Disqus - Latest Comments for Steven Hodson

Re: Scoble’s Achilles heel is video

Steven Hodson — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 14:27:16 -0000

robert can somtimes provide a jumping pointfor ideas anddiscusions that h maynot have realized when he goes off on these rants which is where I went with my post on his most recent firestorm

http://www.winextra.com/?p=265

Re: Scoble’s Achilles heel is video

Steven Hodson — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 20:40:04 -0000

it's interesting that the more interesting converstion on this is happening elsewhere than Robert's blog

Re: PayPerPost: a Web 2.0 witch-hunt

Steven Hodson — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 16:27:34 -0000

Thank you for the link Michael and while I personall don't like the PayPerPost method of ding business I did try and be fair in my points on both sides.

Re: PayPerPost: a Web 2.0 witch-hunt

Steven Hodson — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 16:28:28 -0000

I need more coffee .. I meant Mathew:) oopps sorry

Re: PayPerPost: a Web 2.0 witch-hunt

Steven Hodson — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 21:04:46 -0000

Jason it is all well and good to lambase PPP as the newest demon of the blogosphere and while I do not like their specific business model you and people like Mr. Arrington slam any and all pay for review model.

Just because you have more money in the bank that I will see for a lifetime and Mr. Arrington lives the high life of confrences and hobnobbing many thanks to his advertising model not all bloggers are so lucky but they still have bills to pay as they attempt to make a career in this profession.

As any profession that depends on income derived from advertising you are going to have those who will willingly hand over their ethics for any amount of money (just look at any of the AdSense farm blogs); however to lump those of us who don't and wouldn't think of not disclosing and conflicts is insulting.

so rather than argue this from your unretractible position why not be constructive and help draft a set of guidelines for bloggers who wish to go this route to follow. Wouldn't that prove to be more beneficial to the whole blogosphere than all your mealy mouth (like did you realy need to use the word "slime" - talk about demeaning) rantings against a company that deserves to earn a living the same way you do.

Re: PayPerPost: a Web 2.0 witch-hunt

Steven Hodson — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 22:49:03 -0000

An interesting side note you might be interested in. Mashable! just posted an announcement from PPP about a new service to rolled out Monsy

http://mashable.com/2007/02/01/payperpost-video...

-----------------------------------------------------
On the upside, PPP is also launching a disclosure unit on Monday, which will mean a “sponsored by” message and an advertiser logo appears at the bottom of paid-for posts. The lack of disclosure was one of the more dubious aspects of PPP, so this should fix some of those issues.
-------------------------------------------------------

Re: What’s good for Steve is good for you

Steven Hodson — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 01:14:22 -0000

Another case of JobsSpeak which deflects the problem away from him and lays it at the feet of the big recording companies which are owned (in his words) by European companies .. an effort to get the EU lawsuits against Apple and DRM nullified in the publics mind.

http://www.winextra.com/?p=276

Re: Yahoo’s Pipes goes down the tubes

Steven Hodson — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 20:19:53 -0000

I'm with you Mathew. I have been reading about this all day and I still can't figure out the why of it ... other than being cool I just don't see the value.

Re: Yahoo team is teh l33t haxx0rs

Steven Hodson — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 14:09:38 -0000

All digg did was add some nice pastel colours to an already exisitng ide of rating stuffand popularized it among the slashdot wannabe's

I am still not convinced that digg brings anything of real value to the table other than server spikes.

Re: Google heard Aaron — so now what?

Steven Hodson — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 17:21:11 -0000

reminds me that hooke.... errrr actress in Hollywood who plastered herself across billboards to get film exec's to notice her.

IIRC she wasn't successful.

Re: MyBlogLog goes after spammers

Steven Hodson — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 16:19:20 -0000

I got one of those co-author "requests" as well over the weekend. The delete button works really well since I figure if anyone was serious about the offer (job or otherwise) they would take the time to send a real email :)

Re: Kathy Sierra: the dark side of anonymity

Steven Hodson — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 22:03:04 -0000

I've been following this since I first got tipped to the story by Michael Arrington on Twitter. I've also been updating my post with reaction; and links, since then.

This is disgusting behavior and while I to can understand Robert's desire to support Kathy I find myself agreeing with about needing to keep blogging.

Re: Doc Searls is dead wrong on newspapers

Steven Hodson — Fri, 25 May 2007 14:14:35 -0000

Everytime I see this discussion of electronic media vs "hold a real book (newspaper) in my hands" I keep being reminded of a scene from a Star Tek movie where Kirk is caught reading a book .. I can't remember the exact movie or dialog but the end result was something along the line of - there is nothing like holding a real book and reading from a real page.

The real printed media made really become a niche market but it will never go away - just ask anyone who lovingly collects and treasures 78's, 45's and LP's

Re: Days of Our Lives, the blogosphere edition

Steven Hodson — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 11:28:35 -0000

I even tried to be nice and updated the post to change pissy to upset because to be truthful I wasn't there so I couldn't be sure if his comments or attitude was indeed pissy or not :)

But that still didn't seem to please him because then he took offence to the whole term of slapfest at which point I gave up - and here I thought I was a cranky old fart ... maybe he could give lessons.

Re: Want some Quechup on your Rapleaf?

Steven Hodson — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 23:25:34 -0000

RapLeaf was one of the companies that I hightlighted in my post about the downside of this whole lifestream idea being put forth by the big boys of the blogosphere.

It - along with others like Spock show how easy it is to keep track of just about anyone on the net with having just an email address to start with. I might have a contrary view to the typical cotton candy pie in the sky held by most of Web 2.0 but companies like RapLeaf and Trustfuse only seem to prove me right ... http://www.winextra.com/2007/09/01/who-needs-ca...

Re: YouTube redefines the word “fake”

Steven Hodson — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 00:27:53 -0000

In my post on this I suggested that YouTube has just become another one of the many marketing department patsies and in the process YouTube is quickly losing that "cool" factor that came from being able to discover the next great unknown.

Re: TV got you down? Welcome to the Web

Steven Hodson — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 13:59:02 -0000

As some-one who has an interest in so-called television for the web; rather than T.V. on the web, the idea that top quality production rich shows neeed the big bucks of something like NewsCorp isn't neccessarily so.

One just has to watch the show Sanctuary - http://www.sanctuaryforall.com to see a top quality plot rich webshow being done without any big names being touted through the press.

Re: Mobile Web sucks — or maybe it doesn’t

Steven Hodson — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 21:57:43 -0000

I agree with you that Russell's response was more than a little over the top. I thought the points Scott raised were more than valid in light of the current mobile landscape of accessing the web.

Re: Let me know what you think

Steven Hodson — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 11:30:05 -0000

I can understand the need for the 3col design but for some reason this design feels scrunched up with the extra's (sidebars) taking up more space than the content

Re: Facebook: Is this face worth $15-billion?

Steven Hodson — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 10:53:20 -0000

Thanks a lot Mathew … that is not the image I needed to see first thing in the morning over coffee …. now excuse me while I go and get my brain scrubbed …

Re: Leopard Instead of Vista: Three Reasons Why Your Next Computer Should Be A Mac

Steven Hodson — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 02:37:40 -0000

I just posted a piece tonight that reflects on the possiblity of MS losing OS marketshare with Apple MAC grabbing a share of the dissatified

http://www.winextra.com/?p=275

Re: Leopard Instead of Vista: Three Reasons Why Your Next Computer Should Be A Mac

Steven Hodson — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 11:37:24 -0000

Thanks David - I tried to keep the hyerbole out of it :)

Re: Julie Amero News: March 26th

Steven Hodson — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 13:18:00 -0000

Karoli;

This case is also an example of a local paper that got it horribly wrong and is complicite in having her convicted even before her trial.

The Norwich paper to this day; from what I have read via the Sunbelt Blog (http://sunbeltblog.blogspot.com/index.html) of whom Alex has been a prime mover for her defense, has continued in the witchhunt.

