Yearly Archives: 2006

Brevity and the Blogger

I am guilty of one of the cardinal sins of effective blogging: excessively verbose entries. I spend all kinds of time doing research and checking and re-checking the content only to never receive any comments/feedback. I wonder: Why is no one interested in my writings?

Then I take a step back and realize how I myself read blogs. I don’t read as much as I scan. This is important for the blogger to remember when writing his own post. Remember that to effectively convey information in a digital medium that one needs to write with brevity.

Writing with brevity (that is, concise and to the point) is a skill that is not easy to accomplish. It takes a great deal of skill to express an idea in less words than more. Before you write your entry this to yourself: “How can I summarize my main points to the reader?” Use clear sections in your post to convey the flow of thought, and attempt to stay on the thesis and not go into the nether world of blog tangents.

(Originally posted here.)

The Greatest Failure of Web 2.0

Even though I love the Web 2.0 movement and applications, there is by far a shortcoming on this movement that keeps it from being adopted by many. That issue is one of interoperability.

Current Solutions

Let’s say I have a set up of Office 2.0 applications. I love all of them for specific reasons; some are stronger in some points than others. Now let’s say I want to integrate these applications together. In order to get my Zoho Word Processor to work my del.icio.us I only do one thing. Either I can use their respective APIs and try and create a mashup, but that still want provide the opportunity for them to talk together the way I want them to, but that will result in quite a mess as I add more applications. Or I could submit a request and wait for ever and a day until the “beta” stage clears and then maybe they’ll respond.

Even inside Zoho I cannot get the spreadsheet, word processing, and presentation application to talk together. Even though it is promised you would think that would be at the top of the list. Continue reading

Utilizing WordPress As A Content Management System (CMS)

wplogo.pngWordPress I used originally only only as a blogging tool, but I learned that it was indeed quite a powerful content management system (CMS). This especially became true in version 2.0+ as additions were made that made it more conducive to the average user (such as integrating TinyMCE).

The following steps are the introductory steps I use in setting up websites using WordPress. In fact, for me web design is no longer done apart from WordPress; for me WordPress = Web Design. I am assuming a general knowledge of installing WordPress, but if you need help in this you can consult the Codex.

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