Interesting links of the last week

Here are some links I stumbled upon during last week’s surfing sessions. Maybe some of them are interesting for you as well.

Wired News: New Genome Map Shows We’re Way More Diverse Than We Thought (ok, that one is probably only interesting for myself)

Mango - learn languages online for free (I didn’t have time to sign up and try it yet, but it sounds like an interesting concept and I will definitely give it a try soon).

Access Flickr! plugin for Firefox - lets you access flickr from countries where it is banned.

Check for broken links with dead-links.com

Browsershots  - test your webdesign in different browsers (I tried it and somehow I never get a shot of all the browsers I requested, but that might only be me…).

Subscribe to this blog's RSS feed

Of course, none of them are really new - for all I know everybody else might have been using them for years. I just call them new because they are new to me and I am still not certain most of them have any big value for me personally.

1. RSS feed subscription buttons or links (like the one above my own header picture)

I know they have been around since forever (in terms of the internet probably since 1998 or so), but I never bothered with RSS feeds until just very recently. I always thought, if I like to read a blog I also want to visit it. I like blogs in part because of their design, which also implies that if I hate the design (especially if there are lots of ads) I will likely not come back very often, no matter how good you write. Well, all that is past now, thanks to RSS feeds. Because when I only read the feed I don’t see the blog’s design. I don’t see the ads. I only have to click through if I want to comment, and on many of the new blogs I read nowadays I don’t want to comment.

2. LibraryThing script showcasing random books from blog owners’ collection

This is one little gadget I obviously like, which is why I have it in my own sidebar. I use LibraryThing only to keep track of the last 200 books I have read and liked (although at the moment it also still lists some others of my collection, I will replace them over time), so after a few years it should show only my 200 all-time favorites. I also like to see this widget on other people’s sites, because I am always interested in finding new books to add to my already overwhelming Mount TBR.

3. MyBlogLog pictures of recent readers

This is one of those things I regard as totally useless. The one I show here was taken randomly from another blog, because obviously I don’t have such a thing. This is actually one of the nicer varieties of this widget. There are other, uglier, much bigger versions around. I was just too lazy to look for one right now.

The widget supposedly shows you your recent readers. But of course, it only shows you the ones who have an account at MyBlogLog themselves and have uploaded a picture. The others are either ignored or it shows this black silhouette, whatever.

But what good is that anyway? It’s just one more of those hundreds of social bookmarking sites, where you can join a community. A community doing what exactly, is what I’d like to know? What is it good for? Except cluttering up your sidebar? I just don’t see the appeal.

4. FeedBurner

So, Feedburner burns your feeds. Please don’t ask me, what exactly that means. But apparently it’s the cool thing to do nowadays with your feeds.

The really cool thing is that I can monitor the number of my subscribers (which, for this blog, is surprisingly in the double digits - I still can’t believe it). and, and this is the reason I signed up in the first place, you can offer your feed by email as well, so people who don’t use an RSS reader can read it, too.

Also, you get all kinds of stats, which I have to still play around with a bit to make sense of them. and if you’re proud to have lots of subscribers you can also put nice little thingies like this on your site: - this one is obviously not relating to my site. I will add something like this only if my subscriber count should ever break 100. In other words, probably never. ;o)

5. Google Analytics

I have so much more fun with that than I had with StatCounter. Firstly, because GA has just much more functions and tells you a lot more things about your visitors than the free version of SC does. Secondly, at least for my site, GA shows me more visitors. I don’t know why that is, but I choose to believe the statistics I like more, which is in this case GA’s. There’s even a plugin for WordPress, so that you don’t have to put the code into your template files by hand. I just love WP plugins.

6. StumbleUpon, Digg, del.icio.us, or any other of the gazillion social bookmarking sites out there.

I don’t have an account with any of them, and considering how much time I am wasting with reading blogs already, I am not sure I should sign up at all and risk finding even more good reads. Plus, I am not such a traffic whore that I would spend ages socializing and building a community and doing whatever just to get a few hundred more page impressions. Since I don’t monetize my blog, and I also have an offline life, it just isn’t worth the effort for me.

Besides, I am really not a community type of person. I have enough trouble to keep in touch with my real-life friends, so why should I join dozens of virtual communities? I would neglect them all in a matter of weeks anyway. That said, if I have a little more free time again, I might give StumbleUpon a try sometime. It’s always nice to find potential new favorite blogs.

7. BlogLines and Google Reader

Ever since I discovered RSS feeds I needed a reader as well. These two were the obvious choices to try. In the end I decided on Google Reader, mainly because I liked the interface better and I use Google all the time anyway, so I won’t need to remember yet another login and password.

8. Technorati tags and buttons

I am still not quite certain if I really need this (I mean, let’s be honest, I will never be one of the A-list bloggers, nor do I have the slightest inclination to even try, so why bother with Technorati at all?). I don’t even know yet how to interpret all the data Technorati can give me about my site. (What does this authority figure mean, for instance? Haven’t got a clue, but like to play around with it anyway.)

