Google Chrome has been public for all of about 30 minutes now. I am very impressed with how fast it downloads and installs, with almost no need for user prompts (except to close your web browser so it can import bookmarks/passwords). It’s fast as fast can be.

I can’t get over how fast it is. If you type “about:memory” into the address/search bar you’ll see a memory comparison between Chrome and any other web browsers you’re currently running. It uses so much less memory than Firefox.

Lifehacker has a good round-up of what’s “new” in Chrome, as well as ways to tweak Firefox to get the same features. But I can’t switch to Chrome because of my dependency on multiple profiles and my Firefox extensions.

Profiles?

Multiple profiles let me log into Gmail with different user accounts at the same time, and keep my browsing history and bookmarks separate from my girlfriend who shares the computer with me.

Heck, I keep my blogging related bookmarks separated from my Joe Public bookmarks for my day-to-day email, Facebook, and job related stuff so I can be more productive.

Plugins?

• I can’t log into my accounts without Password Hasher. Not only do I not use the same password for every account, I don’t even KNOW my password for most accounts.
• I don’t want to surf the web without Ad-block.
• I’ve written so many custom Greasemonkey scripts that are unavailable on Chrome.
• I don’t want to even think about doing any kind of web stuff without Firebug at my beck and call.
• I’m missing my Delicious tag button for bookmarking.

RSS?

There doesn’t seem to be any RSS auto-discovery in Chrome. I hate how painful it is to subscribe to feeds in Google Reader using Internet Explorer, it looks like it’ll be even worse in Chrome.

Chrome looks very cool, but I think anyone who has been reading Lifehacker for the past few years is going to find they’re missing too much of what is “essential” to them. It’s really too bad, because I’d love to run some Greasemonkey scripts inside of Chrome with it’s better memory debugging. I’m hoping that one of the big brained Googlers figures out a way to transparently run Greasemonkey userscripts so we don’t have the same Firefox vs Opera vs Internet Explorer vs Safari development sinkhole.

On the other hand, Chrome might be the best thing ever for people who use Internet Explorer and aren’t co-dependent on all of Firefox’s wonderful extensions.

This is my weekly collection of the best stuff I saw on the Internet. You can follow this list of links as I post them on Friend Feed or on Twitter. Or you can get the weekly update by subscribing to Internet Duct Tape using RSS or using email.

• ,
• [BLOGGING] Zemanta – First Impress Review, problogger.net
  • Blogging software plugin that automatically suggests links and videos.
• [CODE] Why hackers FLOSS, blog.milkingthegnu.org
  • Thoughts on motivating IT workers based on why people contribute open source code.
• [CSS] Timelapse CSS, matthewbuchanan.name
  • Javascript for playing CSS rendering in slow motion.
• [FRIENDFEED] Blame FriendFeed, techcrunch.com
  • Not sure what to make of this. Vaguely entertaining.
• [FRIENDFEED] How To Find FriendFeed Rooms With Google, andybeard.eu
  • Google query to search for public rooms
• [FRIENDFEED] Keep Your Eyes On FriendFeed: It May Be The Google Of Social Networks, webomatica.com
  • Why Jason things Friend Feed is one of the social apps to watch for 2008
• [GOOGLE] goosh.org – the unofficial google shell., goosh.org, via:news.ycombinator.com
  • unix-like shell for google search in the web browser
• [JAVASCRIPT] Announcing AJAX Libraries API: Speed up your Ajax apps with Google’s infrastructure, ajaxian.com
  • This is pretty huge for webdevs. You can let Google handle your jquery, prototype, etc libraries.
• [JAVASCRIPT] Vote! How to Detect the Social Sites Your Visitors Use, azarask.in, via:news.ycombinator.com
  • Uses the same CSS hack I use for one of my Greasemonkey scripts to intelligently sense which social sites a visitor uses.
• [LIFEHACKS] An Engineer’s Guide To Weight Loss, teddziuba.com
  • The simple and to the point guide to not being a fat ass engineer.
• [LIFEHACKS] How to Recycle Electronics and Get Cash Back, friedbeef.com
  • I might have to try this out as I downsize my garage
• [SLEEPHACKS] Easy way to reset your sleep cycle: Stop eating, parentingsquad.com, via:news.ycombinator.com
  • Temporarily adjusting your diet can be a quick way to ensure when you’ll wake up.
• [WEB2.0] Scaling Fast, lukasbiewald.com
  • Scaling your web app when you’re linked to by the most trafficked page on the internet.
• [WEB2.0] StikiPad – When software in the cloud goes sour, mentalized.net, via:news.ycombinator.com
  • Good reminder — only use web apps that let you backup your data
• [YOUTUBE] YouTomb, youtomb.mit.edu, via:news.ycombinator.com
  • Track YouTube in real time videos as they are removed for copyright infringement.

Tags: friendfeed, google, javascript, lifehacks, web2.0

This is my weekly collection of the best stuff I saw on the Internet. You can follow this list of links as I post them on Friend Feed or on Twitter. Or you can get the weekly update by subscribing to Internet Duct Tape using RSS or using email.

• [BLOGGING] 6 Ways That Bloggers are Like Rappers, copyblogger.com
  • Are you down with the B.L.O.G.? Yeah, you know me!
  • (blogging, 31 saves, 29 inbound links, 7 diggs)
• [BLOGGING] How to Target the Right Social Media Sites, problogger.net
  • Howto guide for bloggers on using sites like Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon to generate traffic.
  • (socialmedia, blogging, 44 saves, 7 inbound links, 15 diggs)
• [BLOGGING] the thorny issue of blog comment ownership, nbrightside.com
  • Who owns a comment?
  • (blogging, comments)
• [CODE] Google REST Search API, blogoscoped.com
  • This could be useful for web apps.
  • (google, rest, 19 saves, 7 inbound links)
• [CODE] We need a Wikipedia for data, bret.appspot.com
  • Where is the open source database for map info, whitepages, movie times, music info, etc.
  • (data, opensource, innovation, 222 saves, 79 inbound links)
• [FIREFOX] Why downloading Firefox is like getting into college, sethgodin.typepad.com, via:avc.blogs.com
  • From the article: ” In the lingo of Nancy Reagan, Firefox is a gateway drug.”
  • (firefox, marketing, 71 saves, 62 inbound links, 20 diggs)
• [GEEK] My Cat Bubba Posts Videos and Twitters using an EeePC and Ubuntu, fsckin.com, via:webomatica.com
  • It’s a pretty static video of the cat eating, but nice hack.
  • (cats, 3 saves, 2 inbound links, 33 diggs)
• [LIFEHACKS] From 10000 to 0 Emails in an Inbox in 24 Hours, problogger.net
  • Switching to Gmail to become more productive with email.
  • (lifehacks, workhacks, gmail, email, 22 saves, 14 inbound links, 5 diggs)
• [LIFEHACKS] Just say NO to crap!, squawkfox.com, via:skelliewag.org
  • The ultimate decluttering tip is not to consume.
  • (lifehacks, declutter, 2 saves, 11 inbound links)
• [STARTUPS] We Need A New Path To Liquidity, avc.blogs.com
  • From the article: ” what happens when a company gets purchased: The service languishes. The team leaves. It stops getting better. And often gets worse.”
  • (web2.0, business, vc, 116 saves, 99 inbound links)
• [STARTUPS] What the New York Times “death by blogging” story got right., calacanis.com
  • From the article: ” In some ways I think I’ve realized that life is just a big video game and if one game doesn’t work out you put another quarter in and try again.”
  • (startup, entrepreneurship, blogging, 17 saves, 18 inbound links)
• [TWITTER] Improving Twitter, kungfugrippe.com
  • Merlin Mann’s ideas for how to improve twitter. He’s one of my favorite people to follow on Twitter
  • (twitter, 26 saves, 18 inbound links)
• [TWITTER] Twubble, crazybob.org
  • Twitter friend of a friend finder.
  • (twitter, tools, mashup, 513 saves, 100 inbound links, 6 diggs)
• [WEB2.0] AppEngine World: your one-stop resource for Google App Engine, appengineworld.com, via:marshallk.com
  • AppEngine news aggregator. I wish I had an AppEngine account :(
  • (appengine, google, 5 saves, 3 inbound links)
• [WEB2.0] Google App Engine, code.google.com
  • Google releases blogspot for web applications.
  • (google, python, hosting, 2148 saves, 100 inbound links, 26 diggs)
• [WEB2.0] Mulling On Google App Engine, al3x.net
  • Alex Payne (of Twitter)’s thoughts on the new appengine
  • (google, hosting, web2.0, 4 saves, 3 inbound links)
• [WORDPRESS] Coming Soon: My Personal WordPress Theme Starting Point, themeshaper.com
  • Ian is releasing his Sandbox-plus-plus theme with some stuff from BluePrint CSS. I’ve been waiting 9 months for this. :)
  • (wordpress, themes, 3 saves, 2 inbound links)
• [WORDPRESS] The Great WordPress Attack, psionmark.com
  • If you aren’t running WP 2.5, your site is probably hacked.
  • (wordpress, 5 saves, 6 inbound links, 5 diggs)
• [WORKHACKS] The Case Against Overtime, caffeinatedcoder.com
  • Compelling arguments as to why you shouldn’t work overtime as a programmer.
  • (career, balance, programming, 6 saves, 3 inbound links, 4 diggs)
• [WPDESIGN] Raising Personal Standard for Paid WordPress Themes, wpdesigner.com
  • What a WordPress theme should include.
  • (wordpress, themes, 6 saves, 10 inbound links)

