Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with internet and blogs

Know any good blogs by high school or college age females?

Joe Beese — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:14:46 -0800

Know any good blogs by high school or college age females? It's character research for NaNoWriMo. Videos are fine too.

Is there an Instapaper for feed aggregation?

Orchestra — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 05:26:14 -0800

I'm looking for a very simple rss updater to replace Rososo. Any suggestions? It looks like my rss updater of choice, Rososo, might be permanently out of order. This bums me out as it's just about the perfect fit for my needs and aesthetic preferences. Much like Instapaper, another can't-do-without favourite, it has a zen-like vibe of doing one thing really well and looking as simple as possible while doing it.

What I need is a robust (little downtime) and easy-to-use service for keeping an eye on my twenty or so favourite blogs and other sites. I like to read my articles on-site, not through a reader interface, so I'm therefore not looking for Google Reader, I think. Firefox extensions and the like are out as I often use different computers and browsers throughout the day.

Also, I want to be able to follow any feed and not just those that are already submitted to the service (like Bloglovin or Bloglines). Some of my feeds belong to sites written in languages other than English and others I'm just not comfortable adding to a public index (personal Livejournals and the like).

Is there anything out there for me?

Where can I find the best writing on the internet?

jpg15 — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 01:29:38 -0800

Is there a web site which recommends the best writing on the net on a periodic basis? There are plenty of great blogs and websites out there to read, and no shortage of recommendations. This post, for example, recommends lots of different sites. But I find my own interest in wading through all of it on a feed reader gradually waning. I am wondering if anyone knows of any human-run site which recommends excellent writing.

I am interested in high quality, thoughtful, even controversial writing on any subject. The closest thing to this that I am aware of is Arts & Letters Daily, but a significant number of their posts are book reviews or appeal strictly to very well-read humanities students. I am interested in suggestions which draw from the features and opinions of all of the major US (or English-speaking world!) newspapers, magazines, blogs, and sites.

Alternate blogging set ups?

Alexandra Kitty — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 08:53:54 -0800

Are all blogs linear scrolls or is there someone out there who presents entries differently (allow for shuffling of posts or presents it like iTunes presents your selection)? I am trying to find some other way to present my web site -- I knew of someone who was trying to use artificial intelligence with the blog model and got in touch with them, but that fizzled out. I had my fill of that set up -- it's extremely limiting, especially if what you write isn't dated...

Where did the Honest Scrap Award originate?

rebekah — Tue, 26 May 2009 20:40:47 -0800

A group of East African bloggers I follow have recently begun circulating the Honest Scrap Award — a sort of informal bloggers' award-slash-meme — among themselves. I thought they had created it, but a quick Google search shows that it's been around since at least December of 2008. Does anyone know where or why it started?

The propaganda machine or my imagination?

drpynchon — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 11:19:23 -0800

Am I imagining things or has there lately been a surge of right-wing opinion dominating the forums of popular sites like digg and reddit? It seems like people are voting up weird random articles like this one and then circle jerking away about regulation=bad, government=bad, Obama=BigBrother=communism, taxes=bad, etc. usually talking points.

Are these sites always prone to just being anti-establishment regardless of the party in power or is this a planned tactic on the part of American conservatives to address their prior failings in handling the internet? I've seen some links to what appear to be goon squads doing this but has anyone written a substantive evaluation of this phenomenon and how organized it may be? Also have the folks that run such sites addressed the fact that they may be used as propaganda devices and attempted to develop means to combat this?

Which Internet Pioneer regretted the Internet's Anonymity

philosophistry — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 10:59:09 -0800

Which famous Internet pioneer regretted the anonymity of the Internet? I forget who it was. Was it Tim Berners-Lee who said his one big regret about the Internet was anonymity? I'm trying to write something about this topic.

Favorite blog?

BoldStepDesign — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:51:28 -0800

What's your favorite tech/GTD blog? I'm looking for a blog like Lifehacker, but with more of a focus on office/workspace and geeky stuff.

Angry Listservers with Pitchforks DO NOT WANT

NolanRyanHatesMatches — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 10:08:19 -0800

EtiquetteFilter: Scale of 1 - 10, how gauche is it to link to specific messages from a listserv's archives (which includes visible email addresses) in a might-be-widely-read blog post? I know that, technically, the info is already out there, but I also would rather not bum people out by bringing attention to their more-personal info. It's been a long time since I was even part of a listserv, so I don't really know what the general feeling about it is.

