Weekend Reader – blogging, twitter, marketing, funny, lifehacks
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] Its about respect, winextra.com
- When do you link to someone? When you’re talking about them and want to discuss their viewpoint.
- [BLOGGING] Ten FriendFeed Visitors Beats 1,000 StumbleUpons Any Day, bhc3.wordpress.com
- Why Friend Feed is a better source of traffic than Digg and StumbleUpon
- [CODE] Business of Software Forum FAQ, discuss.joelonsoftware.com
- Good info for MicroISV developers.
- [CODE] Why I’m a better software developer than you, ytechie.com
- Hey, that describes me to a tee. :)
- [CULTURE] Shift Happens, slideshare.net
- Excellent slide show showing how the world is changing and the new culture that is emerging.
- [FACEBOOK] FaceBook In Reality, youtube.com, via:codinghorror.com
- Funny video from BBC comedy group
- [GOOGLE] Share anything. Anytime. Anywhere., googlereader.blogspot.com
- Google Reader Shares might have just become the delicious killer for me.
- [ITUNES] harmony, thirteen23.com, via:lifehacker.com
- Automatic cover art downloader for Windows
- [LIFEHACKS] Life Hack Misnomer, thegrowinglife.com
- From the article: ” Repurposing your shoe holder to organize your gadgets isn’t hacking life, it’s hacking a shoe holder. Likewise, utilities used to synchronize files don’t upgrade your life, they upgrade your computer.”
- [MARKETING] 5 Great Examples of Guerilla Marketing Gone Wrong, weburbanist.com
- Except, has the guerrilla marketing gone wrong if people are still talking about it?
- [PRODUCTIVITY] The Joy of Freeing Up Mental RAM, caffeinatedcoder.com
- Intro to Getting To Done
- [SOCIALMEDIA] Are we building Universities or Amphitheaters?, weblog.raganwald.com
- Because getting your attention is more valuable than giving your life value.
- [SOFTWARE] MoMB | The Museum of Modern Betas, momb.socio-kybernetics.net
- Looking for new stuff to try out? This has a comprehensive list of betas that are available.
- [STARTUPS] From Messes To Successes, avc.blogs.com
- Applies very well to the perception people have of Twitter
- [STARTUPS] The Coolest Business Plan Ever, ricksegal.typepad.com
- Microsoft Office metadata strikes again
- [TECH] What’s Mainstream Technology? Ask Joe Average, The Spouse, Grandma, and Dave Letterman, webomatica.com
- How to figure out if tech is mainstream.
- [TWITTER] Using Twitter to track your FedEx, UPS or DHL Shipments, technofriends.in
- Neat trick, twitter @trackthis supports FedEx, UPS, USPS, DHL tracking codes to send you direct messages whenever your packages change languages.
- [TWITTER] Who Should I Follow? | Twitter Friend Recommendations, whoshouldifollow.com
- REALLY excellent tool for suggesting people to follow
- [WEB2.0] Web 2.point.Mac: Developing software on Apple computers, compsci.ca
- Many of the web2.0 companies out there are using Macs as a developer platform.
- [WORDPRESS] 13 of the best WordPress plugins, davidairey.com
- Plugins for Self-hosted
Competition
When we look at technology we use everyday, the great success stories all have one thing in common: competition. They all achieved their success despite healthy competition, or perhaps because of it.
Best of Feeds – 13 links – geek, marketing, blogging, software
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).
- [COFFEE] Coffee Drinks Illustrated
- Infographic showing how fancy coffees are made.
- (lokeshdhakar.com 1449 100 1266 )
- [GEEK] The Nerd Handbook
- Rands is so on point with this one.
- (randsinrepose.com 1385 100 2756 )
- [GEEK] Real Geek Heart Beats in Xkcd’s Stick Figures
- Wired article on XKCD
- (wired.com 178 56 )
- [CODE] How to demo software
- Joel Spolsky gives tips he learned from the Fogbugz world demos.
- (joelonsoftware.com 177 26 )
- [MYSPACE] Adults Impersonate Teen on MySpace and Leads to Tragedy
- Horrifying story.
- (stcharlesjournal.stltoday.com 120 100 )
- [INTERNET] How to become famous on the Internet
- (online.wsj.com 35 8 638 )
- [FACEBOOK] Joyent: Facebook Developer Program
- Free web hosting for Facebook application development
- (joyent.com 19 28 4 )
- [BLOGGING] 25 Headline Formulas That Have Plagued and Blessed Web 2.0
- The secret is in the titles, and this is a good cheatsheet to common title formulas.
- (skelliewag.org 11 5 17 )
- [BLOGGING] What Causes Subscribers to Read Your Blog’s Feed?
- It’s one thing to get them to subscribe, an entirely different battle to get them to read.
