Re-Tweet

Last night (GMT) I read a tweet by Darren Rowse (whom I'm following on Twitter), inviting his followers to submit their best blog posts from last week! The best of these, as selected by Darren, would be reposted on Darren's Blog Tips to Help You Make Money Blogging - ProBlogger.

This morning I discovered that Darren had selected my submission Cats, Jelly Babies, FeedBurner and an iPhone wallpaper! for inclusion: Re-Tweeted - 73 Top Posts from the Last Week. This has resulted in more traffic to this blog and new Twitter (direct link to my profile) followers! I'm delighted and humbled.

Darren will be running another Twitter-related participatory post next week! Be sure to follow Darren on Twitter (direct link to Darren's profile). Incidentally, Darren is a fellow Mac OS X User and periodically compiles (with the aid of his readers) lists of blog-related Mac OS X applications, which I've found invaluable and hope you do too.

Cats, Jelly Babies, FeedBurner and an iPhone wallpaper!

The last few days have been particularly manic!

Since Friday I've embarked on the process of updating Nick Smith's blog template and publishing his Blogger hosted site to a custom domain name using GoDaddy (you can register domain names from any of a number of different registrars). This is no mean feat when you factor in html coding, FeedBurner, AdSense and Google Webmaster Tools amongst others!

Cat City Online
Cat City Online is the weblog of Nick Smith, author of "Scriptwriting: The Secrets Unleashed," "Milk Treading," "The Kitty Killer Cult" and "Undead on Arrival."

Drop by Nick's new and improved site and leave a comment. He's a good friend and a creative chap...

Memorial
Making further progress with my mother's memorial project! Today Shop@Panasonic, Harlequins Centre, Exeter, pulled through with a Plasma HDTV TH-37PX70, which will be installed at Lucerne House once the refurbishment work on the Alphinbrook Unit is complete! And a Shop@Panasonic staff member recognised me from myentertainmentnews.co.uk (formerly Unit News)! Always a pleasure to meet a fellow Doctor Who/Torchwood fan!

In addition to the plasma television, we've bought a PC, widescreen monitor and a Nintendo Wii (includes Wii Sports)!

The next steps include researching the needs of each resident and costing the peripherals and software needed to facilitate the highest level of transparency! At this stage I have no idea of the total cost - anywhere from £300 to £3000 and beyond! I'll give serious consideration to approaching disabled charities, for extra funding, if my mother's memorial fund falls short.

FeedBurner Help Group
Be sure to visit the brand new official FeedBurner Help Group, which launched last night (GMT), where I'm a Community Expert! I'll help out as much as possible along with my fellow Community Expert peeps Improbulus, Charles LaPage, Mathaba and Franklin Tse.

One last thing...

"Peek-a-boo" wallpaper
I was inspired to create a wallpaper for the iPhone (and it looks cool on iPod touch too)!

"Peek-a-boo" is my cheeky homage to the Apple logo and started life as my Twitter avatar!



More wallpapers to follow.

Jedi Master of My Domain

We all know that new iMacs are on their way today. Therefore this post will be self-indulgent and focus on the very blog that you are reading!

Blogger introduced custom domain name support in January 2007! This blog has been online for over 3 years and, somewhat belatedly, I've finally registered a domain name:

http://www.generationstarwars.com/

Redirection from http://johnhood.blogspot.com/ is automatic (what's called a 301 permanent redirect). But apologies, in advance, for any technical issues in the short-to-mid term. I've not experienced any issues using the following browsers Opera, Safari, Firefox or IE 7 (in Windows Vista Home Premium).

Subscribers to my RSS feed - powered by FeedBurner - do not have to make any changes to their subscription! Matt Shobe, at FeedBurner, confirmed that my decision to change the source feed from

http://johnhood.blogspot.com/atom.xml

to

http://www.generationstarwars.com/atom.xml

was correct. RSS goodness is uninterrupted.

