Author Videos on Amazon

This is pretty cool: A video of Lynne Truss on the Amazon UK product page for her best-selling book Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. I don't have the right player so I couldn't check it out and I decided to spend the minute blogging about it instead of installing the player. I'll check it out later but I like the idea.

Graham Ain't No Cracker

Web User News: How to hack into Blogger. They liked Graham's feature: Hacking The Blogger Matrix. It's good stuff, you should check it out. Nice work, Graham.

Kottke Redux

Every page is the front page of the new Kottke design. I thought that was a cool design note. Most people will probably just say "What the pho? So the guy shrinks the green bar at the top of his site and every blogger in the world has to link to him?" Actually, most people probably don't realize what the Kottke represents to the really bloggy bloggers. He he. Pho is funny.

Copyediting Rocks

Some funny mistakes found in my manuscript include:

... inventor of the VisiCalc spreadshit ...

... don't make it a pubic blog ...

Dear copyeditor, thank you for making me seem like less of an ass. Every little bit helps.

Is There A Klingon In The House?

bo logh is a blog written in Klingon. Amazing. It should also be noted that this is yet another method you can employ if you are afraid of what might happen when your mom finds your blog.

Just Call Him Professor X

Yahoo! News - Strong Baby Is Called a Normal Kid - Pediatric neurologist Dr. Markus Schuelke, began studying a 5-year-old German boy when he was brought to Berlin's Charite hospital shortly after birth because he was twitching. Turns out, this is the first human case where a mutant DNA segment was found to create super-human strength by blocking production of a protein called myostatin that limits muscle growth. "He's a normal boy" Schuelke said "He can just lift heavy things." Yeah, but did he check for laser eyes?

Halftime with Coach Winer

Scripting News:

This time the pros beat the crap out of the blogs in a story about blogs. Something to think about. This time they fact-checked your ass. Am I angry about this? Yeah, you bet I am.

I get this image of Dave standing in front of a big chalk board with a whistle around his neck addressing a bunch of sweaty bloggers with mud on their faces and their heads down. "Okay, now get back out there and turn this game around!" Tweet!

Ten Mistakes Writers Don't See

Holt Uncensored: "Sometimes the question of where to put a comma, how to use a verb or why not to repeat a word can be important, even strategic. But most of the time the author either missed that day's grammar lesson in elementary school or is too close to the manuscript to make corrections ... "

Free Stock Photos

Free Image Archive: "Welcome to Pixel Perfect Digital! Here you'll find a growing collection of free high resolution photos and illustrations. They're free to use in both your personal and professional design projects. Registration is not required. Just be sure to review our Terms of Use before downloading."

Booktags by Nikita Kashner

Nikita is the inventor of Booktags: "Whenever I see a Cooper St. clothing tag, I think of Dancing Barefoot, while a pretty Blockout top always gives me fond memories of reading Tuesdays with Morrie." Maybe she's onto something that publishers should take note of? Some kind of product placement type of deal where the tags actually match some product mentioned in the book? Quick Nikita, to the patent office.

G-Mailto

G-Mailto is a utility that automatically associates 'mailto' email links on the web with GMail. So clicking an email link will open up the GMail compose window instead of opening up something like Outlook Express that doesn't work with GMail yet. Nice! (Oh yeah: not affiliated with Google).

Grab Life by the Blog

Being Jennifer Garrett means knowing about The New Jocks on the Blog. The latest issue of Blogger Knowledge features a summery look at the sporting Blogosphere by writer, sports enthusiast, and blogger extraordinaire, Jennifer Garrett.

Google Me Crazy

Google Search: 1.21 GW / 88 mph? Please, I've known that since 1985. However, Google Search: 1 stone=6.35029318 kilograms? Now that's something I can use to my advantage. I tell you what: that Google Calculator is something else.

Mr. Bush Doesn't Live Here Anymore

I found a nice little story.

One sunny day in 2005 an old man approached the White House from across Pennsylvania Avenue, where he'd been sitting on a park bench. He spoke to the U.S. Marine standing guard and said, 'I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.' The Marine looked at the man and said, 'Sir, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here.' The old man said, 'Okay' and walked away.

The following day ...