This is were the bloggers; specifically the sercurity bloggers have made the difference and is a big black mark again MSM journalism - big or small.

Re: Julie Amero News: March 26th

Steven Hodson — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 17:48:07 -0000

true enough on both points :)

Re: Techmeme Leaderboard: The Newest Whuffie Face Score

Steven Hodson — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 15:25:52 -0000

As a fellow opinionated contrarian (read - cranky old fart) blogger I think I share much of your feelings about this obsession with "the next shiny new thing". You make mention of of what is happening in Burma which I truly displays a real lack of social conscience in this so era of Web 2.0 "do no evil".

We seem to be more concerned with qualifying and quantifying social networks and social graphs rather than giving a damn about real social issues. If we did then survivors of Katrina wouldn't still be living in FEMA trailers, [middle class] poverty wouldn't be a growing dividing line between technological class separation.

Thank you for an excellent post and I've added your blog to my RSS feeds.

Re: Techmeme Leaderboard: The Newest Whuffie Face Score

Steven Hodson — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 11:15:00 -0000

I remember the Amero case well Karoli and as an aside it was well covered by the security related blogs like Threat Level, Freedom to Tinker and Sunbelt Blog which is the home blog for Sunbelt Software (Kerio Firewall etc) of which Alex the CEO of Sunbelt was one of the first to come to her rescue. He also testified free of charge as an expert witness for her defense.

But the large point you are trying to make I do agree with - the tech blogosphere in general - and the more popular they are - glosses of social issues with very little involvement past a single line in a post or such. Instead they will bitch at the drop of a hat if their iPod has a scratch or they will discauss ad naseum the merits of social networks over social graphs.

kind of sad in a way.

Re: Burning the midnight oil

Steven Hodson — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 13:44:18 -0000

I have never been a morning .. or even a day type person. I find most of my work is done between noon and somewhere around 2AM .... I have always been like that. thank goodness I havea wife who understands that and goes with the flow.

Re: My Lifestream

Steven Hodson — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 19:23:28 -0000

I think my post Ideastreaming ... a concept http://www.winextra.com/2007/08/26/ideastreamin... pretty well covers how I feel about the whole thing :)

Re: Windows Live Writer Wish List

Steven Hodson — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 21:01:47 -0000

I would have to agree with you on the WLW specific HTML coding. I would also like to see if possible support for podcast and video blogging.

It still is one of my favorite tools and one I recommend whole heartiedly.

Re: Windows Live Writer Wish List

Steven Hodson — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 16:57:46 -0000

see Rick .. just like I told you on Twitter this is one team at MS that really listens and from what I can see does their very best to make a better product for those of us using the tool.

My hat goes off to the whole team.

Re: Windows Live Writer Wish List

Steven Hodson — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 09:43:25 -0000

just a quick note to give credit where credit is due it was Joe that had helped me with the problem I was having - thanks again Joe you and the rest of the WLW team are an excellent example of MS folks who go above and beyond the call of duty to help the users out.

Re: Why your blog is your social network

Steven Hodson — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 14:10:06 -0000

As obvious as this might have seemed I wondered why this hasn't been concluded before now. It is also the one reason why I find very little attraction to the so-called social networking media - all the proponents have done is taken the blog idea and made it multi-user and in some cases behind a wall with their own access language.

I can be contacted more ways now than I before - either through my blog, or through IM, or over Skype, or through the WinExtra forums and finally though our IRC channels. So until anyone in the social networking world can show me - without the typical marketspeak - how this new and so-called better social network is a better and easier way to maintain contact with me the whole idea is nothing but hype.

Re: Rebuilding my browser

Steven Hodson — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 18:36:01 -0000

I primarily use IE7 with only the StumbleUpon toolbar installed. I have consider installing the IE7Pro add-in but just haven't gotten around to it. My secondary browser is Safari and only because of a couple of things that it does that I don't like.

I have FF installed but I very rarely even fire it up but I to replace it with any version that gets release.

Re: Blogging is hard – it’s my fault

Steven Hodson — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 15:17:15 -0000

Rick I have that nagging question of am I adding value a lot especially after you write what you think is a good post and it just seems to sit there like a dead fish while I see posts of me-ism and ooo let's all pile on a TechCrunch post and get points for it flashing all over the tech blogosphere.

It can be disheartening to say the least and all I can say is I find value in what you write and when you write it. This isn't a panecea for the blahness you are going through - it is just more of a pat on the shoulder and an encouraging word or two to try and help you through this period.

Keep up the good writing - there are folks out there reading.

Re: Back to the future (of Windows that is)

Steven Hodson — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 16:49:21 -0000

Oh a topic near and dear to my heart and one I have written on more than a few times:

Vista's 5 Mistakes: five tof the things that bug me about Vista

Vista Ultimate - a Microsoft Blackeye - how this marketing scheme is proving to be nothing more than a rup off for the consumer.

How bad is Vista's copy/move - try this bad - trying to move files over the network to XP machines; or even to other drives (not partitions) on the same machine is a horror wtory.

I am basically hanging tough until SP1 but if they don't fix the move/copy problem I'll be going back to XP that day.

Yes Vista is a step forward in many ways but when some of the fundemental / core parts of the OS are screwed then this is not an acceptable situation.

Re: Back to the future (of Windows that is)

Steven Hodson — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 12:17:30 -0000

the file copy move is blantly bovious when trying to move or cooy files from an Vista machine to anXP machine on thr same netowrk. However when copying or moving filrd fom s Vista machine to s XP mschine where you re using the XP machine to execute the commands there are no really problems. the one I do encounter I canattribu to the pulling ftom an Vista machine.

For me this is intolerable and should never have passed Q&A regardless of the table table of release especially consider the push begind Vista to get it to market.

(btw forgive any spelling or grammer pronle .. meds are starting to kick and the keybord is proving to be a a focal point.

Re: RockStartup.com: Blogging For Dollars

Steven Hodson — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 19:39:17 -0000

Very well put Jason and I believe extreme close to how the majority of bloggers feel about the issue.

Re: Class Warfare And The Blogging A List

Steven Hodson — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 01:12:43 -0000

I definitely like your list of tips a lot better :)

Re: Not Ready For Apple TV

Steven Hodson — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 20:33:30 -0000

Chris Davis had some thoughts on this as well and he doesn't seem to be overly impressed either

http://www.chrisjdavis.org/appletv-some-random-...

Re: Battlestar Galactica: Crossroads Part 1

Steven Hodson — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 20:36:08 -0000

yer Twitter was right .. bizzare :)

Re: Blogging Class War: Legislative Action, or That’s Entertainment

Steven Hodson — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 20:39:37 -0000

atually a couple of those ideas; while I wouldn't do a reality show on them, sound like they could be fun. :)

Re: Blogging Is Bizarre: Calacanis, Hung, Birdwatching

Steven Hodson — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 12:37:43 -0000

Jason,

I'm glad you find WinExtra interesting enough to keep coming back to :) and I hope I keep on keeping your interest ...

Re: Blogging Is Bizarre: Calacanis, Hung, Birdwatching

Steven Hodson — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 19:52:41 -0000

BTW .. WTH is this about free swag when you break 20,000 on Technorati????

I want free swag man .. all I can get :) [snicker]

Re: I Don’t Read Newspapers Anyway: Sam Zell Didn’t Count My Vote

Steven Hodson — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 23:03:29 -0000

don't feel too bad Jason .. they didn't ask for my vote either but like you it didn't stop me from adding my 2cents to the noise :)

Re: More Interesting Blogs

Steven Hodson — Wed, 02 May 2007 15:36:35 -0000

thank you very much for the kind words :)

Re: Webomatica Contest: Write The 2,000th Comment

Steven Hodson — Tue, 08 May 2007 21:00:07 -0000

I might not win the prize for the 2,000 comment but I'm already a winner since finding out Jason Calacanis is taking a month off from blogging

:)

Re: Movie Notes: Movies Sequels I’d Like To See

Steven Hodson — Tue, 08 May 2007 21:04:39 -0000

It might not be a sequel of Tron but for a movie that would be phenomenal given today's technology is John Brunner's "Shockwave Rider"

Re: Movie Notes: Movies Sequels I’d Like To See

Steven Hodson — Wed, 09 May 2007 02:12:03 -0000

Jason ... hate to break it to ya :) but I did qualify it by saying "would be a great movie" -- regardless the book is worth adding to any reading list you might have.

