Sooooo… guess who’s a stupid idiot? If you’ve ever read this site before then you know the answer. This weekend is WordCamp San Francisco, and seeing as how Colin and I had such a great time with WordCamp Reno/Tahoe it just seemed fitting to go raise some hell with the geeks in the big city. So we’ve got this great trip planned, set up some time to check out a CoWorking facility there to get some insight for Reno Collective & even planned some time with the folks behind FreelanceCamp. Got everything settled, right?

Yeah. Um. So I just went to register last minute and they’re closed. This is so on par for me. I swear I started aging backwards at 25. So, I just shot off the following email to Maya Desai, who works with all of the WordCamps. My hope is that my shear professionalism will win her over. Let’s hope for the best.

Maya,

Hi. I’m a big dumb dork and I’ve got a trip planned for Wordcamp SF this weekend, but being a dork I didn’t register in time. I know that’s my fault but I also know that you help out the various Wordcamps and this is my attempt to see if I can beg you for help. I helped organize the recent Reno/Tahoe Wordcamp and we had an absolute blast, and I’d be your best friend forever if there’s any way that you could help me register late for Wordcamp SF.

So, what do you say, Maya? Is there any possible chance that I could get into Wordcamp this weekend? If need be, I will come to the lobby and grab ahold of Matt’s ankle, sobbing until someone takes my twenty and gives me a badge. Actually, I’ll make my own if that helps.
Your potential BFF,
Ed

Fingers firmly crossed & dignity swallowed- we will prevail.

One reason I absolutely love my Treo:

Always having a blogreader with me means never having to resort to perusing shampoo ingredients when I forget reading material on those long craps.

You know you do it, don’t even look at me that way.

Next time you’re stuck on the crapper finding out how much hydroxypro-pyltrimonium chloride is in your salon selectives you can think of me.

This one is strictly for all the other losers out there who blog.

We need someone to write the plugin which will end the problem of expired material.

I think I have it in concept. I use trillian as an IM client. As I write, it adds hyperlinks to words that link back to wikipedia entries on the subject.

We need a similar plugin for blogs and our archives.

What if, as we posted, hyperlinks were added to our most used words- linking to dynamically created archives of all the other posts which used that same word or phrase.

Hello.

It would have to have a few features to make it work. First off, it would have to offer a blacklist of too-common words like “and” and “the” that we could add to and personalize. It’s sensitivity would have to be adjustable also.

I really think it would solve the problem of outdated material. Once something is posted it’s forgotten and that sucks. When I’m in a conversation I’m alaways pulling up pieces of old thoughts and making them new again. That’s how we think, how we communicate- why not make it a more natural process for blogging?

Warning: Tool Ahead.

As seen on seanbonner’s site: Why I asked bloglines to remove my site from it’s service.

Yeah! I asked bloglines to do the same. Then I asked every online user in the whole world to never share a file again. I also called each “ed” in the phone book and let them know that I have fist dibbs on our name. I still thought I had a little pretentious bastard left in me so I went ahead and sued an orphan who used one of the jokes I casually told in public without referencing me.

If I am not mistaken, isn’t it your RSS FEED that bloglines is showing people?

AND IF I MAY GO FURTHER WITH MY CONJECTURE, DIDN’T YOU PUT IT THERE FOR FEEDREADERS TO AGGREGATE IT, YOU RIDICULOUS GREEDY TOOL?

Ugh. People are so funny. And here we all thought that only organizations like the RIAA were myopic and self-serving enough to limit the use of their content.

Obviously he thinks he’s losing ad revenue and possibly risking having his content dangerously close to ads from another competitor. Um, ok. He tosses people a bone with the following:

For the 190 of you who subscribe to this site through Bloglines, I apologize for any inconvenience, but I think that you will still find my site easily accessible, here.

Screw that- I would like to extend a warm invitation to all 190 of his previous subscribers: YOU CAN SUBSCRIBE TO ME INSTEAD. You’ll laugh a hell of a lot more and be able to use bloglines until you puke. Bloglines kicks much ass. I’m not afraid to let them MAKE ME ACCESSIBLE TO HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE- AT THEIR CONVIENIENCE. So subscribe away. There’s a link on the right- click it into submission.

Tony Pierce made it onto screen savers to promote his new book, How To Blog (which would make a pretty cool gift for any blogger you may know…) and his site, the busblog.

It’s exciting to see blogging gaining greater recognition as a medium. Along side that, it’s cool that busblog getting some exposure. If you haven’t checked out the site, zip over & poke around- it’s consistantly on. It’s a great mixture of cool, indignant, cocky and “hi mom.” Even the stuff where I’m like “Tony, you don’t know crap,” I still dig how he flows. His post earlier in the year on how to blog was one of the inspirations of my own satirical HTB post. (look out for the advanced list coming out soon.)

