    • From the article: ” on a valuation of $200 per user, Facebook earns $1 per user per year. In other words, an acquirer would need to run Facebook for 200 years before breaking even.”
    • (web2.0, facebook, bubble)
  • [PERL] Perl is a pretty damned good language for concurrent programming
    (t-a-w.blogspot.com, )

    • Gives some code examples on concurrent programming with Perl and explains why it might be better to code an app in Perl than erlang or ruby.
    • (programming, perl, concurrency)
  • [FIREFOX] Pick 5: Favorite Firefox extensions I recently picked and can’t live without
    (blog.labnotes.org, )

    • Automatically gets the rest of the search results without clicking next link, (real) fullscreen Firefox, location bar tweak, paragraph highlighting for dense text, automatically sizing the searchbar.
    • (firefox, extension)
  • [BLOG] Blogging – a reality check
    (winextra.com, )

    • From the article: ” The reality is that blogging is not what it was in the beginning. You won’t get rich or famous. You won’t be read by thousands and thousands of people who look for your posts with every delivery to their RSS client.”
    • (blogging, tips, reality)
  • [COMIC] Then why are you even reading it?
    (comics.com, 7 inbound links)

    • Why do people spend their time reading and commenting about things they hate on the internet?
    • (comics, pearlsbeforeswine)
  • [TSHIRTS] Free T-Shirts for News Tips at Tcritic
    (tcritic.com, )

    • Tcritic is giving away t-shirts for people who contribute content.
    • (free, tshirts)
  • [LOLCATS] quiz: which lolcat r u?
    (raincoaster.com, )

    • I am 7331 Cat. Lolzergs have nothing on you. You are swift and ruthless, cutting down whatever and whomever necessary in order to obtain the foodz.
    • (lolcats, quiz)
  • [VIDEO] xkcd comic – Computational Linguistics
    (angryaussie.wordpress.com, )

    • Mr. Angry has started doing live action videos based on xkcd comics with the permission of the creator.
    • (xkcd, youtube, comics, mrangry)
  • [FATBLOGGING] So Why Are Americans So Fat?
    (webomatica.com, )

    • Jason discusses the real reasons why north american look like teletubbies.
    • (weightloss, fat)
  • [MUSIC] HOWTO: Dump iTunes for An Open Source Upgrade
    (micahville.com, , 10 diggs)

    • Switching from iTunes to Mozilla Songbird for mp3s
    • (itunes, songbird, mp3)
  • [BLOG] It’s Not Just About Writing Great Articles, YOU HAVE TO WORK THE SYSTEM!
    (cleancutblog.com, 8 inbound links)

    • I’ve said it before and I’ll said it again — you’ve got to intelligently promote your work without being a spammer.
    • (smo, blogging, selfpromotion)
  • [SCIENCE] Contagious Obesity
    (buzzfeed.com, 3 inbound links)

    • Harvard study says that your (real life) social network makes you fat.
    • (health, weightloss, science)
  • [COMMUNITY] 10 Techniques I Used To Go From 0 To 12,000 RSS Subscribers In Seven Months – With No Ads Or Leverage
    (problogger.net, 81 inbound links)

    • Some good tips on how to get more readers to your blog — emailing them answers is an important one.
    • (email, rss, blogging)

Legend

  • saves – number of people who bookmarked on http://del.icio.us
  • inbound links – number of blogs who linked to it (max 100)
  • diggs – number of people who dugg on http://digg.com

This Week at Internet Duct Tape

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

5 comments

Tim Ferriss’ Four Minute Blog Training – The 9 Rules You Need to Know

Posted in Marketing and Promotion, Technology by engtech on July 25, 2007

tim ferriss blog idiot stupidWhat can a man who routinely slams corporate office culture for building boredom and people who waste their workdays with internet addiction have to say about writing a blog? Darren Rowse at Problogger has the scoop and now you can too with this no money down, no holds barred, straight for the jugular look at blogging from a man who has reached the New York Times Bestseller list.

Tim on Strategy

1. Polarization is Key

No one is interested in the middle ground. To be remarkable threaten the “3Bs: behaviour, belief, or belongings.” “I want at least one person to call me a liar per post or I don’t feel I’m pushing the envelope enough.”

2. Go to the Source

The biggest source of traffic is links from popular blogs and writing guest posts for them. “Borrowing traffic is a lot faster than creating it, and the former often leads to the latter.”

3. Be Diverse

How does your niche subject relate to everything (and anything) else in the world? Explore.

Tim on Technique

4. Headlines are Everything

“If you have a great headline, you can get great pass-along. If you have a mediocre headline, even a world-class post will be ignored.” “The headline doesn’t even need to describe the article or post. It has just one purpose: to get them to read the next sentence.”

5. Formatting Matters

“Add at least one graphic to each post, bold/italicize more to make the posts easier to scan and digest, and I would also discuss more topics that nearly everyone feels they can comment on.”

6. Post Less Frequently

It allows discussion to happen. “People have a lot of crap information being forced upon them, so I only want to add [] when I have something worthy to say.”

Tim on Monetization

7. Use Tact to Make Money

People don’t care if you’re making money, they only care if it interferes with your message.

8. Ethics are Easy

Pick sponsors from other industries that you’d never write about.

The Most Important Tip

9. Create a Community

Build a community that you would want to belong to.

You can read the entire interview at ProBlogger. Tim is the author of The 4 Hour Work Week [Wikipedia] and writes is own blog. I haven’t read the book yet, but I do strongly agree with his advice on blogging.

13 comments

Facebook Applications and Privacy – How to Configure Facebook Applications

Posted in Facebook, Online Privacy and Reputation Management, Technology by engtech on July 23, 2007

One of my friends wanted to secure the profile for her 17 year old daughter and she was asking me what the heck all the application privacy settings mean on Facebook. I didn’t have a good answer for her. If I’m asking myself “wtf does that application setting mean?” I figure there’s more than one other person in the crowd with a dim light bulb over their head. Here’s what I could figure out to the best of my knowledge.

Now you too can become one of the 1% of the people on Facebook who understand how their Facebook apps (widgets) are configured.

facebook application privacy levels

Adding an Application

I was surprised that Facebook does not give more information on what these options mean when you’re installing an application. I know that designing “simple” user interfaces is hard, but you are doing something wrong when your users have to go to such great lengths to do something as simple as adjust your privacy settings.

Know who I am and access my information

This option has to be checked in order to install ANY application. This is Facebook’s way of covering their ass.

cover your ass
(photo by ambergris)

Put a box in my profile

If this is unchecked then the application won’t show up on your profile at all, but may still spam your mini-feed and news feed.

(photo by ugandan giant)

Place a link in my left-hand navigation

On your left hand menu under Search there is a list of your application that only you can see. Clicking on these links usually shows you cool stuff like recent updates from your friends who use the same apps. This setting controls whether or not this app shows up in that list.

facebook application privacy left hand menu link settings

This setting only affects how you see your applications.

Publish stories in my News Feed and Mini-Feed

This is the “spam the crap out of your friends” feature. TURN THIS OFF FOR MOST OF YOUR APPLICATIONS! The mini-feed is that list of things you’ve been doing on your profile page. The news feed is the list of things you’ve been doing that shows up to all of your friends when they log into Facebook. Do you really want to spam them with every single thing you Digg, Stumble or save to Del.icio.us?

facebook privacy application mini-feed newsfeed

You can adjust the mini-feed and the news feed individually by editing your application settings later.

Place a link below the profile picture on any profile

Underneath your profile picture there is a text list of your applications. These links can display additional information like the number of songs you have added, pages you have bookmarked, etc. If you have a lot of applications this list can become unwieldy, so try to limit it to your five favorite applications.

facebook application privacy profile

Adjusting the Privacy Settings

Some applications (particularly the ones created by Facebook) have application specific privacy settings that you can adjust from within your “application privacy options” or by editing your application settings. I don’t know why they didn’t make it consistent for all applications.

Editing the settings of an application will give you the following extra option that weren’t available when you first added it.

Control who can see the application on your profile

This is a standard drop down choice between everyone, all your networks, some of your networks, your friends, yourself, or no one. If you chose not to have a box in your profile when you added the application then this will be set to “no one”.

Individual control of mini-feed and news feed setting

When you are adding a new application there is only one setting for mini-feed and news feed. If you edit the application later you will be able to have different settings for your mini-feed and news feed (which is a good thing — have lots of updates on the mini-feed but not as many on your news feed so you don’t spam your friends).

facebook application privacy news feed setting

Applications and Limited Profile

You can control which of the official Facebook apps are shown on your limited profile under Privacy Options >> Limited Profile. As far as I can tell unofficial apps never show on your limited profile (or maybe they always show and there is no way to turn them off).