This Week at IDT Labs

• Friend Feed Scripts: Unsubscribe, Who Are You and Better By Service

  It’s another week which means I have more Friend Feed scripts to share with you all.

• Speed Up Outlook Express

  I was investigation my dad’s computer trying to find out why it was so slow. There was the usual culprit of Norton Antivirus and Outlook Express. There’s nothing I can do about Norton, but he’s been using Outlook Express since 1998 and his mail folder is a whopping 5.8 GB. It’s time to perform my sonly duty and try to fix his slow computer, even though I haven’t used Outlook Express in the past ten years.I’ll walk you through how I do it…

• Delicious Links – 17 links – wordpress, webdesign, productivity, google, search

This Week at Internet Duct Tape

Internet Duct Tape is my blog where I talk about software, technology, blogging and other geeky subjects.

• [FRIENDFEED] Easy Unsubscribe v0.1Add an unsubscribe link to individual user pages.
• [FRIENDFEED] Who Are You? v0.1Show more information about who people are beside their profile picture.
• [FRIENDFEED] Even More Expander v0.3- Bug fix: had problems if there were several “more >>” links.
  - Bug fix: didn’t work well with pagerization

Tags: blogging, google, hosting, lifehacks, themes, twitter, web2.0, wordpress

One of the nicest things about the Internet is that if you sit on your ass for long enough, someone will code up whatever little side project you’re thinking about starting. In my case, I was interested in finding out general statistics about Friend Feed as a tape measure of how popular certain social bookmarking sites are. Enter Friend Feed Stats. Thank you, lazyweb.

What Is the Most Popular Web Service?

Ben has even broken up the stats by web service. Twitter leads the pack, account for 50% of the total items on Friend Feed. With the latest changes allowing you to merge the commenting interface with Twitter, I rapidly see Friend Feed as becoming my Twitter web client instead of the twitter.com site. All they have to do is give you a quick way to send tweets, and make the “reply on Twitter” option a default plus include the 140 character counter.

Trend #1: 90% of the Friend Feed participation comes from the top 8 services (Twitter, Blog, Google Reader, del.icio.us, Digg, Tumblr, YouTube, StumbleUpon). 46% of that comes from Twitter. It’s not surprising that Twitter leads the pack, because the nature of the service makes it easy to update many times a day.

The bottom 12 services (not include the ones added this week) can’t even manage to scrape 1% of the total between them (Pandora, Ma.gnolia, Upcoming, Picasa, iLike, Google Shared, LinkedIn, Vimeo, Furl, Yelp, Zooomr, SmugMug).

The blog number might be inflated because people could be using it as “generic RSS”. I was a little shocked to see that Google Reader shares were more popular that Delicious bookmarks, but it is easier to share on Google Reader than del.icio.us.

Tumblr is doing surprisingly well as a blogging platform.

In the instant messenger space, Twitter kills all. I hope Google got whatever mobile phone smarts they needed for Android from Jaiku because Twitter would have been such a better buy.

In the social voting space, Digg is the winner, with StumbleUpon giving a good showing. Reddit is pretty weak.

In the social bookmarking space, Delicious and Google Reader are king. Together they account for 17x the participation of Ma.gnolia, Google Shared Stuff (the Google equiv to delicious that NO ONE uses), and Furl.

In the social music space, Last.FM is kicking ass.

In social video, YouTube all the way.

In social photos, Flickr wins big, with Picasa showing a small but not insignificant number.

Trend #2: the top web service in every category is the first notable major player in that space. The copycats are barely blips on the radar. Of course, the Friend Feed audience is almost entirely early adopters who read blogs, so it isn’t surprising that they’d be early adopters for other services as well.

But it shows that you can’t ignore the Network Effect. People will use the service that the people they want to network with use. Once an incumbent has a critical market share, it is very hard to oust them.

Trend #3: the social bookmarking space is dead, dead, dead. Delicious has always held the lions share of the space, but Google managed to come in sideways and leverage their RSS reader to become as popular as Delicious. Everyone else is burning VC money.

Google vs Yahoo vs Microsoft?

This is a trick question, because Microsoft doesn’t have any web services supported by Friend Feed :)

• Google: Google Reader, YouTube, Jaiku, GTalk, Picasa, Google Shared Stuff
• Yahoo: Delicious, Flickr, Upcoming

Google and Yahoo are very competitive with each other, but neither hold a candle to Twitter. Is the huge intersection between the Twitter user base and Friend Feed skewing the stats? I think so.

Trend #4: Friend Feed needs to nurture its Twitter audience without becoming Twitter. With half the traffic on Friend Feed being Twitter messages, it would be easy for them to overwhelm the service and destroy the signal-to-noise ratio to the point where Friend Feed is a glorified Twitter client.

Exit Strategies?

Trend #5: there are some great web services out there that are still in startup mode – (Twitter, Digg, Tumblr, Friend Feed) but is their anyone other than Google/Microsoft to buy them? Yahoo has enough going on now that I don’t see them buying any other companies in the foreseeable future. If Google doesn’t have to compete with Yahoo on web apps, is there the same incentive for purchasing other companies?

Amazon has found a great niche in providing infrastructure for these web apps, but I don’t see them buying web apps and integrating them under the Amazon umbrella. EBay bought StumbleUpon and CBS bought Last.FM but are they really looking to expand their portfolios in this space?

I’ve said before that the average person can only handle up to six social web app sites, and I’m finding that Friend Feed makes it easier for me to consolidate that all to one site (bringing the number up to 10). But it’s still evident that a small number of sites have the majority of users, while people haven’t even heard of the rest of them. Monetization isn’t even an option for many sites because they’re providing wants, not needs.

Related Posts

• The Problem With Social Web Applications
• 9 Techniques to Promoting Your Social Web Application
• Greasemonkey Script: Filter FriendFeed by Service

This is my weekly collection of the best stuff I saw on the Internet. They’re saved on delicious and stumbleupon and cross-posted to Twitter and Tumblr as they happen and then collected together for my blog on Internet Duct Tape.

Subscribe to Internet Duct Tape using RSS or using email.

