Disqus - Friends of glemak

Re: Scribkin’s WordPress Plugins - Let Me Show You Them

eng1ne — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:45:42 -0000

I actually wrote this post over a year ago (5-17-08 to be precise) so the site has undergone many changes since then. Onle of the last changes I made was to go with a very light theme with no CSS so that people could choose their own font via their browser preference.

However, that doesn't mean I'm not using *any* plugins now.. In fact, I currently have 33 active plugins, including: Add to Any, Akismet, All In One SEO, Disqus and more.

Hm, I could probably stand to get rid of some of the older ones, though.

Re: I got a DROID (Scripting News)

kenzoid — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:59:03 -0000

If Settings in Android 2.0 are the same as 1.6 (I have a G1) ... open the GMail prg, and with the Inbox open (vs. an individual msg; context makes a difference), hit the menu button, and Settings should be an option. Choose Settings. Scroll down that list to Notifications, and choose "Select Ringtone", and choose Silent.

Re: Locating my voice…here

kenzoid — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 14:22:44 -0000

Thanks, Andre! I like where we're all heading. I think this is the (very geeky) beginnings of the same process that moved personal sites out of walled gardens like AOL in the very early days of the Net. People need training wheels first, and services like Facebook and MySpace provide an easy way to collaborate...where they control it. Federated and decentralized identity, collaboration, and social networking tools will turn the wheel once more.

Re: Oh, FriendFeed is now Facebook’s “official” R&D department!

kenzoid — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:10:02 -0000

As Facebook becomes a more "open" network, alpinefolk, the issues won't disappear...I just will stop using Facebook. The only real win it gives me is a certain amount of privacy; it's coarse-grained, as there's currently no easy way to only share wall updates with certain groups of friends, for example (though they are supposedly working on that).

I have no interest in using Facebook as a Twitter/Identi.ca/blog clone. I have all those things. Facebook is overreaching to attempt to be all things to all people...it'll work (for those people who only want "one place" to update), until something else comes along. Then the new "one place" will cannibalize the old, as happened to Friendster, and LiveJournal, and MySpace. Facebook may think they're the service to break that pattern, but any chance they have to do that IMO means moving in the direction directly opposite to the way they're going.

Re: Twitter’s platform shortcomings

kenzoid — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:37:18 -0000

Robert,

At the risk of getting in the middle of what is obviously pretty personal for you here, I'd suggest you're conflating two different issues with Twitter and Flickr. I'm there with ya on the Twitter thing...in particular, since the "I Want Sandy" shutdown fiasco, I've been VERY leery of trusting the management team at Twitter to keep the users/developers interests in mind...well, at all, much less as a priority. Twitter is a crummily necessary evil at this point, in my mind. I'll be happy to move on when I can.

The Flickr situation sounds different, however. I can only imagine your frustration at not being able to get at your photos for a couple of days...but didn't the renewal of the Pro account take care of that? They didn't delete the photos...they became unavailable. It's very clear when you purchase a Pro account how things will work, and yes, you're committing to a long-term financial relationship with Flickr, for $25/year. But IMO, it's a great value (I have a pro account as well)...any service providing that level of storage, accessibility (via powerful search), collaboration tools (for allowing others to tag, etc.), is worth $25 bucks a year to me. And Flickr, unlike Twitter, hasn't stabbed me in the back (yet *grin*).

So I feel your pain, but I'm thinking that comparing the two is doing a disservice to Flickr, honestly.

Re: My ACLU “Stop Indefinite Detention” email

kenzoid — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 23:07:30 -0000

No worries, Ron! Glad you decided to comment. I've been slow in keeping up
with my feeds as well...I recently started using Feedly again (FF plugin
that integrates w/ Google Reader), and after accepting (this time!) that it
requires me to adjust my pattern of use a little bit, I'm finding I really
like it. If you're a FF/GReader user, recommended.

Regarding the topic at hand...I'll definitely keep yelping. It's a topic
that resonates ethically with me in a very deep way. I don't even consider
the "watch out for our boys" considerations on this subject and torture to
be the most important points, as some people do (though they're certainly
relevant). It's just wrong. Many situations in the real world are
complicated, and contain nuance and shades of grey; I understand (and even
celebrate!) that. Some, however, are not; this is one of them. There are
times when you can claim things are honest mistakes, there are situations
where you can say you've changed your mind, or even were deceived. This is
none of the above, and we can't claim anything but shame.

Re: MobiDeDRM for Kindle backups

kenzoid — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 16:33:29 -0000

Jer, thanks for the comment, and thanks very much for hosting . I agree with
you 100% philosophically over this, and while I wouldn't look forward to
being the test case on backing up my books by removing the DRM, if Jeff
Bezos wanted to go there, I guess I'd go there.

Letters, cigarettes (no cloves, though...they're about to ban those too!),
AND chocolate will be forthcoming if they put you in the Big House. Never
fear.

