From the category archives:

web stuff

Post ranking

by jltitus on November 23, 2008

I just found the coolest add ons to Firefox today, AideRSS Google Reader integration and Post Rank. These two extensions are making my life SO much easier. I’m sure many people have already found these two extensions and are using them but for the sake of those that have yet to discover them, here are a few reasons why these two extensions should be in your Firefox.

Skimming your Google Reader feeds becomes so much easier. I really like that I get a ranking for each post in my Reader. It makes it so much easier to skim and get to those posts that people are bookmarking. I have to say using this feature has really cut down the time I spend reading posts. I’m able to get to the really important things right away rather than hoping I find them.

Getting an RSS feeds of your feeds is very simple. I’ve used Yahoo Pipes in the past to get a feed of feeds but I have to say, this is SO much easier than that. I just downloaded my Google Reader OPML file and uploaded it to Post Rank and now I have feeds for each tag I use. I can see a lot of uses for this, one of them being getting the feed and using it on a Netvibes dashboard. So much easier and less time consuming than Yahoo Pipes.

Page ranking everywhere you “surf”. I like this feature because now any where I go I can see how that page ranks. It’s just so simple. In the picture below the page I went to was ranked 8.1. What a quick and easy way to see how pages I go to are doing and what others think of the information.

Tagged as: AideRss, RSSfeeds

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RSS feeds management

by jltitus on October 15, 2008

We’ve all had the problem. Hundreds of feeds and you never get them all read. I go through this ever couple of months or so. I end up with so many feeds in my Google Reader I just don’t get to them all. I start feeling guilty about it and wonder how others do it all. Some people I’ve talked to suggest cutting the number of feeds you read… and I hear that BUT then I feel like I might miss something important. The challenge is… how to manage your feeds.

I talked to Josh Bancroft a few weeks ago about the very thing. He’s got a great method he uses. I’ve adopted it and I have to say, it works really well. So what is it?

1) Use Google Reader for those feeds you REALLY will read.

2) Aggregate your other feeds and put them on your Netvibes.

So how do you aggregate your feeds? Well, you could:

Use YahooPipes (Thanks Marshall K for teaching that at WordCampdx.)
Use the following tools to get RSS feeds of keyword searches and then use Netvibes to browse the searches.
- Twitter search (search.twitter.com)
- FriendFeed
- Google Blog Search
- Ask.com blog search
- flickr.com/photo/tag
- Youtube tags

I have been following this process for the last couple weeks and I have to say, it works great! I read the feeds that I really want to read and need to read. I don’t feel like I’m missing out because I didn’t but my feeds just moved them to an optional location. I don’t have the guilt either because my Google Reader ONLY has those things I really want to read so I don’t see hundreds of feeds staring me in the face.

I can’t recommend this system enough. That said, do you have a better idea? How do you manage your feeds?

Tagged as: feed_management, jbancroft, yahoo_pipes

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WordCampPDX

by jltitus on October 2, 2008

Finally I’ve gotten the opportunity to post about WordCampdx that I attended this last Saturday. this was the first event of this kind I have attended, I just have to say, it was AMAZING! I wasn’t sure what to expect but it was better than I had thought it would be. I started the morning registering and meeting other bloggers. I’m usually a pretty shy person around people I don’t know, but having blogging in common enabled me to come out of my shell. I think I started with 18 twitter followers and ended up with something close to 40 after one day of networking.

I learned so much attending Wordcampdx. I’m sort of at a loss of where to start. Let’s see, Lorelle VanFossen shared a great story about how Wordpress is changing lives. I had never thought about how blogging enables some people. Lorelle shared a great story about Glenda Watson Hyatt of the Do It Myself Blog. Glenda’s story is so powerful it even made me weepy and thankful that we have techonlogy and the it enables people to break barriers and perceptions. Thanks Lorelle, for the story.
Betsy Richter shared with us how she got a website up, with authors in something like 10 days. I appreciated the anlogies she made and all the “lessons learned” she shared with us. If you haven’t put it in your feeds, add Our PDX Network to your feeds. It’s a great site to keep up with Portland happenings and people.
I was pretty happy after those presentations but the day only got better. Chris O’Rourke showed us the top 10 plug-ins to make our blogs pop. He has some great plugins that I had not heard before. It was super exciting to here him talk about each plugin and install them on my blog as he talked.
After lunch, Jane Wells showed us all the exciting things to come with WordPress 2.7. Man is it going to be awesome! I can’t believe it’s not going to be out for about another month. I’m so waiting for that one.
Next up, Tying you Tubes: Integration with WordPress Josh Bancroft . Josh made some great analogies relating integration of our “web life” with our blog and how we can support such things as twitter, friendfeed,e tc on our home page.
Marshall Kirkpatrick did great presentation showing us how to feed our blogs with rss feeds. I can’t believe all the ways to get feeds and aggregate them to get a feed to post on your blog, use for news, etc. Let’s just say I was left in awe and super excited about the possibilities.

Needless to say, I had a TOTAL blast at the event, met a TON of people and look forward to the continued connections. I honestly feel like I’m becoming part of the PDX blogging community. I’ve been checking out Upcoming and plan to attend several events to keep my involved.

Thanks Wordcampdx for a great day full of information! I look forward to the next one!

Tagged as: community, portland

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Links to remember

by jltitus on February 14, 2007

I don’t normally do this but I’ve found a bunch of cool links to share and remember so here goes. Keep in mind I haven’t had the opportunity to check all of these out yet. If you’ve got thoughts or a review, feel free to share. What I love about all these places it the social bookmarking, tagging and sharing.

http://www.bubbl.us/Brainstorming made simple
http://www.grandcentral.com/A number tied to you, not to a phone or location and more.
http://www.librarything.com/ Great location to keep track of books you’ve read, share with others and get peoples suggestions on books
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/Task manager
http://www.shelfari.com/Post books that are on your shelf. Share, explore, chat.
http://www.sixdegrees.org/Create a badge for your site to encourage others to donate to a cause important to you.
http://upcoming.org/Social events calendar
http://www.yelp.com/Restaurant reviews and more, sort of like citysearch

Tagged as: links

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Great web 2.0 summary

by jltitus on February 14, 2007

I found this the other day, don’t remember which blog, sorry, but I really like the sumary.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE]

Tagged as: tech, web

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Don't know what to think

by jltitus on February 13, 2007

I got this link from Grandpa Jim. I don’t know if I think it’s cool or if it’s sort of scary. It is interesting to see all the event’s going on around the world.

http://www.globalincidentmap.com/home.php

Tagged as: jim_titus

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Have you seen this?

by jltitus on January 20, 2007

I’m thinking it’s super cool and I’m going to have to check it out. Might be a great place to do online business, etc. Who knows. http://www.terapad.com/

Tagged as: online

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