The Results Are In

I read all the comments here and on Flickr for the new logos I posted (thanks you guys!) and here's the tally:

1. The Middle One (21 votes)
2. The Original (10 votes)
3. The Bottom One (5 votes)

That's pretty much what I was thinking which is cool. I'll email Phil again. Maybe he can pull off some of that middle one charm in a more horizontal flavah. Although H3NR7 said he likes the original precisely because it is kinda crappy which is why I like it too. I'll have to sleep on it but Phil is awesome and I'm still gonna send him something for his troubles either way.

Should I Re-Logo?

My friend Phil who does the great illustrations for most of the Blogger Knowledge articles created two new logos for my blog. (I did the original with a Wacom Tablet that my friend Greg gave me.) This image I emailed to Flickr has mine on top, then the two Phil did for me. The middle one is really cool but it doesn't fit in my layout. What do you think? You're the one that looks at my blog (unless you are a fancy pants and you have a newsreader). Do I need an update?

Ball of Confusion

TruthTalkz: "If I can't figure out for sure what is going on in Iraq, Washington, or Louisiana, what do the women with 2 jobs, young children, and a load of laundry do?"

Olaf Unleashed

Have you read Count Olaf's blog, The Most Incredibly Brilliant Blog in The World today? Don't be fooled by the humble title, it really is quite brilliant. And from what I hear, huge in Japan.

Michael Moore Blogging Like Mad

Michael Moore's Blog: The 'Slacker Uprising Tour' begins: "I told the reps from the tribe that I would make sure there was a free screening of the film and that I would address those gathered, either live by phone or in person if I could. They were sure that they could get hundreds, if not thousands, of Native Americans to come out and vote this year."

Are You Bloggin' It?

Nerdorama: I'm bloggin' it. I'm not quite sure what the upside-down logos mean (www?) but yes, "I'm bloggin' it."

What Should Jen Photograph?

Jen Garrett wants you to tell her what to photograph: "Think of 3 pictures you'd like to see. Leave whatever you'd like to see in the comments."

The Biz of Blogging

I own the blogging.biz domain. It was kinda supposed to be for a companion site to my first book. Anyway, I was thinking that would be a good URL for a group blog about blogging in the business world. Corporate blogging, marketing, that sort of stuff. So yeah.

We've All Been There

Check out Chris in this Dealership video. It's really good! The t-shirt as transition should be used more often in movies and whatnot. Chris plays some mean drums. That's Chris Wetherell, User Interface Engineer of Blogger and Gmail fame.

Mommy Wants A New President

Lowercase Tee: "We started Lowercase Tees because we think this election means everything. Because where the US is going to be in the future, for our kids, is in large part going to be determined by the decisions we make right now."

It's Not Okay

Safari is quirky. Was this particular Ludicorp server missing? No, it was right where it should be and yet my browser told me otherwise. The thing that bugs me is that, in order to make the little alert go away, you have to click OK—even when you're not okay with it. I was having lunch with Chris and Evan the other day and they agreed that this was a problem (for me). The above mockup would at least give me some peace.

Butterfly Effect, The

Evan should have stuck in there just a little longer. I just finished watching The Butterfly Effect. Ashton Kutcher plays a character named Evan Treborn. I really think he should have had just one or two more goes at it. It's a good movie, you'll see what I mean. Rocky start, but good stuff.

Introducing JPG Magazine

Heather Champ and Derek Powazek are launching a (real paper!) magazine for photobloggers (and their ilk) called JPG. Get it? As in, .jpg, the file extension which stands for "Joint Photographic Experts Group" and is the commonly used standard method of compressing photographic images in the computing arena. That was a good call shortening it to three letters. Much more catchy that way. (Via Shellenside Farms)

Audio Profile Clip

This isn't really a post. I'm just recording an audio clip for my profile. Here's how to do that. This is the actual clip that I'm now going to put in my profile.

Also, I have production notes for this clip. While I was trying to record this on my cell phone, my mom called. She's in Tallahassee Florida and had to know the name of "a movie from the 80s about an oil company in Scotland." FGI: Local Hero Starring Burt Lancaster.

World's Worst Blog Template

Just for kicks, we should adapt the World's Worst Website into an official Blogger template. It would be like the ironic trucker hat of blog template design.