Re: Webomatica Contest: Write The 2,000th Comment

Steven Hodson — Wed, 09 May 2007 02:13:08 -0000

that would probably raise him from his 30 day vacation around the world LOL

Re: Movie Notes: Movies Sequels I’d Like To See

Steven Hodson — Wed, 09 May 2007 14:14:42 -0000

let me know what you think of the book. Considering it was writen well before the advent of the Internet it is pretty amazing book and one that has stuck in my head since first reading it some 20 years ago

Re: Battlestar Galactica: Next Season Is The End?

Steven Hodson — Fri, 11 May 2007 15:11:17 -0000

you could easily replace them with shows like Heros and Jericho. they are both new shows that look to be maintaining a pace to keep them alive for seasons to come.

Re: Meme: Software I Love, Software I Hate

Steven Hodson — Tue, 15 May 2007 19:00:44 -0000

thanks for chippin' in with your lists and one of the main reason's I did tag you was specifically because I know you use Mac and this wan't just about the platform and getting folks to think why they like / dislike the software they rather than just flying off the cuuf so to speak

Re: Book Notes: The Shockwave Rider, John Brunner

Steven Hodson — Wed, 23 May 2007 02:11:29 -0000

Glad you liked it and like engtech I recommend the older sci-fi writings.

people like:
James Blish - Cities in Flight series
John Varley - Titan (part of the Gaea series) was a really hard book to get into - took me two tries but once I got in it wouldn't let me go

and of course my favorit - Robert Heinlein

Re: Book Notes: The Shockwave Rider, John Brunner

Steven Hodson — Wed, 23 May 2007 14:03:28 -0000

engtech:

The first time I picked up Titan it was in my mother's libary when I was much younger :) but couldn't get past the first 50 or so pages. Later on I tried again and once I got into it I couldn't put it down. It's a dark book - and I won't give any spoilers - that is definitely not light reading :) .. I never did read any more of the Gaea series though.

Re: MyBlogLog Adds Tags: Thumbs Up

Steven Hodson — Sun, 27 May 2007 02:13:32 -0000

If they play their cards right and add a couple more things - as you point out - the right way Technorati could have a problem. I worte about this thought the other day just after finding out about the MBL tags

http://www.winextra.com/2007/05/25/mybloglog-ta...

Re: Middle Of The Year Goal Assessment, Energy and Baggage

Steven Hodson — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 15:42:50 -0000

I know what you mean about being in a state of tweaking. With both of my blogs I am finding things about the current themes that either irritate me or downright bug the hell out of me :)

On the good side I think I found one for WinExtra that with my limited php knowledge and fair to middlin' CSS ability I can finally whip into something I will like all around.

As for your mention of SMF for the bottle cap site - I run SMF for the WinExtra Community forums but have noticed some nice looking WordPress forum plugins come available ... maybe look at those as an alternative - one way to maintain theme consistency.

Re: Privacy Is Dead: Google, AT&T

Steven Hodson — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 01:43:00 -0000

>But then I think a bit more and realize that if I wanted to get an iPhone,
>I might have to do business with Cingular which is one and the same
>with AT&T. Crap.

Nothing like have millions of trapped customers eh :) somehow I don't think that having a subsidize iPhone is worth condoning these new practices underway by AT&T

Re: Might AT&T Screw Up The iPhone?

Steven Hodson — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 02:13:44 -0000

have you by chance read Cringely's article yet??

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_...

:)

Re: Movie Notes: The Island

Steven Hodson — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 15:33:39 -0000

>Why is it that vast conspiracies are always lorded over by a lone,
>evil, corporate megalomaniac?

they went to the Steve Job's University of Corporate Management??

LOL

sorry .. couldn't resist :)

Re: iTunes Insanity: Eve Of iDay

Steven Hodson — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 20:29:42 -0000

funnily enough - especially since I'm not a cell phone user nor a Apple fan :) - will be looking forward to your correspondent's posts.

BTW I helped add to the iPhone noice with a post today that you might find interesting :)

Re: Writing For The Blog Herald

Steven Hodson — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 16:25:36 -0000

congradulations Jason ... it wasa a good move on their part

Re: Writing For The Blog Herald

Steven Hodson — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 10:33:46 -0000

Jason,

As was pointed out to me by a reader of my post congradulating you the link to The Blog Herald you have is pointing to the wrong place :)

Re: Movie Notes: Syriana

Steven Hodson — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 08:47:39 -0000

I felt that Clooney's performance in Syriana was one of his best to date.

Re: Movie Notes: Tombs Of The Blind Dead

Steven Hodson — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 01:13:35 -0000

I think you should reward yourself after this punishment by watching Renaissance :) .. it will in my opinion return you to the land where true artistry can exist
LOL

Re: Ordered The New, Thin, Apple Keyboard

Steven Hodson — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 01:24:26 -0000

as a PC user all I can do is [drool]

would love a slimline keyboard like that .....

Re: Ordered The New, Thin, Apple Keyboard

Steven Hodson — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 18:44:23 -0000

oh sure tease a poor guy :)

Re: Scoble Taking A Break

Steven Hodson — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 18:46:36 -0000

As one who does treat this as a full time type of gig I threw in my two cents as well

http://www.winextra.com/2007/08/13/gotta-hate-i...

Re: WinExtra Podcast

Steven Hodson — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 11:40:36 -0000

thanks Jason for the good words I appreciate them especially since this is a new area for me.

Re: WinExtra Podcast

Steven Hodson — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 14:44:32 -0000

hey engtech .. let me get my feet wet first before making me figure out that kind of stuff LOL :)

Re: Webomaticast 0: New iPods, Bad Movie Contest

Steven Hodson — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 21:56:24 -0000

I'll be listening and I'm glad I was an inspiration for some-one to have some fun :)

Re: iPhone Price Drop: Some Early Adopters Are Mad

Steven Hodson — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 21:12:54 -0000

I find it humorous ... the fact this this has happened doesn't surprise me one bit. The prices being asked for were unsubstainable but as anyone who has been around the tech world for even a short period of time can tell you - early adopters are the one's who pay for the R&D .. and the executive's new jets :)

Re: Technorati Redesigns… Again

Steven Hodson — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 11:06:16 -0000

I renamed mine to Conversation tags rather than Technorati Tags; but then I believe in the tags concept just not their current implementation.

Re: Thoughts On The New iPod Nano And Classic

Steven Hodson — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:49:00 -0000

last.fm might be a good place to upgrade some of that album art

Re: Thoughts On The New iPod Nano And Classic

Steven Hodson — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:51:34 -0000

additionally now that I think of it if you were using a Windows machine I could whip you up a little app that would grab the album cover art from Amazon in about 30 minutes .. but then yer not but let me know if you want something like that.

Re: Blog Paranoia And Constipation

Steven Hodson — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 15:04:05 -0000

Oh man Jason I can relate with those feeleings exactly but I have found that some judious use of a couple of admion tools for WP help dealing with spamming and referrer spam

I just added Spam Poison (http://english-107581561904.spampoison.com/) which I have found to be really good.

Angsuman's Referrer Bouncer (http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/word...) with a maintain server side text file - which if you want I can shoot you a copy of mine

And finally FireStats as the stats plugin ... even though I still have a bit of a problem with how he presents the Daily visitor counts (he uses a rolling 24hr period) but it is in constant dev and more than willing to listen to suggestion and I know he has some good stuff coming up. But as part of the settings you can add to both the Bot list and IP's that show up as doiing nothing more than scanning for whatever reason.

