42 Quirks

He stood out among the crowd. He was alone.

The other kids are having a field day in the park. They run, scream, yell, fall, bawl, and are picked up and soothed by their parents.

He simply stands alone on one side and looks at them with a wan smile on his face.
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[level: absolute layman]

So you’ve got yourself a feed-reader, eh? And you have no clue how to go about it? Well, let’s work this through step-by-step, through simple questions and answers:

1. What is RSS?

RSS stands for Rich Site Summary. Take each word on its own. Rich – Lots of information. Site – your web site :) Summary – smaller understandable chunks. Put them together and you get, straightaway:

“Lots of Information (from) your web site (put into) smaller understandable chunks.”

RSS also stands for Really Simple Syndication. To understand this seemingly difficult term, consider only the word syndication. Syndication means sharing or publication of material/resources into an extended network. The concept arose from cartoonists, writers and such newspaper related people ‘syndicating’ their content for different publications.

RSS is the online method of sharing/syndicating content created by us. It is an efficient distribution system, that allows you to ‘pull’ content , instead of ‘pushing’ it like email, for example. The flexibility of XML allows better content management and allows developers to play with the feeds in more ways than you can imagine.

Geeks, head over to Wikipedia’s RSS page, and BBC’s RSS page.

2. What are Feed Readers or RSS Readers?

Ok, now we have lots of information pulled from your site. The question is what do we do with it?

The immediate answer would be read! And that is exactly what feed readers do. Read your feed. Rather, they allow you to read the feed.

A feed reader the XML equivalent of a browser. A regular browser reads HTML code and displays the information between the HTML tags, as per the formatting defined in the tags. Feed readers read XML information and display the content between XML tags.

This explanation over-simplifies the RSS/XML concept, but is good enough for understanding purposes, I think.

3. How do I use a Feed Reader (RSS Reader)

Like a browser!

The URL/Location/Address bar of a browser allows you to navigate to a site. Similarly, you point the feed-reader to an RSS feed published by a site. Usaully feeds are publisehed in .xml format, but with user-friendly software like Feed Blitz or FeedBurner (I use this for my site) the feed address can be a lot simple to remember.

Here’s the process to add a blog/website feed into your reader:

1. Look for a link/button called “Add feed“. An input box asking for the feed address will appear.
2. Enter the feed address in this input box. For example, the feed address for this blog is:

   http://feeds.feedburner.com/42quirks

3. The reader will then fetch the contents of the feed (article, individual posts, etc.) and allow you to read the contents online or offline, based on the kind of reader (Web-based or Desktop-based) that you are using.

You’re done!

4. Ok, so I’ve added a feed. What next?

Well, nothing actually.

That’s the beauty of it. With a feed reader, you no longer have to visit the blog for updates all the time. Every time a new post is published, it appears in your feed reader automatically. You can simply read the updated feed (i.e new posts) from inside the reader. You only need to visit the blog if you want to leave a comment.*

You can also chunk your feeds together in logical groups for better reading experience. For instance, some of the categories I user are as generic as ‘humor’, ‘tech-blogs’, ‘poetry’ etc. or quite personal like ‘blogs-of-friends’. You have the liberty to name yours the way you want.

Such chunking is permitted by all readers, though each reader names it differently. Some call it folders, others call it categories, yet others call it channels. The essence of all these terms remains the same – a user-created logical chunk of feeds.

5. What if I can’t connect to the Internet all the time?

Work Offline!

No, I am not kidding. There are desktop-based feed readers, too.A desktop-based reader is a program that runs from your system and polls the internet for feeds whenever you connect to the internet. Akin to an email client, these feed readers connect online and (literally) download entire updated feeds to your local machine.

Those of you who use Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express or Thunderbird at work, might know what I am talking about. The workings of a web-based and desktop-based feed readers are the same as web-based and desktop-based email clients. So you are not entirely on unfamiliar territory there.

6. Which RSS Reader should I go for?

There are lot of arguments across the web regarding this one. I personally prefer web-based readers, since I work on different machines at home and work. A web-based reader allows me to keep a track of my feeds in these circumstances, just as a web-based email client.

Among web-based readers, I find Google Reader the best. With a wide array of keyboard shortcuts and the amazing speed that we have come to know and expect from Google, Google Reader beats everything hands-down, IMHO. Rojo and Bloglines come a close second.

Among Desktop-based readers, I haven’t tried many of them, but among those that I tried, Blogbridge (Java-based) and RSS Bandit (.NET based) are a good try. Attensa was interesting, but it crashed my Outlook once too often and out it went.

7. Questions?

Post your questions in the comments section. I think we can have a good FAQ setup here!

Cheers!

