Tech-Blog: Category blogs

Google Reader

Mike — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 12:30:00 -0500

Google Reader is my RSS reader of choice. It's great for speed reading through a long list of articles, and Google did a nice job of integrating shortcut keys.

Check out my shared items, also available as an RSS feed for your Google desktop, or RSS reader. (see also my lastest shared items on the right)

Aside: you can search the blogs I subscribe to via Google Co-Op. (thanks to Google Operating System for this one)

A summary of my reading habits, courtesy of greader trends...

Favourite blogs

Mike — Fri, 05 May 2006 18:01:00 -0400

Some of my early blog posts from 2005, included highlights from my bloglines account. (I've since replaced bloglines with Netvibes.com and Rojo.) It's been a long time since I've plugged other blogs, so here is a list of a few that garner my attention on a regular basis.

Tim Bray: I think Tim Bray's Ongoing was the first blog that I read on a regular basis. His subjects are topical, often relating to XML and other web standards, Sun, and Vancouver.
BoingBoing: As they say, a directory of wonderful things. The volume is high, so this blog fits well in Netvibes where headlines can be scanned at a glance.
TechCrunch: On average a few posts per day, TechCrunch is a source of Web2.0 news. Much of the valley appears to use this blog to advertise beta products.
Mark Cuban: Mark is a person of considerable wealth. He writes about web-based businesses, his Dallas Mavericks, and the stock market.
Jonathan Schwartz: Now CEO, Jonathan provided a candid view of Sun as president.
Guy Kawasaki: Guy's writing makes me feel like the slacker in the back of class, being lectured by a teacher nobody likes. Lookout, much of Guy's blog will be on the final exam.
Tara Hunt: You may be turned off by the marketing mumbo-jumbo, but she works for an uber-cool startup.

On tools suitable for a job search

Mike — Wed, 03 May 2006 02:58:00 -0400

I am not the first one (see MyJobTips among others) to assert that the online tools available to job seekers are lacking. Herewith some thoughts on what a mashup service for seekers might look like.

A common job seeker workflow might go something like:

wake-up, make coffee
check e-mail, possibly reading automated messages from job boards
cruise job boards, bookmarking jobs of interest
pick one or two or more gems from that day's crop of new job postings and research job and company
compose and send one or two resumes
later, follow up on sent resumes, possibly scheduling interviews, and eventually accepting an offer

It won't be long before one of the major job boards (or Google) implements something that services such a workflow. But for now, a simple mashup might do the trick

Much of what a job seeker needs is already there. Social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us provide an easy way to post, organize, and share bookmarks. Blogs provide an easy way to author, store, and publish research and notes. Online calenders are extremely common, useful for scheduling interviews. Web-based to-do lists, useful for recording follow-ups, are also freely available, most providing electronic reminders.

A mapping service like Google Maps might also play a role. And then there are the online word processors like Writely that could be used to author resumes. Does Google Base play a role?

A first version of "the app" might just be a static javascript page that sends HTTP requests to each of the secondary services. Eventually the app should be smart enough to extract info from a job posting such as job location, posting date, relevant keywords, suggested follow-up tasks, blog post templates.

I suspect that this app would not cross the line between feature and service, i.e. the job seeker's needs are more likely to be satisfied by existing providers than by the app. Would seekers pay to use the mash up? Maybe, but as soon as they did, someone is going to give it away for free.

My tools

Mike — Mon, 01 May 2006 15:51:00 -0400

I'm trying to get back into the habit of writing by documenting my favourite online tools. Goes without saying that they are all best viewed with Firefox.

Gmail

A decent, free, web mail product without a practical usage limit. Gmail's search facility (delete nothing, no folders) has changed the way I use email -- no more archiving or offline storage.

The Inbox/All_Mail split is natural after a while. I try to keep the number of messages in my Inbox to a minimum; say one to two weeks of content in the first page. Star'd messages and tags are thus far not much use.

del.icio.us

Social bookmarking provides value (see oishii below), but del.icio.us provides a bookmarklet and Firefox plugin that makes bookmarking a snap. The daily blog posting service that sends my bookmarks to this blog is spiffy.

