Library clips

VNCCasts allows you to watch clips of people using their computer…not watch the people, but watch their screen…eg. watch the computer screen of someone playing chess…watch someone searching for a topic on a search engine…watch someone play a game.

Instead of screencasting, people are watching you in real-time, and it’s recorded for you to watch later.

This could almost become the reality TV version of people using their computer…you could have a VNC guide to see what’s coming up, just like a TV guide…each week someone could do a show on searching the net, etc…

They do have a section called New VNCCasts, Future VNCCasts…imagine if you had a regular VNC show, if you miss it live, you could get the feed for it (kind of like a feed for live screencasts).

They also have a tab for LIVE VNCCasts, Past VNCCasts, MY VNCCasts, and MY VNCCast Subscriptions.

So you can watch then live, check out the new one’s (no RSS feed at the moment), Check out future and past ones, create and store them, and subscribe to them (not implemented yet).

This is going to go along way

…so it’s similar to screencasting, but only live.

[ADDED: also live chatting]

From the website:

“VNCCasts is a place where you can watch live VNC broadcasts of people’s computer screens as they work. You can also chat with them and other viewers. These live interactive broadcasts of your computer usage can be used to give demos/tutorials, receive tips in real-time as you work, and even find a job by impressing potential employers with your daily work.”

There are many ways to sort blog posts:
- calendar (by date/month/year)
- categories
- tags

…but what about as a series of posts, “the way posts are connected by a theme or are related to each other”.

At the moment if I’m writing a post I am often referencing earlier posts of mine…so, in the current post I link to these past posts that will explain what I’m refering to in my current post.

If I categorise and tag my posts correctly this will help me find these past posts I want to refer to, I’m fine with this

…but what I find a chore, is once I’ve published the current post, is going back to these past posts and adding a link to the current post…as this serves as a continuation of the story or concept. So, the problem is not finding these past posts, I’ve already found them and linked to them within my current post, the chore is to go to each one and update it with a link to the current post. If I’m referencing 5 past posts, this means opening up each one and adding a link to the current post, this takes time, and it is boring anyway, but once done it pays off.

Some people would say you don’t have to bother if you use tags, but sometimes even tags aren’t granular enough, sometimes you want to explicitly link one post to another.

A while back I came across Web-log Continuum Sparklines…which addresses this issue perfectly…it automated the process plus adds much more value.

From the post:

“A simple Web-log post continuum sparkline could plot the current post a reader is viewing, the previous posts it references, and the later posts that reference it. This paints a picture of where the current post originated (what ideas it draws from), and where it went (how those ideas evolved). “

The sparkline sits at the end of the post…the previous posts it references is marked in this timeline (sparkline) even though you can find them in the post, but having them in the sparkline shows how the overall big picture is evolving.
The best part that solves my issue is that these past posts will automatically be given a link in its sparkline to the current post…I don’t have to go back and do it manually for each post I’ve referenced…exactly what the doctor ordered.

So now to see if someone has made this concept into a reality, I would use it in a flash…actually it would have to be in css.

More on sparklines in general:
Stowe relates it to a community.
Sparkline Generator Web Application
Sparkline (.net)
Sparkline (ruby)
Sparkline (php)
Some examples from a sparkline wiki.
Mr.Sparkline himself.

Another great value for a sparkline, besides a timeline of an idea/concept, is the simple retro annotating it does…this is handy for posts that are out of date.

What I mean by out of date is…if a past post reviews a web service it may say the service lacks a feature, but now in a current post you say that it has gained a feature…so the old post is not technically wrong, but it is out of date.

So, an updated link in the old post pointing to the new post would point people directly to the latest developments.
A sparkline could do this, but this is even simpler than a sparkline, it would be a plugin that would automatically put a link in an old post to the current post, but only if it was told to do so.

When you are publishing your current post, you could say, update these past posts with a link that points to this post.
You wouldn’t want this to automatically happen, via pinging, because every old post you link to in the body of the current post will be pinged, and you might only want this to happen with a selection of the outgoing links.

So I guess my suggestion is like trackbacking your own posts (whether you link to them in the body of your current post or not).

Maybe this has solved my issue, but still a trackback is not within the body of a post, so people may not see it, also it can be the 85th item in your trackbacks, so it may not be noticed…and also trackbacks aren’t visible when posts are re-syndicated.

So, my idea is to trackback your earlier posts from a current post, but for it to land in the body of the post (preferably at the end or start of the post) eg. Update 1 (28/02/06).

Hang on, an earlier post from the Functioning Form (11 posts before the Sparkline post) explains exactly what I want and is implemented into the blog.

At the end of each post it says:

“This topic is further explored in:”

From the post:
“These links automatically appear at the end of entries that are later referenced on […] this lays out a contextually relevant path for readers who are interested in how a particular idea has continued to evolve on this blog.”

Now where do I get one?