From Williams to Archer

The United Federation of Bloggers (Part Two) is up at Blogger Knowledge. Mexico to Zambia. Enjoy the ride because I'm done doing that again for a while. Damn, there are a lot of blogs out there.

Going Nucular

Going Nucular: Language, Politics, and Culture in Controversial Times: "[Stanford linguistics professor of NPR fame, Geoffrey Nunberg] pronounces that: ''Blog' is a syllable whose time has come,' and that 'You don't get to be a verb unless you're doing something right,' with which he launches into the effect of Google on our collective consciousness."

Seen During My Run

Shoreline at Mountain View: "Burrowing Owls live in grass-lands and areas with low-growing vegetation, dwelling underground in the burrows of ground squirrels." I almost stepped on a snake too. Early evening is a good time to go for a run at Google if you want to check out the native wildlife.

Straight to TiVo

What if TiVo had it's own original programming? Like a new sci fi or comedy series that doesn't get picked up by one of the networks or some kind of morning news show. That would be revolutionary and cool. Sign me up!

Obliviate!

Doc Searls: "I'd never heard of Biz Stone. Or if I had, I've forgotten." I will take this as a compliment on my obviously very well honed obliviation skills.

F***ing Google It (FGI)

How To Fix a Running Toilet: "Step 2. Next check the float mechanism. If lifting the ball up stops the water from running, try to bend the float arm down to get the right buoyancy." Yep. That was it. My toilet was running, I FGI'd it, yadda yadda, it works perfectly now. Case closed. I love Google.

This Blog will be Deleted by Tomorrow

Lemuel Kolkava created a blog yesterday called This Blog will be Deleted by Tomorrow. There's even a comment on one of his posts: "I like your blog. I bumped into it because you update it so frequently. I'm glad I had a chance to read it before you deleted it." Maybe he's on to something. Maybe we should have a setting in Blogger called "Self-destruct." You know, for Mission Impossible types.

Virtual Views

This is amazingly cool. The Virtual Window Project: "Flat panel technology is quickly becoming bigger, better, and more affordable, which will allow for all sorts of fun ways to transport your domicile to wherever tickles your fancy. This is my modest attempt to view something more interesting than my neighbors."

Home Depot should sell a window like this already manufactured. Then, you could join a web service and download new animated locales for a microfee. Or even better, live feeds of really cool places.

Commercialization aside for now, this would be a great feature project for Make and it's just really cool. Look at this: San Francisco Wharf. (via Waxy Links)

Jimmy Carter Does Standup

Yes, Jimmy Carter visited today. When I told my mom Jimmy Carter was going to visit she said "Jimmy Cahtah? Ask him if he's related to Magna Cahtah!" (I did not.) When asked who he would pick for president out of anyone he knew assuming they were over 35, US citizen, etc., he answered, "My wife. She's touchy about her age but I can reveal to you that she's over 35." Funny stuff. Also, before he said anything he said he was worried with all of us Googlers in one room that there were millions of people out there sitting in front of broken computers; all their questions going unanswered. You don't accomplish what Mr. Carter has accomplished without a good dose of humor.

Starting vs. Started

Walking Backwards on the subject of me and my first book: "That picture on the cover is so dorky, I almost slapped the book thinking it [might] have that voodoo doll quality to it." I actually felt that! It was on Monday and the side of my face was red for a good hour. I just figured I must have slept funny but now I know. The blogosphere is getting eerie.

The Bloggers Are Coming!

I had a long lunch with Ethan Zuckerman yesterday. I think Ethan is Ben Franklin reincarnated as a globe-hopping technologist. Anyway, all his interest in bringing the world together through blogging inspired me to investigate some of Blogger's international flavor in this, part one of The United Federation of Bloggers. There's a lot of blogs out there.

Costellographs

Flickr Photos from Eric. Eric Costello takes really nice close up photographs. Any single one would make great reference for a painting. He's also one of the magicians behind Flickr. When the employees are users like Eric, you begin to agree that Flickr might really be "almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world." (I like that kind of "about us" page!)