Netvibes.com

Dynamic home page supporting RSS/Atom feeds, to-do lists, weather, bookmarks, and other aggregated content. I use is almost exclusively to track syndicated content that changes frequently.

The UI is well thought out. Content can be categorized on any number of tabs, and arranged within each tab via drag and drop. Content is presented within an embedded reader.

Rojo

My industrial strength blog/feed reader. Not much GUI candy here, Rojo is suitable for blitzing through a large number of posts because a paragraph or two of each article is presented in the Rojo interfrace. Feeds are categorized by tag.

remember the milk

A recent addition to my tool box, remember the milk is a web 2.0 to-do list manager. Each list entry is categorized as personal, work, or study, can be tagged with arbitrary keywords, has a due date and associated effort. Lists can be syndicated via Atom, or iCal; reminders are sent via SMS, IM, or email. Tasks can also be added via email (no API yet).

The on-the-fly smart lists (say, all tasks tagged 'house') achieve high coolness marks.

Yahoo Calendar

Through no fault of Yahoo, their calendar service caused me a bit of trouble a while back, but it is still a decent product. Recurring events are easy to add, and the display is easy on the eyes. Yahoo has not updated this service in a long while, and I'm tempted to switch to google calendar if/when I can transfer my Yahoo events.

Digg, reddit, Oishii

Mental candy that I check a few times a day to keep tabs on what is percolating on the net. Once in a while I find a gem.

iPod video

Mike — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 11:04:00 -0400

The worst kept secret is now public.

Will the video iPod move mainstream video off of cable? Maybe not. But it may be the trigger for mainstream video blogs and pod casts, downloadable TV shows, live video. Something big is going to happen. It will also be interesting to see if/how Sony reacts with their PSP.

There may be an opportunity for a bloglines-like app for notification of new video content -- an RSS based TV guide. Or maybe a Flickr for home video?

Back to work

Mike — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 15:11:00 -0400

After a lengthy hiatus, my tech blog is back online. You'll notice that I've switched from pyBloxsom to Typo, which represents an upgrade in the feature set, especially reader comments and Atom RSS.

BlogPulse.com

mop — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 12:29:00 -0400

BlogPulse.com attempts to measure the ’pulse’ of the blogosphere by searching for popular subjects, phrases, and trends.

They provide an interesting way to measure the relative buzz associated with a given subject. See this example chart of the buzz surrounding three In-Touch topics-of-interest.

I expect they will have some success selling marketing data to private companies. Their service appears to be 100% free at this point.

Sifry on the long tail

mop — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 21:10:00 -0400

David Sifry, founder and CEO of Technorati, authored a three-part "State of the Blogosphere" article that makes for an interesting read. 1, 2, 3. (Technorati is a search engine++ for blogs.)

Some interesting tid-bits: the blogosphere, as measured by Technorati, is doubling in size every five months, a new weblog is created every two seconds or so, and six new weblog entries are tracked by Technorati each second. In part three of the article, Sifry also gives evidence for the importance of the Long Tail of the blogosphere.

Aside: from Wikipedia’s Long Tail entry:

A former Amazon employee described the Long Tail as follows: "We sold more books today that didn’t sell at all yesterday than we sold today of all the books that did sell yesterday."

Wood on Blogs and Wikis

mop — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 19:50:00 -0500

An article on blogs and wikis by Lauren Wood via Sean McGrath.

Web quickies

mop — Mon, 01 Nov 2004 18:22:00 -0500

Some tidbits from my Bloglines RSS subscriptions.

Lint4J

"Lint4j ("Lint for Java") is a static Java source code analyzer that detects locking and threading issues, performance and scalability problems, and checks complex contracts such as Java serialization by performing type, data flow, and lock graph analysis."