As for the random visitor "this place sucks" feeling I feel that all the time but unfortunately there is no plugin to help with this.

Re: Blog Paranoia And Constipation

Steven Hodson — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 17:40:47 -0000

the list for the referrer plugin is one you create after installing the plugin .. the instructions are a little convoluted but basically once you have installed the plugin you have it create a base referrer.txt file that you can then add to. I add to mine contiually which is why offered a copy because it might give you a bit of a jump start.

Re: Cautionary Blog Advertising Tales

Steven Hodson — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 22:38:57 -0000

Jason,

I have had Text-Link-Ads since pretty wel when they first came out - or at least on and off in 2 to 3 month periods. How much have I made from them ... $0.00

I believe that for smaller blogs - growing or not - Text-Link-Ads are generally a waste of time with the only one's benefiting from them is Text-Link-Ads.

Re: An Apple Newton? Full OS X Please

Steven Hodson — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 17:58:20 -0000

as much as I am inclined to agree with you about this idea being totally bats the fact is if anyone could pull off a true Start Trek like PDA it will be Apple and I think it would be really cool to boot.

Re: Blog Question: Why So Many Canadian Bloggers?

Steven Hodson — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 21:59:19 -0000

Speaking of the dollar when are you guys down there gonna get that greenback of yours back on track ... I miss those good old exchange rates :)

and no we don't all live in igloos up herer [snicker]

Re: Bloggers: The New Losers

Steven Hodson — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 22:20:50 -0000

I really hope that the comment about a long blog vacation was meant seriously.

For the past little while I have been feeling that blogging is reaching a bit of a crossroads. With the dipsy-doodle A-Listers constantly flitting between every new shiney thing that comes along and proclaiming what ever the hot item of the mement as the next best thing it is going to leave a lot of open territory for those of us bloggers who take what we are doing seriously

The A-list bunch kind of remind me of the paparattzi [sp?] always on the hunt for the hottest pic and the coolest people to be seen with but very rarely do they stick around to do the serious work,

so Jason .. regardless of the crap that is being spewed by supposed big boys of the blogging world in order to try and hang on to their positions at the top ... don't let it get you down or doubt what you and other hard working bloggers are doing. We just have to keep slugging away because our time will come - after all there are always new shiny things around the corner to distract the big fish in the pond.

p.s. .. the notify by email option isn't working

Re: Bloggers: The New Losers

Steven Hodson — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 22:21:22 -0000

ooppss .. first line .. was = wasn't .. sorry

Re: TechMeme, Bitchmeme, Watercooler

Steven Hodson — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 14:01:32 -0000

I agree with you Jason that the tech blogosphere isn't broken overall but I do think that it does have its weak spots in the mid to lower tiers as you point out. I also think that discussions like these can be good as long as they don't degrade into name calling and the such. Our readers - while they might not think so initially - benefit when they read these "reflective" posts because it help them see where our ethical boundaries are and if it suits them.

Re: Connecting A MacBook To A Big Television = I Want Apple TV

Steven Hodson — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 19:37:10 -0000

> Disclosure: I own a tiny amount of Apple stock

Which must be doing much better today :)

Re: PC Users: If Vista Disappoints, Get To Know OS X Leopard

Steven Hodson — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 14:36:54 -0000

Vista - a subtle disappointment? .. try a massive letdown ... a WOW withdrawal ... anything but something to look forward to using on a daily basis.

Microsoft dropped the ball on this and while I might seriously be considering backsliding to XP I wouldn't get overly excited and count this as a permanent mark against Microsoft. I have a sneaky suspicion about Windows 7 which for now I am keeping to myself but it might be what Vista should have been.

Re: Apologies For Recent Blog Slackitude

Steven Hodson — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 04:59:56 -0000

I've always looked forward to your posts Jason regardless of the quantity as the quality is what lives on past a meme's expiry date :)

Myself I have always tried to have at least 3 posts a day - only because as a cranky old fart I have the time - but even that is hard to maintain sometimes given the repetitiveness of the daily news. This is one reason why I branched out to start including software reviews and lucky enough that one of the WinExtra forums members was willing to help out.

You just kept to a posting schedule that you are comfortable with and we'll keep on reading :)

Re: Warning: How Not To Use Google Reader

Steven Hodson — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 16:13:43 -0000

I have found the worst offenders for what I referr to lovingly as shit garbage feeds are the MSM one's like CNN and Reuters (which is only slightly better than CNN). Even Ars Technica and Mary Jo have resorted to partial feeds.

Like you I really dislike partial feeds and while I realize that they are being provided free I still feel like I am being connec or ripped off. What is even worse though regardless of full or partial feeds are those bloggers who post one line posts and the ads take up more space than the useless tidbit we are bing tossed. They might just as well say "We're posting something useless just so we can get the ad traffic"

Yup .. time to go through and do some cleaning .. but unfortunately with the revamp of Braincell Soup almost done I'll probably be adding as many as I get rid of LOL

Re: The Blogging A-List Is The Matrix, It Does, & Doesn’t Exist

Steven Hodson — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 01:17:50 -0000

Sorry Jim but I agree with Tony on this .. the A-List - the whole Technorati listing does exist and is used as a value marker for tech bloggers. For those that see an income from it the A-List is extremely palatable and their value is based on it and other rating systems.

Re: How Does Google Blog Search Rank Blogs? Now We Know.

Steven Hodson — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 00:25:06 -0000

I have to agree with you on this one Jim. If Technorati doesn't either come out with improvements to their core and/or features that actually apply to blogs then they could be in serious trouble. Once the Google train gets rolling on something refinements and improvements usually come hot and heavy.

Re: Alternatives To Outlook Express For An Email Super User?

Steven Hodson — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 12:57:38 -0000

Jim;

boy can I relate to your frustration; and Windows Live Mail Desktop is no better and I don't like T-Bird. I have written a few times about my frustration.

My solution which I am still testing; but gladly paid the 20.00 for the full version is InScribe (http://www.memecode.com/scribe.php). The author also has a Linux version and is working on a Mac port as well.

P.S. I remembered your little rant email feeds and have put it in place via FeedBurner just incase you're interested

Re: Twitter Day 1: I’m A Ghost In The Machine?

Steven Hodson — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 18:47:06 -0000

I was a little dissatified with Twitteroo as well. Their Core Class for .NET works well though and I am writing my own client for Twitter around it.

Re: Buying Blog Comments Is Like Playing With Fire & A Can Of Gas

Steven Hodson — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 02:37:35 -0000

as I said in my post on this - Paying for comments â€” now thatâ€™s slimy

http://www.winextra.com/2007/07/10/paying-for-c...

Re: Does Text Link Ads Make You Any Money As A Blogger?

Steven Hodson — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 23:39:30 -0000

I haven't made one cent with them. I have tried on more than one occasion but I have never even had any ads displayed.

Re: No PayPal Option At Checkout? No Business From Me!

Steven Hodson — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 13:41:15 -0000

I am glad that I am not the only one who feels this way about sites that don't have a PayPal options - it has been a long standing beef on mine.

Re: Facebook’s Secret Rate Card Exposed!

Steven Hodson — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 18:43:34 -0000

AdScam :)

Re: 10,000 Millionaire Losers I Feel Sorry For

Steven Hodson — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 18:40:47 -0000

they got no sympathy from me in my post this morning ..

Re: People LOVE Lists - You Should Make One

Steven Hodson — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 17:19:34 -0000

as I said the other day in a post there is nothing wrong with ranking (making lists) it is a natural part of our social and personal make-up

http://www.winextra.com/2007/09/26/theres-nothi...

Re: Why Does Technorati Use Google Adsense?

Steven Hodson — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 18:56:01 -0000

I've made a few suggestions myself for both Technorati and MyblogLog with the expected results - nada.

But then I'm just a cranky old fart so who cares what I think eh ... :)

Re: Why Does Technorati Use Google Adsense?