Future Spa

In the future, rich people will check into a hospital type of spa where they will be placed in a coma for up to a month. While they sleep, they will have dental work done, dry out, lose weight, have their skin fixed up, and maybe even learn a language. The learning thing is not quite there yet but I think the rest of it is feasible right now for someone with enough money. The science exists, it's just a matter of coordination.

<Boing></Boing>

Boing Boing should tweak their template so the "tiny" guest-edited blog is not on the permalink pages. It looks clumsy when the post is short but the sidebar is long. Blogger users can do this with conditional tags. For example, wrapping <MainPage></MainPage> around the guest-edited blog code would make it only show up on the main page. While I'm at it, I should mention that for such a fancy, well read and high-quality blog there's lots that still needs work including the design of the guest permalinks and the guestbar archives (which are broken.) I won't even mention the actual layout of the blog at this time. Or maybe new bloggers can just look at the wildly popular BoingBoing and realize that nobody's blog is perfect. That way, it's more of an encouraging thing. Nice!

Who Cares?

I went to the Blogging & Social Networking: Who Cares? conference last night. It was good because it was short. Some of the panel focused on how blogging is social networking. I'm inclined to agree. I also met Jason Calacanis who is energetic and passionate about blogging. In eighteen months Jay Mohr can play him in Weblogs Inc., a new series on the WB. Hey, that's not a bad idea, maybe I should pick up the genius line and phone this idea in to my secret connections in Hollywood. Nice, I'm on it.

Acquisition - Filesharing for Mac Users

Share files with tens of millions of Mac users around the planet for $15: "Don't have $10,000 to buy songs from Apple? Acquisition is the perfect complement to your spacious iPod, when used responsibly." Henry says he uses it and it's "just like heaven."

Planning A Murder? Ask MetaFilter!

There is a macabre discussion going on over at the community weblog Ask MetaFilter about how to get away with murder. I recommend waiting until October 31st to read it—also, try and pretend that there are not people who have given this subject so much thought as to contribute detailed, step-by-step instructions for such a ghastly endeavor. Seriously, it's gruesome folks. (via Waxy)

Is Biz A Jerk?

Rumor has it that Dave Winer was not alone in guessing — based on my blog persona — that I am a jerk. (What with the self-proclaimed "genius" status and whatnot.) While it is true that my mother refers to me as "Jerk Biz" on regular basis, I have thought, lo these many years, that I came across as self deprecating; possibly even in a humorous way. It has recently occurred to me that I may need to put a quiz on my site: Is Biz A Jerk? I'll look into that as time permits. In the meantime I will continue assuming that, as they say in Massachusetts, "I Rock Natick."

A Wonderful Thing

"We've decided to accept a limited amount of advertising so that we can cover our costs and dedicate more cycles to what we love — finding and posting things that we find interesting, curious, and, of course, wonderful." That's right folks, BoingBoing, my favorite group blog is now sponsored by Blogger, Wired, and O'Reilly. Two dead-tree publishers and one digital. Did you know BoingBoing started out as a paper 'zine in 1988? Anyway, yeah. BoingBoing. Good stuff. Evhead likes colorful shoes.

RSS My ASS, BIZ Is My XML

BIZ←Click the orange box (also in my sidebar) and copy the URL from your browser. Then paste the URL into a newsreader and you can read my blog posts without visiting my web site. What? You're too busy to visit my web site now?

p. 81

I'm on page eighty-one of The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations and it's pretty good so far. Lots of interesting examples. My mind drifts from the text while I read it from time to time as usual but for some reason I'm doing much better than my normal reading routine: Read two pages then jump to the middle—back to the introduction—over to page sixty-two—no more reading, too distracted. Not sure why but I'm glad.

With Apologies to Bob and Norm

This Old Blog: How To Make Your Blog More Linkable And Search Engine Friendly is our latest and greatest feature article at Blogger Knowledge. I collaborated with Eric Case to create an homage to This Old House. I grew up with that show and still watch the classic episodes—they're perfect when I'm feeling homesick for Boston. The peerless Phil E. Dawg did the illustration as usual. Phil rocks Natick.

Note To Self: Feedburner

Is FeedBurner the spark for syndication success? I don't know but the next time I tinker around with my blog settings and template I'm gonna check this deal out.

