Check out this old Dave post about Microsoft killing the browser. With IE rolled into XP, Apple's Safari installed on new machines and Mozilla cut loose, did this come true?

I read this on Chris Pirillo's RSS resource site. Clipped from this post, it makes a point that I agree with: summaries don't entice me to regularly read the content from that site.

If I read a summary, I have the extra step of opening the site in a browser and reading the article there, complete with ads and graphics. Two sites, TidBITS and MacInTouch do this to a frustrating end. The summaries are either inconsistently used, in the case of TidBITS or vague and of no value, in the case of MacInTouch. I still read both publications regularly, just as I did before they had an RSS feed because the content is so good. It's written and edited well and their journalistic reputation is of the highest quality.

Tim writes that getting past skeptics is hard for new business owners. I have to agree. I've tried to start a business myself, but never followed through, due to the nagging skeptics in my life. Sometimes, though, I think it's been for the best. Most of the skeptics have pointed out large flaws in my business plans, preventing me from doing something very stupid.

Technorati test ping post

I was reading AndrÈ Venter's post about Technorati, linked from This archive post has the details about the Technorati pinger. I read through the second post, found the wiki link and read through the Radio Userland posts (all two of them). I wondered if, with the new implementation of Trackback in Radio, the code exists to ping Technorati, too. I started perusing Radio.root and I think I found the right place:

system.verbs.apps.weblogsCom

Maybe if Jake Savin is reading this… :>

…he can look at this and see if this can be added as a user pref, something like “Ping Technorati?” with a checkbox.

As for now, people who use the web interface of Radio, just add this:

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

to the “URLs to Ping:” box on the Radio home page. If your Radio subscription has run out, re-up now to get Trackback. It's worth it!

P.S.> Why not be able to ping a person? I know that's Trackback, but I want “Track-before”. I guess that's email. I read a post this morning about that, but now I can't remember where it came from.

Adam's written a short post about his recent Trackback experience.  Adam, I feel the same way.  I now can write a post as a comment, especially handy for when I get wordy.

Bryan hit the nail on the head with his post about Radio Lite.  I need a Radio that runs smaller and with less processor cycles.  NetNewsWire is great for posts, but sometimes I want to tinker with the backend.  If I run Radio on my native machine (a TiBook/550 with 768MB of RAM), the processor sits at 50% utilization.  After 2 minutes or so, the fan kicks on low.  After 5 minutes, it's hard to miss the fan on high speed and the lack of “snap” to the apps.

What's going on with Radio versions?  When will we have a faster Radio environment?

RIM ordered to stop selling BlackBerrys. Sort of.

It's definitely bad for business when a federal judge orders you to stop selling your main product. Research in Motion, the company behind the BlackBerry email gadget, just lost a patent infringement case brought against it by NTP. The penalty: $53.7 million damages and an immediate halt on sales of the BlackBerry. Fortunately for RIM (and anyone planning to buy a BlackBerry anytime soon), the ordered was stayed while the company appeals the verdict. Read… [Gizmodo]

Dann writes:

More Power than Point. “PowerPoint (or “presentation software”) has become the lingua franca of American business. It's also become the problem with American business, according to Inc. columnist Adam Hanft. [Inc.com]

I read this and said to myself “I agree”, but instead of reading the Inc. article, I read on.

Hanft is calling on American businesses to produce more “sharply distilled, fact-based thinking”. I couldn't agree more. However, one of the symptoms of a disease he has coined “distractulitis” is heavy reliance on PowerPoint. While this is most likely true, PowerPoint itself is not the problem. I have attended many presentations where a PowerPoint presentation was simply a guide for the larger presentation consisting of white boarding sessions, videos, live examples, and lively discussion. PowerPoint promotes reuse of previously published material, which may be a problem in some cases.

I agree here, too. Most presentations I've seen in the last calendar year consist of a person rereading the PowerPoint. Those people should be forced to read this [Amazon Link]

Read Dann's site for the rest. Dann, I couldn't agree more. I'm letting this serve as reminder that I should be paying a little more attention to what I present and how it's presented. I wonder how many of us would be brave enough to post some of our PP files…

D'Arcy says: RSS is the talk of Merlot

It's a little freaky. Everyone (and I mean everyone) is talking about RSS here. Merlot apparently even demoed RSS feeds from it's collection (I guess that makes our presentation on Friday rather moot. oh, well…) Garry flew in from Oz, and is going to be showing some cool stuff they're doing with RSS to syndicate stuff all over the place. He's going to be in Calgary on Monday, after the conference, and we'll be talking more then. This is shaping up to be Learning Object Syndication Festival 2003. UPDATE: ok… maybe not everyone is talking about RSS, but a whole… [D'Arcy Norman's Learning Commons Weblog]