Steven Hodson — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 18:59:16 -0000

I think as well one has to have a strong believe in one's own value and also one should take into account the quality of one's readership. While setting my rate at what I have might seem high to some I think that given a PR5 ranking and a continually growing readership along with active comments actually brings a better return for a potential link buyer.

Re: Twitter Hashtags: A Quickie

Steven Hodson — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 14:37:10 -0000

Thanks for adding to this idea and I agree with you about including the hashmarks as part of the tweet rather than tacking it on the end. In my prelim thoughts regarding support in TwitBox for the idea I don't intend on stripping any of the tagged words from the original tweet.

Re: Twitter Hashtags: A Quickie

Steven Hodson — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 16:12:21 -0000

Tagging is a "language" that I think holds some interesting possiblities and given your interest you might like another post I wrote on the idea(streaming) http://www.winextra.com/2007/08/26/ideastreamin...>

Re: 2007/10/20/on-betting-your-house-to-win-a-lawnmower/

Steven Hodson — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 02:26:52 -0000

Pete,

The end result of my post and the comments that followed it with my replies to them was that I couldn't see where the risk to reputation and revenues would ever be equal to taking money for links; regardless who they were for, or for possible paid reviews.

Re: 2007/11/05/youtube-creates-community-council/

Steven Hodson — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 22:58:30 -0000

Mark,

While what I was referring to in my post was a bit more specific you are absolutely correct that my premise can be carried across to any site(s) that have made millionaires and billionaires from free content. In some ways I would equate them only a cut above the splogs and screen scrappers. A bit harsh maybe but it sure seems that way some times.

Re: Why Join Another Social Network

Steven Hodson — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 20:34:02 -0000

As I said in my post about Pownce all it is right now is a big YAWN especially without having an API for developers to mess around with.

With Twitter as soon as there was an API it really began to florish which is evident by the number of 3rd party goodies available for it.

Maybe Pownce needs a special event to get it kick started much like SXSW conference did for Twitter

Re: It Takes a Village

Steven Hodson — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 23:26:43 -0000

besides the fact that when I first saw the title of the post I had visions of Hillary on a pulpit I do have to say that after reading the post over a few times I do agree with the "social" as a software idiom rather than as a communication one; which raises an interesting question - are developers of this type of software; whether it is on the web or stand-alone facing the web being sociall responsible when they release products that are so easily hacked into or gamed?

As for the village concept itself I'm not sure. I some ways this strikes me as more of a game of semantics than anything else. Social Network vs. Village ... hmmm .. not sure.

Re: Brand Stories

Steven Hodson — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 11:24:50 -0000

can being a cranky old fart be considered a brand?

:)

Re: Five Years From Now

Steven Hodson — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 11:15:14 -0000

Chris,

I honestly don't believe we can even come close to prognosticating as to what the computing landscape - both online and offline - will look like in 5 years. We are having a hard enough time even looking a year down the road.

Who would have thought a year ago that Facebook would have risen above college hijinks to become the threat to Google that it is. Who would have thought two years ago athat a simple web app that asked "What are you doing" would become a growing social communication tool with an ever increasing 3rd party client developer following.

Who would have thought a year ago that terrabyte harddrive could become commonplace as they nearly are. Who would have thought that broadband providers would be traffic shaping and fighting over the auction rules for the 700Mhz band.

Who would have thought even a few years ago that Apple would be gaining serious traction once again in the PC market or that Microsoft would become a prime visible sponsor of a podcamp.

In some cases it is even hard to tell what will be happening tomorrow let alone next week ... 5 years down the road .... that could be a whole new century in the tech world.

Re: The new Robert Scoble Services agenda

Steven Hodson — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 16:09:06 -0000

>> We also need to get out of the greedy mode. We need to share.

here's a suggestion for you then:
http://www.winextra.com/2005/11/01/Security+Is+...

the last paragraph or two

Re: One place blogosphere is hypocritical: advertising

Steven Hodson — Sat, 12 Nov 2005 12:36:44 -0000

and the newest one is the Firefox/Google Toolbar "promotion" of paying a $1.00 per referral download of Firefox. Personally that kind of manipulation turns me off of even using Firefox.

Re: Blog integrity is important

Steven Hodson — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 14:55:07 -0000

sometimes a good reputation is the only thing that can make writing worthwhile and is something I have written about a couple of times:
http://www.winextra.com/?p=38 - this was the first of three articles on reputation.

Re: TechMeme doesn’t care if you link to IT

Steven Hodson — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 18:48:54 -0000

hmmm .. and where robert would you suggest me placing my name?? After all 'codenut' is listed as author on all the post.

Are you saying that nicks that have been used for almost the entire length of one's online live isn't enough?

I seriously interested about this ...

Re: TechMeme doesn’t care if you link to IT

Steven Hodson — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 18:52:09 -0000

Sorry... I stand corrected - my name is not displayed. I didn't realise that when I changed the theme for Christmas time that the theme author didn't include the author field.

Good thing I'll be changing soon now that the holidays are over with; but this time I'll make sure the field is there.

Re: Netflix tells Scoble he’s wrong

Steven Hodson — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 12:09:15 -0000

and here I just said you weren't living in a technological real world like the rest of us :)

http://www.winextra.com/?p=226

Re: Do A-list bloggers have a responsibility to link to others?

Steven Hodson — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 13:04:48 -0000

Robert you old firestorm starter you said in the past that WinExtra was part of your linkroll but I thought I would toss out the link once again.

You made some comments about WinExtra which I sincerely took to heart and made some changes because of them. So maybe drop by and have a look and let me know what you think.

http://www.winextra.com

Re: Technorati developer moves to Google Blog search

Steven Hodson — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 15:43:04 -0000

the only real thing keeping Technoratic alive IMO is the ranking system. *If* google or even Sphere were to come out with a blog ranking system that could replace the "popularity" of Technorati's then they could be in serious trouble.

Re: The problem with Twitter, er, first twittercamp?

Steven Hodson — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 10:19:22 -0000

okay I don't get it. Call me an ol' fart but really other than creating yet another clique - especially if you don't open up to the Public Timeline - in which you need to be in the know and connected.

Don't get me wrong I'm not a total tweeb on this - after all I did create an account but I'm still trying to figure out the why of this.

Re: The problem with Twitter, er, first twittercamp?

Steven Hodson — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 14:30:29 -0000

PatrickQG:

maybe so but are they Twittering about it :)

Re: Microsoft has no innovator’s dillema?

Steven Hodson — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 14:52:57 -0000

as I wrote yesterday "A death of a thousand cuts - the new Microsoft" (http://www.winextra.com/?p=307)

Microsoft is very quickly moving itself to dinasour status without any help from the users - it is happening from the top down and that will be its downfall

Re: Old boys club is for losers, Anil writes

Steven Hodson — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 15:05:03 -0000

one show idea you might think of robert is about geek better half's .. the wives and husbands of those folks who are really into tech - especially if the better half isn't geek in the least. how do they deal with the geekdom factor?

Re: I still love Xbox, TabletPCs, Media Center, Halo, etc.

Steven Hodson — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 12:39:56 -0000

from a developer's side robert Microsoft has severely screwed up with Visual Studio / NET 3.0 / Vista / SP1 (VS for Vista). Just do a search on that and you'll see the rumblings of some very upset developers.

The whole implementation for being able to do WPF applications was haphazard at best IMO so really how can you expect developers to rush out programs to take advantage of WPF when their tools to do so don't work right.

Re: Joost … deleted instantly here

Steven Hodson — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 00:38:41 -0000

on this I definitely agree with Robert .. and if some of you commenters would read before posting you would have seen that he stated he knew how to get out of the full screen display.

but that is not the problem. the problem is that while it might be okay for a program to open up full screen - it is neither necessary these days to do that especially if you are running at high resolutions. In addition it is just bad form IMO to do that.

I probably would have done the same thing Robert.

Re: Another Stanford University Startup coming September 2007

Steven Hodson — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 15:53:25 -0000

congradulations to both of you.

