Slashdot Mirror
Essential Blogging
Blog, Blog, Blog. Recent media infatuation with the blogging effect seems to be overwhelming. It seems that newspaper journalists have just discovered the ability to post and comment messages on the Internet, while most of the computer aficionados and heavy Internet users just shrug their shoulders when told about personal Web journals that link to other articles on the Web.
Blogging Essentials is mostly a generic guide to setting up and running your own Weblog using the software available out there. It doesn't require as much technical knowledge and Unix experience as Running Weblogs with Slash, and doesn't have a nice preface by CmdrTaco, but for a person who is determined to keep a daily journal available on the Internet, it would provide helpful reading material.
What's reviewed
Blogger, Radio Userland and MovableType are the primary products discussed in the book. Each of these packages has two chapters dedicated to it, one for beginners' introduction and one for description of advanced features. The main difference between these three products is in their hosting capabilities - Blogger wants you to keep the journal entries on its Web site and provides Web interface, Radio UserLand keeps the posts on its own server as well, while providing desktop interface, while MovableType assumes the user has a Web server on which to install the blogging software. Both Blogger and Radio UserLand allow for self-hosting, which is also covered in introductory chapters.
Another chapter is dedicated to server-based Blosxom, and in the review of desktop clients such blog utilities as BlogScript, BlogApp, BlogBuddy, W.Bloggar and Slug are covered.
What's good and what's bad
While the depth of covered material is surprisingly large for such a narrow topic, a lot of book pages are spent on displaying screenshots of the blogging software, and showing other people's blogs. The only thought that never left my mind while reading this book was "Who would buy it?" Why would you need 264 pages to explain you how to set up your own journal and run it? People who find satisfaction in running their own customized versions of online journals already know most of the material, and those who don't would probably opt in for easier Web-based interface like LiveJournal.
The book seems to be just a quick walk-through of the manuals, and if you consider that all of the reviewed products have pretty good help and FAQ sections, the need for such book decreases even more. I can hardly name anyone to whom I would recommend this book.
Table of contents can be viewed on publisher's Web site.
You can purchase Essential Blogging from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Isn't "Essential Blogging" an oxymoron? ;-)
A little planning goes a long way...
I've yet to see a blog that came anywhere close to being essential for anything
Yes, but does the book tell you why anyone out there would want to read a blog about your life? Or what to do with your life to make people interested in reading about it? (Short of getting your own personal stalker of course)
credo quia absurdum
first 3 posts feature prominent use of the word oxymoron...
From Ebay item description, circa 2004:
"Hey, remember blogging? You know, before it was so overblown by the media that you stabbed your eardrums with an icepick just to keep all of the buzzwords out of your brain? Now you can own a worthless remind of those turbulent times...this book!
86 cents, seller pays shipping."
------
Today's Top Deals
I'm surprised there's no mention of LiveJournal. I got bit by the blogging bug back in May or so, and have found LJ to be a good place to keep up with everything. I keep in touch with friends and keep a running record of my life.
Yesterday, I was discussing Alzheimer's with my co-worker, Bob, who runs bland-o-rama.com...we, like any techs, fear the loss of memory and our abilities. The factoid about nuns being highly resistant to Alzheimer's came up, and the running theory is b/c they are journaliing on a daily basis. Exercise for the memory system, I guess.
Personally, though, I'm just doing it because it's interesting to look back and see where I've been...and hopefully get a good idea of where I'm going. Plus I get to watch my friends that use LJ do the same thing.
blog |
It seems like it'd be really helpful for a lot of the people that regularly blog to have a pretty non-technical introduction to it, but I'm not sure those same people would know anything about O'Reilly or read Slashdot.
Mozilla users, check out Mozblog. It's a nifty XUL app that integrates into Mozilla. You can drag and drop links, post, and publish all from the little window without even having to visit blogger.com.
God Fucking Damnit
Tell me this - does it have chapters on how to propagate your page with pictures of your cat? Or how to flash your tits so that they point to your wishlist?
Schnapple
Personally, I'll just wind up using Coranto when the time comes. I've used so it (and its predecessor NewsPro) for so many different sites over the years, that it just seems the natural course of things. It's flat-text, but since it's just my diary, who cares?
"You're never ready, just less unprepared."