- (dailyblogtips.com 9 8 37 )
- [TSHIRTS] Lists: 65 T-shirt Blogs
- That’s a lot o’ blogs.
- (hideyourarms.com 6 4 7 )
- [BLOGGING] Hit Scrapers Where It Hurts: Adsense
- People stealing your content? Get their AdSense account revoked.
- (dailyblogtips.com 4 9 8 )
- [WEIGHTLOSS] 101 thoughts on losing 100 pounds
- some good advice in there
- (bripblap.com)
- [TECH] Cloud Computing in Someone Else’s Cloud: The Future
- The future of servers will be all web apps running on Amazon/IBM/Sun data centers.
- (smoothspan.wordpress.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
- People Are Computers Too – How Improving Applications Can Improve Your Life
- This week I’ve been talking about code profiling and how if you want to analyze the performance of your application you need to work with large sets of data. Application efficiency isn’t free, it requires measurement, analysis and change. Unsurprisingly, performance analysis for a software…
- Programming Best Practices: Profiling
- In programming, profiling means to measure your code and find out which parts are using the most time and the most memory. Profiling gives you performance analysis measurements so that you can optimize your program for speed and/or memory.
- How to Profile Greasemonkey Scripts with Firebug
- Running performance analysis on Greasemonkey scripts can be a pain in the butt. They aren’t part of a webpage so standard tools for analyzing web sites don’t work… or do they?
- Best of Feeds – 19 links – blogging, tips, google, opensocial, community
- Tags: blog, blogging, community, google, opensocial, tips
This Week at IDT Labs
- [AKISMET] Akismet Auntie Spam v2.09
- I’m done. I swear. Not going to touch it for a month. Promise. 2007/11/15 version 2.09 – bug fix: vanilla WordPress and WordPress.com return spam results a little differently 2007/11/15 version 2.08 – bug fix: fixed a stupid debug statement that was breaking 2.07 – added menu option for…
- [AKISMET] Akismet Auntie Spam v2.07
- Because why shouldn’t a new release happen within hours of the last one? 2007/11/15 version 2.07 – bug fix: improved slowness of displaying hidden comments – added menu option for checking for updates right now – added menu option for configuring how much spam to download at a time for modem…
- [AKISMET] Akismet Auntie Spam v2.06
- Our favorite Auntie has a new version. 2007/11/15 version 2.06 – optimized, optimized, optimized – only displays 5000 comments per page to avoid stressing slower computers – will work for any language (not just english anymore) – any additional slowness is because of a bug on the WordPress end that…
- [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…
Best of Feeds – 30 links – programming, google, tips, agile, 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).
- [MOVIES] Top 50 Dystopian Movies of All Time
- about 8 on there I haven’t seen yet
- (snarkerati.com 1227 100 2012 )
- [CODE] The Future of Software Development
- Very fluffy discussion of waterfall vs agile with the hypothesis that small teams are the future.
- (readwriteweb.com 617 54 734 )
- [DESIGN] Top 100 User-Centered Blogs
- centered around the user experience
- (virtualhosting.com 558 72 45 )
- [HIRING] 100 Resources to Attract, Retain and Utilize Rock Star Programmers
- Great list of resources for hiring programmers
- (hrworld.com 343 16 109 )
- [RUBY] 10 Reasons to Learn Ruby
- I’m drinking the koolaid.
- (cyberarmy.net 342 17 1028 )
- [RAILS] Zero to Riding the Rails in Four Months
- Experience getting started with a Rails app.
- (hackd.wordpress.com 301 17 3 )
- [BLOGGING] Top bloggers reveal how to build traffic off-blog without spending a dime
- Guest posting and building relationships are the top two ways.
- (jonathanfields.com 269 27 708 )
- [SOCIAL] NOSO
- Online web app that is focused on getting people off of their computers and interacting in meatspace.
- (nosoproject.com 227 100 6 )
- [GTD] Top 10 Distraction Stoppers
- They included my “distraction free gtd” web app pack
- (lifehacker.com 100 20 22 )
- [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.”
- (kfj.f2s.com 83 35 2946 )
- [CODE] Free Programming Tips are Worth Every Penny.
- I think I’m developing a blog crush.
- (wilshipley.com 66 19 24 )
- [DESIGN] What about research, interviews, and documentation?
- Throw it at the wall and see what sticks. Good advice.
- (37signals.com 33 3 5 )
- [WORKHACKS] Remember, This Stuff Is Supposed To Be Fun
- Work should be something that you enjoy.
- (codinghorror.com 28 15 15 )
- [SEO] What if Google had to design for Google?
- What the Google homepage would look like if they had to design for SEO.
- (meangene.com 24 28 )
- [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.
- (foundread.com 23 9 )
- [HALLOWEEN] Animal Halloween Costumes
- Impressive number of Star Wars costumes.
