Categories
Burningbird

Why the merge?

Why the merge of the weblogs? Particularly since the two topics, Practical RDF and the rest of my life seem to have no common ground?

Contrary to what you might expect, it wasn’t my disappointment about the ETech conference. If that was it, I would have left the weblog and put, “Reading O’Reilly books kills kittens!” scrolled across the top.

I am joking, of course. Reading O’Reilly books other than my own kills kittens.

My previous posts related to Etech resulted from a combination of many feelings–some deep, some shallow (probably most shallow)– but I’m not mad at O’Reilly. Nor do I think they were sexist in not picking my proposal. Short sighted, yes. Possessing dubious taste, no doubt. Unimaginative, maybe–but not sexist. No, as odd as this may seem, it was new Feminist Weblog public aggregator that gave me this impetus.

This aggregator is for weblogs that …discuss feminist issues on a more-or-less regular, on-going basis. My first thought was to submit my weblog, as I write on feminist issues more or less on a regular basis. But then, if you compare my writings to those others on the list, I probably don’t seem like I write on feminism.

I do, though. Every time I write on technology, I am writing as a feminist. Every time I write on photography, the same. However, the times when I specifically address feminism aren’t that frequent, not when mixed in with the other posts.

Should I then split my feminist posts off? I thought about doing this a couple of times, and even started at one point. But if I follow that path, then I’m looking at splitting tiny chunks of me off every which way until there’s little left of me that’s “Burningbird”, which is supposed to be–me.

I did this with Practical RDF. I created this site to support the book, but extended it to include other RDF issues, and eventually most of my semantic web and technology interests other than weblogging technology. And Practical RDF did appear in yet another aggregator, this one related to all things RDF and semantic web.

But as I wrote at the Practical RDF site earlier today, I think splitting off discussions of the semantic web from other discussions is to lose a key piece of understanding necessary for this effort:

However, in my opinion, a key to the semantic web–the plain folks version, not that big ‘S’ big ‘W’ one–is to find a way to merge our humantistic and digital impulses to good effect. To disregard my, and others, non-technical writing and interests is to disregard important clues to making the semantic web work outside of academic and marketing interests.

Still, there’s no gainsaying that if one were to want to read almost exclusively about issues related to the semantic web, one is not going to be happy when my essays on feminism pop up; and if one were interested in promoting or being promoted within a feminist world, one may not be thrilled to see a sequence of me writing about photography.

I can understand this, and sympathize, and respect this selectivity — it makes a great deal of sense. Just not for me.

(I found out about the Feminist aggregator through Feministe who is taking a break from weblogging — ha!)

Categories
Burningbird

Merge complete

As you can see by several new items, the merge of the two weblogs has been completed.

Categories
Burningbird

Well, hmmmm

As you may have noticed, when I did an export of Practical RDF into MT format, and then tried to re-import into WordPress, the import did not succeed. I had backed up the database, so was able to recover to the point of the attempt.

I swear this is one aspect of Wordform that is going to be given lots of attention: the ability to merge weblogs, split categories out into separate weblogs, to post to multiple weblogs at one time, and to be able to move from, and to, other weblogging tools.

Moving between tools or even moving between weblogs in a tool, has been problematical in every weblogging tool I know. Yet weblog users need to be able to have the flexibility of switching tools – tool lock-in is not acceptable.

And I agree with those who I did disagree with recently when I last discussed this–the Movable Type export format is not workable. It’s too fragile, and breaks too easily. But syndication formats have a bunch of crap that data exports and imports don’t need.

What we need is a new XML format for exporting and importing data. Not an RDF/XML format – this would be a waste of RDF. But not a syndication format either, which is finetuned to a different need. A new one, just for the data management, sophisticated enough to handle each tool’s unique needs, and which we can easily incorporate into each tool using whatever template technology the tools support.

Oh well, back to the drawing board and a different approach to merging Practical RDF into Bb.

Categories
Burningbird

Under construction

I am in the process of closing down the Practical RDF site, and moving the entries over into Burningbird, so things might be a little off at times today.

I’m not going to be maintaining a separate site between my technology and other interests–those who like the tech will have to sit through the poetry, personal epiphanies, and other flowery sh*t; those who like the personal stuff, will have to skip over the tech.

Besides, Wordform combines both sides of me into one neat and easy to install package. Contrary to expectations generated by my post earlier today about being disappointed about ETech, I am more determined that ever to create this forked variation of WordPress. Why? Because I can.

Categories
Photography

On a more positive note

Yesterday I spent a considerable amount of time at CompUSA exploring the differences between the Canon i990D and the Epson 2200. What I didn’t know is that many manufacturers send representatives to this store at certain times in the week to answer customer questions, and the Epson representative was there. The Canon person was not, but the store personnel went out of their way to demonstrate the i990D, including taking it into the back to find a computer that had the drivers installed.

The Epson was a very nice printer, and did beautiful work and the Epson rep even went so far as to have me talk with someone who had purchased one several months ago. And of course, there were the reviews of Epson printers in my comments in the previous post on this subject, and several people who I respect have used this company’s printers, including Jerry with the 2200 itself, and have positive things to say about them. Of course, there are those in my comments, who, like in the other reviews I’ve read, have negative things to say about Epson printers, or positive things to say about Canon.

In the end, both printers would seem to be the top of the line for high-end inkjet photo printers and I most likely wouldn’t go wrong with either choice. It really did come down to what I wanted from a printer. And to that end, I decided to go with the Canon.

Though the Epson has ability to handle rollpaper and larger prints, including a cutter for photos, I did not like having to swap the matte black ink out for glossy when switching from matte paper to glossy paper. The 2200 is also an older printer, and doesn’t come with the Pictbridge interface that would allow me to print directly from my camera. In addition, the ink is more expensive and the machine considerably slower.

Now, the Epson does have more flexibility when it comes to paper sizes, the ink is supposedly less susceptible to fading, and it has more options as to types of paper. But it was also $200.00US more than the Canon, and most of the advantages it had were ones that weren’t particularly important to me.

My main use for the printer is to create portfolios to send out to various magazine publishers in hope of fanning the barest embers of a photo career, particularly since I am now faced with the fact that I might have to find a new career (i.e. see last post, bring hankies, your eyes will tear). I also want to print out photos for myself, family, and friends, but the largest I’m interested in creating would be 8 x 10 (or I should say, 8 x 11 1/2). I might do a 13 x 9 for curiosity, but anything larger I would have my favorite photo lab create for me, using their professional equipment. I trust my lab, and I know when to do something myself, and when to invest the money and have it do the work for me.

I brought my Canon home last night, and set it up this morning. I also bought a bluetooth USB adapter and new wireless Apple keyboard for my PowerBook, and then proceeded to break the bluetooth adapter by following Apple’s blanket instruction to upgrade the firmware (not when it’s already at the version needed, I learned — kiss one adapter good-bye).

Luckily, the Canon setup went flawlessly, and after I did my first ‘lucky’ initiation print with the paper in backwards, I was able to create several 4 x 6 prints that literally had my jaw dropping because of the color and detail this printer can manage. And this was without using any specialized ICC profiles, of which I have much to learn.

After several years of taking photos and getting such good advice and encouragement from folks in the weblogging community; to getting a really decent camera (again with the help and advice from people online); to using the best software (ditto), and now using an exceptionally good printer (ditto about folks and good advice)–it’s all starting to come together and I’m overjoyed and filled with buckets full of droplets