*Many publishers have an issue with RSS for this reason. Since most of the sites run on Ad revenue, publishing a feed means losing out on crucial page visits, and hence Ad revenue. Will Feed-vertising be the answer to all this?

powered by performancing firefox

I have written a couple of posts about Web 2.0, early on in my blog.

I’ve had various conversations revolving around this concept across the years. A comment I wrote on the 9rules community was the best explanation I could generate for such an abstract concept.

To many people out there, Web 2.0 is just a buzz-word. For quite a few, it is about AJAX and flashy effects on website. And very few really understand what it means.

The other day, one of my friends directed me to a YouTube video titled “Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us.” And suddenly, a few more pieces of the jigsaw fell into place.

The title was intriguing enough. :) Go watch it yourself…

Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us.

I will not embed the video here, because I have already had spats with my hosting providers for ‘streaming’ content from my site. But I do urge you people to check out the video. It is one of the simplest, best and most explanatory videos I have ever seen.

And what’s more, it’s Web 2.0!

A while back, a deal between Pay Per Post (PPP) and Performancing (Perf), caused quite an uproar over at the Performancing Community Forums.

Perf Members denounced it left, right and centre blaming Perf for all sorts of things. Some even went to the extent of threatening to close down their accounts, which I found weird. Nobody ever said that to Writely. Or YouTube. Or del.icio.us, for that matter.

I think Nick, Chris and all the guys at Perf are a fantastic lot. I would doff my hat off to them, if I was wearing one.

And then, the deal was called off. Performancing went through a roller-coaster of a ride, and things seem to have stabilized.

Hmm, lemme see:

Ads on Blogs – GOOD
Pay per Post – BAD

Premium Content – GOOD
Pay Per Post – BAD

Community Reviews – GOOD
Pay Per Post – BAD

Summing it up, as long as you are not associated with explicit financial motives, whatever you do is ALWAYS good. That’s a thin red line there, methinks.

Weird sense of morality we have, eh?

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Strange, isn’t it?

All of us hailed the coming of a shareable, collaborative web and ‘lovingly’ named it Web 2.0. But along with it came announcements and offerings, options and varieties; faster than anything else. So much, that the low murmur of the internet rose to a harsh, loud, incoherent noise. So much, that we are beginning to denounce it like no other.

Hypocrisy? Nope, I think “Familiarity breeds Contempt” is more like it…

Web 2.0 was a concept. Each one of us interpreted the concept and put forth ideas of their own. As a result, there was a rush of ideas and hence a flood of communication. People started ‘socializing’ on the web. Social networks boomed and people came ‘closer’.

IMHO, it all started with the advent of broadband connectivity. Being ‘always-on’ had a direct implication, that of being connected with all your near and dear ones. Web 2.0 looked upon the internet as one huge community, with local groups of people inhabiting it. This concept was publicized and then, taken too literally. Thus, were born the social networks of today.

The community is a market and markets have alternatives. Working on the same lines, social networks began to sprout, each claiming to offer something different from the other. But, the basic objective of these networks was the same – connecting people and conducting conversations across the globe.

The market analogy gives us yet another insight. Every product has competition. And every competitive product has a seller who is willing to canvass for it. The greater the competition, the larger the canvassing and the noisier the market. In the end the market become a large noisy mass of voices and nothing audible or coherent.

Get the drift?

The web as a marketplace has been inundated with offerings. The noise in the marketplace will remain until the day the sellers give up or the stocks dry up. Since, there is little chance of the latter happening, we will have to wait for the former to happen and pray that it happens sooner, rather than later.

The noise of the eMails and IMs that have been flying back and forth has overwhelmed us to the extent that we now want out. But without them, how would we communicate, let alone converse?

Or, are we wrong in assuming that eMails & IMs are the only methods of communication? What if there IS an alternative?

Will things be different?

Technorati Tags: web2.0, conversation, market, cluetrain

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My last post on WebOSes and the corresponding comments on ZDNet and Performancing resulted in interesting conversations.

Performancing users and authors had very interesting opinions. Dave, for instance, said:

…they could bring down the price of computing massively. All you would need on a desktop is effectively a thin client that handles inputs and outputs, and
connects to the internet.

… while georgemanty was worried about security:

Do I really want a third party to have access to everything on my computer’s hard drive???

searchengineblog put it really well with:

The problem is that there is no problem to be solved. In 2006, fat clients (read: PCs) aren’t expensive – bandwidth is.

The security concerns do make a valid point. But I guess, with the way things are moving, third-party storage (read: online storage with desktop synchro) is the thing to watch out for in the near future.

Technology has not only enabled cheaper and communication, but it has also been revamping the field of transportation. As travel becomes cheap, we will find ourselves at different places at different times. And then we will need one central location to store our data. Which is where third-party storage comes in.

