Day: May 19, 2002

Categories
Writing

Writing update

I just finished the final pre-review draft of my chapters for O’Reilly’s weblogging book, Essential Blogging.

Once the chapters from all the authors have been gently messaged by the wonderous editing talents of Nat Torkington (first rule of thumb — always suck up to the editors until the book is in production), the book is going online, hopefully sometime this week, for public review at the O’Reilly Network.

During the review, I’m pushing to finish Unix Power Tools 3rd edition. To help in this effort — UPT is an extremely large book — we just added a new author: Steven Champeon. If you’re a fan of DHTML, CSS, JavaScript, and so on you’ll most likely recognize Steven’s name.

I’m particularly glad Steven’s come onboard because he shares my interest and excitement about Apple’s incorporation of Unix (Darwin) into Mac OS X. A key difference between the third edition of UPT and the previous two editions is the new coverage of personal computer-based Unix flavors such as Linux, FreeBSD, and Darwin.

If I’m good, meaning I don’t spend too much time with this weblog, I should be finished with the rest of my writing for UPT by end of May and can then concentrate on finishing my beloved RDF book — Practical RDF. The review draft for this book should be completed by end of June.

I’m adding new material to Practical RDF specifically related to my weblogging experiences. In particular, I take on the Google Weblogging Effect, as well as syndication with RSS. I’ll have to send an autographed copy of the book to Dave, see what he thinks 😉

To test out the book code and examples, I’m incorporating material from it into my management of this weblog as well as my other web sites. Fun stuff, though the sites might get a bit hacked in the next month or so as I play around.

Three books for O’Reilly this year. Not bad. And with half a year to go, maybe I can add a couple more.

Categories
Weblogging

Verbal drool

Verbal Drool. I paid this weblog a visit when it showed in my referrers list. I like the name of the weblog, and when you visit it you’ll see why I like the weblog look.

(Burningbird is a sucker for cute kittens. What can I say? Whenever I see something helpless with big, trusting, hopeful eyes, I just melt. Do you think that’s why I like Chris Locke so much?)

However, looks and name aside — content is king. Oh, excuse me. I meant to say, “Writing” is king. And spending some time at Sam’s weblog showed me that a) he can deliver (weblogging stuff that is), and b) he has a terrific sense of humor.

In particular, read Sam’s posts about talking with the roomie, customer support, and especially conversation at a forum.

Categories
People Weblogging

Connecting

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I was surprised at the amount of in-person connectivity that occurs as a result of meeting people through the Internet. In comments attached to a previous posting, Community, Sharon mentions meeting her significant other online and Medley talks about meeting her husband through their mutual weblogs.

Kath states:

Something about meeting through the mind first rather than the normal route – meeting people face to face first – seems to make a stronger bond.

So much of what we are is communicated through our expressions, the looks in our eyes, the movement of our hands; stripping this away to letters on a screen and still being able to connect to people that strongly blows me away. I wonder how many webloggers have met their true love and closest friends online?

And if we don’t connect physically, will the friendships fade in time?