Blogging has become nothing more than a cybernation full of complaining, whining, self-important twits with too much time and too few HTML skills. The last thing we need is a book to instruct them on how to be even more annoying and petty with better HTML skills. If anything, O'Reilly, publish a book that shows these whiney twits how to turn off a computer, unplug the phone and experience REAL LIFE instead of the self-involved online world.
Essential Computing Stuff
Chapter 1: Turn the damn thing on
Chapter 2: Read what is on screen. It will ussually tell you what to do
Chapter 3: It your computer, turn it off if you don't like what it does
Chapter 4: Trouble Shooting: Shoot anything that moves
Look, if your blogging you euther know what your doing or your going to contract with someone who does.
This seems more like a FAQ on SlashCode or a give away item at shows then an actual book.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
I'd be much more interested in a novel that charted the historical and cultural development of the blog. I've never been too sucked in, but there is definitely a distinct and unique culture that has developed in the blogging scene. When someone is running for government office on a blogging platform, it says something. What, I'm not sure, but something.
Of course, it is easy to ridicule and mock the blogging scene, but an indepth look at it could be both honest about the shortcomings and faults, as well as the many lessons blogging has taught us. Google bombing anyone? And has anyone been more on the forefront of accessibility pages than blogs?
Maybe someone's already done this for some sort of masters thesis; if so, point out the links, I'd like to see some serious scholarship on the issue.
Ok, So I know that blogs aren't diaries, but they are fairly close. So what I am wondering is, is this the first sign that some old world publishing type might be interested in publishing a traditioinal book form of a Blog?
Does anyone here know of any Blog that transcends its base origins enough to be worth using the trees it would take to make a book?
I am sure that I have seen references to Blogs in various TV shows, and no doubt the movie is on its way, but does anyone think we will ever see a book?
- Windows for Dummies
- Yahoo Messenger Unleashed
- Hop On Pop
MarkI hadn't heard of the safari before. Looks like you subscribe to a number of points per month, then you can swap out books up to your point level once every month. If you get the $10/mo you get 5 points, which is five 1 point books per month. To purchase those books you'd pay about $150, so this subscription sounds good for those who only need a particular reference for a few months at a time, as well for those books that have little or no future reference value. It also allows for the fact that too many technologies change, evolve and disappear within 15 months.
Still, I like collecting books. I wonder if they'd give a discount on the sale of previously subscribed titles. Reading a book on the computer isn't as nice as holding it in one's hands, either, but overall it's as good a deal as leasing a car - obviously not for everyone - good for many.
-Adam
What's this new "word" ?
An organization that is looking at the different Blog options. They will use it for self-promotion/feel good stuff, and show how every day they do something that brings them closer to their goals, or looks good in the public eye.
xan
jonathon
That which is, is not.
That which is not, is.
With repect to this book, I would have to agree with the reviewer. Who would buy it? If you are familier with blogging, then you know what you need to know. If you are not, then you're more likely to buy a book entitled 'Websites for Beginners' or something. This book seems to be searching for a market where there most likely is none.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
is how they order the page so that the latest post is on the top of the page. So if you haven't been there for a while, you start reading from the bottom, scroll down, scroll down because the person wrote a lot, and then you have to scroll back up! More annoying is if the dates are sorted in reverse, but each blog that were written in a day are sorted normally according to time. scroll down, scroll down, scroll back up. Annoying. I don't think blogging sites have a feature to sort dates in the right order. Do like DNA Lounge and do it right.
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
even if it is indicative of using MS Word, "smart quotes" (“ and ”) are typographically correct, rather than the double-prime symbol (").
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
the absolute idiocy of this cannot be voiced.
The only blogs I've found useful over the long term are from good journalist and some professors. By definition a journalist is a professional writer. they'll have decent style and cut the trivia. I like college professor blogs where they accumulate their research results.
Once upon a time people would buy diaries - books of blank paper, in which to pour out their thoughts, woes, tributes to their cats, bad goth poetry (is there any other?) etc. They'd then put the diaries under the mattress or in a drawer, and probably forget about it after a few weeks.
But now in this brave new world, people get blogs or livejournals, and witter pointlessly about things that nobody gives a fuck about but them. Tributes to their cat, goth poetry, brainless gibberish.
It's a horrible waste of technology...!
"Information wants to be paid"
If my blogging I either know what my doing ?