• [BLOGGING] The Benefits of Keeping a Private Journal, doshdosh.com
  • Brilliant tip and way to keep mindful of your goals.
  • (blogging, 7 saves, 20 inbound links)
• [BLOGGING] What’s it Like to Run a Popular Blog?, skelliewag.org
  • Skelliewag talks about her meteoric success and what’s different about having 3500 readers vs the 100 or so she had just a few short months ago.
  • (blogging, success, tips, 7 saves, 9 inbound links, 3 diggs)
• [BOOKS] Inside Google Book Search: Your library, my library, booksearch.blogspot.com
  • You can keep track of the books you’ve read with Google library, and limit your book searches to only the books you’ve already read.
  • (google, library, books, 2 saves, 13 inbound links)
• [CODE] Programmers At Work, programmersatwork.wordpress.com
  • New website about the 1980’s book.
  • (code, 26 saves, 11 inbound links)
• [COMICS] Rampant Plagiarism, mightygodking.com, via:io9.com
  • The rampant plagiarism of the comics industry is revealed!
  • (comics, photoshop, 12 saves, 22 inbound links)
• [FRIENDFEED] 10 Ways to Get More Out of Friendfeed, blogoscoped.com
  • Some quick tips for the new service that everyone’s blogging about.
  • (friendfeed, tips, socialnetworking, 35 saves, 19 inbound links, 2 diggs)
• [GMAIL] Gmail Tips and Tricks – 35 Cool Gmail Hacks, botw.org, via:doshdosh.com
  • Yes, we’ve seen a lot of them before. But a good collection.
  • (gmail, tips, lifehacks, 368 saves, 15 inbound links, 67 diggs)
• [GOOGLE] The Real Story: Why ComScore’s Google Clicks are Flat, seoblackhat.com
  • Google Adsense changes are why adclicks are down. Buy Google stock because the market is full of idiots.
  • (google, 11 saves, 26 inbound links, 3 diggs)
• [HUMOR] Mobile Desktop, improveverywhere.com, via:codinghorror.com
  • Improv Everywhere brings their desktop computers to Starbucks.
  • (humor, geek, 130 saves, 100 inbound links, 3059 diggs)
• [HUMOR] Stuff White People Like, stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com, via:gilesbowkett.blogspot.com
  • Recursion at its best. White people like Stuff White People Like.
  • (funny, humour, 2364 saves, 100 inbound links, 104 diggs)
• [LASTFM] Build Last.fm: Extend your Last.fm experience, build.last.fm, via:del.icio.us
  • Last.FM is promoting community created tools that use the service.
  • (last.fm, music, tools, mashup, 386 saves, 82 inbound links, 17 diggs)
• [LIFEHACKS] Your Brain Is In 10 Kinds of Trouble, secretgeek.net
  • No solutions, but a discussion of the information overload we’re all experiencing.
  • (productivity, overload, 12 saves, 10 inbound links)
• [MUSIC] The Filter Releases New Version of Music Recommendation Software, readwriteweb.com
  • Playlist generator from your iTunes library
  • (itunes, LastFM, music, mp3, 17 saves, 3 inbound links, 27 diggs)
• [SOCIALSOFTWARE] FriendFeed Changelog, changelog.friendfeed.com
  • wth? A web app that publishes its new features via it’s version control changelog.Brilliant.
  • (friendfeed, transparency, code, socialsoftware, 16 saves, 8 inbound links)
• [SOCIALSOFTWARE] This Psychologist Might Outsmart the Math Brains Competing for the Netflix Prize, wired.com, via:news.ycombinator.com
  • Interview with the guy who is building a better recommendation engine using psychology instead of math.
  • (psychology, algorithm, netflix, datamining, 71 saves, 35 inbound links, 7 diggs)
• [SOFTWARE] Rethinking Recommendation Engines, readwriteweb.com, via:news.ycombinator.com
  • Damn good point in this one. The human psychology behind recommendations is what makes recommendations fail. Instead of telling use what we like, just remove what we’re NOT going to like.
  • (recommendations, personalization, 135 saves, 35 inbound links, 6 diggs)
• [TWITTER] Nearly a million users, and no spam or trolls, russellbeattie.com, via:news.ycombinator.com
  • From the article: ” Twitter, however, has almost a million members, a thriving community, lots of discussions and yet doesn’t have spam or troll issues. If you step back for a second and think about it, that’s pretty amazing.”
  • (twitter, community, spam, 80 saves, 51 inbound links)
• [WORDPRESS] Installing WordPress Locally Under Windows XP, geeksaresexy.blogspot.com
  • I don’t know why I never did this before.
  • (wordpress, windows, 361 saves, 92 inbound links, 7 diggs)
• Powered by Delicious Links Pro

This Week at Internet Duct Tape

Internet Duct Tape is my blog where I talk about software, technology, blogging and other geeky subjects.

• How to Explain RSS to Normal People – 2008 Edition
  • As a geek who enjoys spending too much time on the internet, I like RSS almost as much as delicious toast. As a blogger, RSS is the shiznitz because it lets you consume a lot more information and it makes it easier for other people to read your blog without having to drop by every few days to see if…
• I Can Has Ruby?
  • I have a new tumblelog for ruby stuff.
• How to delete your Tumblr tumblelog with TumblrCleanr
  • There’s one feature missing on Tumblr: how do you delete your Tumblr? At some point you might want to destroy all traces of your tumblr (privacy concerns, or you want to use it for something else) and there isn’t an option to do that — other than click the delete button on every individual…
• Delicious Links – 13 links – programming, lifehacks, productivity, geek, games

This Week at IDT Labs

IDT Labs is where I announce new software tools I’m working on.

• [TUMBLR] Regular Post Digest of the Last X Days
  • Build a list of the last X regular posts from your Tumblr account in the past Y days. Useful for doing weekly digest posts with Yahoo Pipe Cleaner
• [TUMBLR] Delete your Tumblr with TumblrCleanr 0.0.1
  • There’s one Tumblr feature that’s missing: how do you delete your Tumblr? At some point you might want to destroy all traces of your tumblr (privacy concerns, or you want to use it for something else) and there isn’t an option to do that — other than click the delete button on every…

This Week at Ruby, eh?

Ruby, eh? is where I blog/tumble about the Ruby programming language.

• Rake RDocTask with all of the options stubbed out
  • http://pastie.caboo.se/159372  Rake::RDocTask.new(:rdoc) do |rd| # rd.external # run the rdoc process as an external shell # rd.main = “name” # ‘name’ will be the initial page displayed # rd.rdoc_dir = “html” # set the output directory # rd.rdoc_file = [] # List of files…
• Rake: Recursively parse a list of all the requires from a source file
  • There’s probably an easier way to do this. http://pastie.caboo.se/159362  # Recursively parse a list of all the requires from a source file def local_requires(source) results = [] File.open(source,’r').each_line do |line| if line =~ /require ['"]([^'"]+)['"]/…
• I Can Has RSS?I’ve switched to FeedBurner for RSS support . And set up full feeds, thanks to Alex . (I had no idea that they were turned off!)
• Bulk updating Gem sourcegem install allison Bulk updating Gem source index for: http://gems.rubyforge.org I swear to god that rubyforge is actually a humongous peer to peer network made up from stealing our bandwidth when we do a gem install.
• Rake Tip: force tasks to run based on operating systemhttp://pastie.caboo.se/158812 task :windows_only do raise “Must be run from Windows, not #{RUBY_PLATFORM}” unless RUBY_PLATFORM =~ /mswin/ end task :linux_only do raise “Must be run from Linux, not #{RUBY_PLATFORM}” unless RUBY_PLATFORM =~ /linux/ end
• Rake TipBAD: s.gsub(/.rb$/,’.exe’) GOOD:  File.basename(s).ext(‘exe’)
• Rails: how to delete ActiveRecords to a recycling bin
  • The contenders: acts_as_paranoid – 2005-09-17  Creates a delete_at column and overrides finders to ignore columns with deleted_at set. Last release was 2005-12-20, about 1600 downloads. Around ~100 blog mentions. This guy is using it instead of acts_as_trashable   Reported not working on…
• validates_presence_of and validates_length_of
  • Pick one : validates_presence_of :snausages validates_length_of :snausages, :maximum => 3 OR validates_length_of :snausages, :maximum => 3, :allow_nil => true I broke my app because of not including allow_nil grep validates_length_of app/models/*.rb | grep -v allow_nil // engtech  …

Tags: blogging, code, friendfeed, google, music, tips

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).