Where can I find a bunch of John and Jane Does?

eggplantia5 — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 08:51:34 -0800

Does anyone happen to remember the name of the LiveJournal community that existed a few years ago, that publicly posted the password, so that anyone could log in and make posts about whatever they wanted? It was an open community for everyone and anyone. There may have been more than one, but I only knew of one. Or, can anyone point out any blogs/wikis/myspace accounts/etc that share the same concept right now? Or historically? I am trying to gather a list together for some research I am doing, and this is a little hard to google. Basically, I'd love a link to any site that used to have or currently has anonymous, open posting.

I just found this site http://weareonlyhuman.com/ and I know about postsecret, but I know there are others out there. I just can't find them right now. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Good Chinese reading for non-Chinese reader?

jruckman — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 07:05:03 -0800

I'm looking for some good Mandarin Chinese online reading -- news, blogs, etc. Very simple -- no fancy academic language. A good daily world news site in layman's writing would be perfect -- I'm looking to practice and expand my Mandarin vocabulary.

Blogger to Wordpress for a Fee?

0bvious — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 21:26:51 -0800

Moving from Blogger to Wordpress: Can I pay someone to have it done? I know pretty much how to go about the move, but my time and inclination are low at the moment. If I could pay a small fee and have it done for me (with the results outlined below) I'd be a very happy man...

-----

I have an extensive blogger blog with a several hundred post history. I want to move it over to wordpress, on the same server, whilst maintaining the same URL structure for its entire history (so all past links still reach their destination - I guess this is a htaccess issue).

Each of my past posts was also tagged using Del.icio.us. As a bonus I'd love this history of tags to be pulled into the new Wordpress blog (i.e. update all the posts with their appropriate delicious tags) so future tagging could be done from within the new blog.

Layout and design can stay pretty much the same as it is now, although a bunch of plugins ready and waiting would be a nice final bonus.

Any services that will do this move? Any enterprising Wordpress know-it-alls fancy doing this for a small fee?

Cheers

Stopping the blog spammers

bamassippi — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 13:08:24 -0800

I want to start a Wikipedia page featuring the domains of blog spammers. Does one already exist?

I can no longer waste time with Bloglines

itchi23 — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 07:49:41 -0800

Bloglines isn't showing my feeds anymore! I'm using the most updated version of Firefox, and haven't installed any new extensions, but my "feeds" tab no longer shows any feeds! This started happening last night. It shows the "Add, Edit, Clippings" and the "Extras" down below - but no actual feeds. I double checked in the "Edit" option to make sure my feeds were there. I disabled all my extensions. I updated Java. I even searched MeFi and the painfully slow Bloglines forum, but can't seem to figure out why my feeds are missing all of a sudden. I checked in Internet Explorer, and Bloglines is working - I even checked it on my wife's computer running Firefox, and my feed show up. What could possibly be wrong on my machine that their feed tree doesn't show up on my Firefox?

Video blogs about the entertainment industry

amusem — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 15:35:03 -0800

I'm looking for video blogs that discuss the entertainment industry (film, music, stage, video games). But I'm having a hard time finding them...

I like what Variety does --even if it's not per se a vlog... (www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=vision&element_id=1840015756)

...but their postings are kind of rare... I don't know of any other video stream in this category...

I would like to watch (or even listen to, if it's just audio) interviews or short clips that are about production, industry news, sales, festivals, conferences, etc.

Trade magazine stuff... only in vlog format... with new entries daily !...

I would also be interested in film and music reviews done by vloggers...

Any suggestions ?

Formatting Combined Feeds as a Daily Link List

0bvious — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 21:49:31 -0800

I have been using reblog to combine two feeds (for a blog and a forum) which I then publish through Feedburner. What I want to do is have the blog part of my feed update normally (i.e. individual posts) and the forum part of my feed compiled into a daily link list (which itself is published as if it were ONE feed post each day)... What ways exist for me to do this? I have already devised a simple way to do this, but I cannot edit the output.

