WinExtra » Site News

I Didn’t Disappear Anywhere – Honest

Steven Hodson — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 22:26:20 +0000

What I have been is hard at work on some of the backend things to do with the blog as well as some display options. The major thing I have done is finally separated the different types of podcasts that I am involved in and make available here into their own separate categories. You’ll be able to see this by taking a quick look at the reworked Category listing in the sidebar. As well I have set up RSS feeds specifically for the podcasts. You can subscribe to all the podcasts that are available here or you can select which of the podcast categories you prefer best and get an RSS feed for just them. You can find the list of available podcast RSS feeds in the sidebar near the top.

Additionally I have also improved the display within the post about the podcasts so that you can easily see your options to listen to it on the site or even download it for later. The audio display graphics are done for all of the podcasts (didn’t know I was such a chatty bugger) but I am still working on the download links for them. I imagine it will be a couple of days before I get them all caught up but I am doing the most current ones first to make things easier.

That should hold off any more major improvements for the time being (other that the podcast download links) and I think I had better take a little bit of time now to try and get caught up with my backlog of posts that need to be read along with hopefully finding something of interest to write about. I hope you enjoy the improvements and that the podcast RSS feeds will come in handy.

Conversation Tags: site news

Asking My Readers – A Poll

Steven Hodson — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 06:00:33 +0000

One of the long running features I have had here has been the nightly From the Pipeline posts. The idea of the post is that I pick out some of the more interesting things that have caught my eye on FriendFeed during the day. Then at the end of the day I gather them all up and post them for everyone to have a look through.

Recently though I have had a couple of emails from people suggesting that this type of post while not a total time waster wasn’t something that they found interesting at all. One of the suggestions was to use Google GReader to share them with people – the only problem here is that I don’t use GReader and have absolutely no intention of every using it.

That said I definitely don’t like wasting my reader’s time and if the night From the Pipeline post isn’t doing anything more than just taking up space then it is time for it to go away. However I also think that there could be people out there who do like the post and I wouldn’t want to make a snap decision that would upset my regular readers.

So as of today you will see a new poll at the top of the sidebar on the right side that asks my readers how they feel about the post. It will run for 30 days and at the end of that time if the majority say they don’t like it then I will no longer do it. On the other hand if the reaction is to keep it that is what I will do. In the meantime while the poll is running I will keep posting the From the Pipeline posts.

Conversation Tags: polls, From the Pipeline, listening to readers

Carrying on with the improvements – Contributors

Steven Hodson — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 23:55:01 +0000

Now that the new look for the blog has pretty well settled into place; other than some minor tweaking it is time to start looking at some other ways to add some value to the blog. One of the big things these days seems to be the increasing use of guest bloggers. Now personally I’m not a big proponent of guest bloggers as I don’t think it does anything to really benefit the person doing the guest post. In most cases it is a single one off or possibly two posts where the guest blogger hopes to get their name out in front of an audience they might not have had access to otherwise.

In principal this might seem like a good idea but the reality is that in most cases the readers of that blog don’t make the guest blogger connection. I can’t count the number of times on FriendFeed where the blog owner has had to clarify that they weren’t the one that wrote the post but rather some guest writer. Where guest bloggers might like to think that they are gaining an audience that can be translated back to there own blogs I feel that they are just being used as filler while the blog owner takes a holiday or can’t think of anything to write.

What I have decided to do starting today is to invite a selected number of bloggers from various parts of the world and with varying interests in technology to join WinExtra as regular contributors. At this point I don’t foresee the number of contributor exceeding five writer but they will be writers who I have a high regard for and would like to give them an additional platform to express their thoughts and ideas. There will be no editorial line that they will be asked to toe – in fact I want them to be able to write about things that are important to them and are tech related in they way they are most comfortable.

With all this in mind I am really happy to announce that Alexander van Elsas has agreed to become one of WinExtra’s first contributing writers. While there is no timetable or post counts being placed on any of the contributors I hope that we will see Alexander make his presence known in short order – in fact I am really looking forward to it.

I hope you all will look forward to his contributions here as well and as soon as I have tied down any further contributors I will let you know who they are.

Update: One more contributor has been added to the Contributor Roster. While most might know of Art Lindsey III as a conservative political blogger he also has a strong technology background when it comes to hardware, podcasting and videocasting. He will be adding to the blog with both his personal opinions on technology as well as writing on hardware due to his contacts within that part of the industry. As with any contributors there is no defined posting schedule for Art but I am sure we will see him soon adding to the conversation.

Conversation Tags: blogging, site news

One of them thar blog design refreshes

Steven Hodson — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 18:39:43 +0000

Late last night – or was it really early this morning – well anyway I was getting really tired of the bland and plain look of the previous blog design so I had been hunting for the better part of a week to find something to replace it with. After getting bleary eyed staring at countless designs I finally settle on the one you can see live on WinExtra now.