9. pay per post

Ok, this one is a thing I really really hate with a vengeance. In 95% of the cases reading the sentence “this is a sponsored post” or whatever it usually says, will not only make me disregard everything I read in this particular post, it will also in all probability make me leave this blog and never come back. I understand that many people want to make money with their blogs, and in an attempt to not plaster most of their site over with pesky ads that nobody ever clicks anyway, some people might think this is a good alternative.

Well, good luck, if you think it works for you. I read blogs, especially personal blogs (you know, the ones that are written just for fun and not mainly with profit in mind), because I am interested in the opinions and the outlook on life of the people who write them. If I see a sponsored post (especially if I notice this fact only after I have read to the end of the post) I just feel cheated. That’s not personal content in my eyes, that’s advertisement, pure and simple. If I know that you are paid to endorse a product, how can I trust what you have written? Because I don’t think people would usually write a bad thing about a product they’re reviewing. It’s just crap and one of the sure-fire ways to chase me away forever.

10. Donate to PayPal button

Now I think, this is a hilarious idea. I wonder how often people, even in well-frequented blogs, really use those buttons to donate money to the blog-owner. If you’re interested to try it out yourself, I found a step-by-step instruction here.

11. My still beloved ScribeFire plugin,

Which I use incessantly just like I predicted in this post. This little thing makes posting so much more hassle-free and easy. Aditionally it allows me to save stuff as notes. Those don’t get published to the blog, but are just saved in a list in the browser. I use these notes instead of my bookmarks nowadays to save interesting links, because in a note I can also add a sentence or two about why I found it interesting in the first place, and I can remember on which site I found it, so I can give credit. Often the note is half a blog post already, so later I only have to go back and revise it a little before I can post it. The best plugin I have.

12. The CoComment Firefox plugin

I have found that one just today. Apparently it tracks all the comments you leave on other people’s blog, and the ensuing conversations.

I can’t say yet how well it works, but I thought it was just a great idea, especially in regards to TT. Because I don’t know how it is with you, but I can never remember on which sites I left comments that I might check again later to see if the blog owner answered me. You know, sometimes you ask questions in a comment, or there is a nice discussion going on and you tell yourself “I have to come back here later to see how it developed”. But, of course, if you have visited 20 other blogs meanwhile, you will just not be able to find the one you’re looking for again, unless you’re looking through them all once more.

This plugin now is supposed to help you keep track of all your comments. I will test it in the next few days and report back at a later date with my opinion of it.

13. The iFollow and the iReply movements

Both are pretty much self-explanatory. iFollow means that I have a plugin that deactivates the no_follow attribute for links in the comments. So, if you leave a comment on my site, it is a proper backlink to your site, one that search engines (and probably Technorati as well) will actually “count”.

iReply is about interacting with your visitors. It basically is the commitment to, as much as possible, reply to comments, and to encourage discussion.

And both have got nice buttons you can put in your sidebar.

(this one even comes in several nice colors)

As you will undoubtedly have noticed, I have only one of them in my own sidebar. I do think, both of them are things worth encouraging. But for me, the iReply thing should be a thing one can take for granted at a blog. It is common courtesy to reply to comments, or at least acknowledge them. So, considering the fact that I want to keep my sidebar as clutter-free as possible, I abstain from adding this button, but I fully endorse the notion.

It seems this anti-hotlinking code is screwing up my RSS feed. I don’t know why, really, but I am trying to find out a way around it.
Until I have fixed that I have switched the code snippet off again. I just knew it was too
good to be true that something like this should work so easily.
If anybody has any tips for me how to avoid the RSS issues I’d very much
appreciate your help.

Edit sometime later:
Well, now it seems to work ok, so I’ve switched it on again.
Please let me know if it screws up anything else now!

I just added some code to my .htaccess-file that is supposed to stop people from hotlinking my pictures from other websites.
It seems to work fine when I tested it just now, but if you should notice anything wonky, please let me know.

This was not done to stop people from using my TT-header graphics! I am more than happy if you copy and use them on your own blog, but save them to your own webspace (or your flickr account or wherever). Just linking to them won’t work anymore, because that uses up my bandwidth everytime someone visits your page. And that’d be kinda stupid of me to allow, wouldn’t it?

Ok, last week I made another list of beautiful guys, this week it’s finally the girls’ turn. Although I myself lean more toward menfolk, I have no problem acknowledging and admiring female beauty in all its variations. As with the men I need a bit more than just a pretty face, though. There are lots of undeniably pretty women out there, especially in showbiz, that I can’t find beautiful, because from what I know about them they seem boring, not overly intelligent and just plain free of any hint of a real personality. So, again my list is highly subjective. In compiling it I noticed just how much I like strong, assertive women. Or at least actresses who more often than not portray such women.
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