At the moment I have reblogger publish my forum feed to a delicious account. Then using the feedburner link-splicer, delicious posts are called up at the end of each day and compiled as a daily link list in my feed.

Problem is I can't edit the title, format etc. of the output. (I'd like to change the title of this daily post to read something like 'Forum Activity for 30th March 2006')

Any other methods to do this? (my knowledge of PHP and the like is slim, so be gentle).

Thanks a lot

give me blogs or give me ...

anjamu — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 23:16:45 -0800

Blogs you love? I'm always seeking to expand my little Netvibes page with things to keep me amused during the day. Subject matter isn't as important as being witty and fresh.

Topics I do particularly like include books (ex. Bookslut), food (Eater), all things New York (Gawker, Gothamist), lifehacks (well, Lifehacker), trashy celebrity goodness (Go Fug Yourself), and just assorted random links (Fark-style).

Hit me up with some more to keep me busy!

about a blog.

libelula — Fri, 23 Dec 2005 09:57:09 -0800

All about blogs. - I, like many others, began blogging on blogger... I find that I want to do more with my blog and I would like to move to a better service... I love Typepad but I do not want to pay for ithe service..... I have heard good things about Wordpress.... any other suggestions...?? Also, I read that it was possible to move my blogspot entries to my new blog, can anyone guide me through this process or can anyone refer me to a site that does? TIA!

installing a blog

bamassippi — Sat, 01 Oct 2005 14:09:18 -0800

I need help installing WordPress into my Yahoo! Geocities account... can anybody help me out?

.htaccess security help

TBoneMcCool — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 09:13:15 -0800

Web site security question: How can I protect my .htaccess file? I've been fighting off referrer spammers from my site using these popular modifications of my .htaccess file. The methods have proven mostly successful, but this morning I awoke to find my site once again bogged down in spam. I took a peek at the .htaccess file and found that my anti-spam modifications had been stripped out of the file. What do I need to do to protect this file from outside meddling?

business blogger

bamassippi — Thu, 14 Jul 2005 12:30:26 -0800

I am interested in developing three new blogs, all for business purposes. I have the business mind and the game plan, but don't have enough time to learn how to use systems like Movable Type or Word Press. Does anyone know where I can get some help?

Lost website

tomble — Wed, 25 May 2005 17:35:36 -0800

I'm trying to find a website I read a while ago before I lost my bookmarks! It was a blog style review of actual movie plots, with the worst film ideas EVER. It was hilarious, with comments by the blogger about how it should be done, as well as comments from the reader.

I suspect it was posted on MeFi, but I can't find it!

Is the average blogger poorer than the average person?

growabrain — Wed, 12 Jan 2005 18:21:23 -0800

After reading hundreds of blogs (Why, oh why?), I’ve come to the conclusion that a big number of the people who write about their own financial situation, explicitly or indirectly tell of how broke they are; Like Jim Anchower, many describe low wages and bad jobs, job losses and unemployment, crashing bills, life in apartments with roommates who don’t care and having a hard time paying rents & bills, etc. I understand that the real median household income in 2003 was $43,318 (US), and I know that times are hard for most people. Still, is the average blogger poorer than the average person?

Can anyone recommend blogs that are safe for a teacher to allow students to visit on their classroom computers?

naxosaxur — Tue, 28 Sep 2004 08:47:52 -0800

Can anyone recommend blogs that are safe for a teacher to allow students to visit on their classroom computers? The students are around 12-years-old.

Will future politicians have to explain their Web past?

Masi — Wed, 11 Aug 2004 03:08:20 -0800

Will future politicians have to explain their Web past [MI]? As blogs (and a Web presence in general) become more popular, it is to be expected the politicians that will shape up for the next 40-50 years will have acted in a online forum in some way or another, espousing opinions, which could be controversial.

There are already political figures having blogs, such as the King of Cambodia or the Iranian Vice President in the Parliamentary Legal Affairs, and there have already been controversies regarding someone's Internet past.

Considering this, how likely is it that tomorrow's politicians will be able to be tracked through the marks they left on various Internet forums? Will it be able to see the way their ideas got shaped?

Considering that most forums now have archives and will be easily accessed in the future, should anyone intending for a political (or any other, actually) career be careful on what opinion he espouses on the Internet?