Anonymous tagging by Feedster

Frederick Giasson

A week ago, Feedster started an Anonymous tagging prototype system. With this system, your readers will be able to tag each of your blog’s entries. The idea is good and the principle seems to work. However, will this feature add something to all the blog readers’ experience? This is the true question to ask when you evaluate these tagging systems. Are they adding something to the experience of my readers/users? Or is the system just incorporating the system to follow the hype?

Are these tags, these keywords, really worth it? If yes, are they applicable to all classification systems?

Some tagging systems seem to work, and other does not. For example, I only use Del.icio.us to show interesting links to my readers. I do not really check what is bookmarked by other Del.icio.us users. There are just too many entries. The system is not convivial to search interesting stuff. I already subscribed to some tag’s feed and I always got the same stuff and lost my time to check at them. Now the only thing I do is to put other bloggers’ Del.icio.us account into my inbox. Then I subscribe to my inbox’s feed and get all the interesting stuff they bookmarked. The Technorati tagging system is also interesting, but limited. He suffers from the same problem: there are just too many things being tagged.

So… I’m questioning myself with this new “hype”. Meta-tags keywords failed… will Tags too? I do not know. I think that the concept is good for some application, but I doubt that they are useful for all things that have to be classified.

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Tips and tricks on how to be a more productive blogger – My addition to the list of Keith

Frederick Giasson

Some blogs have thousands of hits each day and others less than ten. Many factors could explain this fact. However, one of the most influent is probably the publication frequency. These blogs generally have a high and stable publication frequency.

You can’t attain this productivity by being sloppy and unorganized. Fortunately, there are tips and tricks that could be used to help you to be a more productive blogger. Keith, the blogger being To-Done, released a list of the tricks he used to make To-Done the popular blog he became. In his post “Be a More Productive Blogger“, he explicit 11 tips and tricks he use everyday to write his blog. It’s one of the best post I read on the subject since a while; it worth the reading.

Bellow I explicit and comment some of the points I found particularly important and that I already talked about.

  • Idea journal. Keith uses an idea journal to keep track of his everyday ideas. It’s probably one of the best tricks he could use. Personally I use my pocket Moleskine diary as my ideas journal. I can easily slip it into a pocket, and I have enough pages to get track of a wide range of ideas, all at the same place.
  • Read. Another of his trick is to read to find new ideas. I realized that reading was one of my primary sources of idea when I got sick in April. I hadn’t the mindset to read and I realized that I didn’t have any idea of writings to publish on my blog.
  • Titles. The titles of your posts are not only essential to bring the attention of your readers. It’s also useful to help you has a starting idea, a way to always have in mind the main subject of your posts.
  • Communicate with other bloggers. He also explained the importance of getting connected with and motivates to discuss with other bloggers. It’s essential for the good health of your blog, and also to find new ideas. It’s while conversing on other blogs, on others subjects that you do not write about normally, that you will have new ideas. It’s around these new ideas that your blog will evolve and grow. Personally I use a comments blog to get trace of these discussions. It’s is a place where I put all the discussions I had with other bloggers. Sometimes I skim it to find new ideas.
  • Grammar. One of his points is: “Don’t get too hung up on grammar”. I hope his explanation is right; otherwise I would not have any readers. However, I always have to have in mind the first goal of this blog: to learn English.
  • Evolve. The hardest thing to do is probably to keep the blog evolving. The content of the blog needs to evolve with the blogger. The subjects need to change. The reader need to see the blogger evolving in his writing. It’s hard to do. Fortunately, all the tips and trick of Keith will help you to evolve as a blogger. There are many good blogs that I stopped to read because I was losing my time. They were always saying all the same things in other words. Keep evolving; this is the key to success.

Which of these tricks do you use? How are you using them? Are you using other tricks? I would like to know them, share them here.

Technorati Tags: [blogging] [blogs] [gtd] [organization]

How I use my iPod and other tips and tricks I found

Frederick Giasson

A week ago I wrote about why I think that the iPod mini is probably one of the best travel companions anyone could find. However, I learned many things since then, I found software to exploit it at his full potential and I fully integrated it in my laptop.

How I use my iPod?

Basically, the iPod is a simple MP3 player. However, the fact that he has a big screen and text display capacity, make him more like a lite version PDA than a MP3 player.

When I bought it, I never know that I was able to synchronize my Outlooks calendar, tasks, notes, contacts and mails. That I was able to sync some of my favorite web feeds or that I was able to upload the latest weather forecast. I didn’t have in mind to sync backup folders and use it as a storage support.