WTF ?
would you buy a book "how to keep a journal"? this seems like it could be summarized in a one page list of "hints and tips"
...kept a diary and how you had to sneak into her bedroom and search through the drawers to find it. And remember how she freaked out when she caught you and your mates reading about what she'd like to do behind the bike sheds with Bobby Jones.
Nowadays she'd be publishing it all over the web and anybody can read it.
Sure takes the fun out of life!
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
See, I completely disagree. I like to go to a page and just read whatever's on top to find out what's new. So, to each his or her own.
"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys" P. J. O'Rourke
0x201C : Left Double Quotation Mark
0x201D : Right Double Quotation Mark
0x2033 : Double Prime
0x0022 : Quotation Mark (")
(Unicode character codes)
The generic quotation mark character is used in cases where the other three symbols are not available (software which only accepts ASCII) or when the writer is lazy.
I personally always use the left and right curly quotation marks when I'm sure I'm typing into something which can accept them. Most people never conciously notice, but it makes parsing the quotation a lot easier I find. I also don't use or even own a copy of Microsoft Word.
Here is the correct link for Radio UserLand.
...that tells us that the author doesn't think much of blogging to begin with, that the book has too many pictures for his tastes, and that he can't fathom why anyone would want to use the three highlighted tools in the first place.
How about installing and using the tools, per the book, and telling us how if the instructions work?
And, why the gratuitous plug for the Slash book? And why the implied slur of anyone who wants a blog but doesn't need, want, or have time to wade through Slash? He might as well have said "Why would anyone not smart enough to understand Perl code even pretend their smart enough to use these tools?"
Next time, I'd like to learn about the book, not the author. This "review" is just another example of geek bias and elitism.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Get a webserver and the Python code on my site (see my homepage). It doesn't let the reader leave any comments, but that's the way it should be.
+1 (Shameless self-promotion)
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
... because there are plenty of free hints/tips for writing 'effective' weblogs.
Write the Living Web by Mark Bernstein
How to Write a Better Weblog by Dennis A. Mahoney
How to be Soopafamous by W.K. Lang
A Case for Web Storytelling by Curt Cloninger
Those links are just for a quick scan at Alistapart. I'm sure a little more work and you could build up a huge directory of 'good weblogging' links (or just read Zeldman).
As for the blogging systems themselves, can the people who buy this book not deal with README files? I've used Blogger and MT in my weblogging time and both have had excellent online documentation or readme files respectively.
This seems to me like a book for people who really don't want to try to learn anything for themselves, and need it all presented for them. There is so much more to be gained by finding out stuff fo yourself.
--Jon
Cleanstick.org: Dumb weblog about nothing
...are going to have a lot to wade through when they study the information age. Remembering my undergraduate days of wading through letters of the 16/17th century landed gentry, how the hell is anyone going to cope with the embarassment of riches that we are leaving behind?
Always averting "Something" for dummies books, I had to consider this title as I passed it on the clearance shelf; "Plastic Surgery for Dummies"
come on fhqwhgads
I do a blog helper application called QBoard, qboard.org which is a free version of the tagboards bloggers have been using for a while. I see A LOT of blogs that sign up for our little free product and I can say with certainty that 90% of them are complete and total crap that bring me back to the days of the "frame-craze" or the crazy colors with blinking text and animated images with background sounds (if I wanted your website to make noise I would lick my finger and drag it across my screen) .. I am waiting for the blog frenzy to die a little death and move to where it belongs, sites like livejournal etc.. Once journalist get over themselves and people realize that nobody really cares what their cd collection is like, the better. Well, in my opinion... but then I am a programmer and am so bored with blog-girls with webcams showing their tits and little boys who think they are pretty and design sites for only IE and Mozilla/Netscape be damned because they use some product that can't comply for us linux users. bahh
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
I wish I had mod points, because you, sir, have encapsulated all of my misgivings about the "blog" life into one succinct and amusing post. If I were wearing a hat, it would be off to you.
Conspir8or
who needs blogging software when all you need are a couple of perl scripts?
what is the fuss about ?
Here's the description of today's show:
Work for Change & GET PAID!
I fucking hate that word! "blog". That has to be in
the running for the most stupid sounding shortening
of a word there is. "blog" just makes me think
of a Mog, half-man, half-dog.
I'm my own best friend!