Again, I really appreciate your comments. I'd meant to subscribe to your
blog some time ago, and just forgot; I've rectified that. Talk to you again
soon, hopefully.

Re: How to backup your notes and highlights on a Kindle

kenzoid — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 01:13:07 -0000

Send me an email at kkennedy@kenzoid.com, and I might be able to help out with the clippings conversion as well.

Re: How to backup your notes and highlights on a Kindle

kenzoid — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 01:06:54 -0000

Wow. Less than 7 hours between me writing this and you finding it via Google. That is CRAZY. I agree with Andrys...you can get another copy; it's well worth reading. Let me check and see what the best available edition is, and see if I can help you out.

Re: New Theme, New Thoughts, Less Fluff

eng1ne — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 18:36:15 -0000

Thanks Scott! I do indeed. I am an experienced Linux and Windows system administrator, as well as a trainer and amateur DBA. Yay!

Re: Reporter to NY Times Publisher: You Erased My Career

kenzoid — Mon, 11 May 2009 23:45:57 -0000

Hm...this "Jeremiah Owyang" account just lost it's image icon, and is now showing up as completely unverified in Disqus (happened while I was posting previous comment). I hope that means this isn't actually Jeremiah...if so, I apologize for directing ire your way! Comments still apply whoever did post that, though. (trying to search through Disqus now to see if I can determine what's up with that account...).

Re: Reporter to NY Times Publisher: You Erased My Career

kenzoid — Mon, 11 May 2009 23:37:55 -0000

C'mon, Jeremiah...how about grokking the spirit and not the letter of this post? The point is much more about a) the dead linkage, and b) his ability to reference them as past work. Regardless of "ownership", he did write them; they are indicative of his ability as a writer and journalist, proof of his prior work history, etc.

For someone who recently posted about "why physical media is archaic", this comment doesn't seem very deeply thought out. You're seriously more interested here in who can assert copyright over the articles than whether or not the URLs still properly resolve at a news organization? And without even considering the secondary affects (as noted in Thomas' followup post about Wikipedia cites to IHT).

Re: What Dave Winer doesn’t get – it’s about the simplicity

kenzoid — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 16:09:43 -0000

"...drives be crazy". Who's "be"? *grin*

Bummer...not much worse than a spelling error in a grammar smackdown post, is there? *wink*

Re: Bbbbutt…nobody TOLD us it was torture…

kenzoid — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 00:51:31 -0000

Indeed. I realize I probably cuss more than...umm...most, but this was one of those situations that really brought it out. I actually rewrote this about 4 times; it was quite a bit saltier. But even I went...whoops!! *grin* So a little editing was in order. But my heart still races when I read it, so I think it's about right.

I've gotten better at talking to people I disagree with politically about most topics (as in, I don't jump in their face quite so much), but this topic I can't really talk about without going straight for the throat. (or walking away, which is alot safer, especially if it's a co-worker or something.)

Re: On the Oracle/Sun deal

kenzoid — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:36:00 -0000

I totally agree with you here; $7.4b of jazzy? I don't think so. *grin* And with Michael Widenius kicking up the "fork MySQL" (again...we already have Drizzle) talk, it could be weird in that space. That many forks is usually not good for a F/OSS product, especially one as ubiquitous as MySQL.

Re: A Member of Eastern Standard Tribe

kenzoid — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 12:53:38 -0000

Aside: In Eastern Standard Tribe, they solve the problem by literally living on EST, where ever they are in the world...getting up at 8am EST, even if it's the middle of the night, etc.

But a) that's not what we're even suggesting here, and b) that causes its own set of problems with children going to school in middle of the night, etc. Plus, being on a non-diurnal schedule (for the half of the world that wasn't close to the 'clock time') is HARD...I've worked 3rd shift, and it wears most people down. I know a few people that thrive on it, but it's pretty tough for most.

Re: A Member of Eastern Standard Tribe

kenzoid — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 12:37:02 -0000

I hear you...but the practical issue is that you would get up at a DIFFERENT 'clock time', depending on where you were. Same with going to lunch, dinner, times stores stay open, etc. Let's say we standardize on EST (my choice, since I live here!)

I'm going to use a non-national chain as an example (just first store off the top of my head)...I hope we can all grok the larger point. Publix grocery stores in Atlanta are usually open 7am-11pm...in California, they'd be open (presumably) 10am-2am....otherwise, the store would be opening in the middle of the night (4am Pacific -> 7am Eastern), and closing in the early evening.

Not only would Publix have to deal w/ that, you'd have to know what timezone you were in to know when the store closed...even though you never have to change your watch!

Lots of similar issues...restaurants that open at "11am" local time (just before lunch) like, oh, Friday's or something, would open at 8am in California, 9am in Colorado, 10am in Alabama, 11am in New York.

Sure, it could work, but I think the costs of those sorts of issues are underestimated. (note: I don't consider China a strong counterexample...most of the urban areas are on one coast, and they just don't worry about the west).

