Xagronaut

The disruptive Web. If you’re creating a Web service that you hope will have a disruptive impact, the lessons are clear. Support HTTP GET-style URLs. Design them carefully, matching de facto standards where they exist. Keep the URLs short, so people can easily understand, modify, and trade them. Establish a blog reputation. Use the blog network to promote the service and enable users of the service to self-organize. It all adds up to a recipe for recombinant growth. [Full story at InfoWorld.com] … [Jon's Radio]

Here is a provocative recipe.  I wonder what we can cook up.  I wonder what he means by “self-organize.”  I certainly do a lot of organization on my own, and I’m always looking for ways to improve.

I’m testing a variation of this posted by . The way I’m using this technique is to embed the code for the blogs4God.com voting form.

I was wrong (not any): Basically, any “include” you want to put in a page can be done by means of creating a text file containing the desired include in the root of the affected area (in a category folder or the root of the entire site). The file must start with a pound sign and end (I think, but maybe not) in a “.txt” extension. Then you can refer to it by name in any template “downstream” from the folder that contains the file. Just reference it in the “percent brackets,” in my case <% b4gvote %>, and re-render all affected pages. If this works (see Updates), I will begin doing a lot of “micro-content” this way. I think inline UserTalk script is allowed too, but I’ll have to veryify that.

By the way, I think the choice of using the “#” pound sign to prevent rendering files is pretty cool and clever. Specifically because any incoming request for that file will be interpreted as a named anchor in the default document (if any) for the containing folder or directory. So effectively, “www.xagronaut.com/#b4gvote.txt” is interpreted as “www.xagronaut.com/index.html#b4gvote.txt” which does not exist. So the “hidden” files would never be served up. I wonder though, if the “%” syntax with the character code for the pound sign would retrieve it…

Fun.

Update: OK, maybe not so fun. I received this error when attempting the technique:

[Macro error: Can't evaluate the expression because the name "b4gvote" hasn't been defined.]

I’m trying again, this time with the major hack of literally what is described in the link above–using the name “cascadingStyleSheet”–it may not be as lovely a technique as I first thought, but I’ll withhold jugdment temporarily.

Update #2: Lame.

Yep, that was exactly the problem. Once again, the case of the “hard-coded macro name” strikes. I encountered this first in my problem with the mail-from-aggregator feature in which the templates allow substitutions, but only of hard-coded tags. The administrative interface fools you into thinking that you can completely customize the format of the email. Wrong! While the “percent bracket” syntax is still used, it seems to have an entirely different effect than other references to macros. Booooo! Hissss!

I suppose that I could always opt for server-side includes (SSI) on my web server now that I am hosting my weblog. I wonder if Radio will leave those alone when it renders!

Update #3: More tweaks…

Instead of using the #cascadingStyleSheet.txt file, led me to in which mentioned “workspace.blog.categories”. The “” part happens to be a writable area for the user’s whim. I ended up creating a “wp text” entry in this area called b4gvote that contained the text of the Blogs4God vote code. In my page template I then reference it as <% workspace.b4gvote %>. This did the trick, and I was able to stop using the other hack.

The good news is that you can use this technique for other purposes too–reusable micro content sections, etc. Insert sigh of relief here.

and a available under .

As I suspected, others are talking about the concept of a blog as an archive for knowledge, even “memory.”  Even, as I had pondered, the idea that someday, our descendants will read the contents of these works that we are writing today.

A friend of mine, Dan Johnson, remarked to me about Bayesian Belief Nets as some kind of artificial intelligence algorithm for determining the relationship between things.  I don’t want to forget it.

Interesting site from a layout perspective.  Not sure about the content yet, but Adam Curry mentioned it on his channels page as a tool for creating–what else–channels (in RSS, of course).

I find Adam Curry’s weblog highly irrelevant to anything in my life, but he does use some interesting techniques (like a special channels page) on his blog site.  I just don’t know who he is or why I should care.  But thanks for the ideas, Adam.

SJ Mercury: Tools coming for connecting information. Dan Gillmor. But we need more sophisticated methods for gathering, massaging and making connections among all the pieces of information that enter our lives each day — everything from e-mail to Web pages to phone numbers and more. So when I see useful tools, I pay attention. [ Tomalak's Realm]

Hmmm…Tools to help me organize my information?  I’m listening.

Ah, how refreshing!  My news feed was less than 2 pages this time!  I’m able to look at it thoroughly now.  Actually, that’s probably only because the volume of news has decreased.

In other words, if the amount of news I could process and react to was a fixed quantity, the only variable in the equation is the total volume of news I filtered.  So, if my measure of “thorough” is only a percentage, then I’m getting better (even though I’m cheating, sort of).

Well, I’m not actually cheating.  And who’s grading me anyway?  I’m just exercising discretion about the use of my time and the use of my informational tools.

So there.

Random thoughts: Weblogs in the workplace [WorkLog?] will only be efficient if parsed, scanned, sliced and diced by an in-house “Google”. This is, of course, precisely what Google should be selling as a webservice. Secure indexing of weblogs and even email, accessible by its contributors only.

By making this a webservice, content stays in its evironment, never leavng the confines of the corporations firewall.

Is Google thinking this way? [Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog]

Interesting.

I’m trying to reach “nerdvana”, the point beyond ultimate knowlegde (nirvana).  Nerdvana is the point where you successfully organize all of the knowledge you possess on your favorite electronic devices.  In learning about knowledge management, I’m hoping to cope with the tide of information that I just can’t walk away from.  If I could just make myself not care, it would be irrelevant.

Well, even though “nerdvana” was an original thought on my part, I was not the first.  I checked out the domain name (nerdvana.com) and it’s already taken.  As usual.  (But I already have enough domain names to manage.  It was just the thought of owning one so silly!)

Anyway, I’m exploring the notion of Personal Knowledge Management.  Another original thought that I can’t take credit for.  I don’t subscribe to any official definition of Personal Knowledge Management, although I’m becoming keenly aware of such a science.  My approach is to research others’ formalized opinions and derive some best practices so I can cope.  If you have any tips, please leave a comment.

I currently hold blogging as being a crucial part of my own Personal Knowledge Management approach.

Thanks.