Control the Information Given to Third Party Applications

Under Privacy Options >> Applications >> Other Applications you can control what other applications can find out about you when you don’t have them installed (IE: if your friends have them installed). I highly recommend leaving most of the boxes unchecked. The only way you can disable ANY information from leaking out to your friends’ applications is by removing all of your applications first.

Blocking Applications

Did you know that you can block specific applications from contacting you or showing up in the news feed? You have to go to the application page and then chose Block Application. You do not need to install the application to do this. Yes, this means you can stop people from trying to bug you with those zombie/vampire apps.

Removing Applications and the Information Inside of Them

If you remove an application it does NOT delete any of the information inside that application. If you uploaded photos, videos or posted a note then all of that information will still be there unless you delete it inside of the application before removing an application. Good news: you can remove an app and then re-add it later on and be right back where you started. Bad news: it’s harder to get rid of embarrassing/incriminating info than just “removing the application”.

5 Things to Remember

    1. Don’t spam your friends — turn off the news feed for applications that update frequently
    2. Too many links — turn off profile links for applications other than your favorites
    3. Control who can see it — there’s no good reason to share apps with your networks instead of just your friends
    4. Delete THEN remove — you have to delete the information inside an app before removing it
    5. Stop being annoyed — block the applications you don’t like

      The Facebook applications privacy settings are pretty danged complicated, and in usual Facebook style the controls to access them are all over the place. But now you know what the different settings do and have an idea of how you can use them. Blocking annoying applications can make the site a lot less annoying, and you can control your own settings to keep from spamming the crap out of your friends. The only real gotcha is that you need to delete embarrassing information from an application before you remove the application.

      Remember:

      “Be sure to customize your privacy settings on the Privacy page if you are uncomfortable being found in searches or having your profile viewed by people from your school, workplace or regional network. Remember, unless you’re prepared to attach something in your profile to a resume or scholarship application, don’t post it.” — Official Facebook Safety page

      Did you find this page useful? Then help spread the word by sharing it on Facebook, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon or other sites.

      Related Posts

      38 comments

      Best of Feeds – 41 links – blogging, humor, geek, lifehacks, facebook

      Posted in Best of Feeds, Technology by engtech on July 21, 2007

      RSS feeds are like cookies (that are good enough for me). Best of Feeds is a weekly collection of the best stuff I saw on the Internet this week. I post them on Twitter as they happen and then collected together on Saturdays. I don’t blog on the weekend so read these links instead.

      Subscribe to //engtech to see this every week (or get it by email).

      Legend

      • saves – number of people who bookmarked on http://del.icio.us
      • inbound links – number of blogs who linked to it (max 100)
      • diggs – number of people who dugg on http://digg.com

      This Week at Internet Duct Tape

       

       

      IDT Labs

       

       

      • [THEME] Sandboxed sample zip updated

        — Please link to this post instead — I’ve taken the sample blog and example CSS template provided by Scott Wallick and made a very easy to use downloadable archive. It contains nothing but the HTML files, image files and CSS from the sample blog. It can get you redesigning Sandbox in less than…

      • [FLICKR] Always search for CC licenses photos

        I’ve updated my script that forces the Flickr search box to remember that you’re searching for Creative Commons licensed photos. It fixes a problem with the advanced search box. IDT Labs is a blog for news announcements about software, tools or blog themes created by InternetDuctTape.com .…

      • List of Software

        I’ve put together a list of all the software I’ve created at http://internetducttape.com/tools/ I’ve oh-so-intelligently organized it by the websites they interface with. Check it out if you haven’t already. And thank you for being an early adopter to my software update news blog.…

      Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

      1 comment

      Climbing Out of Category Hell

      Posted in Technology, WordPress.com Tips by engtech on July 20, 2007

      One of my first and longstanding complaints of WordPress is that it does not understand the fundamental difference between tagging and categorizing. Categorizing is like taking all of your socks and putting them into drawers based on colours. Tagging is like sewing a little label on your socks that says when you bought them, how to wash them, and “if lost please return to the dude with the fat cat.” Categories add organization and tags add semantic information. A category can be a tag, but if you use your tags as categories you’ll eventually have a right old mess.

      lost socks tagged
      (photo by striatic)

      WordPress doesn’t (yet) let you easily differentiate between tags and categories without using extra plugins, which means those of us who are cohabiting in a WordPress Multi-user ghetto like WordPress.com are stuck with the plain vanilla categories and the ugly mess that most tag clouds turn into. I have more categories than posts on my blog because I use “WordPress categories” for both tagging and categories. And I’ve finally realized that makes it near to impossible for me to properly organize my posts and for other people to read my site and find things of interest.

      I’ve spent several days designing a blog that looks nice; it’s time for me follow through with the rest and climb out of the technical debt I’ve been incurring from my horrible overuse of categories and tags.

      Lorelle on Tags

      Lorelle is the number one source of all things WordPress. She has written a *lot* about categories verses tags, and even went into detail about her experience in recategorizing everything. I find it absolutely amazing that she managed to re-categorize her WordPress.com blog in only a couple of hours.

      “Tags, however, are more like your blog’s index words. They are micro-categories. Do you use them when you visit a blog? I’m not and I’m wondering why.” — Lorelle

      “I think of the two a little differently, which is why I offer both categories and tags on my main site: How can I best help a visitor navigate around my site.” — Lorelle

      “categories equal tags, used by Technorati and other tagging directories as keywords to categorize your posts in their directories. If you want your posts to be found, this has to be considered.” — Lorelle

      “With so much importance put on categories by WordPress, choosing your categories becomes a major decision. You can either use categories as tags and add a new category for every tag you need, creating a long list in your sidebar or elsewhere, or keep your category list short and add tags with another method.” — Lorelle

      Categories in Action — How Do The Pros Do It?

      When in doubt find an expert and copy them mercilessly. Here’s the categories for some of the top blogs about blogging and my thoughts on them.

      ProBlogger: 31 Days to Building a Better Blog, Adsense, Advertising, Affiliate Programs, Blog Design, Blog Networks, Blog News, Blog Promotion, Blogging for Dollars, Blogging Tools and Services, Business Blogging, Case Studies, Chitika eMiniMalls, General, Miscellaneous Blog Tips, Other Income Streams, Podcasting, Pro Blogging News, ProBlogger Site News, Professional Blogger Interviews, Random Blog Tips, Reader Questions, Reader Tips, RSS, Search Engine Optimization, Writing Content, Yahoo Publishing Network

      My thoughts: Could be improved with hierarchy and grouping similar categories together. Blogging for Dollars, Adsense, Affiliate Programs, Chitika, Other Income Streams, Yahoo Publishing Network should all be under the same umbrella.

      CopyBlogger: Administrivia, AdWords, Affiliate Marketing, Blog Psychology, Blogging, Copywriting, Grammar, Headlines, Internet Marketing, Landing Pages, Link Building, Links, List Building, Metrics, Personal Branding, Persuasion, Podcasts, Popular, Promotion, RSS Marketing, Selling, SEO Copywriting, Social Media Marketing, Traffic, Tutorials, Video, What’s Your Story?, White Papers

      My thoughts: I’d reduce a quarter of them from the list. Adding the “popular” category to track what people like is genius.

      John Chow: AGLOCO, Cars, Fine Dining, Investing, Make Money Online, Ramblings, Review My Blog, ReviewMe Reviews, Technology, The Net, Videos, WordPress

      My thoughts: There isn’t a lot of incentive to click on any of those titles.

      Lorelle on WordPress: Blog Babble, Blog Challenge, Blogging Tips, Web Design, Web Wise, Weekly Digest, WordPress News, WordPress Plugins, WordPress Themes, WordPress Tips, WordPressdotcom, Writing

      My thoughts: Only uses the letters B and W. :) Well thought out and descriptive.

      DailyBlogTips: Blog Design, Blog Projects, Bloggers Face-Off, Blogging Basics, Blogosphere, Blogroll, Domain Names, Firefox, General, Monetize, Promotion, Reader Tips, SEO, Software, Strategy, Web Tools, WordPress, Writing Content

      My thoughts: Firefox could be a subcategory of software. Not sure what Blogosphere, Blogroll or Strategy is about. Other than that it’s well done.

      Successful Blogger: Analysis, Audience, B.A.D. Blogger, Basics, Blog Review, Bloggy Questions, Branding, Business Book, Business Life, Checklists, Comments, Community, Connecting Dots, Content, Customer Think, Design, Great Finds, Guest Writer, Idea Bank, Inside-Out Thinking, Interviews, Links, Liz Also Writes, Marketing, Motivation , One Way to CC It, Outside the Box, Perfect Virtual Manager, Productivity, SEO, SOB Business, Songs of Life, Strategy, Successful Blog, Survival Kit, Tech/Stats, Technorati, The Big Idea, Tips, Tools, Trends, Writing, ZZZ-FUN

      My thoughts: Too many categories, maybe trim out some of the ones with less than double digits? She has a really impressive number of blog posts.