I'm feverishly working on ways to minimise the impact of a domain name change on my search engine rankings - old Google PageRank was 4 (on the cusp of 5), new PageRank is 0. However, I'd encourage anyone setting up their site, who intends to blog frequently and in the longer term, to register a domain name as soon as possible! Maybe even prior to your blog going live or increased marketing activities.

Lastly, remember to create a new sitemap for your new domain and remove the existing one as Google may remove your site(s) from its search engine - duplicate content is a no, no!

Windows Live Writer

Switched back to Windows Vista! Why? I'm keen to give Windows Live Writer Beta 2 a test drive and there's currently no Mac OS X client (get your skates on Mac Business Unit (Mac BU)).

Microsoft has built a powerful desktop application blogging tool, which largely precludes the need to directly login to your blog account. Windows Live Writer can publish to Windows Live Spaces, Sharepoint, WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, Moveable Type, Community Server, and many other weblog services.

Windows Live Writer is by no means unique. There's an abundance of third party applications and widgets available for both Windows and Mac platforms. Yet, Windows Live Writer goes someway to consolidate rich publishing in one easy-to-use application. Setup is a breeze. However, I'd like to see more formatting options - such as justify - made available from the GUI. Of course you can switch to HTML and, manually, insert code yourself.

You can post directly from within Windows Live Writer or save drafts locally and/or online. A very useful trick it has up its sleeve; updated drafts, saved locally, will overwrite the online draft if you saved at both locations. Therefore you don't need to worry about reconciling different versions or accidentally double posting (a bane of bloggers everywhere)!

Lost Connection

During the past week I've been unable to view any site hosted on BlogSpot! Suffice to say that I contacted my ISP, Virgin Media, to report a possible DNS issue and, initially, thought that the matter would be resolved in a timely matter. However, their Technical Support team did not follow-up my complaint via telephone or e-mail. Therefore I decided to start threads on Apple Support Discussions, Digital Spy and Google Groups.

Thankfully someone at Blogger picked up the bait and investigated the matter; there was a network issue affecting certain UK-based ISPs. A workaround is in place whilst further investigations are carried out.

Due to this negative experience with Virgin Media's Technical Support, I will no longer be recommending the company. I've already started encouraging family, friends and acquaintances, caught on the receiving end of the sky/Virgin Media battle, to switch!



And don't think of Virgin Media as the underdog! It's tantamount to Manchester United vs Chelsea FC!

Birthday Bot

Today is my birthday and, whilst downloading new iTunes songs (thank you David and Michael for the most excellent iTunes Gift Certificate), I discovered this snippet of Apple Inc-related news. A new Convoy (AKA Optimus Prime) from Takara Tomy is on the way!

The Convoy is an ice white Apple iPod digital music player docking station with speakers, which is fully licensed by Apple Inc. The docking station can be transformed from the cab (with trailer) to a robot.

Convoy will be the same size as its Generation 1 variant and features a brand-new head sculpt. This is the second in the "Music Label" line.

Takara Tomy extends its co-branding franchise, beyond Apple Inc, with the new Transformers Sports Label series!



The new Sports Label series features 1/2 scale transforming Nike-branded shoes! These licensed items should be somewhere around 6" in length in shoe mode and it looks like they even have real laces connected to the top of the shoe. Convoy and Megatron are also each sporting a miniature pair of Nike Free 7.0 as a finishing touch.

Hope Hasbro decides to release these brand fusions in the UK and USA. Pretty please?

Look! Labels!

After what seemed like an eternity, my Blogger account was migrated from Old to New Blogger last Friday night (GMT)!

The transition was, almost, seamless, and proved the edict that one should always backup a template (to a text editor such as bbedit)! For some reason, which I haven't had time nor desire to explore, illegal characters were introduced! However, a quick cut n' paste and, presto, time to start exploring all the new features.

For me, tags have always, literally, been the missing link on my blogs!

