Month: February 2008

Video upload weirdness

I have been trying to upload the screencast I did for Pageflakes onto blip.tv and YouTube so it’s a bit easier for people to access. Trouble is, I’m not having much luck with it.

My screencasting package, BBFlashback, has produced a 60-odd mb WMV file (am back on the Windows machine for this job, folks) and everytime I try to upload it to a video sharing service, the resultant video doesn’t move – my dulcet tones work their way through producing a public Pageflake page, but the screen just shows the original image from the start of the clip. Then, when the audio stops, the video starts moving.

Is there something I am doing wrong here, chaps?

links for 2008-02-04

Two point oh? Or zero?

The BBC are coming up with guidance on how staff should pronounce the phrase “Web 2.0”. Is it, for example:

  • Web two point oh
  • Web two point zero
  • Web two dot oh
  • Web two
  • etc etc etc…

I have always been a two point oh kinda guy myself, which puts me in line with most folk. I do think there is a nice simplicity to just web two,  but it misses the essential nerdiness of the extra version number, redundant as it may be.

What’s your preferred pronunciation?

What NetNewsWire needs to learn from FeedDemon

FeedDemonOn my Vista-running laptop, I had FeedDemon installed, a super desktop based RSS aggregator. I’ve always been more comfortable using this type of app as opposed to a web based solution like Google Reader or Bloglines. When I don’t have my laptop with me and I need to use a public PC or a mobile device, I can still use the NewsGator onlie service, which syncs up with FeedDemon so I don’t end up having to read stuff twice.

NetNewsWireWhen I got my MacBook, then, it was an obvious choice to download NetNewsWire, NewsGator’s desktop app for the Mac. I hoped it would be the equivalent of FeedDemon, but sadly it isn’t, for me. This is surprising, because both products are developed by the same community, and I would have thought that some of the innovations of FeedDemon would have filtered through to the Mac app.

Here are some things I’d really like to see added to NetNewsWire, that are already in place in FeedDemon:

  • The ability to hide subscriptions with no new items: FeedDemon let’s me ensure that the only feeds that appear in view are those with something new to read. I can’t find this option in NetNewsWire, and it means I have to scroll through loads of empty feeds to get to the new stuff
  • Newspapers: these are the different ways you can display feeds. For example, the way you look at a Flickr photostream feed is different from a standard text based blog. FeedDemon lets you set just how you want stuff presented. NetNewsWire, as far as I can tell, doesn’t
  • Panic button: OK, so this is a very new feature to FeedDemon, but it’s super useful. If you have a huge backlog of feeds, the panic button lets you mark a certain amount of them read, leaving you with the current stuff. NetNewsWire needs this!
  • Attention reports: FeedDemon provides you with loads of stats about what items and feeds you pay the most attention too. Useful stuff. Can’t find it in NetNewsWire

Any other NetNewsWire users out there? How do you find it in comparison to other apps?

My PageRank is 0!

PageRank 0Now, this is depressing news. Brace yourselves.

I downloaded and installed the Google toolbar this evening, just so I could check the PageRank of my site. Yeah, I know there are third party sites out there that do the same job, but I wanted the information from the horse’s mouth, as it were.

I wish I hadn’t bothered.

My PageRank is zero! Nought! Nil! Nothing! Nada! Zilch! You get the picture.

(For those that are unaware, PageRank is the system by which Google decides the priority of sites turning up in search results. It’s passed on by linking: getting linked to by a site with a high PageRank score can dramatically increase your own, thus netting you some serious search engine visability. As always, if you want to know more, Wikipedia is your friend.)

I really don’t understand how this can be. I mean, I am not expecting anything too dramatic, but a solid 4 surely wouldn’t have been out of the question? I even have the Google Sitemaps plugin installed, and everything!

It’s not like I don’t appear in Google at all anyway – as this search shows. So maybe there’s an argument that who cares?

The trouble is that I do.

Load more posts!