• [MUSIC] David Byrne’s Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists — and Megastars
  • The history and future of the recording industry
  • (music, distribution, wired)
  • (wired.com, 489 saves, 32 inbound links, 17 diggs)
• [GMAIL] Creating a Backup for Your Google Account
  • How to create a second gmail account with full access to all your Google services
  • (google, backup, gmail, howto)
  • (googlesystem.blogspot.com, 298 saves, 8 inbound links, 6 diggs)
• [GMAIL] WARNING: Google’s GMail security failure leaves my business sabotaged
  • Hacker found a backdoor and used it to take over David Airey’s website.
  • (security, google, gmail, hack, email)
  • (davidairey.co.uk, 120 saves, 9 inbound links, 3917 diggs)
• [BUSINESS] Joel Spolsky’s Travel Survival Guide – Business Travel – Software Demo’ing
  • How to give good demo
  • (travel, tips, presentation)
  • (inc.com, 116 saves, 2 inbound links)
• [SPAM] Blacklists Don’t Work
  • It’s guerrilla warfare and the spammers have more troops
  • (security, windows, antivirus, virus, blacklist)
  • (codinghorror.com, 39 saves, 92 diggs)
• [CODE] 8-year-olds should test my code
  • (programming, testing, debugging)
  • (cs.nyu.edu, 31 saves, 3 inbound links)
• [MEME] Chuck Norris sues, says his tears no cancer cure
  • Possibly the best headline of 2007
  • (chucknorris, humor)
  • (news.yahoo.com, 25 saves, 2179 diggs)
• [SOCIAL] 51 Favorite StumbleUpon, Sphinn, Twitter & Facebook Posts of 2007
  • Top posts of 2007 on social media
  • (seo, marketing, sphinn, facebook, twitter, socialmedia, stumbleupon)
  • (socialdesire.com, 20 saves, 2 inbound links, 2 diggs)
• [SOCIAL] Social Networks: Stop Designing Out The Fun
  • (socialnetworking, design, trends, web)
  • (mechanicalrobotfish.com, 19 saves, 2 inbound links)
• [LIBRARY] Threatened by the Internet? Music Biz Should Rock Like Librarians
  • So true, I use the library at least twice a month.
  • (books, internet, library)
  • (readwriteweb.com, 12 saves, 14 inbound links)
• [GAMERS] Portal… in lego
  • (lego, portal, valve)
  • (brickshelf.com, 8 saves, 2 inbound links)
• [GMAIL] Collective effort restores David Airey.com
  • More of David Airey’s loss of control over his domain name.
  • (domain, dns, gmail)
  • (davidairey.co.uk, 4 saves)
• [PIRACY] Disasters of Commerce: HDCP
  • The HD-DVD / Blu-ray copyright protection schemes can break your hardware permanently
  • (applications, security, hdcp, hdtv)
  • (fishsupreme.livejournal.com, 3 saves)
• [LEARNING] Get Educated.
  • links to several online learning resources
  • (learning)
  • (web1979.com, 2 saves, 2 inbound links)

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

• 7 Tips to Optimize Windows XP for Gaming — Playing The Witcher on Minimum System Requirements
  • One of the lures of the holiday season is to be able to hopefully squeeze in some time between eggnog, family and friends to exercise your vices. No, not heroin, but that other life consuming addiction: gaming. PC gaming is quickly going the way of the dodo, with console gaming taking over because…
• Windows XP – Disable dumpprep when programs crash
  • One tip for improve Windows XP that I absolutely love is turning off that annoying “do you want to send an error report” message when programs crash. The sad truth is that those error reports rarely reach anyone who could fix the problem, so it’s a colossal waste of time — especially…

Tags: gmail, google, security

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).

• [SEO] The Blogger’s Guide to SEO
  • (seo, blogging, marketing, tips, blogs, google)
  • (seobook.com, 1152 saves, 100 inbound links, 100 diggs)
• [IDEAS] The Top 20 Ways to Come Up With Amazing Ideas
  • (creativity, ideas, writing, blogging)
  • (skelliewag.org, 635 saves, 67 inbound links, 902 diggs)
• [FACEBOOK] Deconstructing Facebook Beacon JavaScript
  • Technical look at Facebook Beacon aka “how the hell did my Xmas gifts for Timmy show up in my Facebook news feed?!”
  • (facebook, beacon, privacy)
  • (radiantcore.com, 236 saves, 80 inbound links, 59 diggs)
• [RSS] Sink or Swim: Managing RSS Feeds with Better Groups
  • Google Reader tip
  • (rss, productivity, feeds, reader)
  • (43folders.com, 100 saves, 35 inbound links, 6 diggs)
• [MUSIC] thesixtyone – a music adventure
  • an online game where you increase in levels by picking out music that will become popular
  • (music, mp3, mmo)
  • (thesixtyone.com, 51 saves, 9 inbound links, 187 diggs)
• [STARTUPS] Ruthless enough for a startup?
  • Interesting look that a lot of startups that are now common names did some shady stuff in the beginning to get users.
  • (business, startup, startups)
  • (glinden.blogspot.com, 45 saves, 32 inbound links)
• [CODE] PHP in contrast to Perl
  • Completely trashes PHP
  • (php, perl, programming, comparison)
  • (tnx.nl, 40 saves, 31 inbound links, diggs)
• [FACEBOOK] Facebook, you owe me one Christmas Present.
  • Because of asinine privacy settings, buying christmas presents for other people on sites completely unrelated to facebook can be broadcast to all your friends — including the intended recipients.
  • (facebook, socialsoftware, stupidity)
  • (weblog.muledesign.com, 27 saves, 18 inbound links)
• [CATS] Social Marketing Intern
  • I Can Has Cheezburger is hiring an intern
  • (jobs, lolcats, intern)
  • (centernetworks.com, 18 saves, 26 inbound links, 1674 diggs)
• [SOCIAL] Twitter and the Twits
  • People reveal the truth with status updates
  • (twitter, communication)
  • (ricksegal.typepad.com, 12 saves, 9 inbound links)
• [MOVIES] Movie Sequels We Need
  • I found it funny.
  • (humor, movies, funny)
  • (wilshipley.com, 6 saves, 4 inbound links, 2 diggs)

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

Getting Started With Ruby on Rails – Week 2

I’ve fallen for the hype and started using Ruby on Rails for building database driven web applications. You can follow along with my weekly experience discovering gotchas with Ruby on Rails.

Book Review: Ruby on Rails for Dummies

I don’t have anything against the for Dummies series (one of my friends is an author), but they’re only good when you want a very general understanding of a concept. I wouldn’t recommend the series for technical books. But my local library happened to have a copy of Ruby on Rails for…

Tags: blogging, facebook

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).