A tag is a (relevant) keyword or term associated with or assigned to a piece of information (like picture, article, or video clip), thus describing the item and enabling keyword-based classification of information it is applied to.

The notion of manually adding tags, to existing posts, seemed daunting and arduous in the extreme! And there was no guarantee that the addition of tags would increase Technorati and Google traffic and, by extension, readership. Thankfully, New Blogger introduces Labels (AKA tags) and there's no coding required (a panacea for those of us with heavily customised templates). Labels are available out of the box! Thank you Blogger.

The result? All posts should soon contain relevant tags and, hopefully, improve the reading experience in ways my prose, alone, never could!

Something Kinda Ooooh

May I wish all my readers a happy and safe Halloween. As with Halloween '04, here's a photo of the demure Jennifer Love Hewitt. A bewitching treat, wouldn't cha say?



Love Hewitt is enjoying deserved success with Ghost Whisperer, a television series that soon started to deliver chills after a cold start (no pun intended)!

aStore opening

Please drop by my new aStore, which has been designed specifically to cater for my blogger readership.

aStore by Amazon is a new Associates product that gives you the power to create a professional online store, in minutes and without the need for programming skills, that can be embedded within or linked to from your website.

What self-respecting store doesn't have a suitable logo to identify it from the crowd? Because aStore (at time of writing) doesn't allow users to generate more than one store (per affiliate account), I decided to combine the look and feel of both my blogs and incorporated their favicons.



Unintentionally I think it compares favorably with Gap and Apple Computer's current addiction to the '+' branding!

Sussing IT

After some late night template tweaking, I've sussed that (at present) my current Blogger templates cannot be automatically updated to use the new features, which includes a comment feed (I'll burn this using FeedBurner - I'm a veritable stats junkie)! However, the modifications can be applied manually. So, I'd better backup my templates!

Designer Labels (Blogger goes beta)

I'm sure you already know that Google has lifted the wraps off of a substantial upgrade to Blogger! This was foreshadowed by the soft launch of RSS 2.0.

While the majority of users (myself included) await confirmation to migrate their existing accounts. You can get a sneak peek of what's in store for both my blogs here. Labels is a long awaited category/tag mashup that will enrich Technorati listings. Of course template trammels could render things "dunzo" as they say on Laguna Beach!

Please note that at time of writing, there's no auto-detect feature for RSS (amongst other technical foibles), at least until I've augmented the html code.

Introducing RSS 2.0

On Monday night I noticed that Blogger had soft launched RSS feeds in addition to Atom! This had been reported as early as May 31st! Until now RSS was only available to Pro Blogger users and via services such as FeedBurner.

In anticipation of new enabling technologies, from today I've switched (on both blogs) the FeedBurner Full and Summary Feeds source from Atom to RSS. There is no need for existing subscribers to resubscribe. Apologies for any transient service bumps, bruises, cuts and grazes.

At time of writing there is still no official announcement from Blogger!

Google adds another peice to the GooOS puzzle. Firefox users can now download Google Browser Sync! I'll soon be cancelling my .mac account and trashing Microsoft Office in favor of Writely and Google Spreadsheets!

Han & Chewie Combined!

This post was originally published on my new blog. However, this Star Wars item was just too awesome to pass up a reprint here!

Initial reaction to the first wave of Hasbro's Star Wars Transformers line was one of unfettered excitement, followed by disappointment and, finally, disillusionment! Rebellious reactions should be crushed by the arrival of Han Solo and Chewbacca combiners complete with electronic lights and sounds!

Signature window-box design.


Combined!


Heroic Han.


Cool Chewie.


If this isn't a very, very cool collectible then I don't know what is! Hasbro why didn't you employ me?

Silica Shop Sunday

I'm not restrained in publicizing my affection for all things Atari! This weekend is no exception with the Universal Binary release of Mark Grebe's lauded 8-bit emulator Atari800MacX 3.2.

