Category: Technology

I work in technology sector. And I do round a clock, not only from 9 to 5. It is my bread and butter, it is my hobby, it is the fascination of my life. And with the current rate of change particular in information technology (IT), there is always something new to learn, to try, to talk about. I often post news, thoughts, and reviews. And when I do, this is the category I use.

It’s not only about the source

Mashable reports that source code for Movable Type is finally open sourced.  Movable Type is a blogging platform competing with WordPress, LiveJournal, and others.

These are, of course, good news for open source community.  The more open source software we have, the better.  And Movable Type is a somewhat high profile piece of software.  It used to be more popular a little while ago, and then many of its fans moved to WordPress and other alternatives.

One thing I wanted to note together with these news, is that it’s not only about open source.  Just putting up the code out there for the general public to grab and modify it is not enough.  It’s about the community too.  Someone has to lead, support, and inspire people to try, test, develop, document, and praise.  Someone has to listen and react.  This last part is one of the most difficult tasks in open source development.  And there are plenty examples to prove it (just look at most of the stuff at Freshmeat.net or SourceForge.net).

WordPress guys are terrific at driving their community.  With Six Apart manage to compete with that?  We’ll see…

Blogging with Google Docs

If, for some reason, you don’t like the editor of your blogging tool (WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal, etc), you have a few options to consider.  Those of you hosing your own blogs, can always try a plugin or two.  WordPress, for example, has a number of plugins which either add pieces of functionality or completely replace the default editor.  Alternatively, you can try an external editor.  That is, you can use a piece of software which is not a part of your blogging platform, for writing posts.  There are Firefox plugins (ScribeFire, Xinha Here!), standalone applications (w.bloggar, Windows Live Writer, and more, and more), and web services (Performancing.com) that do this.

Today I was reminded, that one can even use Google Docs for this purpose.  Create a new document or spreadsheet, edit it all you want and then publish it straight into your blog.  That’s how easy it is.  (You’ll need to configure a few simple settings the first time you do so though).  If it sounds interesting, check this post at Blogopreneur.com fordetailed instructions.  If it sounds interesting, but you are not sure if your blogging platform is supported, check out this list of supported platforms.

Me? I am happy with WordPress built-in editor.

So, it is possible …

Earlier this year, when I was a start-up co-owner, I was trying all sorts of different ideas on how to keep web oriented technology company alive.  One of the ideas along the way was cheap and fast web design, using well-established platform (yes, you guessed it right, WordPress).  This one was among my favorites …

Eventually, the start-up didn’t survive.  And I am not much sad about it.  It was a fair try and I learned a lot from the experience.  But that idea … I liked it so much that it was painful to see it die.

Today, I learned that the idea actually works.  And not only it just works, but it’s a base of a successful business.  These are some good news for me – failing to implement a good idea properly sounds less silly to me than trying to implement a broken idea.

Blogging Pro runs an interview with Chris Garrett, owner of The 449.

Blogs in Plain English

Common Craft created yet another amazing 3-minute video.  This time they explain what a blog is, in plain English.  This is really useful for those of us who bring new people to the blogosphere.  After being around for a few years, it’s sometimes hard to express things in simple words, avoiding most of the terminology, and staying on the subject.  With this video, there is much less talking needed.

If you liked this one, check their Explanations in Plain English category for more videos.

What social people do …

In yet another Twitter review (and a nice one at that), I caught this quote (emphasis is mine):

If you are a twitterer, you can follow my infrequent tweets under my screen name of tevslin. My last tweet is from 3:45AM this morning complaining that I was up for an early flight. Don’t know why you want to know this; don’t know why I wrote it; but that’s what social people do.

Excellent!