• [IMAGES] VectorMagic | The Online Tool for Precision Bitmap to Vector Conversion
  • Transform GIF/PNG/JPG to vector images that are suitable for resizing and printing big.
  • (vector, graphics, tools, converter)
  • (vectormagic.stanford.edu, 11455 saves, 100 inbound links, 2995 diggs)
• [DESIGN] How To Destroy The Web 2.0 Look
  • Minimalist vs grunge
  • (webdesign, inspiration, web2.0, howto)
  • (snap2objects.com, 506 saves, 25 inbound links, 21 diggs)
• [TORRENTS] PickyPirate – A Metacritic-Bittorrent mashup
  • Interesting concept.
  • (bittorrent, torrent, p2p, mashup)
  • (pickypirate.com, 465 saves, 51 inbound links)
• [HUMOR] What If Gmail Had Been Designed by Microsoft?
  • Putting gmail through the Microsoft filter.
  • (microsoft, google, gmail, humor, design)
  • (blogoscoped.com, 351 saves, 100 inbound links, 156 diggs)
• [BLOGGING] Cascades Project
  • University paper on blog ranking
  • (blogs, research, algorithms, blogging)
  • (blogcascades.org, 62 saves, 1 diggs)
• [BLOGGING] Haiku Blogging
  • Less is more. Use constraints to focus yourself on the blogging activities that will net your goals.
  • (blogging, writing)
  • (problogger.net, 33 saves, 18 inbound links, 7 diggs)
• [BUSINESS] 7 Ways to Guarantee Customers Never Buy From You Again
  • How to piss off customers with by trying to sell to strongly
  • (customer, marketing, customers, business)
  • (instigatorblog.com, 24 saves, 2 inbound links, 4 diggs)
• [RUBY] Why I Program In Ruby (And Maybe Why You Shouldn’t)
  • Ruby was designed to make you happy.
  • (rubyonrails, ruby)
  • (gilesbowkett.blogspot.com, 21 saves, 5 inbound links)
• [GEEK] 10 Tech Pioneers: Where Are They Now?
  • History lesson for geeks
  • (history, computers, internet, technology)
  • (pcworld.com, 9 saves, 3 inbound links, 547 diggs)
• [WORDPRESS] WordCamp Israel WordPress Tips Talk
  • Long list of tips for getting started with WordPress. Auntie Spam and Comment Ninja are mentioned.
  • (blogging, tips, wordpress)
  • (lorelle.wordpress.com, 7 saves, 3 inbound links)
• [WORDPRESS.COM] Making money with Adsense – without annoying your users: WordPress.com
  • How ads work on WordPress.com
  • (blogs, wordpress.com, hosting)
  • (pascal.vanhecke.info, 4 saves, 6 inbound links)
• [BLOGGING] comparison of coComment, co.comments and commentful
  • Which comment tracking service works best?
  • (blogging, comments)
  • (nbrightside.com, 2 saves)

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

• Getting Started With Ruby on Rails – Week 1
  • Rails is a framework for building web applications: stuff like blog software, instant messaging, to-do lists, web magazines, and your favorite web comic. Word on the street is that ROR is a resource hog but the resource consumption is balanced out by how much more productive it is to develop with.…
• Best of Feeds – 13 links – geek, marketing, blogging, software
  • tags: geek, marketing, blogging, software, joyent

Tags: blogging, blogs

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).

• [INSPIRATION] FFFFOUND!
  • Found images on the web. It’s a bookmarking site for interesting images you find in your web searches. Lots of good fodder for blog posts.
  • (design, photography, images, inspiration, photo)
  • (ffffound.com, 3510 saves, 100 inbound links, 229 diggs)
• [BLOGGING] Don’t Click Here: The Art of Hyperlinking
  • How to link properly.
  • (usability, webdesign, links)
  • (codinghorror.com, 390 saves, 98 inbound links, 15 diggs)
• [TUMBLR] Third time’s a charm
  • tumlbr v3 announcement, thanks AndyC
  • (tumblr, blogging, software)
  • (blog.davidville.com, 145 saves, 100 inbound links, 523 diggs)
• [WRITING] Silicon Valley Users Guide: How to coast to a writing career
  • From the article: ” Setting up a blog is optional. It could be a good place to showcase your talent, or a scary place to document your lack thereof. Think before you post.”
  • (writing, tips)
  • (valleywag.com, 82 saves, 36 inbound links, 11 diggs)
• [OPENSOCIAL] Why Google launched OpenSocial
  • From the article: ” Google’s OpenSocial announcement was just a lot of noise meant to distract people from what Facebook was doing in advertising”
  • (google, facebook, opensocial, advertising)
  • (scripting.com, 57 saves, 68 inbound links, 2 diggs)
• [COMMUNITY] I Love My Chicken Wire Mommy
  • Reward systems encourage community building… or do they?
  • (community, SocialSoftware, points, SocialNetworking)
  • (benbrown.com, 46 saves, 22 inbound links, 1 diggs)
• [EMAIL] 10 Tips for Managing Email Effectively
  • Good tips.
  • (email, productivity, internet)
  • (dailyblogtips.com, 34 saves, 12 inbound links, 8 diggs)
• [WEB2.0] Five Simple Sobriety Steps for Web 2.0 Kool Aid Boozers
  • Applies to any meme or fad.
  • (web2.0, trends, fads)
  • (micropersuasion.com, 26 saves, 9 inbound links, 3 diggs)
• [OPENSOCIAL] Social Hacking
  • Blog dedicated to finding security problems with Google’s Open Social API.
  • (opensocial, hacking, socialnetworking, google)
  • (theharmonyguy.com, 26 saves, 19 inbound links)
• [BLOGGING] Resources
  • A list of resources for blogging at Daily Blog Tips.
  • (blog, blogging, tips, resources, lists)
  • (dailyblogtips.com, 14 saves, 24 inbound links)
• [COPYRIGHT] Cory Doctorow Interview on Nottke.org
  • From the article: ” It’s the 21st century, there’s not going to be a year in which it’s harder to copy than this year; there’s not going to be a day in which it’s harder to copy than this day; from now on.”
  • (donereading, copyright, corydoctorow, interview)
  • (inclusive.wordpress.com, 9 saves, 8 inbound links)
• [BLOGGING] BloggingZoom
  • digg for blogs
  • (blogtools, blog, socialsoftware)
  • (bloggingzoom.com, 8 saves, 100 inbound links)
• [TECHNORATI] Technorati Drops Content Older Than 6 Months Old
  • Heaven forbid you’d want to search by authority over large periods of time.
  • (technorati)
  • (techcrunch.com, 7 saves, 58 inbound links, 2 diggs)
• [INFORMATION OVERLOAD] Sound and Fury: Slow Down and Focus on the Message, Not Messaging
  • From the article: ” the focus these days seems to be too much on finding new ways to communicate … and not enough on finding important things to say”
  • (information, overload)
  • (webworkerdaily.com, 6 saves, 3 inbound links, 18 diggs)
• [CODE] Requirements specification for writing a requirements specification (excerpt)
  • because even the process needs process
  • (agile, humor, programming, tips, funny)
  • (chipsquips.com, 5 saves, 2 inbound links)
• [BLOGGING] Trust and Confidence
  • You’re judged by how you respect the confidence of others.
  • (raganwald, career, blogging)
  • (weblog.raganwald.com, 5 saves, 2 inbound links)
• [WORDPRESS.COM] WordPress Guide to Livelihood Without Central Marketplace Dependency
  • Why the wordpress.com premium theme marketplace is a load of smelly poo.
  • (wordpress.com, wordpress)
  • (wpdesigner.com, 20 inbound links, 22 diggs)
• [BLOGGING] Goodbye BlogRush – Simplehelp
  • Why Blog Rush isn’t worth the widget space
  • (blogrush, widget, blogging)
  • (simplehelp.net, 2 inbound links)
• [COMMUNITY] The Secret to Building a Popular Blog and Getting Tons of Readers
  • You need a supportive community of influencers.
  • (community, blogging, networking, tips)
  • (doshdosh.com, 31 inbound links, 10 diggs)

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

• Internet Duct Tape featured in Blogging Heroes
  • When bloggers like Gina Trapani, Mark Frauenfelder, Chris Anderson, and Phillip Lennsen are honored to be collected in New York Times’ bestselling author Michael A. Banks’ new book, Blogging Heroes: Interviews with 30 of the World’s Top Bloggers I can’t even begin to describe how…
• How to Subscribe to RSS Feeds with Google Reader and Internet Explorer
  • In August I was being the dutiful son and trying to get my father hooked on RSS feeds. (It’s like the Ring — if you get someone hooked on RSS you no longer have 700 unread items in Google Reader) I hit a snag: his browser of choice is Internet Explorer and there wasn’t a simple way to…
• Avoid Prime Real Estate for Live.com Email Address Landrush
  • Microsoft’s live.com is offering email addresses, and the usual land grab rush is on to “secure” your identity on the service. What most people don’t realize is that securing a “prime real estate” email address is probably the LAST thing you want to do. An obvious email…
• Digest for October 2007

This Week at IDT Labs

• [YAHOO PIPES] Yahoo Pipe Cleaner v1.1
  • Yahoo Pipes changed their website on me and I’ve fixed Yahoo Pipe Cleaner so that it works with the new site. Now it also removes image thumbnails that were popping up. It might not run on all Yahoo Pipes because some pipes now have custom URLs — let me know if you are having any problems using…

Tags: blog, blogging, community, google, opensocial, tips

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).