Re: Blame DOJ for bad Vista startup experience

Steven Hodson — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 19:46:51 -0000

you could just as easily sue the big box merchants for the same lisleading of customers
http://www.winextra.com/2007/04/04/15-seconds-o...

Re: Narcissystem still growing rapidly

Steven Hodson — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 14:51:54 -0000

Why?

because I like writing about things I am passionate about :) but to think that tech blogging is the end all be all of our technology and that every little thing we say or do is of tech shattering importance is wrong.

am I being narcissic .. maybe but I like to think that I bring a healthy dose of skeptisim and reality to the table in the process. If not then the reader can alwys click the next link or press "J"

Re: Narcissystem still growing rapidly

Steven Hodson — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 15:16:10 -0000

opinion = posturing?

sure robert your leaving MS might have impacted the technology field - although I am not sure how as I still think you could have had a greater impact by staying - but did that event affect the technology being used to save a child's life in an operating room somewhere?

Yes you do find some really interesting stuff for which you deserve all the kudos you get. Tou have also done an enormous amount to progress the idea of people being involved with technology but when push comes to shove has any of your many posts saved anyone from living on the streets, has any of them changed the world ouside of technology one iota?

Yer a good man and within the technology field you have probably been responsible for many changes - some visible and some that may not be seen for some time but in the real world of Mr and Mrs. Joe Average has what has been going on the tech-sphere made any differnce?

Maybe you have and I've missed it if so I await your correction of my cynical ignorance :)

Re: Narcissystem still growing rapidly

Steven Hodson — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 15:27:14 -0000

Robert:

I never meant to imply specifics. I am just trying to look at all this from a realistic P.O.V. and that as much fun as the tech-sphere; and the whole blogosphere, is to write about that at the end of the day our opinions about what we think and write about in regards to technology has little effect beyond that scope; but we as tech-bloggers fail to see that.

Re: Narcissystem still growing rapidly

Steven Hodson — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 15:31:26 -0000

LayZ:

so am I'm getting lumped in with the crap? :)

Re: DOG (Distrust/Disdain of Google) moves in

Steven Hodson — Wed, 23 May 2007 23:39:27 -0000

I am sure that some will of course say that this purchase of Feedburner by Google can only be a good thing.

to me it is just another stepping stone to a de-evolution of the Internet into yet another media controlled by a limited number of players or as I refer to it in a post today - The Internet R.I.P.

http://www.winextra.com/2007/05/23/the-internet...

Re: Goodbye to the music industry … maybe

Steven Hodson — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 01:50:58 -0000

there is one other thing that could happen out of this Robert and that is a big backlash against big media .. http://www.winextra.com/2007/07/12/watch-out-mu...

Re: Los Angeles Fire Department Twitters

Steven Hodson — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 02:38:48 -0000

that is a cool use of the service I gotta admit

Re: Warner Music: why do you fund this crap?

Steven Hodson — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 23:12:36 -0000

that report you refer to on 60 Minutes is old news that was reported on more than a year ago. Not say it is right but it definitely is new news

Re: Warner Music: why do you fund this crap?

Steven Hodson — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 23:13:34 -0000

should read isn't new news .. sorry

Re: Rapleaf wants your email address

Steven Hodson — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 05:24:44 -0000

It is companies like this that prove the downside of things like the pie in the sky lifestream ideaology or as I put it originally - Who needs Carnivore when you have lifestreams - http://www.winextra.com/2007/09/01/who-needs-ca...

Re: Rapleaf wants your email address

Steven Hodson — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 02:07:18 -0000

@Auron

You PR speak is all well and nice and I expect that making points with Robert will go a long way to giving you cred with the big boys.

I'm just curious as to what safeguards you have in place that to protect users from others that might use the service for less than .. uhh ... proper reasons as I have already expressed my opinion concerning services like this .. but then I don't have the pull like the big boys such as Robert.

Re: Wow, new Technorati interface moves…

Steven Hodson — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 17:00:01 -0000

I actually get quite a number of visitors from that page .. kinda surprised me

Re: Wow, new Technorati interface moves…

Steven Hodson — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 19:25:57 -0000

@Corvida

Actually this is kind of a good idea .. I think I'll check into see if they have - or are planning - an API access to this. This is something I would probably use as well.

Re: RSS: Make your Feed Link Obvious

Steven Hodson — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 20:08:45 -0000

Douglas,

That is how I subscribed to your blog via the RSS icon at the bottom. I never pay attention to what the indicators in a browser addressbar maybe but rather when using a browser; which isn't very often, I always look for the Icon.

another thing to remember as well is not everyone will come to your blog via a browser. Some will come via links in their non-browser RSS clients and very rarely will the builtin browsers of the client detect this way ...

Re: RSS: Make your Feed Link Obvious

Steven Hodson — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 20:12:36 -0000

It was the RSS icon link I used to subscribe with - as I never pay attention to the addressbar for this plus I very rarely subscribe via a browser.

I live in my RSS reader and as such all my links are basically found and added that way and very few stand alone RSS client have that type of feature.

Re: Direct Mail that Works!

Steven Hodson — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 10:57:47 -0000

>The Wisdom of the Flying Pig. I think this is my actual first ‘gift’ as a blogger!

Careful Douglas - didn't you know accepting gifts could lead to your ethics being questioned :) LOL

>I often take my Paypal funds and give them back to plugin developers and websites that ask for donations - if their software or service is useful.

I've started doing this as well near the end of last year. It's a good feeling to be able to contribute back to those giving of their time to make stuff we use every day.

Re: Apple Launches… a Phone. Is anyone else yawning?

Steven Hodson — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 00:40:51 -0000

I'm still waiting for the revolutionary .. and the Applesauce :) :)

Re: Microsoft Taking a Step Backward with Outlook 2007

Steven Hodson — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 23:21:49 -0000

I know myself I quit using Outlook as of this new version and the moment thunderbird makes into beta round I'm going to take a very serious look at it again; especially given the addition of tagging.

Re: Is dmoz dead?

Steven Hodson — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 12:57:19 -0000

about the only time I ever made use of dmoz was when Google would list it.

It could be a good alternative but I just don't see it happening

Re: Why am I on BlogBurst?

Steven Hodson — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 00:53:21 -0000

congrats on breaking into the 4,000 level

Re: Using Technorati’s API and PHP

Steven Hodson — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 02:06:05 -0000

does this mean I get to be the first to say thanks :) and let you know that I most definitely borrowed this :)

Re: Using Technorati’s API and PHP

Steven Hodson — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 13:29:49 -0000

nice touch :)

I have it displaying in my Site Rankings text widget - with due credit of course :)

Re: Using Technorati’s API and PHP

Steven Hodson — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 14:45:44 -0000

I fixed the text size LOL so it looks a little better.

Re: Using Technorati’s API and PHP

Steven Hodson — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 22:28:24 -0000

well that really suck Doug :) ... oh well it was fun while it lasted. Although it soes go to show some definite popularity - maybe Technorati will have noticed and implement something similar themselves

Re: The Blogging Triangle: 3 Elements of Success

Steven Hodson — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 00:27:26 -0000

I'd be interested in how you would break down #1 - Content.

And also how does that content (and display/formatting) translate through the RSS feed

Re: Technorati Rank WordPress Plugin Version 2 Released!

Steven Hodson — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 15:41:54 -0000

I tried to install the newest and greatest following your directions to the "letter" :)

but I got the following error

Fatal error: Cannot instantiate non-existent class: simplexmlelement in /home/winex4/public_html/wp-content/plugins/technorati-rank/technorati-rank.php on line 64

any suggestions?

Re: Technorati Rank WordPress Plugin Version 2 Released!

Steven Hodson — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 17:40:24 -0000

that will teach me to check first .. apparently Lunarpages is running 4.4.4 of PHP

Guess I'll have to check out the other version or hang tough and see if they upgrade to 5.0

Re: What a difference a Smile makes!

Steven Hodson — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 23:17:29 -0000

even with the name change your "mug" makes it feel like a comfortable place to come to.