- (nynerd.com 11 6 10 )
- [BLOGGING] The First Month: Building Something From Nothing
- Skellie’s building traffic from nothing guide. Great tips in there, must read for beginner/intermediates.
- (skelliewag.org 8 3 3 )
- [SMO] Targeting StumbleUpon Users
- How to build a stumbleupon community
- (dailyblogtips.com 7 7 )
- [IPHONE] Video Game Ideas: iPhone SDK edition
- A ton of ideas for iPhone games. Really cool stuff.
- (wilshipley.com 7 8 )
- [COMICS] Missing!
- The disappearance of Calvin and Hobbs
- (clevescene.com 5 4 )
- [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.”
- (wilshipley.com 2 7 )
- [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.
- (ricksegal.typepad.com 2 2 )
- [FACEBOOK] Inner Circle App
- Facebook application that lets you build custom groups of friends.
- (facebook.com 2 )
- [GOOGLE] Ad Blindness? How About Ad Repulsion?
- Interesting.. make the real content look like AdSense and it becomes immediately repulsive.
- (franticindustries.com 2 )
- [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.
- (neomeme.net)
- [FACEBOOK] Google scared of Facebook? Puh-leeze
- Matt skewers business 2.0 :)
- (mathewingram.com)
- [PATENTS] Amazon patent foiled by lone gunman
- That’s awesome.
- (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.
- (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.
- (muhammadsaleem.com)
- [GEEK] Star Trek Cast
- (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
When is it time to get a new iPod?
Death Clocks use statistical information to let you know when you are going to die based on your habits (with smoking and obesity being the worst factors). The iPod Death Clock (via) is an interesting little web app that figures out how much longer your iPod has to live based on the serial number (how old it is) and how you use it (while running, on the bus). Needless to say my 3rd generation iPod is getting on in years.
I happened upon a blog called Contester the other day that tracks Internet freebies being given away by other bloggers. Blog contests are a great grassroots way to advertise your blog (if you aren’t too spammy about it — some of them are). They’re usually worth entering because you have a 1:20 to 1:50 to 1:200 chance in winning depending on how popular the blog running it is. A few people are giving away iPods, and hope I win one as my iPod is on it’s last legs.
- Future Shop Canada is giving away an iPod Touch
- Success for your blog is a blog about making money through blogging and they’re giving away the new iPod video nano
- It’s Write Now is a blog about writing tips and they’re giving away an 8GB red iPod video nano
- Darin’s Search Marketing is giving away a Free iPhone
- FiddyP is giving away Vmoda Vibe headphones (he’s the guy who does the Hello Stumblers! plugin)
One of the downsides to owning an iPod is the iTunes music store. The music has DRM copying protection measures that are a huge pain in the ass. Enter the new Amazon MP3 store that sells music for cheaper than iTunes without any copying protection — you’re free to do whatever you want with the music you own. Luckily there are also quite few blogs giving away Amazon gift certificates or straight up PayPal.
- Mac’s Money Blog is offering $50 gift certificate (he also does FinanceFavorites.com, a digg-like site for financial tips)
- Anton is offering $50 over at his Halloween Blog
- Ryan444123.com is offering $75
- John Cow make money online and micfo web hosting are offering $500 (that’s a lot of songs)
- Blog Contest and Black Stork action sports are offering a chance to win $75
- Nanashi-Inc is offering $50
- Live Learn Invest and climb kilimanjaro are offering a $50 Best buy gift card
- NutsAndMilk tech news & online tips & tricks are offering $250
Becoming a Better Blogger
There’s also a couple of sites offering books for bloggers that I want to read.
- Male Wail (a blog about men’s gripes) is giving away a copy of the 4 Hour Work Week
- John Cow make money online is offering Purple Cow, SEOBook, and BlogMastermind
There’s also a contests for professional logo design
- The Prize Blog is offering logo design by SOS Factory
It’s crazy how this idea of promoting your blog via holding a contest has taken off like hot cakes. It makes me a little sad though that it seems like some people are losing their focus and writing/participating in contests all the time instead of writing blog posts that share information, help people, or at the very least entertain.
And on a slightly different note, someone is finally doing one of these contests for a real cause instead of personal gain:
Ultra-runner Tim Borland is running 63 marathons in 63 days in order to raise funds and awareness for the A-T Children’s Project in their quest for a cure or life-improving therapies for ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T). A-T is a rare, neurodegenerative disease that affects children, giving them the combined symptoms of cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, and cancer. Children with A-T — born seemingly healthy — are usually dependent upon wheelchairs by the age of 10 and often do not survive their teens.
To run with Tim, join a tailgate party, or make a donation, please visit the A-T CureTour website. There, you can also view the daily video blog produced by filmmakers who are making an independent documentary on the A-T CureTour and enter a contest to Win a Nintendo Wii.
Hard not to participate for something like that.
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