      DoshDosh: Adsense Tips and Hacks, Advertising Networks, Affiliate Marketing Tips, Affiliate Programs, Blog & Website Promotion, Blogging Tips, Doshy Link Attack!, Get-Paid-To Websites, Internet Marketing, Link building and SEO, Make Money Blogging, Make Money with Social Media, Monetization Strategies, Money Making Tips, Niche Blogging Tutorials, Online Entrepreneurship, Popular Articles on Dosh Dosh, Revenue Sharing Websites, Useful Web Tools, Web Traffic Building Tips, WordPress Themes & Plugins’

      My thoughts: Good use of long category names. I’m not sure how some of the categories are different.

      What Do The Pros Recommend?

      Daily Blogging Tips gives this advice on categories: be descriptive, limit the number to one screenful, try to put posts in only one category, and display the number of posts in categories.

      One of the best things I’ve seen about categories is the recommendation to go through your search terms and base your categories off of how people are looking for things on your blog. Identifying the blog posts with the most comments helps as well. Lorelle also includes the helpful advice to turn trackbacks off before you start reorganizing your categories or you’re going to spam the crap out of yourself as you resave all of your posts (whoops, forgot about that).

      delicious tag cloud screenshot
      (wes)

      What Do I Recommend?

      I’m a strong believer that the best way to learn something is to do it wrong. Repeatedly. My categories/tags are a mess, and this is what I’ve learned from it:

      Content before categories: You can’t know how what your categories are until you know what you’re writing about. If you have a new blog don’t worry about them until later.

      Categories are specific: Categories should tie together related content around a specific subject. The first time I reorganized my categories I tried to break everything down to “articles, opinions, blogging, links” but that doesn’t mean anything to anyone but me.

      Use long category names: Make sure the category adequately describes what it contains and has a title people WANT to click on.

      Use category descriptions: WordPress lets you put in some meta information about specific topics. Use it. You can even put links in these descriptions.

      Niche is king: It is much easier to organize categories on a niche blog. Niche blogs can have very specific categories because they are all related to the same main subject. If you write about a multitude of subjects, then you need to have general categories with more specific categories underneath them.

      Less is more: The more options you give a reader the less likely they are to interact with any of them. Too many categories/tags means I’m not inclined to click on any of them. Don’t have a lot of categories and don’t assign posts to too many categories so that readers feel like they’re always seeing the same posts in different categories.

      Think maintenance: Time spent managing categories and tagging is time spent not writing posts or *gasp* doing something else. Too many categories makes it hard to pick a category for a new post.

      Plan it: write down your planned list of categories before you start reorganizing and do a walk through your archive to see if they match.

      Categorize your flagship content: Blogs always end up with a lot of “meh” or “look at this” type of posts. What you want to do with your categories is focus on the articles that add value to the reader. If you have posts that should be swept under the rug, then don’t bother categorizing them, or put them under something like Misc, Asides or Links.

      Rule of 10: If a category isn’t going to have at least 10 posts, then it shouldn’t be a category of its own.

      Use excerpts: Your category/archive pages should show excerpts instead of the full content. The excerpts should be long enough to entice the reader.

      Screw tagging: This took me forever to realize, but tagging isn’t usually worth the time and effort. Tagging only works well when more than one person is tagging content. If it’s just one person doing it then it turns into a mess every time… a big cloud of nothing. Tags are useless for helping people find things if each tag only has one post. Tagging with WordPress makes categories unmanageable and unorganized. A well directed Google Custom Search engine can replace the need for tags.

      The solution I came up with tags is to have some direct sub-categories under my main categories.

      How Did I Do It?

      These are the steps I took to drastically reduce the number of categories I had on my blog.

      1. Delete all categories willy-nilly
      2. I had to write a script to do this because the WordPress delete category interface is too slow (I’ll release it next week)
      3. Turn off the visual text editor on my User Profile
      4. Use the WordPress Category Resizer to make the category editor in the edit post window bigger.
      5. Fix manual navigation links to category pages and CSS effects
      6. Regenerate my Tag Clouds
      7. TODO: Run a link checker against my blog and fix all broken links
      8. TODO: Regenerate CSS for category icons

      There’s a reason why I only do this every nine months or so.

      farside on tagging

      What Does It Look Like?

      Still too many categories, but much better than before. Obviously I didn’t follow a lot of my own advice. There are still some categories that could get nuked, but I’m using them as tags.

      The users will be presented with the following categories in the sidebar as a text widget.

      All of the subcategories are used as tags.

      38 comments

      Presenting: Black and Blue and Read All Over

      Posted in CSS and Web Design, Request for Comments, Technology by engtech on July 18, 2007

      I’ve been tweaking my blog theme furiously in preparation for the Sandbox CSS Design contest. Again I have to say that I have the utmost respect for web designers. Making a good blog design that looks nice is hard work. But I feel that I’ve gotten a lot better since I touched CSS for the first time, and the recent incarnation of IDT has many improvements over the existing style.

      • Top header bar uses a much better technique for the buttons
      • Global style reset so it should look the same between all browsers
      • Support for asides (not that I use them often)
      • Support for pretty-printing
      • Georgia headings and Verdana text (thanks to these tips)
      • Styling on the navigation links between posts
      • Still readable in 640 width and 800 width
      • General reduction in hacks

      So please step out of your web browser and let me know about any pages that are looking wonky. Please cut-and-paste the link to whatever page looks wrong and mention the web browser you are using.

      In general site news I’ve gone back to having a front welcome page, instead of having the latest post on the front page. I feel it gives people a better introduction to the site. I desperately need to weed my categories, but that’s a job for another week.

      29 comments

      FeedBurner Tip: Create a private area for your RSS subscribers only

      Posted in Building a Community, FeedBurner, RSS Syndication, Technology by engtech on July 16, 2007

      Reader SurveyWhen it comes to blogging the most important people are the ones who take the time to read your RSS feed. They’re your long term readers who are in it for the long haul, much more so than the people who stop by your blog because they found it through a search engine or a social bookmarking site. They’re the ones who promote your articles, and the ones who’ll let you know when you’re falling off your blog game.

      It’s important to build a rapport with them, and one of the ways to do that is by giving them special offers that aren’t available to regular readers of the website. This could be an electronic book, information on how to submit reader links, or beta invitations to other websites like Pownce and Joost.

      But how do you send these links to your RSS readers without displaying them on your blog?

      FeedBurner to the rescue

      customer feedburner feedflarIf you aren’t using Google’s FeedBurner service for your blog then you should be. (It has built-in integration with Blogger, and the rumour mill says that it will be added to WordPress.com at some point.) FeedBurner has these things called FeedFlares that show up at the end of your RSS feed. They can do things like dynamically list the number of comments on that post, or how many times it has been dugg or saved to del.icio.us.

      It’s really simple to build your own FeedFlare that links to anything you want. Dosh Dosh has a detailed guide explaining how to do it. I wrote a list a while back explaining why I think FeedBurner is so great.

      How to create a Custom FeedBurner FeedFlare

      1. Login to FeedBurner
      2. Click on My Feeds
      3. Click on the feed you want to edit
      4. Click on the Optimize tab
      5. Click on FeedFlare from the sidebar
      6. Under “Personal FeedFlare” cut-and-paste your generic feedflare link and click add to FeedFlare
      http://www.feedburner.com/fb/variableflareunits/GenericFeedFlare.jspx?

text=Some+text&link=http://www.somelink.com

      I’ve created a Password-Protected Post on my blog for my RSS readers at http://internetducttape.com/easter-eggs/reader-appreciation/

      So I would use the following custom FeedFlare:

      http://www.feedburner.com/fb/variableflareunits/GenericFeedFlare.jspx?

text=Thank+you+for+reading+IDT+(click+and+enter+password+-----)

&link=http://internetducttape.com/easter-eggs/reader-appreciation/

      That will give you something like this:

      create a custom feedburner feedflare example

      Thanks to Dosh Dosh for showing me how to do this. I had a previous hack in place where I had a del.icio.us account and I would use the FeedBurner splice with del.icio.us to share things with my RSS readers only. Using a FeedFlare is much more elegant.

      12 comments

      Best of Feeds – 37 links – google, blogging, facebook, wordpress, tips

      Posted in Best of Feeds, Technology by engtech on July 14, 2007

      RSS feeds are like cookies (that are good enough for me). Best of Feeds is a weekly collection of the best stuff I saw on the Internet this week. I post them on Twitter as they happen and then collected together on Saturdays. I don’t blog on the weekend so read these links instead.

      Subscribe to //engtech to see this every week (or get it by email).