Re: What a difference a Smile makes!

Steven Hodson — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 20:05:05 -0000

all this talk of smiling faces and cats got to me so I decided to add a sidebar widget of the WinExtra mascot about half the way down LOL .. damn you guys for all this warm and fuzzy stuff :)

Re: Stop Writing for Search Engines

Steven Hodson — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 02:02:33 -0000

thanks for the sanity check :)

sometimes in our striving for placement we seem to forget that there are actually readers out there.

Re: Email Response Management

Steven Hodson — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 12:08:24 -0000

I find myself Doug that I can pile on the fire for weeks on end but then a day will come and I'm just plain tired .. bone tired .. and when this happens I can find myself sleeping on and off for the next day or two.

Once I have done that then I can get back to a "normal" schedule :)

Re: Newspapers Aren’t Dead, Selling News is Dead

Steven Hodson — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 21:20:59 -0000

>Newspapers now sell direct mail, magazines, custom publications…

I can so relate to that. Our twice weekly paper has more flyers in on Tuesdays than it does pages of news.

Much like the music and movie industries the newspaper industry has to find new ways to sell itself - make it a daily experience that people don't mind shelling out a 1.50 for.

This goes even more so for the small town local newspapers

Re: Newspapers Aren’t Dead, Selling News is Dead

Steven Hodson — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 23:16:46 -0000

In Canada - especially Ontario all the small newspapers are owned by one of two media news giants. I don't think there are any truely independant newspapers of any consequence left in the small to midsize towns or cities.

This happned ove the last five to ten years where the two giants went on a buying spree. I think we really lost something valuable when that happened.

Re: Happy 500th Post to You!

Steven Hodson — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 23:09:36 -0000

Congratulations Doug from another 3AM blogger. Make that next Starbucks a Extra Large whatever :)

Re: Thunderbird Arrives! Some features are killer, others should be killed!

Steven Hodson — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 19:48:42 -0000

A big whoop-dee-doo :) I've tried TB in all it's interations and have never found it something worth sticking with; but then I'm not a FF fan either.

When I read that they were going to be adding a tagging feature I had high hopes as this was something that I had gotten use to with FeedDemon and Technorati tagging. However what TB is calling tagging is not much more than a slight variation of the standard Flags or some such system.

If the true concept of tagging was implemented then you should be able to have them created as sub folders and/or associate with created sub-folders that can be linked into a rules system.

that's not to say I use the latest version of MS clients either. I found my choice my spending $20.00 for InScribe (Linux version as well plus an upcoming Mac port) and I haven't looked back since.

Re: Thunderbird Arrives! Some features are killer, others should be killed!

Steven Hodson — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 23:11:13 -0000

Doug .. I've tried FF many many time. I even have it installed but I just don't like it. I occaisionally fire it if for no other reason than to make sure it is up to date.

I'm not saying IE7 is better or worse but it is my main browser by choice.

Re: Sometimes when you lie, you get the girl!

Steven Hodson — Thu, 03 May 2007 20:47:38 -0000

ROFLMAO -- scary but funnier than hell :)

Re: On the Geek Scale, Rate This!

Steven Hodson — Wed, 23 May 2007 21:06:07 -0000

I wrote about this yesterday .. simply put I'm hooked

http://www.winextra.com/2007/05/22/i-am-so-hooked/

Re: On the Geek Scale, Rate This!

Steven Hodson — Wed, 23 May 2007 21:50:20 -0000

not a problem Douglas :)

btw you wouldn't know of a good web 2.0 color type them for WordPress .. I need one for a relaunch of another blog (if you do you can always email and edit to remove this call out :))

Re: Drinking from the Firehose!

Steven Hodson — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 21:52:51 -0000

I was one of those that tried to get into the site to leave you a congrats message but gave up.

but better late than never .. congrats on a milestone of sorts. I do agree with you though that the long term benefits of such a deluge is highly questionable.

I'd say keep up the good work but I don't know if you and the server would survive :)

Re: Blog-Tipping: It’s Reader Payback Time!

Steven Hodson — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 12:52:25 -0000

Ready to be tipped :)

http://www.winextra.com/2007/07/06/link-love-th...

Re: Blog-Tipping: Winextra

Steven Hodson — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 19:59:59 -0000

First off thanks for taking the time to have a go through I really appreciate it.

I have locked your post away in one of my FeedDemon newsbins for safe keeping and will start going through tomorrow and see about getting the fixes in place.

Much of the settings are the default one's that came with the theme so I knew there was some work that needed to be done so it is nice to havea starting point to work from.

and thanks for the ego boost about being a NetVet ... it made my day :)

Re: Thank-You! I Broke 700 Feed Readers and Technorati’s 2,000 Mark!

Steven Hodson — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 01:07:48 -0000

Congratulations on achieving your goals ... they can give you a great rush when they happen and I for one will still be around when you make your next set of goals.
:)

Re: Clicky Web Analytics does it Again!

Steven Hodson — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 22:17:26 -0000

have you been following the comments of their blog post about it Doug? .. some aren't all that happy about it ... made for some entertaining Saturday afternoon reading LOL

http://getclicky.com/blog/68/the-new-clicky-das...

Re: Knowing

Steven Hodson — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 15:30:26 -0000

doug;

this post is one of the reasons you will always have a permanent place in my feed reader. sure is may not be tech or marketing based but sometimes it doesn't hurt to let folks know that there is a human side to us geeks.

thanks

Re: Eight Things You Don’t Know about Me

Steven Hodson — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 00:24:56 -0000

thanks :)

As a side note I glad that some-one is making money with TLA because I haven't made a cent let alone have any ads ever shown .. and I've tried on 3 seperate occasions. I even have their plugin in place and activated .. for me the service is null and void.

Not that AdSense is any better but at leat their ads show up ... I am probably doing more than enough things wrong but it is frustrating seeing weeks going by and being luck to make a single buck.

errr .. ooppsss ... sorry about the side rant LOL

Re: Eight Things You Don’t Know about Me

Steven Hodson — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 23:10:23 -0000

Oh I've been holding on with TLA since they first became available but I have never had any ads displayed .. never .. I have tried the service on three seperate occasions with this last time the code being in place for over 3 months ... and still nada

Even AdSense is proving to be a load of frustration ... I can have days with reasonable page views and not make a cent (for weeks on end). I need a AdSense guru to help I think 'cause I am sure I am probably doing something wrong ... admitting that might be the case still doesn't help the frustration levels for with either of the ad networks.

oh well ... enough of hijacking your post comments Doug :) sorry but it's a touchy point right now with me

Re: A Bare Barebones Computer Story for you…

Steven Hodson — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 23:11:40 -0000

If you do want to find a home for the hard drive let me know how much you want for it Doug as it would make an excellent replacement for the failing 40 gig on the wife's media machine.

Re: The Million Dollar Wiki Contest from John Chow dot Com

Steven Hodson — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 23:52:18 -0000

I sure wish I knoew what the hell I was doing wrong when it comes to this AdSense bull .. I'm lucky if I'm making even close to 50cents a day .. usually it's zilch

Re: Can Social Media Cure Depression?

Steven Hodson — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 23:11:54 -0000

First off I don't believe that the social Web 2.0 presence stuff like Twitter, blogs and the such are anywhere near a cure for things like depression and I defintely don't agree with Mark's reasoning for the causes of depression.

That said however I do believe that in some ways our intercommunication through the web does help one's self-esteem, sense of wellbeing and in some cases help one through some really difficult periods in one's life. I will qualify that though that I don't place blogs on the same level as Twtitter and the such (I'll be doing something on that one of these days very soon).

For example as part of WinExtra I also have an IRC channel that is semi-invite (especially if I know folks actually do IRC in the first place) and one of my close friend's in the last year realize that he needed to make a serious live change to over come an addiction. He was successfull - well as successful as one can be with an addicition - but he said to me one day that if it wasn't for the IRC channel and the people there he honestly didn't know if he would have made it through that very dark time.

