TECHNOLOGY: RSS is nothing more than XML, but what implications

Monday, March 5, 2007

http://www.brightcove.com/title.jsp?title=570307363

Practical RSS
John Mahoney
CTO / co-founder of Instant Information

RSS is nothing more than a specific application of XML applied to the information distribution problem. Here’s an excellent short explanation of it. Everyone may benefit from. RSS could be the way out of the morass of email we all deal with every day. Blogs, many websites, wikis, most forums can all produce an rss feed.

Envision instead of sending an milti-meg email full of attachments, that absorbs resources galore all over, one can create an entry that gets shared automagically with everyone who wants it. RSS is a pull technology. Your reader PULLS the content your interested in as opposed to you having to go get it. You can control it.

It turns the information model upside down from the way we think about it now.

Instead of one email with a bunch of carbon copies, you can “subscribe” to sources. on the intranet and internet, who will feed you.

I’ve been “doing” RSS as both a publisher and a consumer for a while now and would be happy to show you how it can work for you.

If someone can’t live outside of Microsoft LookOut, there is a freeware product called RSSPOPPER that will make an rss feed look like email folder to your LookOut. ;-) Wouldn’t want anyone to go into withdrawal.

If you are on email subscription lists, there are ways to turn them into rss feeds as well.

I’d love to “consult” with anyone who thinks I can help.

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Posted by reinkefj

RANT: Yet Another abuse of the troops

Monday, March 5, 2007

http://alternet.org/waroniraq/48788/

60,000 Marriages Broken by Iraq, Including Mine
By Stacy Bannerman, The Progressive
Posted March 5, 2007.

*** begin quote ***

Congress has abandoned the troops for nearly four years. It is the soldiers, their families, and the people of Iraq that pay the human costs. The tab so far: more than 3,000 dead U.S. troops, tens of thousands of wounded, over half a million Iraqi casualties, roughly 250,000 American servicemen and women struggling with PTSD, and almost 60,000 military marriages that have been broken by this war. Including mine.

*** end quote ***

This an inexcusable abuse of our people in uniform. The costs of this “war”, (undeclared by Congress), like those of many others, is just conveniently “overlooked” by the political class.

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Posted by reinkefj

TECHNOLOGY: Divshare – Free eternal large file hosting (How’d they do that?)

Monday, March 5, 2007

http://distributedresearch.net/blog/
2007/03/04/divshare-free-file-hosting-
for-mp3s-and-blog-pictures/

http://tinyurl.com/32h4rj

Divshare – Free file hosting for mp3s and blog pictures
Andy Roberts
an online researcher who initiated distributedresearch.net

***Begin Quote***

Divshare allows you to upload as many files as you like, up to 200Mb per file and then serves them up wherever you like for free, as text links, hotlinked from your blog or embedded as an mp3 player. And there’s a divshare uploader plugin for WordPress.org which makes it so easy to add pictures to a blog without incurring any bandwith or file quota charges, whilst keeping them all organised together under your divshare account, accessible from the dashboard. This would probably have some advantages over using flickr as a file hosting resource for blogs and wiki.

***End Quote***

Naturally, I like anything that is free. This site purports to keep anything online for free forever? I don’t know how they can do it, but that doesn’t prevent me from trying it out.

Of course, being paranoid, I’d only put stuff there that I didn’t really care about. If it was the least bit private, it’d have to be encrypted.

YMMV, but it might be useful.

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Posted by reinkefj

INTERESTING: Free language lessons

Monday, March 5, 2007

http://www.language-learning-advisor.com/
language-learning-advisor-news.html

*** begin quote ***

Free FSI Language Courses is a site that is making available all of the old FSI language courses created by the US government. These courses are free for download (in pdf and mp3 formats) for anyone who wants them. A number of courses are currently up and in due time many others will be there as well.

*** end quote ***

Could be a cheap way to learn a language.

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Posted by reinkefj

MONEY: Rebates … you almost fooled me.

Monday, March 5, 2007

I was about to buy some cheap tech dodad online when I noticed the price jumped when I went to check out.

Rebate?

I don’t know about you but I’ve learned my lesson. I don’t do rebates! I think it’s an unfair business practice.

As a matter of fact, I punish vendors with this scam. I refuse to do business with them at all.

