Betterness by Kawika Holbrook

Anatomy Lesson

Megnut asks What We’re Doing When We Blog on the O’Reilly Network, and then answers—in part—with “The Anatomy of a Post.” “A weblog post can be identified by the following distinguishing characteristics: a date header, a time stamp, and a permalink.” Uh oh. As of five minutes ago, I have my time stamp (not just the date) and a permalink, indicated with a hyperlinked right angle quote.

Strikethrough 06.19.02

>Yet another attempt to goad myself into action:
—Run
—Blog
—Cards
—Invoices
—Call Kaiser
—Call Smith Barney
—Read first chapter in UNIX book
—Learn strikethrough HTML code to cross off items from this list
—Chill

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Replies

Well, I ran. And I might still get to the invoices, cards, and UNIX book. But it’s after 7 p.m. and I have to help a friend with his resume—something I promised days ago and now have to finish. A journal of a thousand miles begins with a single step (although stepping on your own foot isn’t the best step to start with).

posted by kawika at 07:18 p.m. on wednesday, june 19, 2002

Elementary

After reading this Signal vs. Noise discussion about this New York Times article, I decided to research next year’s replacement for my motorcycle. I’m down to three choices at the moment: the Volkswagen Passat (stylish, but unnecessary), the Honda Civic Hybrid (responsible, but dull), and the Honda Element (fun, practical, but untested). Man, that Element—a homely yet somehow fetching amalgam of Land Rover, Woody, and Civic.

Between Friends

Excellent quote from the New York Times about the new “Switch” campaign from Apple. “Our relationship with Microsoft is really pretty good,” Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, said. “What’s a few market-share points between friends? It wouldn’t matter to them, and we would be eternally grateful.”

Websites Are Employees

Do people interact with Websites the same way they interact with employees in a store? The New York Times thinks so. Corporate websites aren’t TV ads or applications. Spinning logos, empty slogans, and “big photos of smiling people … completely fail on the Web,” said Jakob Nielsen. What works? Whatever makes your company easy to do business with. (I don’t know how long The Times keeps printable pages free for readers, so spy this while you can.)

Shugar Was Sweet

Scott Shugar, a pioneering Internet journalist died in a scuba diving accident. "Today's Papers," affectionately known as TP, has been one of the few "must-reads" in my life -- so much so that I actually subscribed to Slate. I will miss him.

Of K-Logs and [f]logs

A few people are applying the concept of weblogs to the wider concept of knowledge management. The result is k-logging (“knowledge-logging”). Will it catch on? Will employers dump Lotus Notes databases in favor of browsers and blog-style brain-dumps? Not without more enhancements. For now, though, “klogging” as given me a new idea for splitting Fluxray’s single weblog into a professional and personal log. Not sure what to call the former, but the latter could certainly be “[f]log.” Pronouce it any way you want. (I will.)

Backlog

I have tried, in vain, to set up Movable Type as Fluxray’s content management system. I’ll be sticking with Greymatter. At some point I’ll try again. Categories, multiple blogs, and a clean, valid CSS layout all appeal to me—as does the forthcoming inclusion of MySQL, email posting, and registration. (“Movable Type: designed for the anal rententive writer in each of us.”) For now, I will offer no more excuses for the lack of postings. I have a thousand ideas swimming in my head. Time to “upstream.”

I'm Back

Expect some changes 'round here. Soon.

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Replies: one comment so far

I missed me.

posted by kawika at 09:26 a.m. on monday, june 10, 2002