June 2004 - Posts
Many have been blogging about the “release” of VS 2005 and the “free” Express line of developer tools.
However, there have been a couple of minor inaccuracies in some of the blog posts that should be corrected.
1) Some had written that VS 2005 beta 1 was released when it in fact had not. At the time of this writing, only an announcement of its availability has been made. Availability is soon.
2) Visual Web developer 2005 is not free. Its beta is, but the release version will cost in the “tens of dollars” range.
ClickZ has just published an article about Nike's new blog microsite on the Gawker blog in an effort to target a younger audience. The article also offers some statistics on blog readers.
According to the article:
“Web ad network Blogads recently surveyed over 17,000 blog readers on various social and financial indicators, online spending habits, and their involvement with Web logs. The study shows nearly 40 percent have an annual household income over $90,000, and 30 percent are 31-41 years old (only 10.3 percent are 19-24 years old).
When asked about their interaction with blogs, over 66 percent of blog readers say they've clicked on an advertisement that appeared within a blog. More than 39 percent donated money, and over 22 percent purchased a product or service after that click.
In addition, about 78 percent of readers say blogs give them a better perspective than other news and information source. Sixty-one percent say they believe blogs are more honest.”
Draw your own conclusions.
More and more bloggers are discovering that coming up with topics to write about on a consistent basis is as easy as learning a new technology without having anything to apply it to. They may resort to apologizing for not blogging or using the 'having nothing to write about' cliche as a topic itself (which may be as cheesy as a blog entry about how to choose a topic to write about).
On the same note, the first obstacle many would-be book and article authors face is finding a topic to write about (although we know that many writers can spew words for pages without saying really anything at all. We're above that though).
So, if you're one of these potential tech authors looking to break through that first obstacle, here are some ways to begin finding that elusive topic.
1) The best ideas draw upon experience. Use an application or system you have developed as a basis for an idea.
2) Take an existing application or technology and write an article on how to extend or improve it or build upon it.
3) Check the blogs and discussion lists to see what developers and/or customers are having trouble with or what seems to be a popular topic. What angle hasn't been covered yet? Are they missing the point about a particular technology? Does something seem confusing that needs clarification?
4) What have you read lately? Has a book or article (or anything) changed the way you approach or solve a computing problem? Talk about it with your real-world example. Can you present a better solution or approach than the book or article offers?
5) Take two completely different gadgets, systems, etc. and try connecting them (to create something useful).
6) The old standby. Take that hunch or premise burning in your head and try proving it.
These are just a few ideas off the top of my head. If writers out there have other methods for finding article topics, do share.
As an editor, I perform research locally and globally throughout the day and find many obstacles to the data I'm looking for. I thought I'd take some time to create a short list of those features a “semantic“ search engine should include:
1) Determine the word's part of speech (i.e. noun, verb, adjective, etc.) Oftentimes the same work can be used as a noun or verb (i.e. type, wind, singing, etc.)
2) Know the meaning of words that are spelled the exact same but mean two different things, even if they are the same part of speech (i.e. pool, mole, pry, yard)
3) Determine if the noun is the subject or object of the query
4) Not penalize the searcher for misspelled words. Based on the query, the search engine, for example, should know if I meant “aisle” instead of “isle” or “know“ instead of “no“.
5) Perform research - the other day (not at work) I wanted to know the number of Democrats versus the number of Republicans in U.S. Congress who have served in the U.S Military. I could not find this info already compiled. All I could find were each member's biography, which included military service and party affiliation. It'd be nice if a search feature could compile this info for me or at least organize the data so all I'd have to do is count. Basically, I'd like to create relationships through my search engine based on my queries, either locally or globally or both! Maybe I'd have political-party affiliation in a document on my local computer, but military service resided in various other places on the Web. The search engine could relate and organize data from everywhere into one result.
I know google does some stuff with misspellings, etc. but hopefully the others features (especially number 5) are not too far off.
If others would like to add to the Search Engine Wish List, either add to comments or post to your own blog and place link in comments.
Thanks!
One of the most common mistakes I find in articles is the consistent misuse of the word “then”. Many times I see it used instead of “than”.
1To be clear, “than” is used in a comparative expression to indicate inequality, such as “Some say VB .NET is easier to learn than C#”. It is also used to express difference in kind, manner, or identity, such as “I'd rather be home than at work.”
1M-w.com
For all the uses of “then”, read the definition at m-w.com or in your favorite dictionary.
Seems the story about Dave Winer pulling the 3000 blogs made the news box on Yahoo's front page. Here's the link to the story and the all the lovely comments associated with it.
Enjoy
I think commercial sites that want to consume commercial RSS feeds need to be aware of a company's “terms of use” policy. For instance if I'm a software vendor or run a commercial content site and I want to add some quick C# content, I can't just plug the C# Team's RSS blog feed into my site.
In theory, at least, I am still bound to Microsoft's TOS policy, which says:
PERSONAL AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE LIMITATION.
Unless otherwise specified, the Services are for your personal and non-commercial use. You may not modify, copy, distribute, transmit, display, perform, reproduce, publish, license, create derivative works from, transfer, or sell any information, software, products or services obtained from the Services.
Before consuming an RSS feed on a commercial site it is probably a good idea to get the permission of the content's owner. Otherwise, you may be guilty of copyright violations.
Ed Brill writes in his E-mail vs. RSS blog entry, which is referred to in Scoble's blog:
“RSS is succeeding now because of trust. I add feeds to my reader from sites I'm interested in, or in some cases need to do my job effectively. What happens the day the humans on the other end of that feed change the rules? I don't think it has happened yet, but when eWeek or Network World or a blogger decide that RSS would be a great push medium for advertising, the game is over.”
I guess what bothers me is the first sentence about “trust” and third sentence about “rules“. Would serving ads through RSS really violate the users trust? Is there really a rule that says ads can't be served through RSS feeds?
BTW, I have no intentions of serving ads to the 15Seconds feeds. :)
What should authors do if they find their article somewhere other than in the publication it was originally intended for?
Simple. They should contact the publication the article was originally intended for and let them know about it.
While it may be content theft, it may also be part of a content license deal or simply be that both publications are owned by the same parent company. Conversely, depending on the terms of the writers agreement, the publication should first contact the author if it sees its article in another publication. The author could have given permission to the other publication to reprint the article.
Also depending on the contract, the parent company could be in violation if the agreement terms do not explicitly state that articles can be redistributed to its other properties.
In any case, authors definitely should not ignore notifying a publication if they discover their article elsewhere. They should also contact the original publication if they are queried by another company about republishing their articles.
Yesterday I read e-week's Scot Peterson's opinion piece titled Another Blog on the Fire. In it he stated, “If left to market forces, most blogs will live or die on their own. But get used to an era in which information becomes so ubiquitous it becomes almost useless.”
This got me thinking about ways in which the “traditional” media can provide exposure and add credibility and distinction to deserving blogs in the development community.
Therefore, 15Seconds is going to offer readers a Blog of the Week. The Blog of the Week will be displayed on 15Seconds.com, mentioned in the 15Seconds newsletter, and posted to this blog. Blogs for this honor are nominated by you and selected by us.
Potential Blogs of the Week should be updated relatively frequently with sound and credible development advice and honest opinions and feelings about developer-related issues and subjects.
Submit your nominations at http://aspnet.15seconds.com/blogs/bow.aspx, but feel free to ask questions and provide input in the comment section of this blog entry.
Thanks!
-Steve
More Posts