• [MOVIES] Top 50 Dystopian Movies of All Time
  • about 8 on there I haven’t seen yet
  • (movies, film, dystopia, scifi)
  • (snarkerati.com, 1227 saves, 100 inbound links, 2012 diggs)
• [CODE] The Future of Software Development
  • Very fluffy discussion of waterfall vs agile with the hypothesis that small teams are the future.
  • (development, software, agile)
  • (readwriteweb.com, 617 saves, 54 inbound links, 734 diggs)
• [DESIGN] Top 100 User-Centered Blogs
  • centered around the user experience
  • (design, blogs, usability, resources, webdesign)
  • (virtualhosting.com, 558 saves, 72 inbound links, 45 diggs)
• [HIRING] 100 Resources to Attract, Retain and Utilize Rock Star Programmers
  • Great list of resources for hiring programmers
  • (programming, career, hiring, jobs)
  • (hrworld.com, 343 saves, 16 inbound links, 109 diggs)
• [RUBY] 10 Reasons to Learn Ruby
  • I’m drinking the koolaid.
  • (ruby, programming, rails)
  • (cyberarmy.net, 342 saves, 17 inbound links, 1028 diggs)
• [RAILS] Zero to Riding the Rails in Four Months
  • Experience getting started with a Rails app.
  • (rails, rubyonrails, programming)
  • (hackd.wordpress.com, 301 saves, 17 inbound links, 3 diggs)
• [BLOGGING] Top bloggers reveal how to build traffic off-blog without spending a dime
  • Guest posting and building relationships are the top two ways.
  • (blogging, marketing, tips, promotion, traffic)
  • (jonathanfields.com, 269 saves, 27 inbound links, 708 diggs)
• [SOCIAL] NOSO
  • Online web app that is focused on getting people off of their computers and interacting in meatspace.
  • (socialnetworking, Web2.0, noso)
  • (nosoproject.com, 227 saves, 100 inbound links, 6 diggs)
• [GTD] Top 10 Distraction Stoppers
  • They included my “distraction free gtd” web app pack
  • (productivity, lifehacks, gtd, attention)
  • (lifehacker.com, 100 saves, 20 inbound links, 22 diggs)
• [GAMERS] I Played Through Episode Two Holding A Goddamn Gnome (Spoilers)
  • From the article: ” Who watches the watchers? The gnome does. He watches everyone, unblinkingly.”
  • (games, halflife2, hl2, gnome, amelie)
  • (kfj.f2s.com, 83 saves, 35 inbound links, 2946 diggs)
• [CODE] Free Programming Tips are Worth Every Penny.
  • I think I’m developing a blog crush.
  • (programming, tips, code)
  • (wilshipley.com, 66 saves, 19 inbound links, 24 diggs)
• [DESIGN] What about research, interviews, and documentation?
  • Throw it at the wall and see what sticks. Good advice.
  • (research, prototyping, webapps, agile, 37signals)
  • (37signals.com, 33 saves, 3 inbound links, 5 diggs)
• [WORKHACKS] Remember, This Stuff Is Supposed To Be Fun
  • Work should be something that you enjoy.
  • (career, inspiration, programming, fun, work)
  • (codinghorror.com, 28 saves, 15 inbound links, 15 diggs)
• [SEO] What if Google had to design for Google?
  • What the Google homepage would look like if they had to design for SEO.
  • (google, humor, seo, webdesign, funny, usability)
  • (meangene.com, 24 saves, 28 inbound links)
• [STARTUPS] ‘Un-sexy is good business,’ and other rules from Scott Rafer
  • MyBlogLog founder on how to survive the market bust that’s coming in 5 months.
  • (web2.0, business, startup)
  • (foundread.com, 23 saves, 9 inbound links)
• [HALLOWEEN] Animal Halloween Costumes
  • Impressive number of Star Wars costumes.
  • (animals, funny, photos, halloween)
  • (nynerd.com, 11 saves, 6 inbound links, 10 diggs)
• [BLOGGING] The First Month: Building Something From Nothing
  • Skellie’s building traffic from nothing guide. Great tips in there, must read for beginner/intermediates.
  • (blogging, community, marketing, traffic)
  • (skelliewag.org, 8 saves, 3 inbound links, 3 diggs)
• [SMO] Targeting StumbleUpon Users
  • How to build a stumbleupon community
  • (stumbleupon, socialsoftware, socialmedia, socialbookmarking)
  • (dailyblogtips.com, 7 saves, 7 inbound links)
• [IPHONE] Video Game Ideas: iPhone SDK edition
  • A ton of ideas for iPhone games. Really cool stuff.
  • (iphone, games, ideas)
  • (wilshipley.com, 7 saves, 8 inbound links)
• [COMICS] Missing!
  • The disappearance of Calvin and Hobbs
  • (comics, calvinandhobbs)
  • (clevescene.com, 5 saves, 4 inbound links)
• [OCD] On Being Crazy
  • From the article: ” Then I’ll have a week so dark that simply taking mail out of the mailbox seems like an epic struggle. And I remember, oh yes, right, you aren’t going away. Because you’re my brain. You’re my chemistry. You’re me.”
  • (depression, genius, programming, ocd)
  • (wilshipley.com, 2 saves, 7 inbound links)
• [STARTUPS] The Wheels on the Bus
  • Why buying a bus ticket and hanging out with REAL PEOPLE might be the best thing for your startup idea. And it’s true — normal people don’t have nearly the same problems I try to fix in my own life.
  • (startups, ideas)
  • (ricksegal.typepad.com, 2 saves, 2 inbound links)
• [FACEBOOK] Inner Circle App
  • Facebook application that lets you build custom groups of friends.
  • (facebook, friends)
  • (facebook.com, 2 saves)
• [GOOGLE] Ad Blindness? How About Ad Repulsion?
  • Interesting.. make the real content look like AdSense and it becomes immediately repulsive.
  • (adsense, google)
  • (franticindustries.com, 2 inbound links)
• [OPENID] Automattic,Gravatar, and the Elusive Unified Identity
  • Automattic is making a move to providing single-sign-on using your wordpress.com IDs. Good business idea, but still scary considering I managed to lock myself out of sites using because of my wordpress.com openID.
  • (openid, gavatar, automattic, mullenwag)
  • (neomeme.net)
• [FACEBOOK] Google scared of Facebook? Puh-leeze
  • Matt skewers business 2.0 :)
  • (google, facebook)
  • (mathewingram.com)
• [PATENTS] Amazon patent foiled by lone gunman
  • That’s awesome.
  • (amazon, patent)
  • (mathewingram.com)
• [MICROSOFT] Ballmer to Web 2.0 Execs: You Have a Pulse? We’ll Give You At Least $50 Million For It.
  • developers, developers, developers. Ballmer is such an idiot.
  • (microsoft, startups)
  • (parislemon.com)
• [REDDIT] the reddit toolbar: taking social news one step closer
  • Hidden setting on reddit that puts a toolbar on outgoing links… very useful for voting without using the bookmarklet.
  • (reddit, tips)
  • (muhammadsaleem.com)
• [GEEK] Star Trek Cast
  • (geek, startrek)
  • (blog.logtar.com)

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 I Use Google Reader
  • “How I Use” is a new series I’m starting about the software I use on a day-to-day basis. I want share tips and tricks and to learn tips and tricks from readers sharing with me in the comments. Google Reader is a web-based RSS reader. Because it’s web-based I can access my Google…
• The Attention Age: Accelerando, Software Agents, Filters and Gatekeepers
  • Last night I finished reading Accelerando by Charles Stross. Like many of the books I read these days, I heard about it from another blogger. It feels like a spiritual sequel to Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock, John Brunner’s the Shockwave Rider and Warren Ellis’ Transmetropolitan. It is…
• Blog Action Day: Save Paper when Readers Print Your Blog
  • Today is Blog Action Day with a focus on the environment and I’m going to teach a quick CSS trick for how to save paper by reducing what gets printed when someone prints an article from your blog.
• Coworkers Considered Harmful
  • I hit a realization this weekend that I’ve hit many times before. There’s an inordinate number of times when I’m in the office late not because of my own time management failures but because of the people I work with.
• Best of Feeds – 26 links – programming, webdesign, javascript, design, tips
  • Tags: blogging, design, fun, javascript, lifehacks, programming, rails, tips, usability, web2.0, webdesign, writing

This Week at IDT Labs

• [WORDPRESS] Extract Comments or Trackbacks only from the Comments Feed
  • I’ve created two Yahoo Pipes for building filters of the comments feed on your WordPress blog so that you can see comments only or trackbacks only.
• [RSS] Tagosphere
  • Tagosphere is an example I created for Jon Udell that builds an RSS feed around a specific tag using delicious, flickr, technorati, and wordpress.com.