      Legend

      • saves – number of people who bookmarked on http://del.icio.us
      • inbound links – number of blogs who linked to it (max 100)
      • diggs – number of people who dugg on http://digg.com

      This Week at Internet Duct Tape

      • My Favorite Posts from DailyBlogTip’s Project3

        As part of Project3, Daniel from Daily Blog Tips has asked us to read and rate each other’s entries. I went through the big list of 115 entries and here is my (much shortened) list of favorites. They are mostly about blog advice or health tips. You can read my entry for Project 3 here: […]

      • WordPress Tip: Create a Digest Post in 3 Seconds

        It’s a good habit to post a summary of your recent posts once or twice a month, but like all blog maintenance it can be a pain in the butt if you don’t make it as easy as possible. Here’s a hack that’ll let you create a summary of all of your posts over X […]

      • Book Review: Overclocked by Cory Doctorow (and Fair Use Day)

        Last night I finished reading Cory Doctorow’s new collection of short stories, Overclocked, and I was very surprised at how much I enjoyed it.

      • Be My Friend (on social network sites)

        Unless you’ve had your head in the sand (or *gasp* you aren’t obsessed with Internet culture), then you’ve noticed that we’re seeing more and more web service startups over the past few years. Last year I flamed the Bubble 2.0 soundly in “Web Too.Many.” Earlier this year I tried to get…

      • Free Pownce Invites [del.icio.us]

        I have some Pownce invites to give away. Click on the link, the password is ‘kitty’.

      • Best of Feeds – 24 links – design, tips, facebook, blogging, games

        Tags: blogging, design, facebook, games, programming, tips, transformers, webdesign, writing

      This Week at IDT Labs

       

      • [FLICKR] Always search for CC licenses photos

        I’ve updated my script that forces the Flickr search box to remember that you’re searching for Creative Commons licensed photos. It fixes a problem with the advanced search box.

      • List of Software

        I’ve put together a list of all the software I’ve created at http://internetducttape.com/tools/ I’ve oh-so-intelligently organized it by the websites they interface with. Check it out if you haven’t already. And thank you for being an early adopter to my software update news blog.…

      • Welcome to IDT Labs

        IDT Labs is an offshoot of Internet Duct Tape.com. It is used for announcements related to software, tools, and blog themes I have created. //engtech IDT Labs is a blog for news announcements about software, tools or blog themes created by InternetDuctTape.com .

      Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

      76 comments

      My Favorite Posts from DailyBlogTip’s Project3

      Posted in Group Writing Projects, Technology by engtech on July 13, 2007

      As part of Project3, Daniel from Daily Blog Tips has asked us to read and rate each other’s entries. I went through the big list of 115 entries and here is my (much shortened) list of favorites. They are mostly about blog advice or health tips. You can read my entry for Project 3 here: 3 Surefire Ways to Advertise Your Blog on a Shoe String

      This list was put together using my delicious2blog tool that I will be making freely available by September 1st. If you would like to receive an announcement when the program is available then please subscribe to a new blog I’ve created purely for announcements of new software/tools/themes I’ve created at IDT Labs. Not only does it post a list of links from del.icio.us based on specific tags, but it also sorts them by the number of times they’ve been saved on del.icio.us, dugg or linked by other blogs.

      My Favorites

      Legend

      • saves – number of people who bookmarked on http://del.icio.us
      • inbound links – number of blogs who linked to it (max 100)
      • diggs – number of people who dugg on http://digg.com

      3 comments

      WordPress Tip: Create a Digest Post in 3 Seconds

      Posted in Becoming a Better Blogger, Technology, Yahoo Pipes by engtech on July 13, 2007

      It’s a good habit to post a summary of your recent posts once or twice a month, but like all blog maintenance it can be a pain in the butt if you don’t make it as easy as possible. Here’s a hack that’ll let you create a summary of all of your posts over X number of days using a handy-dandy Yahoo Pipe.

      How to Create a Digest Post

      1. Click on this link to go to the Yahoo Pipe
      2. Change “Truncate feeds older than 7 days ago” to the number of days back you want to go
      3. Change “Enter RSS URL” to the feed address to match your blog
      4. Click on the Run Pipe button
      5. Cut and paste the output from the pipe into a new blog post using the WordPress rich text editor

      Ta-da! Now you’ve made a digest post. You can edit the text and summaries as necessary, or adjust the date and re-run the pipe if the amount of time is not correct.

      Advanced users can make a clone of that pipe and change it to have your feed url and the date range you want by default.

      Sample Digest Post

      This was cut and pasted from the pipe output with no modifications.

       

      Advanced Users

      It doesn’t look great when you cut-and-paste the code from the Yahoo Pipe to a WordPress blog post. You can fix that by using my Yahoo Pipe Cleaner script with Greasemonkey.

      See the full list of free software I have created.

      You can get frequent updates about all of my new software, tools or blog themes by subscribing to IDT Labs by RSS or by email. Or you could just subscribe to my main blog, Internet Duct Tape.

      Subscribe to feed

      More Pipes

      Here’s a list of more Yahoo Pipes I’ve created.

      39 comments

      Book Review: Overclocked by Cory Doctorow (and Fair Use Day)

      Posted in Book Reviews, Digital Culture, Technology by engtech on July 11, 2007

      Fair Use, Copyright and Digital Rights

      There is a grassroots movement to make July 11th an International Fair Use Day where we all celebrate our rights to copy content in a fair manner (i.e.: backing up software/movies, quoting other sources). Copyright laws have reached the point where they stifle innovation and prevent use from standing on the shoulders of giants. Fair use of copyright is very different from piracy; copyright laws should protect the rights of the content creator but also protect the rights of the end user. Fair use is about achieving balance between the two different interests.

      Copyright discussion and technology often go hand-in-hand because advances in technology make it easier and easier to cheaply reproduce what was originally hard to reproduce. Striking a balance between producers and consumers is very important. If nothing was profitable then nothing then there would be less innovation, but on the flip side what if producers held complete control over how and when their works could be used? Can you imagine a world where you weren’t legally allowed to re-sell or buy used books, CDs or DVDs? Can you imagine a world without libraries?

      drm orwell digital rights management
      (photo by jbonnain)

      Michael Geist

      July 11th is a great choice for the date because it is also the birthday of Canada’s own digital rights super-hero Michael Geist. Happy birthday, Michael. If you aren’t familiar with his work, then I recommend starting with a series of articles called “30 Days of DRM” that are enlightening to say the least. Another Canadian digital rights super-hero is Cory Doctorow, a science-fiction author and co-editor of the famous BoingBoing weblog.

      Cory Doctorow

      cory doctorow overclock short stories science fiction bookLast night I finished reading Cory Doctorow’s new collection of short stories, Overclocked, and I was very surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I’ve read two of his other books, Eastern Standard Tribe and Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, and found them disappointing although full of interesting ideas. Overclocked succeeds where the others failed for me because the short narrative allows for a focus on the ideas without feeling that the characters are neglected.

      Common Themes in Overclocked

      Cory deals with information warfare, robotic sentience, inequalities between first and third world countries and the next level of copyright infringement – when we have 3d printers that can replicate any goods. So much of our current consumer laws are based on the concept of scarcity. We’ve already entered a post-scarcity economy when it comes to entertainment goods that can be reproduced digitally. 3D printing already exists, what kind of world do we want to live in when anything — even food, clothing and electronics — can be reproduced with minimum cost and effort?

      The Stories from Overclocked

      All of the short stories in Overclocked are already freely available online from other sources. You can check them out by following these links.

      Printcrime – the real outcome of a society where copying has been made illegal.

      When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth – when a biological agent wipes out humanity the only people left standing are the sysadmins who were protecting the network in clean rooms.

      Anda’s Game – a young girl learns about goldfarming and world wide inequality thanks to World of Warcraft.

      I, Robot – Asimov meets Orwell in a mash-up of 1984 and I, Robot where government controlled restrictions on technology have created wars with countries that don’t follow the same restrictions.

      I, Row-Boat – a sentient row boat with free will explores the nature of consciousness in a post-human society.

      After the Siege – A city goes from utopia to a cesspool of human misery when other countries attack them for illegally copying the goods they need to survive.

      Related Links

      5 comments

      Be My Friend (on social network sites)

      Posted in Delicious, Digg, Facebook, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Technology, Twitter, Web 2.0 and Social Media, Yahoo Pipes by engtech on July 10, 2007

      Unless you’ve had your head in the sand (or *gasp* you aren’t obsessed with Internet culture), then you’ve noticed that we’re seeing more and more web service startups over the past few years. Last year I flamed the Bubble 2.0 soundly in “Web Too.Many.” Earlier this year I tried to get an idea of what websites people actually use by starting the What’s Your Web 2.0? meme.I think I’m past breaking when it comes to my attention span and the number of services that I use. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some I heartily recommend. If you use some of these services as well, then please go ahead and “friend” me. And yes, there is a Facebook account in the list.