Flickr Slideshows

The new slideshow feature on Flickr is two things:

1. Awesome
2. Easy

It is my humble belief that those attributes go really well together. All I had to do was search tags for "India" and then click "view as slideshow" and I've instantly got a self-playing slideshow of India photos taken by Flickr members. I hope one day that there are millions of people uploading images from everything and everywhere so that I may instantly get a feel for a place like Mountain View, CA before I go there. Do you see how I am right about that?

The World's Shortest Blog

The World's Shortest Blog is dedicated to one simple question: "How many times have you been arrested, Mr. President?" $1,877.62 is the current bounty to be awarded to the first person that asks George W. Bush this question in a public forum. Nice!

The Typwriter in Question

Kottke dug up a site dedicated to the typewriter used to type the controversial Bush National Guard documents: "The first IBM Composer was the IBM 'Selectric' Composer announced in 1966. It was a hybrid 'Selectric' typewriter that was modified to have proportional spaced fonts. It is 100% mechanical and has no digital electronics. Since it has no memory, the user was required to type everything twice. While typing the text the first time, the machine would measure the length of the line and count the number of spaces. When the user finished typing a line of text, they would record special measurements into the right margin of the paper. Once the entire column of text was typed and measured, it would then be retyped, however before typing each line, the operator would set the special justification dial (on the right side) to the proper settings, then type the line. The machine would automatically insert the appropriate amount of space between words so that all of the text would be justified."

Email-This-Post Hack

Graham has whipped up a little Blogger hack for changing the Email-This-Post icon to a simple link. I mentioned in the Blogger Buzz newsletter that he would do this next week but Graham is just too damn fast. Nice!

How To Get More Traffic

I wrote a really long article called Promoting Your Blog on Monday and just published it at Blogger Knowledge today. I wanted to get a picture of Slovacek's car for the illustration but he wasn't in the office on Monday. That's right Mr. Bling-Bling Blogger Plates, I know where you park.

Update: I'm turning on comments in case people swing by with their own blog promotion ideas.

Blabble: Blog Buzz-o-Meter

Blabble: "Blabble is a blog research and analysis tool, giving companies unrivaled access to the buzz of blogs. We parse millions of blogs giving you access to influential thoughts on your brand." It's not really a straight search right now. You have to fill out about three screens and then their top secret "thought parsing" technology begins to track your query.

Like An iPod for Video

Check out this zvue personal video player gadget. Seems pretty cool. If you could subscribe to RSS feeds of new movie trailers, video snippets from friends, and maybe some wacky short-format original programming it would be a neat toy to have on a train ride or something. It'd be cooler if some next generation iPod just did video though. Music videos for sale at iTunes! Nice.

Register to Vote, Get $100,000

Jim and James of HOTorNOT fame are trying to get people out to vote this November. They've put together a nice sweepstakes prize but you've got to be a registered voter to win. Sign up to win $100,000 at VOTEorNOT.com. I just did. That is some serious incentive to register.

Guestblogging

So I'm guestblogging for a few weeks over at Vedana.net, Eric Case's site. He may be in India but I'm in my underpants. Now who's cool? I think he just wanted me to post his drafted entries but why not take it a little further, right? I mean, I do have his password an access to all his blogs.

Lots of Ads On Metafilter

I'm not saying its bad, but there's lots of blinky ads on Metafilter. (They are Henry's ads—nice work, Copland!) Also, BoingBoing is hawking sex toys this month. It's cool that there is now a way for these great sites to make money but if you had proposed these ads in 2002, you would have been shot dead on the spot. Nevertheless, good stuff. I haven't been by Metafilter in a while. Makes me think of the good ol' days.

Working from Home Today

I'm working from the home office today. What is the home office you ask? It's Shellen's old dining room table, an official piece of Pyra Labs memorabilia that Sutter gave me (a chair), and a standard issue Powerbook all currently taking up space in an undisclosed location in San Francisco, CA. Maggie's napping and I'm rocking out various writings of various sorts and kinds.

Who Let the Blogs Out?

My next book, Who Let the Blogs Out? is available for pre-order at Amazon.com. Nice. Maybe I'll order ten thousand copies. There's a forward by the illustrious Wil Wheaton of blogging fame and the subtitle is A Hyperconnected Peek At The World of Weblogs.