onfocus

Today is primary voting day in Oregon, and I'll be watching the Benton County stats: Returns and Turnout. In Oregon everyone votes by mail (or at a dropsite) which is very convenient—so why the low turnout?

sk and I went out to Newport on Saturday and Sunday and had a great time. I'll be posting photos from the trip in my photolog (especially of Ona Beach) and here's a panoramic I took in Newport:


Yaquina Harbor Panoramic (click for a larger 223k version)

I am currently away from the computer.

Cold Turkey by Kurt Vonnegut: "...we are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is."

If you've been waiting to buy Amazon Hacks until you get more than just the book with your purchase (heh), the time has come to buy. You'll get five new hacks in a PDF if you buy the book on Amazon now. I wrote the new hacks a while back. One is an AppleScript that loops through your Mac Address Book and finds people with Wish Lists. Another hack walks you through creating a generic Amazon bookmarklet, and describes some bookmarklets that are already out there (like Library Lookup, and RIAA Radar). If you already have Amazon Hacks and you just want the new PDF, I'm not sure how you'd go about getting it.

In other Amazon hackery, someone posted a good tip about product manuals on Amazon at the Hacks site.

I think the panel discussion last night went well, and it was fun meeting some new people behind weblogs I read. Kevin, Heather, and I were all in agreement that weblogs are just beginning their impact on the world. There was a great discussion with the audience, and I was a bit nervous being on the panel side because there were so many people there who could have been on that side of the table. But it was a very casual setting, and I think a fun time was had by all. Now for the name dropping—I finally met b!X, biohabit (jeremy), strangechord (emily), and Brad from LiveJournal. There should be more weblog get-togethers because it's great to be able to put a face with a site. (I tried to get to a Portland Bloggers meeting last week, but couldn't find the place. There's a Bend Bloggers meeting tonight.) Thanks again to Brad Stenger for inviting me to participate.

Josh (who I didn't meet) posted a picture at ORblogs of me gesticulating last night. Matt posted a photo too.

Speaking of innovations in web applications, check out the way Flickr handles tagging photos. Very cool!

Back in 2000, I posted about digital culture saying that "...every cultural revolution has songs. Why shouldn't we?" Today Anil Dash compiled a list of songs about weblogs. Our weblog revolution does have a folk soundtrack, even though it's not "folk" music.

Brad Stenger—the man behind the blogging panel coming up this Tuesday—has started a weblog on OregonLive. I'm not sure what it's going to be about exactly (no description on the blog itself), but it's called Tech Blog so I assume it'll be about technology. Mr. Stenger has contributed to several scientific magazines, and has been involved in academic scientific research. It's good to see that his research into weblogs lead him to going native.

Blogger.com got its first major facelift in four years, and I like the new look. I also like the new profile pages. Unfortunately I'm not a fan of the new MovableType-esque posting interface. What I liked about Blogger was that you could see all of your posts in context, much the way you see it in your weblog. Taking the messiness out of posts by showing the last five as a list with just the title is something I've never liked about MT. I'm not sure the post-listing style interface makes weblogs easier for people new to blogging. (Where did my words go?) Also, homogenizing weblog tools so the interfaces are exactly the same (well, similar) isn't a step forward either.

Weblog tools haven't really innovated on the posting interface side. Blogger and TypePad have worked to make the interfaces solidified in 2001 drop-dead simple, but there hasn't been anything new there. Why no post filters like gmail filters? Why no "post templates" that could define different types of posts? Why no web services-style integration with other applications to pull in data from other sources?

Don't get me wrong—I think the new Blogger design looks good, I'm just disappointed that there hasn't been more innovation on the tech side of weblog tool interfaces.

sk and I went for a hike around Alsea Falls south of Corvallis. Here are a bunch of photos:


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It was a great, relaxing hike and I had fun taking pictures of the water.

I'm going to be participating in a panel discussion on Blogs, Bloggers, Blogging next Tuesday night at Powell's Tech in Portland. I'll probably talk a bit about my time at Blogger, a site I manage called ORblogs that aggregates Oregon weblogs, and what it means to write a blog for fun. Kevin Cosgrove from OregonLive will be there, and I'm looking forward to hearing about their use of weblogs on the site (they've been adding them like mad lately). I don't know Heather Gorgura, but her site mentions her studying alternative media and activism. The last I heard, Rael wasn't going to be able to make it—but I hope I'm wrong. The fun starts at 7:30, see ya there! (Here's the upcoming.org listing of the panel.) I believe this is going to be an open discussion, so the difference between panelist and audience member should be minimal. In other words, be ready to discuss weblogs.

Are you going? What would you like to discuss with this panel?