      Active

      Software Hosting

      Autopilot

      • Twitter – sharing, republishing
      • Tumblr – aggregating my online presence
      • Jaiku – sharing, republishing

      Deadpool

      These are sites that I used to use often, but I’ve given up on:

      • MyBlogLog – too much spam
      • Flickr – it’s easier to share photos with friends on Facebook
      • RottenTomatoes – it’s easier to share movie reviews with friends on Facebook
      • Technorati – never indexes me properly
      • Blogcritics – got some books, but they aren’t a very good source of traffic
      • LinkedIn – until the next time I’m looking for work
      • … more than I can possibly remember.

      What got me thinking about this is trying out Pownce for the first time and seeing how horrible it is at re-discovering my friends.

      I just sent out some invites to Kevin Rose’s Pownce to my FeedBurner subscribers. (Thanks for hooking me up, Adam)

      Pownce First Impression

      I’ve seen other complaints that the biggest problem of Pownce is “what do I do with it?” It’s probably the most powerful web-based instant messaging client out there.

      I was very surprised that they Pownce doesn’t have an “import contacts from address book” feature. That is rapidly becoming the only way to easily import the list of your friends from one web app to another. I was trying out Blue Swarm the other day and they are using a very slick widget from Plaxo that does easy address book imports. All web startups should use this, since email address contacts are the only universal data format for identifying your friends on the web.

      This is a perfect example of why the Facebook application experience is so powerful… signing up and maintaining a user account is the major barrier that prevents most web startups from gaining a massive user base. “Social” web sites have an even bigger barrier in that you have to move or re-find your network. Facebook apps allow for any application to have the same user account and social network.

      Obviously I think it would be pretty awesome if that Plaxo contact importer also supported Facebook as well as Gmail, Hotmail, Outlook, and Yahoo.

      What Others Have to Say

      Scoble: “I see many of the same people in my friends list on Twitter, Jaiku, Facebook, and now Pownce. Pownce is growing faster than the other ones right now, though. 728 people have already added me on Pownce. I can’t take many more social networks.“

      Memoirs of a Bystander: “My question is this: Is there any value actually garnered from adding an obscenely large amount of random people as your friend on various social sites? Honestly, if a social networking site it meant to enhance you life through discovery of new interests, music, recommendations, etc…, is that easily done by wading through thousands of people?”

      Mashable: “And it is this: on Pownce, you can send a message, or a file, or a song, or an event, to one person; or three of your friends; or only your family; or everyone.”

      SocialHam: “Now more than ever Email seems to becoming a dead medium so can micro blogging sites fill in the gaps?”

      JetPacked: “Can’t decide between pownce and twitter? This should help. Here’s how to post your pownces to twitter.”

      Daily Grumble: “Social networking is a very difficult area for a new service to break into. How on earth are you going to persuade users of other, more established social networks to come to your service?”

      Greg Verdino: “Are social media mavens living inside a bubble of our own making, artificially inflating the impact that most of these nascent technologies are having on the population in general, and ultimately getting our companies and our clients riled up over something that will, over time, turn out to be, well um, nothing?”

      17 comments

      Best of Feeds – 24 links – design, tips, facebook, blogging, games

      Posted in Best of Feeds, Technology by engtech on July 09, 2007

      RSS feeds are like cookies (that are good enough for me). Best of Feeds is a weekly collection of the best stuff I saw on the Internet this week. I post them on Twitter as they happen and then collected together on Saturdays (oops, a little late this week!).

      Subscribe to //engtech to see this every week (or get it by email).

      Legend

      • saves – number of people who bookmarked on http://del.icio.us
      • inbound links – number of blogs who linked to it (max 100)
      • diggs – number of people who dugg on http://digg.com

      This Week at Internet Duct Tape

       

      • 3 Sure Fire Way to Advertise Your Blog on a Shoe String

        People always talk about how to sell ads on your blog, but it seems that no one talks about how to buy ads for your blog. (photo by riccardo) Time is money. Trite, but true. One of the handiest “life hacks” is to figure out how much money your time is worth (after taxes) and use that to […]

      • [TV] When Good Heroes Go Bad

        I just finished watching the first season of the new hit TV series Heroes on DVD and I have to say that I’m disappointed. I’m still an avid reader of comic books, so when a new TV series starts that seems like a mild rip-off from X-Men came out, I didn’t really have a choice when it came…

      • Featured on Bloggers Face-off

        This week I’m being featured on Bloggers Face-off on DailyBlogTips.I’m up against the ever-so-awesome Weblog Tools Collection, so drop on by and give me a vote.If you’re a new reader dropping by because of the mention, you can find: all my posts about bloggingsoftware I’ve created for…

      • Best of Feeds – 34 links – readerlinks, blogging, facebook, startup, iphone

        Tags: apple, blogging, business, code, development, facebook, google, iphone, javascript, last.fm, linkedin, readerlinks, socialsoftware, software, startup, tips, web2.0

      Tags: , , , , , , , ,

      Comments Off on Best of Feeds – 24 links – design, tips, facebook, blogging, games

      3 Surefire Ways to Advertise Your Blog on a Shoe String

      Posted in Becoming a Better Blogger, Building a Community, Group Writing Projects, Marketing and Promotion, Technology by engtech on July 07, 2007

      People always talk about how to sell ads on your blog, but it seems that no one talks about how to buy ads for your blog.

      time is money
      (photo by riccardo)

      Time is money.

      Trite, but true. One of the handiest “life hacks” is to figure out how much money your time is worth (after taxes) and use that to as a basis for deciding if a time saving service is worth it’s cost (assuming you have disposable income). The classic example is to hire help for around the home or to go out for dinner. Compare the spent time doing it yourself to the money you’d spend paying someone to do it for you and find an acceptable ratio.

      One of the greatest lies told in the blogosphere is “write better content to get more readers and more traffic.” Great content without promotion will always fail to reach wide audience. Some form of promotion is always necessarily, usually by getting links from a more popular site, or by having a reader base that promotes your content for you.

      This is how I know that I’m not a writer: the best writing comes because you have something to say, not because you’re trying to achieve some level of popularity. I know I have thought “why write if no one is reading?” Obviously, I have some deep-seated issues involving being unpopular in elementary school and trying to find validation on the Internet instead of finding my own happiness inside me; consider this my cry for help.

      time is money - playground nerd
      (photo by peregrino)

      Writing content takes time and so does marketing. I would estimate I spend more time promoting my site, networking and building relationships with other bloggers than I do writing content. My combined focusing on writing and promotion is the only reason why anyone has every read my site — not because my content attracts readers like bees to honey.

      Writing and promoting leads to lost hours, but time is money. Is it possible to replace time spent on marketing with money spent on advertising?

      My time is worth around $20/hour to me. Blogging is my hobby, not a money making venture. This would be purely to reduce time I already spend — not an attempt to “grow my business.” Can a small monetary investment replace my own time building links?

      In an hour I can probably drive around a guaranteed minimum of 100-300 hits to a blog post by prepping it for search engines, submitting it to social networks, contacting other bloggers and plugging it in forums and blog comments.

      The sums of money are small because 1) I’m not doing this as a business investment and because 2) it is harder to compare time to money with larger sums of money. I also feel that small sums are more realistic to what a blogger can afford. This is my first time trying to buy advertising so the results may be laughable — please give better advice in the comments.

      Three Good Ways to Buy Blog Ads (and Two Bad Ways)

      BAD: Strange Schemes – RentMyChest – $50/life

      Everyone has heard of the Million Dollar Homepage due to the massive main stream media coverage it garnered. Lots (and lots) of similar ideas sprung up. Chris Pirillo came up with the oh-so-strange RentMyChest.com. Buy a linked word on his chest for $50 for life. Result: the traffic is low — less than three hits a day. Ratio has been less than 10 hits/dollar so far.

      AVERAGE: Social Networks – StumbleUpon Advertising Campaign – $10/once

      Any blogger who has had a post stumbled has seen the how they turn the referrer url into an ad for StumbleUpon (genius). They are the most straightforward with a direct cost per vistor of $0.05 a hit. $10 got me 200 hits, although my stats software only said 130 (my fault for having too long of a landing page). There were only three positive stumbles, which didn’t lead to any increased SU traffic once the campaign was over. Ratio is 13 hits/dollar. (It should have been 20 hits/dollar but I want to keep the metrics even with the rest.)

      GOOD: Blog Advertising – Adbrite – $12/month

      I chose to buy an ad on the popular blogger Violent Acres’ site because the cost was so low. I chose the “I support Violent Acres” text which made me the second most popular ad on the site with around 7-9 hits a day. When the author wrote a post directly about her advertisers that lead to an increase of around 100-180 hits for two days. Ratio was about 40 hits/dollar.

