I think I’ve gotten all the remaining bugs and functionality worked
out on the email posting capability of this web log. I added the final
bit today to cause it to send to the subscription list when an email
post is added to the weblog. Now I’ll use it occasionally to verify that
the strange line breaks are indeed handled correctly. If that proves to
be the case, this will become the default process for me to add entries
to the web log when I only have access to email.

There is some other capability in the system that I’ve also turned on
and will see if that has any affect. The web log community have defined
a capability called “trackback”. This is the method of notifying another
website that it has been referenced in my web log. The idea is to create
a literal web of cross-linked web logs. If it had been turned on for
some earlier posts, the referenced web pages would also have a link back
to my web log. This trackback capability drives some of the Google
process where web pages that are frequently linked by other web pages
rank higher in the Google search algorithm. That capability didn’t go
unnoticed by people who publish their weblogs for very specific
political purposes. By cross-linking with many other web logs, the
Google search engine pays attention and that web log has a higher
probability of being found in a search. In the early days of the
presidential primaries one of the Democratic candidates make good use of
this capability to drive fund raising. It didn’t help in other ways as
he didn’t survive long in the primaries but definitely put a new tool in
the political tool bag. In the case of my web log, it does show up in
Google if I do a search on “rnsmith.com”. If I search on my name, the
web site also shows up, on about page 11 of the results. The early pages
all refer to a writer named Roland Smith who has had several books
published. He is, unfortunately, no relation so I have no possible claim
on his fame.

The only other capability that remains to be explored relates to Real
Simple Syndication (RSS). This is a process that allows people to
subscribe to web logs. Whenever they open their RSS reader, that program
queries all of the subscribed web logs to see if anything new has been
added since the last time the RSS reader was run. If so, the new content
is downloaded and displayed in the RSS reader. If not, the reader just
goes on to the next web log. I haven’t downloaded and installed an RSS
reader, but with the new release of the Firefox web browser and a very
nice RSS reader plugin, I think I’ll see whether or not this is a useful
capability. Many news websites, such as CNN and USAToday have RSS feeds
enabled and that may be interesting to try out. If it does seem to be
interesting, then I’ll try to get RSS setup on this weblog and see if
there’s any interest.

Over time as I’ve posted to the web log, I’ve begun to learn that
there is reason to be careful about the content of my postings. I’ve had
to become much more careful about what I say about my job, my employer,
and things that may be going on there. By posting to a web log, I have
become inadvertently a more public figure and possibly even an perceived
spokesperson for my company. Further I’ve begun to shy away from fully
naming people unless they also already have somewhat of a public
presence. Names of family members, for instance are now only first names
or references by relationship. Not everyone reads web logs with upright
intent! Further, I’ve had to change the program so that I review all
comments before they can be posted to the web log. Some spammers have
latched onto the blog comment feature and have blasted my web log full
of comments advertising gambling or porno sites. As that happens, I
block the poster entirely, but still have to review every posted comment
before allowing it to appear on the blog. So far, the overwhelming
number of comments have been spam with very, very few real comments from
someone reading the weblog. Either that means no one reads the entries,
or that they are so benign or mundane that they aren’t worth commenting on!

There’s actually a couple of conferences for people who do web logs.
One of them, perhaps the father of the web log conventions, is
bloggercon. This one-day conference was recently held at Stanford
University in Palo Alto, California (see
www.itconversations.com for recordings of some of
the sessions at that conference). One of the sessions was for “newbies”
and discussed reasons why people put up web logs. I fall into the “diary
or journal” classification, which is by far the largest category of web
logs. That essentially means that I’m writing to myself and allowing
anyone who wishes to kind of listen in and interject comments from time
to time if they so desire. Talking to yourself doesn’t necessarily mean
that you’re crazy — but if I start answering myself, then you can call
for the folks in the white coats!

That’s all the ramblings for tonight.