Good bye Buy Dot Com.

You almost fooled me. But you won’t get that chance again.

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Posted by reinkefj

TECHNOLOGY: PLAXO acts flakey tonight

Sunday, March 4, 2007

http://www.plaxo.com

I like Plaxo for it’s ability to sync my Outlook with their most current info.

One thing I do on Sunday nights is “collect” all my new LinkedIn contacts and put them into my Outlook. As part of that process, I check for their plaxo status. If they’re not in Plaxo, I send them an invite. Most times it’s ignored but about a quarter pick it up.

Tonight, Plaxo must be offline tonight. The plaxo invite mechanism did show up with every contact. I focused on the first contact as being the one with the flakeyest invitation mechanism.

Hopefully stuff will be better on the morrow. Sigh, I can break everything.

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Posted by reinkefj

JOBSEARCH: It’s NOT you!

Sunday, March 4, 2007

poster71877900

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Posted by reinkefj

JOBSEARCH:: How this fellow Became a Big Wheel

Sunday, March 4, 2007

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17030580/site/newsweek/

http://tinyurl.com/2655bb

How I Became a Big Wheel

Let go by IBM and deeply in debt, a family man turned his childhood passion for unicycles into a thriving online start-up.

By John Drummond Newsweek

***Begin Quote***

It was supposed to be a hobby—just a part-time thing to generate a little extra money. We didn’t think we could make a living at it. I thought I would work at IBM for 30 years and retire, just as my father had. At that point I had only seven to go. The dot-com bust began in early 1999, about the same time we launched Unicycle.com. The odds seemed stacked against us. Online companies were folding. We had no experience running a company. Amy was an at-home mom to our three boys. I had just earned a degree in journalism by attending college at night. We were deeply in debt.

***End Quote***

Necessity is … …

That is the power of the internet to transform our world.

If you don’t have a second business that is working, then you better have ones that you are trying.

I have FOUR in various stages of incubation.

Even if they all tank, I’ll know what doesn’t work.

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Posted by reinkefj

LIBERTY: Another call for the separation of school and state!

Sunday, March 4, 2007

http://reinkefj.newsvine.com/_news/2007/03/04/
597680-a-call-for-separation-of-school-and-
state-the-boston-globe

http://tinyurl.com/yw3mb3

A call for separation of school and state
The Boston Globe
Seeded on Sun Mar 4, 2007 11:14 AM EST
politics, constitution, libertarian, libertarians, government-schools

***Begin Quote***

Once Americans may have agreed on what children should be taught, but that day is long gone. On any number of fundamental issues, parents today are sharply divided, and there is no way a government-run, one-curriculum-fits-all education system can satisfy all sides. The only way to end the political battles over schooling is to depoliticize the schools. And the only way to do that is to separate school and state.

***End Quote***

Clearly, the gooferment is pursuing its own agenda. Or, that of the 1920’s socialists who wanted a nation of good soldiers / compliant factory workers.

If the state skool can indoctrinate children with what ever the State feels is appropriate, then isn’t it immoral to force the parents to pay for an education that they morally object to. And, then by extension, isn’t it immoral for the State to force anyone to pay for a service that they object to.

If the State is my agent to whom I empower to act on my behalf, I can not give it powers that I don’t have. If all men are endowed by their Creator with the same rights that I have, then no one has a right that I don’t have. So if I can’t do it, then no amount of adding others, like me, doesn’t give the State any different power then I would have acting alone.

I can’t force some one’s child to go to my school, then the State can’t force parents to do it.

I can’t force you to give me money even if I call it taxes, neither can the State.

It is all just immoral. As well as being ineffective, inefficient, and just wrong.

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Posted by reinkefj

INTERESTING: Reworking the Police Profession

Sunday, March 4, 2007

Cutting out the “mickey mouse” by over enforcement?

read more | digg story

Interesting that a “private development” “owns” their own roads and the police are limited to what they can enforce.

May need a little tuning? But  a great idea. Like the roads and parking lots at Disneyland, there’s no reason why roads have to belong to the gooferment!

On a technical note: This is one of my first uses of the DIGG “blog about it” function. I’m not sure I like it, but I’ll try anything.

Your thoughts?

Leave a Comment » | LINKEDIN | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

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