      GOOD: Social Networks – StumbleUpon Sponsorship – $20/year

      It is harder to measure the results of this. By becoming a sponsored StumbleUpon community member an account gets featured more often. But being a solid well-networked member of the StumbleUpon community seems to be a much bigger factor than whether or not you are a sponsor. I’ve seen StumbleUpon block users from submitting articles from certain blogs, but when contacted SU never responded.

      GREAT: Group Writing Project with Prize / Contest – $15/contest

      Group writing projects are a great way to get links and interactive community participation. The downside is that their success is largely a factor of how well they are promoted – Probloggers like Darren Rowse can get over 300 links in a group writing project. I got 23 links, 1000 hits and more importantly new readers because of my first contest. I consider it a resounding success. Ratio was 67 hits/dollar.

      My second contest did 49 links and 1450 hits, and my third contest did 19 links and 860 hits.

      Is it worth spending money to promote your blog?

      I’m still divided on it. The results aren’t going to be any better than what you can build naturally through promotion, but it can be a good way to give support to other bloggers/sites you enjoy. Contests seem to be a great way to engage your readers and help build a community around your blog — but there isn’t any time savings compared to how you would normally promote a post. Running a contest is worth it for building up your community but it isn’t a short-cut (and too much self-promotion can drive away readers). Spending the same time and energy on something else other than a contest would likely get similar results.

      buy and sell blog ads promotion links
      (photo by greefus)

      Ways to Advertise Your Blog (That I Didn’t Try)

      Directory Listing

      More info on SEOMoz: ” I think that this is a ton of bull. I think that you can blow a load of dough and a lot of time chasing these links – which are mostly going to be low quality – and bring you very little real traffic.”

      Blog Advertising – Text Link Ads

      The ads are served as part of the web content so they pass ad-blocking software and are counted by search engines. It’s like buying your way on to the blogroll. Text Link Ads would charge $69 to $83 per month for a single link on my blog — so it’s out of my “on a shoestring” price range. One thing I’ve noticed from being on many blog rolls is that they don’t usually lead to many hits. More info at SEOMoz.

      Blog Advertising – Direct

      Some blog owners who sell ads will allow you to negotiate direct prices. This is a better deal for both parties because there is no middle man. DailyBlogTips writes about direct sale from the seller’s point of view.

      Blog Advertising – Networks

      “Most blog networks allow users to purchase credits with money, and the price is really convenient. You should be able receive hundreds of visitors or to get thousands of banner impressions for less than 10 dollars. Some blog networks that sell credits include Blog Explosion, Blog Soldiers and Blog Advance.” More info at DailyBlogTips.

      Blog Advertising – Sponsored Reviews

      PayPerPost, ReviewMe and SponsoredReviews all let you find bloggers who are will to write about your site if you give them some cash. It could be a good way to target blogs that have the same niche, although there is no guarantee they’ll have anything nice to say about you. Blogging Tips talks about his experience buying reviews. Buying paid reviews can be a great way to promote a contest.

      RSS Advertising – FeedBurner

      FeedBurner has been selling ads in RSS feeds for a while, and that’s only going to increase now that they’ve been bought by Google. You are targeting people who read blogs and people who subscribe to RSS feeds. They have detailed demographics on the audiences. aVC talks about buying Feedburner ads, and how each subscriber makes him around $0.60/month on the ads he sells through FeedBurner.

      Search Engines – Google AdWords

      ” Adwords is probably the most efficient method to generated raw traffic for your website. In order to get started you should create an account, add lots (by lots I mean hundreds if not thousands) of keywords that are related your site and set the maximum Pay-per-Click rate at $0.01. After that raise the rate by $0.01 every week or so until you start getting the desired amount of daily clicks.” More info at DailyBlogTips. You can also directly target a specific site using Google AdWords.

      Social Networks – YouTube

      This is like direct blog advertising, but instead you contact the creators of popular videos on YouTube and ask them to embed a watermark with your blog url for a small price. WebLogHits talks about their experience.

      Social Networks – Facebook

      Facebook lets you create flyers with 5000 impressions for $10. This sounds like a great ratio, except that so few of those impressions click on the ads.

      Social Networks – Digg and User/Submitter

      There are several underground sites that will “vote” for your site on social link sharing networks. This can lead to you getting banned from those networks, and isn’t like to be worth it in the long term. Digg seems to bring less hits and less links then it ever did before.

      7 tips for buying advertising for your blog
      (photo by thoth92)

      7 Tips for Buying Advertising for Your Blog

      1. Niche
        • Buy ads from sites that would have a similar audience who would also appreciate your content.
      2. Deep Link
        • Instead of linking to the front page of your blog, link to a particular page that gives the reader value. Try to convert them into a regular reader.
      3. Other Blogs
        • By buying ads on other blogs not only do you support other bloggers but you are targeting an audience that already reads blogs.
      4. Choose Sites that Directly Mention Their Sponsors
        • A link in the sidebar only gets a fraction of the hits compared to a blog that directly thanks the people who have sponsored them.
      5. Mention the Site You Are Advertising On
        • Ads that mention the site they are advertising on cut through the blinders people have when reading websites.
      6. Avoid Pyramid Schemes and Pay Directories
        • They don’t work. When was the last time you clicked on a link on a million dollar homepage or on from a blog directory?
      7. Ad-blocking
        • If the ad would be blocked by ad blocking software then you might think twice about using it if you have an audience that uses ad-blocking software.

      This was written as part of Daily Blog Tips “Project 3” contest. Vote for it by linking to this article from your blog!

      69 comments

      [TV] When Good Heroes Go Bad

      Posted in Geeking Out, Technology by engtech on July 06, 2007

      heroes tv series hiro nakamuraI just finished watching the first season of the new hit TV series Heroes on DVD and I have to say that I’m disappointed. I’m still an avid reader of comic books, so when a new TV series starts that seems like a mild rip-off from X-Men came out, I didn’t really have a choice when it came to watching it.

      I’ve always enjoyed the stories about how people deal with having super-powers more than the crime fighting and action. The most interesting sci-fi stories are the ones that deal with how society reacts to the fantastic, and unfortunately that is something Heroes never explored in depth.

      (photo by Ivo Sandaval)

      They started out well with many interesting characters, but that was also the biggest flaw. Too many characters means too much time spent on telling the story. Often they went several episodes without covering one of the favorite characters. There also seemed to be a ridiculous duplication of powers [2] amongst the existing “heroes”. At least they were willing to kill characters off.

      Too many characters also means it takes too long to tell the story. I’ve recently become a big fan of Warren Ellis and one of the things he does very well is timing a story arc. The Authority wraps up every four issues, and Nextwave wraps up every two issues. Heroes would have done well to follow the same formula to keep everyone’s attention. Taking 24 episodes to show “how to stop an exploding man” ensures that the finale won’t live up to expectations. (And what a lame ending it was…)

      Every episode was linked to the overall plot, when one-shots and smaller story arcs would have gone a long way to develop the characters and hold the attention of the audience. The Days of Future Past rip off where Hiro travels five years into the future was one of my favorite episodes because it stood out from the rest. I hope they do more of that, instead of huge epic story arcs that are hard to follow and ultimately unsatisfying.

      heroes tv series hiro nakamura watch sylarI thought it was very cool that they did an online comic book series to fill in some of the back story. A torrent of issues 1-24 can be found here, and 25-31 can be found here [3]. Use a bit torrent client to download and use CDisplay to view.

      The preview of season two sparked my interest, and I hope they take some time to focus on one story arc to completion instead of their current blueprint where everything leads to one arc that plays out less than thirty minutes.

      (photo by robjtak)

      Footnotes

      [1] Completely screwed up by Marvel’s “everyone is a mutant!” stupidity.

      [2] Linderman and Claire both heal. Peter and Sylar can both copy other powers. Wireless and Mika can both interact with machines. The writers need to read George RR Martin’s Wild Cards to get some idea of all the crazy powers that people can have.

      [3] Since the comics were available on the NBC website, the torrents should be legal to distribute.

      Related Posts

      1. 81 movies for geeks that do not suck
      2. T-shirts – 100+ geek t-shirts that I like.
      3. Comic Books – My favorite comic books available in trade paperbacks.
      4. TV series on DVD – some shows I like.

      What Others Think

      Tech Chick: “Eureka: On Friday NBC announced that the majority of the Season 1 cast of Heroes will be touring the world to promote the Season 1 DVD/HD DVD release (set for August 28th), as well as the upcoming second season of Heroes. I know the DVD release isn’t as exciting as the upcoming season, but getting to see 50 deleted scenes and the 73-minute never aired premiere episode WILL make the wait less painful. I promise.”