The numeric rating really seems disproportionate, as the reviewer did have some good things to say:
- "for a person who is determined to keep a daily journal available on the Internet, it would provide helpful reading material"
- "the depth of covered material is surprisingly large for such a narrow topic"
The reviewer appears to think that people are either hackers, or will use LiveJournal (a system we didn't cover in depth in book). I take issue with that.The primary audience for Essential Blogging is someone who is new to blogging. If you already use a blogging system like Movable Type, you'll learn something from the book (Ben and Mena, the authors of Movable Type, wrote a lot of new material for their chapters), but you are not the primary audience. We even say this in the preface, and the back cover pretty clearly states what's inside: "Essential Blogging helps you select the right blogging software for your needs and shows you how to get your blog up and running."
Someone new to blogging can read Chapter 1 to learn about the different aspects of a blogging system; the pros and cons of self-hosting vs hosted, desktop vs server; and ultimately decide which web journal system to use. Then they can read the chapters specific to their chosen system to get started, and return when they're ready to customize the appearance of their blog.
While working on the book, I kept my Dad in mind. He's technical, not stupid, and if he wanted to start a blog, what I want him to know about? The audience also explains the screenshots--if you're new to blogging, you don't to know what to expect nor what the possibilities are. Although it's hard for the reviewer to imagine there are people who haven't been hacking web sites and writing their own blogging systems since 1996, such people do exist.
But even people who already blog and are entrenched in a particular blogging system should check out the others. I'm a Movable Type user myself, but it was a real eye-opener to use Radio Userland for a while. The whole approach to software and blogging is different in Radio Userland, and it makes you look at your own setup in a new light. I'm not saying you need to buy Essential Blogging to do this, but such comparisons are a benefit of having multiple systems presented side-by-side in the one book.
About the only thing I agree with the reviewer wholeheartedly on is that it's a shame we don't cover LiveJournal more. When the book was being developed, I didn't see the geek interest in LiveJournal that I see now. Perhaps in the second edition we'll have chapters on LiveJournal.
So to conclude, I sure hope the old saying that there's no such thing as bad publicity is true. I hope the next book gets a real review (more than six paragraphs) by someone who reads the preface :-).
--Nat
(blogs on O'Reilly Network and use.perl, as well as several Movable Type installations for family, and a Blossom blog for work)
Here. .com, not .org.
--Moss
This is a
Now there are two of them.
There are two _____.
I refuse to even look at this book. I was a big fan of MovableType since I began blogging. I even donated in their highest category. Then I ran into problems and Ben and Mena were too busy writing this book to help me out. So I switched and am now a satisfied and happy pMachine user.
Blogging rocks though!
One option, since its one of those books you only need for a little while to select and set up your software, would be to "rent" the book online for a month from Safari at O'Reilly's website, then either unsubscribe from Safari or switch to a more interesting book later.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
MicroBlogger...Everything you'll ever need in a blog. Period..
Bowie J. Poag
What's with the smart apostrophe in the paragraph on the front page?
I thought slashdot liked standards like Unicode, ASCII, or ISO-latin1.
Funny reading all the comments that focus on the vacuous side of the weblog phenomenon. Yeah, there are some really lame ones. There are also some really good ones. Slashdot for instance. I know, people don't consider slashdot a weblog. It is though. It's not the only weblog where more than one person posts. It definately fits all the criteria. Each story is about something linked from somewhere else.
here's a hint: watching Cowboy Bebop in your jammies and eating a bowl of Shreddies is *not* "getting on with your life"
Damn it I should be out ripping people off/beating people up so that girls will like me.
Well, the review is probably fair, but that doesn't mean the book won't be popular or useful. I'm actually predicting that this book will be one of Oreilly's top sellers this year, Slashdot review be damned! Actually, I'm one of the blogger holdouts, and might actually appreciate a chapter or two on movable type. The problem with technical publishing is that these books can be irrelevant fairly soon, and it's hard to predict what will be the next big thing.
I haven't read the book, so I'm speculating wildly here. Actually, I would have liked some firsthand accounts of how famous bloggers managed their website, both from a technical and a literary point of view. What subjects tend to be good for blogs? How to publicize? How does a weblog compare to CMS, in terms of advantages and disadvantages? Maybe some might regard this as padding, but I think the sociological aspects of blogging are just as interesting as the technical aspects.
