Sunday, April 17, 2005

Mugroll I was thinking--wouldn't it be neat to display small pictures (when available) of the persons listed on your blogroll. We could call it a "mugroll". It would be a similar concept to the custom icon displayed for the website and/or bookmark for a website. Now, there's always the question of how to standardize and automate such a project. Would you force a specific filename on a website like /robots.txt does for search engines and bots? Maybe a standard-sized (what dimensions?) PNG, GIF, or JPG file called /aboutme.png. I think requiring a specific path could help automate harvesting, but it might be too restrictive for more complex scenarios than a single-author website. Or maybe we could add an optional <authorpic> element to the various syndication feeds. And what about a multi-author blog? Could you have an OPML file with authorpic entries, one for each author? Just rambling here. Would it be OK to reference graphics on the author's site? Or should we snarf it and host it ourselves to save the author's bandwidth? Maybe we could add some kind of new HTML META or LINK tag that points to the picture. Oh, and by the way, to get the "mug" rolling, here's my mug (in no standard dimensions):

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A gem This is a very simple post here, but I like Sam Ruby's bit of wisdom in response to Depak Alur's apology for being "inexperienced" in the blogging world, expressed in a comment thread on Sam's blog: As near as I can tell, there is no right and wrong here. Everybody approaches the "blogosphere" differently. I have been part of the blogosphere in some form or another since late in 2002. I have tried many times to keep up with the "A-listers," but time and life have beaten me many days, so my reading and writing frequency has been less than admirable. But, as Sam asserts above, that's OK.

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