      Forever Geek: “In an interesting move to avoid airing repeats, NBC has ordered a 6 part second series called “Heroes: Origins” – this show will feature different characters from the ones appearing on Heroes, but some of the characters in the series will eventually make their way to the main show. This series will air in the regular Heroes time slot when the show goes on hiatus next fall.”

      “So, last night’s “Heroes” season finale didn’t satisfy on every level I hoped it would, but it did wrap up at least the bomb scenario… spoilers“

      Movies No One Should See: “Not only is he awesome as Hiro, he’s more badass as Future Hiro (thanks to time traveling, shows up sometimes). A little goatee, fluently speaking English, and the samurai sword with him at all times: this is how Hiro could be in the future. Of course, that future is ala “Age of Apocalypse” so it might be altered next season (and he’ll show up as Hippy Hrio instead).”

      Random Musings: “However, the other 22 episodes really made up for this one lackluster season finale. Almost all of them were brimming with interesting and shocking plot twists that made this show one of the most complicating and yet satisfying ones I’ve seen in a long time. For those of you who haven’t watched it, make sure you get the DVD as soon as it’s released, you really don’t want to miss out on this great show.”

      Blogs about Heroes

      8 comments

      Featured on Bloggers Face-off

      Posted in Internet Duct Tape News, Technology by engtech on July 03, 2007

      This week I’m being featured on Bloggers Face-off on DailyBlogTips.

      I’m up against the ever-so-awesome Weblog Tools Collection, so drop on by and give me a vote.

      If you’re a new reader dropping by because of the mention, you can find:

      Some highlights

      You can subscribe to my RSS feed here or by email.

      6 comments

      Best of Feeds – 34 links – readerlinks, blogging, facebook, startup, iphone

      Posted in Best of Feeds, Technology by engtech on June 30, 2007

      RSS feeds are like cookies (that are good enough for me). Best of Feeds is a weekly collection of the best stuff I saw on the Internet this week. I post them on Twitter as they happen and then collected together on Saturdays. I don’t blog on the weekend so read these links instead.

      Subscribe to //engtech to see this every week (or get it by email).

      • [JAVASCRIPT] jQuery: The Write Less, Do More, JavaScript Library
        (jquery.com, 9084 saves, 100 inbound links, diggs)

        • From the article: ” “You start with 10 lines of jQuery that would have been 20 lines of tedious DOM JavaScript. By the time you are done it’s down to two or three lines and it couldn’t get any shorter unless it read your mind.””
        • (code, javascript, readerlinks)
      • [DESIGN] Freebies Round-Up: Icons, Buttons and Templates
        (smashingmagazine.com, 2895 saves, 100 inbound links, 1154 diggs)

        • Big list of free icons for use in blog design.
        • (icons, webdesign, free, readerlinks)
      • [FLICKR] The Great Flickr Tools Collection
        (quickonlinetips.com, 2832 saves, 100 inbound links, diggs)

        • Huge list of tools for flicker users.
        • (flickr, tools, photography, web2.0, readerlinks)
      • [WEB2.0] Simple Spark
        (simplespark.com, 1980 saves, 100 inbound links, 9 diggs)

        • A web catalog of internet software applications. Want to do something? Good resource for finding a website that does it.
        • (web2.0, applications, directory, readerlinks)
      • [GOOGLE] Life at Google – The Microsoftie Perspective
        (no2google.wordpress.com, 734 saves, 100 inbound links, 1667 diggs)

        • Internal Microsoft memo talking about the downside to “life at Google” and how they could improve their perks and benefits to be inline with Google’s.
        • (google, microsoft)
      • [GEEK] The Steampunk Workshop
        (steampunkworkshop.com, 349 saves, 100 inbound links)

        • Steampunk is a subset of the cyberpunk culture using Victorian antique technology (see The Different Engine by William Gibson). This guy mods his desktop hardware to look like it’s steampunk.
        • (steampunk, diy, craft)
      • [ACTIVISIM] Let’s Watch A Girl Get Beaten To Death.
        (whedonesque.com, 236 saves, 100 inbound links, 35 diggs)

        • From the article: ” What is wrong with women? I mean wrong. Physically. Spiritually. Something unnatural, something destructive, something that needs to be corrected. How did more than half the people in the world come out incorrectly?”
        • (women, activism, josswhedon)
      • [CODE] Rhino on Rails
        (steve-yegge.blogspot.com, 130 saves, 54 inbound links, 7 diggs)

        • Steve Yegge talks about Rhino on Rails, his port of Rails to Javascript.
        • (javascript, rails, google, rubyonrails, ruby)
      • [CODE] 10 Developers For The Price Of One
        (haacked.com, 94 saves, 24 inbound links, 2 diggs)

        • From the article: ” A developer who can write code fast, but doesn’t take ownership of their projects is not very productive because they end up wasting your time.”
        • (productivity, code, programming, development)
      • [BLOG] How To Advertise on Your Blog Without (Completely) Selling Out
        (codinghorror.com, 57 saves, 25 inbound links, 17 diggs)

        • From the article: ” Is it possible to advertise responsibly, with respect for your audience– and yourself? I think it is, if you’re careful.”
        • (advertising, adsense, blogging)
      • [MARKETING] 5½ lessons that legitimate retailers can learn from pirates
        (diveintomark.org, 40 saves, 8 inbound links)

        • I too have been amazed at how stores won’t link/contain to IMDB information.
        • (movies, drm, copyright, piracy)
      • [SOFTWARE] Save Last.fm streams with TheLastStream
        (lifehacker.com, 38 saves, 14 inbound links)

        • Program for saving your last.fm radio as an MP3.
        • (last.fm, mp3, software, streaming)
      • [TECH] Management books
        (joelonsoftware.com, 30 saves, 23 inbound links)

        • Joel goes through some tech books on management, including Rands new book (that I should go buy right now)
        • (business, books, management, software, startup)
      • [IPHONE] Critical Consensus: The iPhone scorecard
        (valleywag.com, 27 saves, 72 inbound links, 1210 diggs)

        • Actually worth buying, except for the slow data rate.
        • (iphone, apple, review)
      • [iPHONE] Why You Don’t Want an iPhone — Yet
        (codinghorror.com, 26 saves, 31 inbound links, 7 diggs)

        • Never in the history of cellphones have you needed to wait for version 2.0 more.
        • (apple, iphone, mobile)
      • [HUMOUR] Top Geek 10 Phobias
        (techchickblog.com, 21 saves, 17 inbound links, 986 diggs)

        • (gekk, humor)
      • [WINDOWS] The 20 Worst Windows Features of All Time
        (pcworld.com, 17 saves, 25 inbound links, 13 diggs)

        • Annoying that you have to click through 20 times to see all of it, but a pretty good recount on the ways Windows has sucked over the years.
        • (Microsoft, sucks, windows)
      • [GAMES] Nintendo’s Wii plays the platform game
        (gigaom.com, 13 saves, 11 inbound links, 4 diggs)

        • You’ll be able to develop homebrew games for the Nintendo Wii.
        • (development, games, nintendo, Wii)
      • [STARTUPS] And then there were four.
        (xobni.com, 9 saves, 5 inbound links)

        • Founder of a startup gives a list of lessons learned
        • (startup, entrepreneurship)
      • [BLOG] A conversation with Guy Kawasaki of Garage Technology Ventures
        (blog.softwareabstractions.com, 3 saves, 2 inbound links)

        • From the article: ” Asking bloggers about anything beyond tools for bloggers is dubious as a feedback mechanism. Whatever the blogosphere says, do the opposite.”
        • (business, interview, blogging, guykawasaki, readerlinks)
      • [MARKETING] Ignore a Customer’s Lifetime Value at Your Own Risk
        (instigatorblog.com, 2 saves, 5 inbound links)

        • First rule of customer service — is the overall cost of fixing that customer’s problem worth the lifetime potential loss of completely ignoring it?
        • (customer, service)
      • [GADGETS] How to synchronize your iPod to Facebook
        (internetducttape.com, 2 saves, 4 inbound links, 3 diggs)

        • Want to show all of your friends on Facebook what you are listening to on your iPod? Want them to be able to listen to it too? This is how.
        • (ipod, apple, itunes, facebook, last.fm, lastFM, sync)
      • [BLOG] How To Avoid Being Banned By Technorati
        (andybeard.eu, 16 inbound links)

        • Technorati routinely manually removes blogs that it doesn’t feel are playing by the same rules (PhotoMatt, theme designers, widget builders). Is Technorati authority important enough to lose?
        • (technorati)
      • [LINKEDIN] LinkedIn to Save Itself From the Facebook Onslaught?
        (parislemon.com, 3 inbound links)

        • From the article: ” LinkedIn and Facebook still serve two different niches, but the gap could be quickly closing. As the Unofficial Facebook Blog notes, they are receiving many more professional “friend” requests now via Facebook than they are via LinkedIn.”
        • (linkedin, facebook)
      • [BLOG] The easiest way to stop yourself from blogging
        (thenamelessblog.net, 2 inbound links)