A number of folks who dropped by to leave some comments have said some nice things about the design for which I say a big thank you for all the kind words. This time around I decided to go with a two column layout and cut back on a lot of the widgets that were being used. I still have a bit of tweaking to do but for now I’m happy with the design and even more importantly my readers are.

Just a quick note as well about the graphic – it was done by a very good friend of mine from Texas name Jason who is an hellva great photographer and no slouch with Photoshop.

New Stuff: WinExtra Discussion Points – Live

Steven Hodson — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 23:55:12 +0000

After some of the flack I took yesterday of how tech blogging might be getting boring I decided to do some more experimenting with some ideas I have had rolling around in the back of my head for the last little while. The first one is going to be an audience participation type of thing called Discussion Points where I’ll be taking a single blog post from my morning cruise through the blogosphere and talk about it – live.

Big deal right?

Well I’ll be doing this on a new Talkshoe show by that name where I’ll spend the first few minutes of the show talking about the post and my thoughts on it. After that anyone who calls into the show will get unmuted and have a chance to talk about the subject with me. Depending on the number of callers (if any ) the length of individual discussion time will be limited. The planned length of the show will be from 15 to 30 minutes – no longer – so please try and keep you discussion points on topic.

The show start time will hopefully be the same each time and should be around the 4:30 PM EST (1:30PM PST) and I will post the subject of that day’s discussion point on the blog one hour before the show so you have a chance to give it a read over and see if it is something that interests you. Now remember to be kind as this is my first effort using Talkshoe as a host so chances are I’ll goof up at some point until I get this down pat.

So with out any further ado:

Show Topic: Are Web 2.0 startups wasting their time with Web 2.0 early adopters? – Andrew Chen

Show Time: 4:30 PM EST (1:30PM PST)

Place: Talkshoe – WinExtra Discussion Points – click on Join Call button to join te chatroom or dial in using Skype or your preferred means. Show ID is 23010

Update: due to my newbie status at doing this kind of thing and the fact that Talkshow decided to eat the show and it also not wanting to play the locally recorded copy this first atempt was pretty well as wash so far .. but I’ll be giving it another try again tomorrow to see if we can get the bugs worked out. My apologies about this but I’ll get it worked out.

Update: Finally got a playable link to the today’s Discussion Point

Reader Participation – Poll Question

Steven Hodson — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 05:20:19 +0000

For a little while I was running a semi regular feature here that involved publishing a review of lesser known blogs every Sunday morning. I didn’t do this last week mainly because of there not being any feedback at all from either the blog owner or readers. so I figured that the idea of an in depth review like the ones I had done didn’t appeal to the readers.

Then this evening during the podcast with Cyndy from Profy.com and Duncan Riley from The Inquisitr I had a chance to talk with J. Phil from scribkin – which was the first blog reviewed – and was pleased that the review had a positive effect for him with an nice increase in subscribed readers for his blog. Now I like doing new and different things here on WinExtra especially if they have a beneficial effect but on the other hand if there is no feedback it is hard to determine what good one might doing.

As much as I may like doing those reviews they do take time and if they aren’t providing a useful service there isn’t much point in continuing. I this case though I decided to ask you my readers what you think of them via a poll over in the first sidebar area at the top. So let me know what you think of the idea and whether you think something like this helps you find good new blogs to read.

Here are some of the blogs I have reviewed in the past so you can get an idea of what they are about:

So please take a second and have a go answering the poll and if you are a blogger who has been reviewed in the past share with us how the review worked out for you. As well if you have any suggestions on ways that they could be made better be sure to leave a comment and I will take all suggestions into consideration.

Conversation Tags: blogs, reviews, poll

You Know

Steven Hodson — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 07:27:45 +0000

You know you are a Canadian when …. ROFL … (thanks Shey)

Opening those links

Steven Hodson — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:49:55 +0000

A few weeks back I posted a poll in the sidebar that basically asked folks what their preferences were when they clicked on links in blogs; or web sites in general. Previously here at WinExtra I defaulted to having them open up in a new tab or window but I knew that some folks disliked that type of thing. So I decided to find out for myself and as you can see by the screen capture graphic the results of the vote were pretty well evenly split.

The today I read a post on Smashing Magazine [nw] titled Should Links Open In New Windows? in which they asked the same question. For the clincher was this

Since users need to be placed in control of the interface they are interacting with, it is wrong to make decisions for them as designer’s decisions don’t necessary match users’ decisions. The main problem with enforcing links to open in new windows is that this decision overrules user’s decision to control the view in their browser.

Since large web-sites (Google, Amazon, AOL, Yahoo & Co.) open links in the same window (unless it is explicitly stated that links are opened in new windows), users tend to assume that the link on an unknown page will be opened in the same window. So users expect the link to be opened in the same window.

So effective today my police for dealing how links will open is that by default they will open in the same window but to try and keep everyone happy you will begin to see NW or nw in brackets immediately following the linked item. This stands for New Window which means that link will launch the item in a new browser tab or window depending how you have your browser set up.

Hopefully that will keep everyone happy even though I now have to remember to keep doing it