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer
Texas Technical Writer, Trainer & Linux Aficionado
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
For the love of God, give the ??? crap a rest.
your sig doesn't work on my box, Win XP with cygwin perl 5.8.0
' t modify single ref constructor in scalar assignment at -e line 1, near "q#:
is it me or you?
d:\>perl -e"\$_=q#: 13_2: 12/'{>: 8_4) (_4: 6/2'-2; 3;-2'\2: 5/7\_/\7: 12m m::#;
s#:#\n#g;s#(\D)(\d+)#\$1x\$2#ge;print
Can
13_2: 12/'{>: 8_4) (_4: 6/2'-2; 3;-2'\2: 5/7\_/\7: 12m m::#;"
SpyDock: Scientific Python in a Docker container
Don't forget raping the ones who don't like you.
just the same as with paper writing, there are different genres, and some shine more brightly than others.
some are more important socially and historically; some are funny and popular in their day; some are outrageous and reviled in their time, later to be held up as icons of excellence; others are merely mundane.
you choose to see blog culture in a certain light, which is your own egoism (you think you're a better person for not being involved in it, and that you are more educated), but the reality is that blogs are just as individual as writing, and most of the writing in the world is crap. loads of intelligent and well educated people also wrote crap.
the signal to noise is appalling. the volume of shakespeare, compared to mills and boon speaks for itself.
saying all books are crap, based on mills and boon examples is just as ridiculous as your claim.
not all blogs and journals are personal.
some: track projects, follow news items, display rss feeds, develop source code, are fictional stories in development, are history lessons laid out with dates...
blogs and journals are just another form of publishing.
don't equate particular culture content with the format, as the two are very different.
they are also a change in what published material is used for.
some journals are a form of news for family and friends far away, which is not what diaries have been traditionally used for.
these non-standard uses are a radical culture shift, enabled by technology. we may not see the full impact of this for some time.
if you hate the culture so much, do something about it, create something worth reading, like a day by day study of past diaries.
family on the other side of the world is more and more common these days
http://www.livejournal.com/download/?platform=Mozi lla
one of the most biased reviews I have ever seen
QED
weblogs: a history and perspective Google search: "history of blogging
this same "waste of technology" enables people from across the globe to keep in touch with their families, enables the publishing of great writers who aren't interested in making money.
this same "waste of technology" provides very good feedback on poor media coverage, reactions to global events, connections between remote cultures (eg. iceland and indonesia), cheap a collaboration tool for volunteer projects (eg. open source)
it's not a diary, it's a form of publishing.
it's cheap, it's fast and it does not require a lot of technical experience.
just like the internet.
how ironic
switch to LiveJournal, it's open source, it's more fully-formed, it has features that no other blog tool offers, including an active community.
this person has caught the cluetrain
OK, we all hate the weekly status meeting where everyone in the department is called together to one location at an inconvenient time to listen to other people say what they've been working on. However, every once in a while someone else has an answer to something you've been working on, or vice versa. Not often enough to make the meetings seem worthwhile, but it does happen.
How about instead of the meeting each developer keeps a blog about what they're working on and problems they're having, update it at least once a week, and encourage/require other developers to read the blogs to get an idea of what other people are up to & see if they can answer a nagging question.
You can read them when it's convenient to you, as opposed to the meeting which is convenient to the manager.
I see this a good use for blogs, and this book could be good for the blog-naive developer/manager.
I think most of you are getting a little lost. See, you're making the mistake of labelling online journals as weblogs. While there is definitely some overlapping, journals and weblogs are not one and the same.
Like most of you have observed, online journals are mostly products of self absorbed teens whining about their lives (of course, not all of them are like that - LittleYellowDifferent is technically a blog but verges into journal territory lots, with a bunch of hilarious anecdotes from the author's life). Blogs, on the other hand, are the natural extention of links pages. They offer links to interesting or funny webpages and adding often hilarious commentary on the pages. Of course there are a ton of inane, cookie-cutter blogs, but there are a whole bunch of amazing and hilarious blogs out there too.
Examples of some awesome blogs are Davezilla, the null device, and Kottke.org.
Oh, and here's my rule of thumb for finding great blogs: If, in your quest, you find yourself at Livejournal or Blogspot, run as far as you can in the opposite direction, because you're not going to find the next Davezilla on there.