SmartFeed is an intelligent, subscriber-aware feed service that enables you to reach the widest possible audience while publishing a single feed on your blog or site.

Looks like good stuff.

The Blogosphere Is A Wise Crowd

From Publisher's Weekly and reprinted on the product page for The Wisdom of Crowds at Amazon:

If four basic conditions are met, a crowd's "collective intelligence" will produce better outcomes than a small group of experts, Surowiecki says, even if members of the crowd don't know all the facts or choose, individually, to act irrationally. "Wise crowds" need (1) diversity of opinion; (2) independence of members from one another; (3) decentralization; and (4) a good method for aggregating opinions.

I gotta pick me up a copy of this book.

Welcome to Buck's of Woodside

I'm sitting in Buck's of Woodside. I just had breakfast with Eric Case. Well, he had breakfast—I'm just having coffee. I've been sitting here all morning working on book corrections and it's amazing how many people drink cocktails before 10AM. Nice.

Dreaming of Novels

Last night I had a dream about a novel with the words Earl Grey in the title. The cover was all illustrated and the type was hand-drawn. It looked cool. I can't remember the title though. It was something like, An Insanely Recursive Ripple Inside The Hottest Glass of Earl Grey or some other longish overly-literary title. It was my novel. If only I could have slept a little longer, then I could have read some reviews of it on Amazon.

New Blog on The Block

"Blogging Baby is a blog — an online magazine — about pregnancy, baby care and parenting. We aren't paid to mention specific products. We cover what we think is interesting as parents ourselves. All advertising will be clearly labeled as advertising."

KottkiVo

Jason Ko-techie has some good ideas for TiVo.

Bizwerk

Caterina Fake has been reading and gathering a lot of information about technology, marketing, PR, bizdev and general business. Bizwerk is a repository for what she's found.

Self Publish Books

You can self publish books for free at Cafepress which is super cool. You can also learn a bit about designing your book cover at their site and they include templates for the various sizes for you to follow. I should start a publishing company. That'd be wicked.

Weird Clouds

These are some weird clouds. Aliens. The government! (via Waxy)

On The Road with Audioblogger

I just published a fresh, new Blogger Knowledge article about the joys of Audioblogging with our new (free!) service. It's called On The Road with Audioblogger and it's got lots of sample audio posts from various people. They're good, so crank up your speakers, break out your headphones, and check it out—then try it out yourself!

MetroWest Daily News Rocks Natick

MetroWest Daily News: "Not everyone gives Natick the respect it deserves. This essay, written by a former Wellesley resident, positively drips with the condescension those in Swellesley feel toward their less affluent, less pretentious neighbor. After reading it (and you should too), we were left with one conclusion: No one ever spray-painted 'Aerosmith Rocks Wellesley' on a bridge because Wellesley's just not cool enough." A mention in the local newspaper for a phrase that is sure to sweep the nation (eventually): That Rocks Natick!

Internship, Health and Sanity

Danah Boyd is in the house. Nice, now we can start making connections where none previously existed. And other stuff.

From p. 89

Short writings of poor quality excerpted from fictional unpublished fiction is a good time.

"Here is what I know. There is only one man crazy enough to take on the Debache. If you even think about crossing him, we're screwed. We'll all die."

"What are you talking about? The Debache is a band of misfits; they're not dangerous."

"Not dangerous? You're way off chief. First of all, it's a secret organization of powerful geniuses, not a 'band of misfits' as you say. And what the bejesus? How can they not be dangerous—they shoot lasers out of their eyes."

"You're right. I'm an ass."

These are the things that happen when your riding Caltrain.

Taxes

I'm a little late with my taxes. When were they due? April something? Anyway, I'm heading over to Harry and Romaldo Block (that's H&R Block for those of you who aren't on a first-name basis) this afternoon. I hope they go easy on me. Update: Mission accomplished.

Browse My Book

I forgot how much of my book, Blogging: Genius Strategies for Instant Web Content is available online at Amazon. The entire table of contents, my introduction, chapter seventeen (which features a conversation with Xanga engineer Monsur Hossain), and the whole index for looking up the specifics. My new book won't be out until October so you should check this out now, it's good stuff.