And of course, I'm at least assuming that we're picking an "American" time...what if the world tried to standardize on Beijing time, or GMT? Not that it's any different in principle, but don't you think the uproar in the US would be insane in those cases? (we can discount this for purposes of your 'one US timezone' proposal, but it's certainly valid for the universal timezone argument).

Re: Multimedia at the Kauffman Foundation: Cool…FAIL

kenzoid — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 23:25:58 -0000

Whoops...thanks very much for your thoughtful reply, and for taking my (perhaps overly ranty) criticisms in the spirit in which it at least SHOULD HAVE BEEN intended. *grin* I'll be honest; I expected any direct feedback to just go down the circular file, which is primarily why I just decided to go on a blogrant instead. Ooops. I stand corrected!!

I appreciate the offer to check things out in iTunes, but I'm not an iPod/iTunes user, so I can't take advantage of it. That being said, iTunes University certainly is a great way to expand your audience; thanks for pointing it out. You might want to put some sort of link or notification about that (and other options, as you add them) on your multimedia page...the more the merrier!

Again, thanks for the response. I'm convinced...I'll keep an eye out for your content around the web, and in the meantime, I'll check some stuff out at the site. It really does look like some compelling content.

Re: Journalists need to learn about bootstraps (Scripting News)

kenzoid — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 02:30:15 -0000

Ah, thanks for tracking that down...I was getting ready to ask same question!

Re: I (still) want a toolkit to make twitters (Scripting News)

kenzoid — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 10:54:40 -0000

I agree with Evan here, Dave...it sounds like Laconica is precisely what you're looking for, plus bonuses. It's completely compatible w/ Twitter at the API level, yet does more stuff besides (federation, for example, so we can set up our own installs, yet still subscribe to users at the other one). Great tool.

Re: Now on Kindle: Middle-aged Dude’s Illustrated Primer

kenzoid — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 19:56:39 -0000

I just doublechecked; I'm not aware of ever having gotten out-and-out spam from them. You can choose to get comment reply notifications, etc., but you can also turn that stuff off. So the service itself is 100%. As for privacy, they hash your email address to use as the placeholder ID for non-registered users, so it's fairly secure (plus, you can go back and claim any comments since they've stored the hash, which is kinda cool. I had several show up in my account that I'd forgotten about making when I registered.)

Note: if you comment at a site using Disqus, the site owner does see the email you registered with. But that's pretty much the case w/ any commenting software. And that only works for people who have actually commented at the site (kenzoid.com, in my case); I can't just go surfing around the disqus userbase sucking up emails just b/c I use it for comments. It does link your comments together, of course, but that's kinda the point. *grin*

I dig it...I had an account before I used it on my site, and it's been pretty much flawless through two different site backends now. Recommended as both a commenter and as an admin.

Re: Now on Kindle: Middle-aged Dude’s Illustrated Primer

kenzoid — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 13:06:22 -0000

Indeed, mike. Reality is catching up in some very cool ways. I carry CC or out of copyright books on my G1 right now (Android Kindle app, s'il vous plait, Amazon!)...love having something with me all the time. The Kindle cover that I chose (one of the sleeves, not the Amazon binder one) was out of stock when I ordered it, but I'm supposed to get it tomorrow. I expect to be carrying it more when I've got a bit of protection for it.

Re: Disqus

kenzoid — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 20:53:04 -0000

Good deal, dude. I think this will give an opportunity for those who read and enjoy your work to reach out and discuss it with you. Can't be anything but good!

Re: Disqus “Social Media Reactions” Now Available To The Public?

eng1ne — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 16:23:19 -0000

I hope so, Daniel, but UberVu is already aggregating everything that looks even vaguely like a comment on their servers. They've done that since before the Mashable integration, since their primary tool is a direct competitor to backtype connect.

But perhaps there is some ongoing work on the connection between Disqus and the UberVu engine that we aren't privy to. I don't see a mention of this new feature on the Disqus blog, after all.

Re: Now on Kindle: Middle-aged Dude’s Illustrated Primer

kenzoid — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 21:23:25 -0000

You're in for a treat, I expect...I enjoy all of his work. And you're local, so if you ever need to borrow any of them just let me know. (I believe I even have a copy of "The Big U" around here somewhere).

I agree that if you're already a scifi reader, Snow Crash isn't the game-changer that many seem to believe it was. A rollicking fun story, though; my nerd friends and I still joke about "listening to Reason". *grin*

And thanks for posting at the site, BTW. I'm just recently started trying to roll some of my energy back out of the big SNS and into my blog and other individual sites. Also, note that you can register at Disqus and "claim" that comment above (as well as any others that you've made w/ the same email address), and that you have multiple registration options, including your Facebook identity, OpenIDs, Yahoo, Google, etc. It's a pretty nice system, really. It gives you the advantage of "single sign-on"/shared identity without requiring you to only use one social networking site.