One option would be a personal FTP server. Like your hard-disk away from your PC. Again, the only hindrance I see currently is the band-width (in terms of access). Thus it boils down, essentially, to two things:

1. A radically new, faster method of accessing the internet.Condition: It must support huge amounts of bandwidth so as to enable each one of the 6 billion people whoo will soon be online in the near future.
2. A safe and secure online storage system.Condition: The privacy concerns of the users must be put to rest. Each such third-party supplier must be liable for any leakage of information (intentional, or otherwise) occurring from their servers.

On ZDNet, 3D0G said:

There are still far to many people out there using computers who have no
clue how computers work and don’t want to know. They just want to browse the web and read email. There are also many people who know they know nothing about computers and so don’t buy one. Something like this would at least open the internet and email up to them

This would be like saying, we need hand-cranked cars because some old-timers cannot adopt to automatic transmission. Not a very good analogy, I agree, but just because people don’t know how to use the net does not mean we step back to thin-clients.

A similar attempt was made (if my memory serves me correctly) with public Internet Access kiosks (at least in India) But it was a huge failure, simply because:

1. People did not want to make their ignorance of the Internet public.
2. The kiosks were not supported by adequate bandwidth. They were too slow.
3. The thin clients were actually confusing and they allowed only one browser window – no tabs back then.
4. Around 25% of the screen space was consumed by ads that were run to support the costs of running these kiosks.

I have realized that, the more you attempt to make technology easier for people, the lazier they become. “Give a man fish to eat, he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he will never go hungry for the rest of his life.”

If there are any such laymen, we need to teach them how to surf the waves and not try and make things easier for them. Simplicity does not always mean simplifying the product. It could also mean simplifying the process.

Let’s face it, the internet is a skill and not a toy. You have to learn it and the more inquisitive can even attempt to master it. Any attempt to simplify things further will only allow the lazy to become lazier. Do we really need WebOSes? The argument of thin-clients and simplification of things seems pretty thin to me…

I mean, is it really that difficult?

(It’s a pity that I have to summarize my Blogosphere Conversations here.)

The WebOS Market Review by Richard MacManus delves into the WebOS market, which is currently being played by small-timers like YouOS, eyeOS, XIN, etc. A WebOS is an OS on the Web that allows you to browse, eMail, chat, etc. Basically, the online counterpart of your desktop OS.

Ok. Stop. Let’s go back to that last one. Online counterpart of an OS? uhh, erm…

Hmm. Let’s try Wikipedia. Wikipedia defines WebOS as:

More generally, WebOS refers to a software platform that interacts with the user
through a web browser and does not depend on any particular local
operating system.

What? Let’s go through this one more time, step-by-step:

I boot my desktop OS. I fire my desktop browser. I connect to the World Wide Web. I access the WebOS. I see my WebDesktop. Now what? I fire up my WebBrowser and access the Internet again?

Er, excuse me, but isn’t that where I am already? So, which one is my, ‘true’, definitive OS? The one I booted to fire the (desktop) Browser, or the one that I accessed on the web? Moreover, how would you access such an OS in the future, given this logical inconsistency?

When I put forth this question, AutomanG replied with the following:

One solution would be to have something, say…, linux embedded into a box that’s sole purpose is to fire up a browser and initiate a tunnel to a remote server (where your webOS of choice is located.) It would be a borderless browser so to you, it would look just like you booted a computer arriving at a desktop.

This sounds really weird! No offense meant, but I just want to explore this a bit further:

Currently, looking at the larger picture, we have three OSes in the Desktop Market. Windows, Linux and MacOS. With this proposal the intention to make Linux a standard (irrespective of whether all people want it or not). Or Windows or MacOS. Some OS which can be universally accepted and moulded as and when need be. Which inevitably brings us back to Linux.

Agree though, the argument that Automan provides makes some sense on some level. Okay, it doesn’t matter what boots the embedded browser as long as what they see on their screens is the same all throughout. Interesting point, I admit.

But again, then there are many options for WebOSes now. There will come a time when we will have to choose one of them as a standard, or maybe, define some standard specs for a WebOS. How do you do that, then?

And if you were to do it later, why not do it now for the desktop OSes? And if you intend to write embedded software to run the necessary hardware, it still is an OS!

I still can’t fathom the need for a WebOS. The ability to store data online, more than makes up for the inability to access my personal desktop everywhere. After all the applications that you intend to put on the Web will be run by their desktop counterparts. What is the point?

Ok, I guess, I oughtta stop. I sound almost desparate now!

Technorati Tags: WebOS, ZDNet, OS