Wednesday, 20th November 2002
Syndicated further reading recommendations
I frequently find myself reading something on someone elses blog and thinking “that’s interesting, and it fits in well with XXX that I read the other day”. I often end up blogging a link to both just to satisfy my need for completeness. Wouldn’t it be interesting if there was some standard for formalising this kind of further reading recommendation? I’m not sure exactly how it would work (it would almost certainly be XML based but I don’t know if it would require a new format or integrate with an existing one) but it could be an interesting avenue to explore. I think it’s a significantly different problem to the ones solved by XFML (external shared metadata) and Pingback for it to be worth committing some thought cycles to. Any ideas?
[... 131 words]Content inventory tips
Peter has been blogging the progress of a 3828 page content inventory he is working on. Day Two describes his method of working with Excel, Day Three provides three useful inventory tips. Christina Wodtke’s Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web has a nice overview of the content inventory process which recommends a dual monitor setup and links (well, footnotes) to these tips by Noel Franus. Peter has also commented on my decision to go with the blue RSS button in favour of the standard orange XML button—I’ve posted my reasons in a comment attached to his post.
[... 115 words]A plea for sense
Peter Van Dijck: We need some sense in the naming of XML feed buttons.
. I couldn’t agree more—in this day of syndication formats left, right and center the orange XML button could mean just about anything. Speaking of which, I’ve finally got around to adding a pretty blue RSS button to this site.
Condiment Clothing goodness
Thanks to CafeShops, pretty much anyone can set up a store to flog their own branded merchandise. Long time a favourite obscure site of mine, the Condiment Packet Museum now has their own line of goods. Dig those boxer shorts :)
[... 49 words]OmniWeb CSS hack
The hack we’ve all been waiting for: How to hide CSS from OmniWeb. OmniWeb is a Mac browser which understands the @import rule but horribly mangles CSS layouts beyond all repair. Thanks to this hack CSS sites with a noticeable percentage of OmniWeb users (and anyone else who cares) can give OmniWeb the same treatment normally reserved for Netscape 4.
[... 70 words]A royalty free web
Stuart points out that the W3C are seeking public approval for their recently published last-call draft of their patent policy. The email address is www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org. Show them your support for a royalty-free web.
[... 41 words]