Weblog weirdness talks about a related issue about reading blogs in reverse, oldest to newest posts…sure you can do this in an RSS Reader like Bloglines (not Rojo), but it would be good if you could toggle this at the actual blog.

Also check out this paper, Blog Interface Design 2.0

[ADDED 4/04/06: bstat pulse]

Similar to rasasa, ZapTXT is an RSS alert system that delivers content to where you are…SMS, IM or email.

Just enter a feed, filter a search term with full Boolean power, set how often you would like to be alerted, choose your method of delivery (SMS, IM, or email) and you are away…they also have a widget for your phone so you can go beyond SMS limitations.

People can tag feeds they are following and these are shared, so now you can discover feeds within ZapTXT, or even add the feed of the page you are on via the bookmarklet.

Promote people to add your blog to their ZapTXT account with their button…check out the FAQ and blog for more.

RSS to SMS, IM, and email are a big thing now, as there is so much information overload we are starting to segment our feeds…I know I want my essential reads shoved in my face via my GTalk IM.

At a glance the only difference I see compared to rasasa is a user directory compared to a house directory, archives your alerts, shows you which feeds (ZapTasks) are inactive, and the mobile widget.
Actually, rasasa also provides you with a spliced feed, and it allows OPML file import.

TechCrunch announces blog sidebar widgets from Typepad and Wordpress…more.

Wow that was quick, it was not long ago I mentioned , logahead, a blog software that incorporates widgets.

Widgets are the go, I’d like to see these cross over platforms, connect them to whatever you want…the interconnected web.

Zaptxt has a simple question…create a keyword filter across several feeds.

My RSS re-mix compile lists several tools to splice lots of feeds, then filter them, but few allow to do this at the OPML level.

Once upon a time at Feedster you could search for a term for a given OPML URL (the items have to be feeds, ie. a Reading List)…this would generate a feed.

But the idea is that you still want all the native feeds, but each one to be filtered for the same term, without having to manually do this for, eg. 50 feeds.

You can create a search feed for your Bloglines subscriptions, but this only creates a search feed, and plus this does it across all your subscriptions, you can’t select feed/s or a folder to search across.

MySyndicaat enables you to import your OPML, filter each feed, this creates a spliced feed, then you can take this newly modified spliced feed…but this is the same result, we have one spliced feed instead of 50 filtered feeds…plus we had to filter each feed individually.
Blogdigger Groups works the same way, only you can’t import via an OPML URL or file…FeedDigest, is much the same (this just splices and filters feeds, it does not present the content in a portal), and like Blogdigger Groups you can’t import OPML.

FeedRinse is different, you enter all your feeds via OPML (that’s relieved the manual process of step one), then you apply filters to your feeds, then export them again (that’s relieved the manual process of step three)…what this does is create an new OPML .

What happened to Step two…what I mean is that there is no way to apply the same filter across all the feeds, you have to do each one individually.

So it seems FeedRinse is the answer…if only it could have check boxes next to each feed so you could select these and apply the same filter in a bulk load.

Recap

Feed Rinse is yet another feed filter tool for keywords…it also offers filtering for tags, authors, etc…that’s different.

Easy batch load your feeds via OPML, and then once they are rinsed you can load them back into your RSS Reader via OPML, or one at a time…see the tour.

Now what would be great is if FeedRinse created an OPML URL, that is, a filtered Reading List…I can see this happening in the future.
At the moment it only creates an OPML file (which is a filtered Reading List, but it does not live at a URL, therefore technically not a dynamic Reading List)

Why an OPML URL rather than an OPML file?

If you subscribed to the OPML URL of your FeedRinse (see BlogBridge) in your RSS Reader (instead of subscribing to each feed individually, you are subscribing to the OPML URL that contains all these feeds), then when you make changes to one of your FeedRinse OPML’s, this will reflect in your subscription to it in your RSS Reader.

Subscribing to Reading Lists (OPML URL’s) is so much easier…we no longer have to subscribe to feeds, we can subscribe to groups of feeds hosted elsewhere…whatever changes happen to the feeds in that group will reflect in your subscription of it.
And where will these groups of feeds be hosted…well, everywhere that has OPML…you can create a Reading List (OPML URL) with lots of different tools, and once many of the current services OPMLiffy then Reading Lists will be created from lots of different applications…then we will see places to discover these, eg. folksonomy…and search these lists.

I can see RSS Readers like BlogBridge incorporating FeedRinse features
eg. when you subscribe to a feed it asks if you want to filter for a keyword eg. Web RSS Reader (not sure of other RSS Readers that have this feature)

…next step would be to filter a whole folder of feeds.

If each folder you keep your feeds in had an OPML URL, then people could subscribe to this Reading List (NOTE: BlogBridge has a special section to make Reading Lists)…if you decided to filter a few of these feeds within a folder or filter the whole folder, this would automagically reflect in whoever subscribes to your Reading List.

Knowing BlogBridge they may already have this feature, if not, don’t blink they are pretty quick.