Before you check out the clip, I must mention my surprise that he has the voice of Keenen Ivory Wayans. I was expecting more of a Mario Van Peebles, but that’s cool.

Click on the picture to see the video in Spectacular ED O Vision.

BTW, if you are using a feedreader to view my blog, change the link.

I am going to get rid of the RSS 1.0 now. If you want to continue getting the feed use one of the XML links on my sidebar.

XML
ATOM

I’ve been trying to solve this problem for a while now- must content expire? I think that we (bloggers) do ourselves a terrible disservice with the whole date-based archive deal, but there doesn’t seem to be a way around it yet.

My first problem: I want to attract an audience. So how do you do it? Good content. But there’s this temptation to hold onto your best stuff and wait for a bigger readership (don’t get all “I just blog for the fun of it.” there’s an attention whore in you, me and all the rest of the blogoshpere. deny that and we all know you’re a big fat liar). But does expiration even have to be an issue?

Once you have an audience, can you just pull that stuff off the shelf, dust it off and re-post it? I’m curious about the reception that would receive from the readers. The Sneeze solves this by changing the date on posts so he can recycle his content, but that would mess up the chronology of the archives. I see Tony Pierce and others mention past posts of their own, and this refreshes the content somewhat, but we need a simple, automated, and understandable method. Not something we each must rig up.

Secondly, and I have mentioned this before, there should be a simple way to connect similar posts between blogs. Face it- hardly anyone understands trackbacks. We might as well get rid of them unless someone decides to start explaining them and making them easier to use. I’d love to be able to like a post i see on your site to one i did (earlier) on mine. The conversations will continue and weave throughout the blogosphere and keep our content relevant and fresh.

The only automated attempt at a solution that I have managed so far has been developing several categories and linking whatever categories a post belongs to at the bottom of the page.

I don’t think content should expire. I think we cheat ourselves on accident by allowing it to. I bring up the same stuff in conversation a lot. Heidi even has this code for showing me when I’ve told a story 5 or more times. If anyone has a solution for this, incorporate it into a blogging tool and you know you have at least one person who will jump on it. Until then I’ll just keep linking to this, changing it’s date, copying it and pasting it, or if all that fails maybe resorting to comment spamming. That last one was just a funny. Please don’t kill me.

This is really getting to me. My site looks totally different on different computers. I’ve been trying to tweak the colors here and there but when I make it look cool at home, it sucks at the office.

You change one color- it effects all the others. You place one functionality in and everything looks crappy.

I was going for form and function. Simple and bold form, easy functionality. The scheme was to be “beetlejuice meets socialist propaganda.” What a got looks more like some underground zine Martha Stewart will be putting out from prison.

Sometimes it looks like a double scoop of crap with crappy little sprinkles on a crap cone. Then I stare at it for a while and it’s beautiful.

Hm. Computers. They make life easy.

Posted Gnomedex Pics in the Gallery.

Much Respec goes out to all me homies from the G-Nome Dex conference. Boyaka bokaya.

These peoples made me time at the conference mad fun and enjoyables. Check em all out and then go sets yourself in fronts of a TV thats playin Ali G Indahouse.

That movie is on like DonkeyKong. It will change your life. Providing you are prone to changing your life just after watching an hour and a half straight of 6th grade boy humor.

Show these guys some love:

• Guy: He’s in Isreal. He was a riot.

• Shanti: He’s “that guy” from all your parties in college.
• Ken Kayne: He’s got an online record label and a wicked funny sense of humor.
• Steve: Weird Al’s biggest fan. ever.
• Joz: Great read and a great person to meet.

If you read my site via an aggregator, please update the url for the feed. The 7 of you who read my RDF feed through bloglines still access it through edandheidi.com. Please switch it to EDADKINS.com.

This will help the cause, folks.

Also, please update your blogrolls too- from edandheidi.com to edadkins.com.

Right now my stats are all screwed up since all my traffic is still coming through the old URLs.

THANKS.

Overall it was great. Day two had a couple informative panels on advertising and the future of online content. Also, Wil Wheaton came and read from his new book.

Now, I’ll say this: I know it’s chic to hate Wil Wheaton. I really don’t think that’s justified. I read his blog. I’ve now seen him in person, and the people who know him seem to genuinely like him. I think what people hate are his fans.

They are loyal and star struck and while many may be missing their phasers and rubber ears, they fit the same profile. Don’t hate him because of them. You should have gotten over hating those people back in high school- back before many of them got rich on the internet. Get it out of your system- go stuff someone in a locker.

Many of the people I met at Gnomedex were great. A few were big surprises. A few were aloof or more interested in talking to someone a bit more connected than me. A few seemed on their way to find their red Swinglines.

On the way back from trying to steal whatever we could from the left-over promotional stuff, Jason and I got to meet Joz of jozjozjoz and Patrick Norton from TechTv as well as his wife Sarah. Great people. We only hung out a few minutes but Jason and I left saying that it really made to conference for us. That and the poker and free drinks.

