One of the funniest things is looking at the blogroll back then -- just two blogs! A few weeks later it had expanded to four. Good grief -- no wonder it was so much easier to keep up with what was going on in the blogosphere!
Showing posts with label blogroll. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blogroll. Show all posts
Monday, September 02, 2013
How it used to look!
This is how it used to look back then (or at least as far back as I can get it on the wayback machine). I must admit that I rather liked the old design, which I hand-coded. That NT Gateway logo was designed by a nice guy called Geoff Love.
One of the funniest things is looking at the blogroll back then -- just two blogs! A few weeks later it had expanded to four. Good grief -- no wonder it was so much easier to keep up with what was going on in the blogosphere!
One of the funniest things is looking at the blogroll back then -- just two blogs! A few weeks later it had expanded to four. Good grief -- no wonder it was so much easier to keep up with what was going on in the blogosphere!
Thursday, January 24, 2013
The return of my blogroll
I had to get rid of my blogroll recently because a couple of blogs were getting flagged up by Google (incorrectly) as featuring malware, but then my automated links were being interpreted by Google as linking to the malware. Happily, these issues seem now to have resolved themselves and I've added by blogroll again on the right hand side of the page.
As it happens, it is fortuitous because blogger has ironed out some problems with its automated blogroll delivery, and it seems that now all the biblioblogs (and related blogs) that I subscribe to are showing up, in order of the most recent to post at the top.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Declaring Blog-Reading Bankruptcy
I recently caught mention of the idea of declaring email bankruptcy on AKMA's Random Thoughts. The idea comes from Lawrence Lessig, and a little googling shows it to be a popular idea. Many, including AKMA, post links to a blog post on the topic at 43 Folders. I am so extraordinarily behind in my emailing at the moment, that this is something of an attractive thought. But the problem is that by doing so, I would be effectively rejecting many of the most interesting, longer term, less urgent emails, the kind that require slightly longer replies. The tyranny of the urgent is particularly pressing for university lecturers and professors, especially where one has students with deadlines. At Duke, our undergraduates are very bright, highly motivated and most ambitious, but such things just add to their levels of anxiety and stress, and they are emailing me like crazy this week. I naturally prioritise talking to my students, and other things are going by the wayside. I was already rather behind, but this has thrown me way off.
I wouldn't, I couldn't declare email bankruptcy, though. If people have taken the time to email me personally, they deserve a reply. (Well, some don't on account of their rudeness and presumption, but they are in the minority). And I enjoy correspondence. It's just that I now feel like it is all I do in every spare moment. I can't imagine how I ever used to be able to keep up with academic e-lists, much less contribute to them. Others presumably feel the same way since many of the e-lists continue to die their very slow death. But if not email bankruptcy, what about blogging bankruptcy? Being underneath the email mountain prevents me from getting to the Blog Reader, and waiding through the (academic) blogroll when one has been away for days simply prolongs the opportunity to post oneself even longer. So I am declaring blog-reading bankruptcy today, something that is very easy to accomplish; I click on my Blog Reader's header (I use Google Reader), and "Mark all as read", and several thousand blog posts happily vanish, the vast majority of them never to be seen again by me.
There comes a slight feeling of guilt with this declaration, however. Why should I expect anyone to read my posts when I have just sent theirs off into oblivion? Well, if this post is one of those that vanishes from readers while others, like me, are declaring blog-reading bankruptcy, then I am delighted to be sharing the experience with you. And no doubt the best blog posts will still somehow rise to the surface in the coming months as people continue to discuss them and link to them.
So, here's starting fresh and looking forward to a clean blog-roll, and rebooting my blog. Incidentally, I had always assumed that the term "blog-roll" had the same ring to all ears, reminding one of "bog-roll", and so a little disparaging in the association it conjurs up, but it occurred to me while writing this post that "bog-roll" is British slang and that I have not heard anyone use the expression here in the US.