However, time as changed and now, in a single click, I sync all these information in my iPod mini. I found two really cool synchronization software that do it. The first one is the iPodAgent. This is reliable software that that will get all your Outlook information files, converts them into text files, and syncs them to your iPod. The other one is the iPodSync. He has almost all the same features as the iPodAgent, except for some advanced features like having the possibility to sync your PodCast files. However, I tested and used both; they are all reliable and I never had problems with any of them.

Now when I wakeup the morning, I sync all my files with my iPod. Even if I’m going out of the house without my laptop, I only have to bring my little iPod and I’ll can read my web feeds, my emails and my tasks while listening at my favorite music and this, for 18 hours in a row. Is that not beautiful? Yeah it is for 249$ bunks.

I was a big fan of having my task and appointments shown on the desktop of my laptop. I was using ADC to do the task. However, with my new system, I needed to use all the features of Outlook and didn’t want to fill my tasks and appointments in both ADC and Outlook. So I searched for a program that will put my Outlook stuff on my desktop. I found DeskLook also developed by XemiComputers. Everything was so perfect, the loop was closed and working like a charm. My iPod mini was fully integrated with my laptop computer.

Other tips and tricks for the iPod

Altitude warning. It seems that the iPod will not be your best friend over 10000 feet. So, if you are going into the Himalaya, do not open it, otherwise the hard drive of your iPod would broke and make it a shiny peace of junk.

Use Winamp to sync your music with your iPod. Personally I don’t like iTunes. It’s huge and unstable. So, I found the perfect tool to resolve my problem: ml_iPod. It’s a Winamp plug-in that seems to work like a charm for most users. Personally I had some bugs with my laptop setup. However, the project seems really promising and as soon as they will arrange the bugs I’ll use instead iTunes.

50 fun things to do with your iPod. So, you don’t have enough? You need more examples of what you can do with your iPod? Take a look at this list of 44 fun things to do with your iPod compiled by Kootke.

If you have tips or tricks that you would like to see in this list, leave a comment, I’ll add it immediately.

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Come back on the Bloglines’ security flaw with secure feeds

Frederick Giasson

Give to Cesar what belong to Cesar. Bloglines has reviewed the previous security flaw I found in their system in interaction with secure web feeds and fixed it.

I was reviewing the posts that bloggers make on the subject and read all the comments on them. It leads me to check if the problem I found on Bloglines was always there. They fixed it.

How have they fixed it? No they did not delete the HTTPS and HTTP Authentication handling feature of Bloglines. They simply make the URL feeds with HTTP Authentication private.



We can’t change the status of such feeds; the system does not give us the possibility anymore. They are private and will remain private. It’s good news. As far as I know, there are no other problems with this feature in Bloglines.

I would like to thank the Bloglines team for their positive answer to my security flaw discovery and for their fast service fix.

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Why do I read science fiction books? – The beginning of my literacy life

Frederick Giasson

As I said, I’ll gradually put texts in my bookshelf section that will tell you why I read these books. The first book I read by my own was a science fiction one called: “Les Thanatonotes”. Soon after, I read all Isaac Asimov’s books. I never read in my childhood, I was too busy to build shacks and towers in the wood. I needed to work in a book store to open myself to books. Since then, I can’t see my life without reading.

I need to thank science fiction books. They opened me to the world of literacy and helped me to see benefits in reading. When I started to read the Fondation chronicle of Asimov, I was so entertained by the story that I go through the 5 books in some weeks. I soon discover that science fiction books are far more than entertaining stories. The authors have the possibility to explore the science world with another eye. They can make their scientific fantasies a reality. They can explore the impact of such fantasies on the human society.

By example, if I remember right, Arthur C. Clark has “invented” the geostationary satellite before scientists think about building and sending them into space. Or Isaac Asimov created and popularized the word and concept “robot”. It was a contractor fascinated by his “robot” concept that built the first industrial robot for one of his factory. This is just some examples of what science fiction trend could bring to the readers and the society. It can be seem as an experimentation laboratory.

Personally I’m reading science fiction books in a quest for new ideas; to see things differently. Sometimes, when I’m reading a science fiction book, some ideas come up in my mind. Then I muse on them and see if I can do something with them. They could be, or not, in relation with what I’m reading. But the fact is there, and my goal was reached, they were trigged by my reading.

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