Today is been great so far. First off, it didn’t start until 11:00- so it really doesn’t matter how good the panel is, it gets an automatic 50 points.

Second, I have somehow beaten the stand-type superflu that was plaguing me (I spared you loyal readers the gory details mostly cause I didn’t want to get snot on my blog).

Third, no free drinks at the poker table last night, so no ouchy head this morning. Not that they weren’t sorely needed since we were held hostage listening to some older nerd-rockers living out their dream of being a mediocre light-rock cover band. Every once in a while they’d give away expensive tech goodies to keep us there. No, we didn’t win crap.

Today should be a bit more useful as well since there’s a couple great panels set up covering online content and ads. Also there’s a lunch set up to talk about micro-content. Plus the wifey is coming. Wohoo.

First session- a panel on blogging strategies. It’s a bunch of guys who are nerd-celebrities.

No one has mentioned strategy.

It’s degraded to pretty much “The stuff I use blogging for is cooler than the stuff you use it for.”

At least we had a blast last night. When we walked in to the opening reception I imagined it would be all these internet legends talking about really cool internetty stuff the way we talk about whats for dinner. In reality it was a bunch of guys sitting at tables communicating with their laptops.

It didnt take long before we we’re in the casino- Jason playing poker and me taking care of his free drinks. I definately came out the clear winner for the evening.

Well, tonight the great geek train will roll into town with the kick-off of Gnomedex. On the one hand, I will be able to meet the likes of Wes Crusher and the guy who came up with MTamazon. There will be tech giveaways and wi-fi.

On the other hand I will also be hanging with my partner in crime in Tahoe on my birthday at an event boasting an open bar. Something so cool you could possibly refer to it as “hella-anything” without me delivering a blow to your larynx.

Our ladies will be joining us on Saturday, once we have totally exhausted our appetites for geekdom.

*ding*

Well, the big fancy site redux is done. I really dig it. If anything, it taught me just how freakin miniscule my knowlege of css was. It’s not totally done yet, so let me know if you notice anything looks wrong on your browser of choice.

Check out the swanky all-new features:

• New Photo Section
• New Category and Date Archive pages
• Cool new blogroll
• And much, much more!!!

I would never have got done without pete. He’s the man. Also thanks to Sean Bonner for giving me his opinion of the design. Oh, yeah. Special thanks to Vladimir Lennin and Dane Cook for inspiring the new look.

All the background crap is done:
- Switched to edadkins.com
- Upgraded to MT3.11 (MT caught up to what I want to do, plus I don’t have the time to learn a new system.)

Now it’s time for the facelift. That’ll be going on all this week.

Tomorrow being Heidi’s birthday, I noticed something interesting. About a month ago I started monitoring an XML feed that alerts me if she’s put anything on her wishlist (ahhhh the many ways technology is allowing geeks to take the lead in the romance dept…).

I noticed yesterday that someone else is subscribed to it. Anonymously. Now, I don’t know who out there is keeping dibs on what the princess wants for her birthday, but you are really cool.

So is it a good idea to join Orkut? I hesitated at first since the whole web-networking craze bugged the hell out of me. Now that the dust is clearing, this whole FOAFnet stuff is popping up and we have an RSS-based solution to the social networking phenomenon.

Then I read this over at Marc’s voice. His take on Orkut is that it’s just another way for Google to track user behavior. Hmmm… Now lessee:

1. Google.com: Search engine which tracks your behavior.
2. Gmail: Email which tracks and stores your behavior.
3. Orkut: Social networking which tracks your behavior.

Now don’t think I’m going all Lone Gunmen on you. It’s very impressive. Google has really made themselves valueble. Not just as a service provider to the casual user, but as an Ad service who can provide real reasearch and measurable results. Those services (which all seem to be pretty much the top of their game anyway), all collect data for their moneymaker. That is sweet. That is the product of strategic planning. I love Google- even their secondary products are leading the pack.

But that doesn’t answer my question. Orkut or no? Do I jump on the bandwagon or wait to see about this whole FOAFnet dealie? Come on, people!

No doubt as a result of Movable Type’s recent pricing structure announcement fiasco, Wordpress is getting more, well, press.

Wordpress.org recently jumped to number 2 of bloglines’ most popular links list, indicating a surge of interest in the competing blog software application. A quick glance at Wordpress’s list of features puts it at par with Movable type, with a few additional features such as multiple categories per post and sub-categories.

As more people leave MT in favor of beta applications like Wordpress which are still offered free of charge, we’re bound to see some major jumps in features and functionality brought by increased competion.

I’m excitied to see what new developments are going to come of all this. I was waiting to see the new MT3, expecting it to have all kinds of new features, but it doesnt seem to.