In one other case that just happened one of the longtime mebers of the WinExtra forums and IRC channel stopped posting or showing up in channel. In turn two members in the US became very concerned and began the process of trying to track him done to make sure he was okay. Well today he suddenly appeared in channel and it was like a long lost friend finally coming back home - both for him and us.

This is community and while it didn't ogignate in the Web 2.0 world of social networks I will take that over any Facebook or Twitter community anytime. Along with that I think it shows that if an online community has longevity and depth of friends (which if you understand that our forums as small as they might be have been around for six plus years) it does make a part of a person's life better and gives you a feeling of belonging - which really is all we as human being want from our lives.

Re: links for 2007-10-05

Steven Hodson — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 13:24:47 -0000

Doug,

Your link to running blog contests was rather timely since I am running my first ever contest over on WinExtra so thanks and if you don't mind a shameless plug for it your readers - specfically Windows readers - can find more about it here:

http://www.winextra.com/2007/10/03/win-a-copy-o...

Depending on how well it goes over I'll be looking at doing it again as long as I can find companies that are interested in dealing with blogs that aren't at the top og the bllogging pile.

Re: My Rank is fading quickly, almost as quickly as Technorati itself

Steven Hodson — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 22:05:18 -0000

I have been noticing a drop in my Authority from a high of 237 to now down to 212. I just figured it was the natural 180 day attrition taking it's toll along with my decision to not link as much to the big boys like Scoble but more to the mid-level blogs.

And at 3,000 Doug your ranking is far better than mine LOL

Re: Happy Bloggoween!

Steven Hodson — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 23:44:14 -0000

I won't make the oh so obvious comment about the improvement .. honest I won't :)

Re: What if Bloggers went on Strike?

Steven Hodson — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 00:43:36 -0000

this reminds me of the post I wrote the other day

http://www.winextra.com/2007/11/18/4-simple-rul...

it's their sandbox and until some-one with a better sandbox comes along ... well guess we have to play by google rules

Re: Leopard Instead of Vista: Three Reasons Why Your Next Computer Should Be A Mac

Steven Hodson — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 02:37:40 -0000

I just posted a piece tonight that reflects on the possiblity of MS losing OS marketshare with Apple MAC grabbing a share of the dissatified

http://www.winextra.com/?p=275

Re: Leopard Instead of Vista: Three Reasons Why Your Next Computer Should Be A Mac

Steven Hodson — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 11:37:24 -0000

Thanks David - I tried to keep the hyerbole out of it :)

Re: How To Get Free Advertising By Trying To Buy Votes On Digg

Steven Hodson — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 23:14:04 -0000

Scott

I just posted a quick note on an announcement of the digg blog how they will be doing away with the Top Digger list ... I don't think that this was the right way to deal with the situation like you posted about but who knows

http://www.winextra.com/?p=270

Re: Will Widgets Hit A Mainstream Wall Just Like RSS?

Steven Hodson — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 22:51:08 -0000

didn't they say that RSS would be the death of web pages as well at some point?

:)

Re: Tabbing Productivity

Steven Hodson — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 14:14:29 -0000

Paul:

thanks for dropping by and adding to the discussion. I did post a reply to your comment :)

http://www.winextra.com/?p=209#comment-226

Re: I’ll wait for iPhone 2

Steven Hodson — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 23:12:36 -0000

I'm still trying to figure out whyt any cell phone is worth that kind of money.
http://www.winextra.com/?p=224

Re: Mobile phones! Too smart for their own good?

Steven Hodson — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 10:18:45 -0000

ahyup Paul .. I do agree with you wholeheartedly.

good luck on you phone hunt :)

Re: The price to customers?

Steven Hodson — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 12:46:57 -0000

And then Ballmer has to go open his mouth again - look for another slap for him today at some point. I just have to figure out some php problems first :)

Re: Twitter is not Blogging!

Steven Hodson — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 12:56:20 -0000

Paul:

I'm glad you like my writing and if anything it brings back good memories of any sort :) - that is a better reward than getting kudos for an article.

I also agree with you on the possible weeding out effect that Twitter might have. However until it can easily be moneitzed by the masses it may well remain a borderline cool toy.

Re: Does Twitter have built in Trust?

Steven Hodson — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 16:59:21 -0000

excellent points and great comments.

Re: Tech Innovation? Think Denmark!

Steven Hodson — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 13:24:56 -0000

And Canada fell from 6th to 11th place. That pisses me off no end

http://www.winextra.com/2007/03/28/canada-losin...

Re: Text Link Ads

Steven Hodson — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 13:01:39 -0000

I hope you have better luck with Text-Link-Ads than I did but I'll watch your space :) just incase it has gotten better.

Re: Text Link Ads

Steven Hodson — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 13:18:54 -0000

LOL .. ahyup it's definitely the place to release a few daily tensions :)

Re: Elaine Vigneault thinks I’m a whiner!

Steven Hodson — Tue, 01 May 2007 02:34:34 -0000

If I hadn't already favourited you this post would have guarenteed it :) .. Elaine must like calling men whiners because she has said the same of me IIRC in the past.

Re: Google Gears IS a step forward!

Steven Hodson — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 12:10:17 -0000

Paul;

Let me preface this first by say that the last couple of days in general have sucked big rocks :)so I was a little more cranky than usual - but as for your RSS example I'd take FeedDemon; especially the newest version, over any web-based reader

New Version! Top new features in FeedDemon 2.5:

Synchronized news bins with shared RSS feeds
Prefetch unread items for offline reading
Improved "Popular Topics" feature
Embedded videos now display in newspapers
"Who's linking here?" added to each post in a newspaper

I am sure that web based applications have a place just as do thick client apps ... I just found it hilarous that after all the evangelization of the power of Web 2.0 and how much better it was than thick client programs that all this fuss is being made over what is essentially a move to the desktop by self-same Web 2.0

Re: I’m back! My exile is over.

Steven Hodson — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 10:39:23 -0000

Even though I did have a similar experience with excessive server usage and being regulated to a non-production server until the problem was solved at least I still had access to everything to do with all my sites.

along with that I did recieve prompt replies and help - as much as they could give considering it was a php script causing the problem they said - turns out upgrading to 2.2.1 of Wordpress fixed the problem.

So during your hunt I would suggest taking a look at Lunarpages - if you have any questions about them just email me and I'll do the best to answer.

and it's good to have you back :)

Re: I’m beset by idiots!

Steven Hodson — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 18:00:53 -0000

a tad pissed eh Paul LOL ... it's nice to see honest posts like this ... I think we need more of them in this day of Facebook kool-aid drinking fandom

Re: I’m beset by idiots!

Steven Hodson — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 19:36:03 -0000

good ... I am coming to believe that there needs to be some more honesty from the blogging world instead of the typical rah-rah nonsence we see; but then I'm just a crotchety ol' fart :)

Re: Skype may be down but Gizmo rocks..

Steven Hodson — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 00:14:12 -0000

the one thing that convinced to give it a shot is that I can import my MSN contacts - my main IM - although I am not sure how well it will work. Would have been nice to import Skype as well but I guess that would have been asking too much :)

Probably tomorrow during some down time I'll read up some more on the different extra .... I'm just not sure how easy it is going to be to get current Skype contacts/users to install yet another client ...

Re: Windows Live Writer Beta 3

Steven Hodson — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 18:49:51 -0000

In my cranky old fart's opinion this is one of the best programs that Microsoft has released in recent years. I would feel totally lost in my day to day meander ... err .. writings without WLW.

Needless to say I grabbed a copy as soon as I heard it was available which unlike you with an inside contact :) I had to hear through the normal blogging pipeline.

Re: Damn those splogs are fast…

Steven Hodson — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 10:24:49 -0000

I've had the same thing happening lately with a lot of my posts even to the point I had to ban a couple IPs right at the WP server level.

There's been a couple of times even where I've deleted them (marked as spam) and by the time I have returned to the main page they have reposted the trackback.