Tags: agile, blogging, career, facebook, funny, games, google, ideas, marketing, programming, rails, startups, tips, traffic, usability, webdesign

“How I Use” is a new series I’m starting about the software I use on a day-to-day basis. I want share tips and tricks and to learn tips and tricks from readers sharing with me in the comments.

Google Reader is a web-based RSS reader. Because it’s web-based I can access my Google Reader from multiple places (home PC, home laptop, work PC, visiting family, etc) and all of my information is stored and updated in one place. I use the Firefox web-browser with the Greasemonkey extension.

Google Reader is an RSS reader

RSS can be best described as a stream of news. Instead of visiting different websites at a time, you subscribe to them and you get all of the updates from the websites you follow in one place. For me that one place is Google Reader. This video will describe RSS and why you would want to subscribe to an RSS feed.

Subscribing to a Feed

I subscribe to feeds either by clicking on the feed link directly or by using the autodiscovery feed option in Firefox.

The first time you subscribe to a feed, Firefox will display the feed in a nice, human readable way, with a yellow box asking you what you want to use to subscribe to this feed. Choose the Google option and chose the option to always use Google to subscribe to feeds.

Unfortunately, Google isn’t smart enough to remember your preference between Google Reader and Google Homepage — so you have to always chose the red pill or the blue pill. There is a handy Greasemonkey script to fix that though: always subscribe to Google Reader.

Accessing Google Reader

I access Google Reader by typing reader.google.com into my address bar or by clicking on the Google Reader icon in the Google Toolbar.

1. Install Google Toolbar
2. Install Google Reader button for Google Toolbar

Setting Up My View

Google Reader lets you save your view settings which ever way you like them. I like to view all items at a time instead of sorting them by tags (I’ll switch to tag view if I don’t have time to read all my feeds and I want to focus on a specific subject).

I click on the Expanded view tab in the top right hand so that I can see titles and the body of each item.

I turn off the left sidebar by clicking the left margin or pressing ‘u’ on the keyboard.

Then I click on the View Settings drop-down and choose sort by newest and set as start page.

Now Google Reader will remember these settings every time I log in.

Navigating Feeds

I read feeds by

• using the middle mouse wheel to scroll down the page with my right hand
• my left hand hovers over the ‘j’ and ‘k’ keys on my keyboard
• ‘j’ jumps past a post that I don’t find interesting enough to read completely
• ‘k’ jumps back to the previous post if I decide that I do want to read it

I find quickly scanning through full posts like this lets me read many more feeds than if I have to click on the titles I find interesting.

Opening Links

I open links I want to read by

• clicking on the link with my middle mouse button to open it in a background tab

When I get around 10 links I take a break from reading feeds and go through all of those open tabs, closing them as I’m done with them.

Read a Post Later

If I come across a blog post that’s too dense to read at the moment I’ll use the Readeroo extension to save it to delicious with the toread tag. Readroo will let me fetch it later, and mark it as read.

Leaving a Blog Comment

When I find a blog post I want to comment on

• I hit the ‘v’ key to jump to the post on the blog
• hit the ‘end’ key on my keyboard to go the bottom of the post
• press ‘alt+c’ to fill in my name / email address / blog url thanks to the handy prefill comments Greasemonkey script
• write my comment and click send
• press ‘ctrl+w’ to close the tab and return to my Google Reader tab

Bookmarking a Blog Post

When I find a blog post I want to save for my ‘Best of Feeds’ series

• I hit the ‘v’ key to jump to the post on the blog
• click on the ‘TAG’ button in my toolbar to save it to delicious

Google Reader has it’s own mechanism for sharing and bookmarking posts but I don’t find it nearly as useful or as fast as delicious. That might change with time.

I’ve seen a Greasemonkey script that lets you bookmark the post from within Google Reader, but I prefer using the official delicious extension to bookmark posts because of other enhancements I’ve made to it.

How Do You Use Google Reader?

The reason for writing a post like this isn’t only because I want to share how I do something, but because I also want to learn tricks I might not know about. Got a trick I’m missing out on? Please leave it in the comments, or write your own blog post about it and send a trackback.

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 Internet Duct Tape to see this every week (or get it by email).