        • …is to over think it.
        • (blogging, tips)
      • [STARTUPS] Top 10 Website Founders’ Ages
        (techchickblog.com, , 33 diggs)

        • I’m just the right age to start a hot web property.
        • (startup, web2.0)
      • [IPHONE] The Power of Duct Tape
        (mypetfat.typepad.com, )

        • How to make your own iPhone with just a little bit of duct tape.
        • (ducttape, iphone)
      • [SPAM] Can spam be art?
        (sulz.wordpress.com, )

        • Spam paint creates art out of spam.
        • (spam)
      • [FATBLOGGING] What Most Exercise Books Wont Tell You
        (baron.vc, , 11 diggs)

        • Don’t worry about overtraining, go for broke.
        • (exercise, tips)
      • [GAMES] What Sony could do to save the PS3 AND Blu-ray right now
        (parislemon.com, 3 inbound links)

        • From the article: ” Right now critics are calling the Blu-ray dead, and ready to declare HD-DVD the winner in the format war, but if Sony cut the PS3 price that outcome could easily be reversed.”
        • (sony, ps3, bluray)
      • [BLOG] Crazy Egg Launches Confetti
        (pronetadvertising.com, 3 inbound links, 6 diggs)

        • Wish I could use this service. It gives you a heat map of how users are clicking on your site.
        • (crazyegg)
      • [SMO] Spotplex, Why it Works and Why it Doesn’t
        (pronetadvertising.com, , 1 diggs)

        • Spotplex is a new passive social promotion tool for blog owners. It shows the most popular stories on all blogs by traffic.
        • (spotplex, blogging, socialsoftware)
      • [SMO] Social Poster – Maximize Your Social Media Participation and Traffic
        (pronetadvertising.com, 26 inbound links, 217 diggs)

        • One website that will let you submit a blog post to digg/netscape/reddit/del.icio.us/stumbleupon all at the same time.
        • (digg, reddit, socialsoftware)
      • [LINKEDIN] LinkedIn Preempts Facebook with Facebook Application
        (pronetadvertising.com, 3 inbound links)

        • LinkedIn has created a Facebook app that lets you post open job postings on your Facebook profile. Good way to get referral bonuses if you use Facebook for business networking.
        • (facebook, linkedin)

      Legend

      • saves – number of people who bookmarked on http://del.icio.us
      • inbound links – number of blogs who linked to it (max 100)
      • diggs – number of people who dugg on http://digg.com

      This Week at Internet Duct Tape

      • How to synchronize your iPod (or iTunes) to Facebook using Last.fm

        I’d be the first to tell you that digital music on demand over the Internet is so much more convenient then maintaining, sorting and backing up a large digital music library. Especially when web sites like Last.fm give you great artist discovery based on what you’ve already been listening…

      • CSS Tip: Building 3D Buttons with CSS for the Sandbox Theme

        An often requested tip in blog theme CSS design is how to do 3d buttons for the menu bar at the top of the page. It’s done using the common “sliding door” technique where one image is the front plus middle, and another image forms the end.

      • And we have a winner…

        Never has there been a truer mantra than “those who can’t, teach.” I might write posts about using online calendar applications, but I think by now we’ve all realized I don’t use them. That’s why I’ll do things like schedule a contest to end the day before leaving on vacation……

      • Best of Feeds – 26 links – blogging, tips, writing, comics, comments

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      How to synchronize your iPod (or iTunes) to Facebook using Last.fm

      Posted in Facebook, Music, MP3s and Internet Radio, Technology by engtech on June 29, 2007

      I started listening to MP3s around 9 years ago, and bought my last CD around 5 years ago. Digital music has become a way of life for me (as it is for most people), to the point where I have around way too many devices for playing MP3s: computer, stereo system, DVD player, game console, cell phone, car and dedicated MP3 players like an iPod.

      Yet I’d be the first to tell you that digital music on demand over the Internet is so much more convenient then maintaining, sorting and backing up a large digital music library. Especially when web sites like Last.fm give you great artist discovery based on what you’ve already been listening to.

      Another great way to discover new music is by seeing what your friends are listening to. People often using MP3 playing software to automatically update their blog with what they are listening to. Livejournal goes so far as to add a “listening to” field to every blog post. But blogs are so 2001, I’m going to show you how to update your Facebook profile with what you’ve been listening to on your iPod, using last.fm as the middle man.

      I’ve been using this technique for a month now and my friends can see what I’m listening to, top tracks of the week, top artists… and best of all with one click they can either play the song or find out more information about the artist. The extra bonus points come from Last.FM getting better and better at discovering music I’ve never heard of yet instantly love.

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      What You Are Going to Need

      • a Windows PC [1]
      • an iPod
      • iTunes software
      • Facebook account
      • last.fm account
      • people who want to read your Facebook profile to see how much you rock (and roll) [2]

      A few assumptions: these are general directions, and not a step-by-step walkthrough. I’m going to show you the theory, and point you to where to get better information.

      [1] The theory still works even if you use players other than iPods, or if you are running on Linux or a Mac. You can sync pretty much anything to last.fm, which means that you can sync it to Facebook. See more info on what last.fm supports here.

      [2] This is, surprisingly, the hardest part.

      The Easy Part – Synching Last.fm to Facebook

      Thanks to those fancy new Facebook applications every one is playing with (have you given up on Super Poke and Free Gifts yet?), there are several ways to update Facebook with your recently played tracks on last.fm:

      1. The official Facebook app by last.fm
        • Pro: people can click on the play icon to listen to the music on your profile.
        • Con: They have to click on the app to see your recent updates. They can see your last.fm username.
      2. Unofficial last.fm apps for Facebook
      3. Last.fm Plus by Paul Wells This is what I use — highly recommended
        • Pro: *Much* simpler and less cluttered than the official plugin, not Flash-based. Can hide your last.fm username.
        • Con: People have to leave your profile page to play the music.

      I recommend Last.fm Plus over the official application. This is what it looks like. The play button will play the song/artist while clicking on the name will bring them to a biography of the artist with options to play samples, download MP3s, watch videos, buy albums or listen to similar artists. It’ll also show you information like what the most popular song by that artist is.

      How to sync your iPod with Facebook using last.fm

      Here’s what the linked page looks like for Hot Chip.

      Hot Tip: When installing Facebook applications, uncheck the “Publish stories in my News Feeds and Mini-feeds” so that you don’t spam the crap out of your friends. Find more information about Facebook application privacy settings here.


      (photo by dan morris)

      The Less Easy Part – Synching Your iPod to Last.fm

      There are several ways of synching your iPod to last.fm

      1. The official last.fm client (they finally added support!)
        • Pro: Part of the official client, less likely to break when iTunes updates
        • Con: Only works if you have your iPod set to automatically sync to iTunes
      2. iSproggler (Windows) or iScrobbler (Mac) This is what I use — highly recommended
        • Pro: Supports manually synched iPods.
        • Con: Have to choose the “Update iPod” option whenever you want to update. Can give a “script is using iTunes” warning when quitting iTunes.
      3. Yamipod software for Windows, Mac or Linux (iTunes replacement)
        • Pro: You can copy it directly on you iPod so that you’ll always have it with you. Can be used to copy songs back to PC.
        • Con: You have to run Yamipod *before* running iTunes or any other manager in order for sync to work. The forums usually have many support threads about getting Yamipod to work with last.fm. Have to manually click the send button.
      4. Amarok software for Linux/Unix (iTunes replacement)
        • Pro: Also supports more devices than just the iPod (iRiver, Zen, others)
        • Con: No Mac/Windows support, so I didn’t try it
      5. Uber geek: script for bridging your iPod to last.fm
        • Con: Looks like it is the least supported of all of these methods.

      As you can see, there are too many choices. If you have your iPod set up to automatically sync to iTunes, then use the official last.fm client. I’ve settled on using iSproggler since I find it’s more reliable than YamiPod.

      Updating your Facebook playlist in 3 Easy Steps

      The one time setup steps are

      1. setting up your Last.FM account,
      2. installing LastFM Plus on your Facebook profile and
      3. installing iSproggler on your computer (and configuring it with your Last.FM user account)

      After that the sync process is

      1. Open iTunes
        • Open iSproggler (if not configured to open automatically with iTunes)
      2. Connect your iPod
      3. Click on the Update iPod button in iSproggler
      4. That’s it

      This works great, and the playlist charts Last.FM Plus generates are above and beyond anything else I’ve seen in other Facebook music apps. I’ve been using it reliably for over a month now, and I highly recommend this technique to anyone with a Facebook account and an iPod.

      Internet Duct Tape is a blog about clever hacks and Internet mashups. You can subscribe to updates using an RSS reader or by email.

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