I wouldn't, I couldn't declare email bankruptcy, though. If people have taken the time to email me personally, they deserve a reply. (Well, some don't on account of their rudeness and presumption, but they are in the minority). And I enjoy correspondence. It's just that I now feel like it is all I do in every spare moment. I can't imagine how I ever used to be able to keep up with academic e-lists, much less contribute to them. Others presumably feel the same way since many of the e-lists continue to die their very slow death. But if not email bankruptcy, what about blogging bankruptcy? Being underneath the email mountain prevents me from getting to the Blog Reader, and waiding through the (academic) blogroll when one has been away for days simply prolongs the opportunity to post oneself even longer. So I am declaring blog-reading bankruptcy today, something that is very easy to accomplish; I click on my Blog Reader's header (I use Google Reader), and "Mark all as read", and several thousand blog posts happily vanish, the vast majority of them never to be seen again by me.
There comes a slight feeling of guilt with this declaration, however. Why should I expect anyone to read my posts when I have just sent theirs off into oblivion? Well, if this post is one of those that vanishes from readers while others, like me, are declaring blog-reading bankruptcy, then I am delighted to be sharing the experience with you. And no doubt the best blog posts will still somehow rise to the surface in the coming months as people continue to discuss them and link to them.
So, here's starting fresh and looking forward to a clean blog-roll, and rebooting my blog. Incidentally, I had always assumed that the term "blog-roll" had the same ring to all ears, reminding one of "bog-roll", and so a little disparaging in the association it conjurs up, but it occurred to me while writing this post that "bog-roll" is British slang and that I have not heard anyone use the expression here in the US.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Blogroll Clips
As I mentioned earlier, I have recently started using Google Reader. One of its nice features is that it provides a live "clip" service on your website and I have added one here, to the left of the screen. It picks up the latest additions to items on my blogroll, and flags them up for the reader. Or, for a fuller version you can follow the Read More link at the bottom of the clip box, or go to this link:
Blogroll Via Mark
Ultimately, I will probably phase out my older, more static Blogroll list, which is currently served via Bloglines.
Blogroll Via Mark
Ultimately, I will probably phase out my older, more static Blogroll list, which is currently served via Bloglines.
Switch to the new blogger and thoughts on Google Reader
If you had dozens of posts from this blog appear in your reader this morning, it is because I've just made the switch to the new blogger. I tried to switch a month or two ago but it wouldn't let me because my archive was too massive, and hosted off-site. But now it's allowing me to make the switch and I have done so. One of the features of the new blogger is that it enables labels, at last, so they will be a feature from now on. I will not, however, be adding labels retrospectively to old posts, though, not least since there are well over 2,000 of them.
I am also experimenting with the new Google Reader and I am enjoying it a good deal and it is on the road to persuading me to abandon Bloglines, especially as it turned out to be very easy to export all my feeds from Bloglines to Google. And there are features about Google Reader I like, especially the starring of posts, à la GMail. Since I am a fan of Google applications, and use dozens of them (e.g. Calendar, Docs and Spreadsheets, Notebook), it is probably just a matter of time before I switch fully to Google Reader too. The one thing that is holding me back is that Bloglines renders my blogroll here on this blog very well. As far as I can tell, Google Reader does not have quite the same facility, though it does produce other nice features like clips from my blogroll, which is a lot of fun.
I am also experimenting with the new Google Reader and I am enjoying it a good deal and it is on the road to persuading me to abandon Bloglines, especially as it turned out to be very easy to export all my feeds from Bloglines to Google. And there are features about Google Reader I like, especially the starring of posts, à la GMail. Since I am a fan of Google applications, and use dozens of them (e.g. Calendar, Docs and Spreadsheets, Notebook), it is probably just a matter of time before I switch fully to Google Reader too. The one thing that is holding me back is that Bloglines renders my blogroll here on this blog very well. As far as I can tell, Google Reader does not have quite the same facility, though it does produce other nice features like clips from my blogroll, which is a lot of fun.
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