• [LIFEHACKS] The Printable CEO
  • Collection of PDFs for task/hour tracking.
  • (productivity, gtd, lifehacks)
  • (davidseah.com, 949 saves, 100 inbound links, 7 diggs)
• [BOOKMARKING] toread – an email-based bookmark service
  • Simple service to use to track stuff ‘to read later’. They store the top 10 for each day. It’s like having an archive of the delicious popular list.
  • (bookmarks, email, web2.0)
  • (toread.cc, 938 saves, 100 inbound links, 440 diggs)
• [RUBY] The Little Book Of Ruby
  • 85 page guide to the ruby language syntax, free ebook
  • (ruby, programming, book, ebook, free)
  • (sapphiresteel.com, 492 saves, 38 inbound links, 28 diggs)
• [CODE] Software Is Hard
  • *Excellent* article about software estimation and Rosenberg’s Dreaming in Code
  • (software, programming, essay, estimation)
  • (gamearchitect.net, 449 saves, 68 inbound links, 15 diggs)
• [STARTUPS] The Future of Web Startups
  • Paul Graham on how web startups will start to be standardized and easy to do… which will change everything.
  • (startup, entrepreneurship, paulgraham, startups)
  • (paulgraham.com, 443 saves, 100 inbound links, 671 diggs)
• [LIFEHACKS] Top 100 Productivity Blogs
  • I’m not on the list, but many there’s a lot of great finds on here.
  • (productivity, lifehacks, gtd, blogs, list)
  • (whitepapers.org, 440 saves, 44 inbound links, 53 diggs)
• [RUBY] Ferret – full text search engine
  • I’m wondering if this could be a replacement for intranet text search?
  • (ruby, search, lucene, ferret)
  • (ferret.davebalmain.com, 429 saves)
• [JAVASCRIPT] The Elements of JavaScript Style
  • Everything you need to know about writing good javacsript.
  • (javascript, programming, style, guide)
  • (javascript.crockford.com, 336 saves, 30 inbound links)
• [ESTIMATION] Web Worker 101: Estimating Basics
  • Nothing new, but good round-up for people who have trouble estimating.
  • (estimation, projectmanagement, productivity)
  • (webworkerdaily.com, 296 saves, 36 inbound links, 6 diggs)
• [JAVASCRIPT] Learning JavaScript resources
  • Good collection of tutorials and links about Javascript
  • (javascript, learning, reference)
  • (juixe.com, 289 saves, 4 inbound links, 6 diggs)
• [CODE] Software Branching and Parallel Universes
  • One of the best explanations of software branching in revision control that I’ve ever read.
  • (programming, sourcecontrol, branching, code, versioncontrol)
  • (codinghorror.com, 274 saves, 34 inbound links, 3 diggs)
• [GEEK] Flo Control Cat Door
  • Image recognition to prevent cat from coming inside with a mouse. Why do I enjoy every link Coding Horror sends me so much?
  • (cats, technology, diy, hacks, geek)
  • (quantumpicture.com, 228 saves, 80 inbound links, diggs)
• [RAILS] Rails Rumble: 92 Web Apps Created in 48 Hours
  • Winners from the 48 hours Rails Rumble
  • (rubyonrails, rails, inspiration)
  • (readwriteweb.com, 169 saves, 28 inbound links, 681 diggs)
• [FIREFOX] A Visual Guide to the Firefox Web Browser – Learn Firefox
  • via: rooster
  • (firefox, tutorial, tips, help)
  • (learnfirefox.cybernetnews.com, 167 saves, 100 inbound links, 17 diggs)
• [RAILS] Build Your Own Ruby on Rails Web Applications
  • Free e-book for next 60 days. Probably not as good as Agile Web Development.
  • (free, ruby, rubyonrails, books, rails)
  • (sitepoint.com, 151 saves, 100 inbound links, 6 diggs)
• [VIRUS] Gathering ‘Storm’ Superworm Poses Grave Threat to PC Nets
  • Your antivirus software is completely useless. This is scary.
  • (storm, worm, botnet, spam)
  • (schneier.com, 104 saves, 62 inbound links, 14 diggs)
• [CODE] Inheritance is evil, and must be destroyed: part 1
  • Using the strategy pattern vs inheritance with dark jedi examples.
  • (programming, design, inheritance, patterns)
  • (berniecode.com, 76 saves, 9 inbound links)
• [IPHONE] If wishes were iPhones, then beggars would call
  • If you want to hack your phone (dvd player, etc) then buy a phone that lets you hack. Don’t complain about Apple’s lockin when everything they do revolves around lockin.
  • (iphone, apple)
  • (diveintomark.org, 60 saves, 61 inbound links, 9 diggs)
• [LIFEHACKS] 6 Rules for Dealing With Habits vs. Tasks
  • Good ideas about how to build habits
  • (habits, lifehacks)
  • (zenhabits.net, 54 saves, 8 inbound links, 58 diggs)
• [BLOGGING] Blogging is Dumb, Stupid and Successful
  • Rant against blogging about blogging and ‘quick tip’ type posts.
  • (blogging, writing, publishing)
  • (cornwallseo.com, 38 saves, 25 inbound links, 716 diggs)
• [CODE] What I Learned From X That Made Me A Better Programmer In Y
  • From the article: ” We go with Bob’s plan because Bob successfully asserted his dominance over Fred. If we’re lucky, Bob is good at making plans as well as asserting dominance, but if he’s bad at making plans but good at asserting dominance, his plan is still the plan”
  • (programming, philosophy, funny, genius, gilesismyhero)
  • (gilesbowkett.blogspot.com, 37 saves, 3 inbound links, 2 diggs)
• [HUMOR] Microsoft Search
  • Microsoft Press releases shows that Microsoft Live Search will finally read the state Yahoo/Google was in 7 years ago.
  • (microsoft, search, funny, google)
  • (wdr1.com, 25 saves, 11 inbound links)
• [LIFEHACKS] shoutingmat.ch (lifehack)
  • Interesting agreggator for posts about lifehacks.
  • (lifehacker, blog, rss, news, lifehacks)
  • (lifehack.shoutingmat.ch, 22 saves, 10 inbound links)
• [SEO] SEOS : The Card Counters of the Internet
  • From the article: ” “Google is a casino, and you are a visitor.”"
  • (seo, google)
  • (johnon.com, 19 saves, 24 inbound links, 19 diggs)
• [HUMOR] Crackbook
  • Facebook parody site.
  • (facebook, crackbook, parody)
  • (theinternetnowinhandybookform.com, 16 saves, 17 inbound links)
• [BLOGGING] The 7 Habits of Highly Defective Bloggers
  • 7 habits inverted with a view on blogging — what not to do
  • (blogging, tips)
  • (lifetrainingonline.com, 12 saves, 6 inbound links, 13 diggs)
• [PRESENTATIONS] Keynote (The Software) Considered Harmful
  • Do presentations and demos with nothing but a whiteboard. Much more interactive.
  • (presentation)
  • (gilesbowkett.blogspot.com, 9 saves)
• [SEO] How I reversed my Google ranking penalty
  • More on how asking for links with specific anchor text can get your blog blacklisted by google. Contest bloggers be aware.
  • (google, seo, contest)
  • (davidairey.com, 6 saves, 15 inbound links, 14 diggs)
• [HUMOR] 300: The Board Game
  • I still enjoy the meme :)
  • (funny, sparta)
  • (defectiveyeti.com, 5 saves, 4 diggs)
• [GUESTBLOGGING] Get Your Guest-Posts Here
  • Guestblogger for hire, Chris G.
  • (guestblogging)
  • (chrisg.com, 3 saves, 18 inbound links)
• [COPYRIGHT] Has And Belongs To Many: The Problem With Trademarking Rails
  • From the article: ” Trademark rights are destructive to the cooperation and trust necessary for successful open source projects.”
  • (copyright, rubyonrails)
  • (gilesbowkett.blogspot.com, 2 saves)
• [RUBY] When does ( ?? == 63 ) ?
  • True dat. Successfully scared me away from Ruby :)
  • (ruby)
  • (sob.apotheon.org)
• [SEO] A Google Allegory at Hamlet Batista dot Com
  • Asking for links with specific anchor text can get your blog blacklisted by google. Contest bloggers be aware.
  • (seo, google, contes)
  • (hamletbatista.com, 8 inbound links)
• [COMMUNITY] Poisonous People
  • OSCON PDF slides from the SubVersion guys. Read the poisonous people one!
  • (community)
  • (red-bean.com, 5 inbound links)

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

• Distraction Free GTD: 32 Todo List Web Applications
  • Web Runner is a tiny site-specific web application that runs using less resources than Firefox or Internet Explorer. The whole idea behind a site specific web browser is that you want to access a web application without being tempted to access other sites. You want to access a site without being…
• Magazine Review: October 2007 Issue of Inc. Magazine
  • I came to a rather startling discovery in the past month: magazines are just blogs with the added luxury of being able to read them while on the toilet or in the bathtub (but hopefully not both). I picked up the October issue of Inc. magazine because Joel Spolsky of Joel On Software has joined the…
• Blog Tip: Create a Link Post in 3 Seconds
  • One question I’m frequently asked is “how do you build those Best of Feeds weekly links?” The way I do it is pretty complicated, but I’ve found a much simpler way that I want to share with you all.
• Digest for September 2007
  • Every month I publish a digest post collecting the best of Internet Duct Tape.
• Best of Feeds – 30 links – programming, productivity, code, socialsoftware, socialnetworking
  • Tags: adsense, advice, blogging, career, code, design, development, firefox, gtd, lifehacks, productivity, programming, ruby, rubyonrails, socialnetworking, socialsoftware, tips, web2.0, webdesign

This Week at IDT Labs

• [AKISMET] Akismet Auntie Spam v2.04
  • Our favorite Auntie has a new version. 2007/10/04 version 2.04 – Fixed (some) memory problems with v2.03 – Still slow, I need to get it working with a profiler, none of the hacks for Greasemonkey + Firebug seem to work.
• [DELICIOUS] Delicious Link Builder
  • Build a list of links using your delicious account to bookmark them. Works great with my Yahoo Pipe Cleaner script . Example : [BOOKMARKING] toread – an email-based bookmark service Simple service to use to track stuff ‘to read later’. They store the top 10 for each day. It’s like…
• [RSS PIPE] Stupid Credit Builder
  • This is a clone of Stupid Feed Rewriter that backdates the entry to January 1st, 1970. Useful for adding a credit link at the end of a list.

Tags: blogging, estimation, free, funny, google, gtd, javascript, lifehacks, productivity, programming, rails, ruby, rubyonrails, search, seo, tips