In the spirit of nostalgia. Silica Shop, based in Sidcup, Kent, was the UK's largest Atari dealer, before its Debenhams concession stores resulted in bankruptcy. Although I couldn't find a good enough Silica Shop magazine advertisement. Here's one taken from a 1984 Argos catalogue. Argos is a successful UK retail chain.



Kevin Simpson, a childhood friend and avid video gamer, and me drooled over this! And to think that I owned a Commodore 64 at the time! In the inimitable words of Dr Zachary Smith, Ohh, the pain!

Gift from the Gods

Yesterday Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs celebrated his birthday. Google, which is often taken to task by Mac Users for tardy support, released Google Macintosh Widgets and Group (membership required). There is an abundance of excellent third-party options available, but these new official Dashboard Widgets are worthy of note. The Gmail and Blogger Widgets show promise and AdSense is sure to follow. Putting Gmail Notifier in the trash...

Did you manage to sign-up for Google's newly launched Page Creator service? If so, congratulations, anyone who got caught in the surge will have to wait for an invitation. As of today Gmail users can start using Page Creator (no Safari support as yet). Therefore I had a very quick look (Firefox 1.5) and published a basic page. Watch this space.

Google is certainly prolific. However, isn't it time to consolidate the paradigm?

The Blogger sidebar has undergone yet another face lift! The RSS chicklet confusion has been curtailed in favor of Full and Summary Feed subscriptions only. And coComments, a new trend, has been introduced (albeit restricted to my comments on other blogs until coComments introduces secure moderation).

I'm experimenting with Google AdSense placement. Please be assured that this is not intended to be too intrusive. Incidentally, according to various sites (notably ProBlogger) Google is testing a new AdSense format - video.

Where does he get those wonderful toys?

In January I turned my attention away from RSS to the template and ways in which I can add non-intrusive functionality. From del.icio.us Play Tagger to Google automatic language translations (This blog is now available in German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean or Chinese with the aim of reaching a multilingual readership). For highly informative Blogger tutorials and tips, visit A Consuming Experience.

The balance between tools and cosmetic clutter is a precarious one. If I'm failing on the latter, sorry, but the former should make things about square between us!

Mobile Me

For the past few months Blogger development appears to have been on hold at Mountain View! Code warrior, Kirk, noted the following automatic update. This new feature will purportedly enable mobile users to send a text alert to their contacts. There's still no official statement over at Blogger Buzz. Although I regularly customize/hack my blog's template, Categories would be a welcome addition.

If you're reading this using BlackBerry, please drop me a line before the litigation between BlackBerry and NTP culminates in a blackout for US consumers.

According to MacFixIt some Mac OS X 10.4.4 Tiger users are experiencing feed update issues in Safari 2.x. I solved the problem by opening Preferences, selecting the RSS pane and 'hitting' Remove Now.

Walking In The Air

This is the first part of the mandatory Review of the Year. And the prizes go to:

*Web - RSS. Of all the emergent web-based technologies reaching critical mass (despite low consumer awareness). This year RSS has captivated my imagination with many a late night brain storming, and exchanging of e-mails with those Chicago-based coders at FeedBurner, to facilitate an all signing and all dancing, but ultimately transparent, RSS experience. Runners up: Google Reader and Blogger.

*Buzz Word - Podcast. This term is a misnomer, but joins the pantheon of brands TiVo and Google. My iTunes Music Store listing was the crowning achievement. Runners up: VoIP and Blogging.

*Application - Flickr Uploadr. I've honored Flickr with the distinction of best cross-platform social networking tool. Google's photo proposition looks positively anemic and clunky by comparison and gets a zero for the lack of a Mac OS X client. Maybe next year, eh? Runners up: Firefox 1.5 and iTunes 6.

*Console - Nintendo DS. Sony's PSP wins the hardware and multimedia battle. But Miyamoto's masterpiece is 'all about the games': delivered with an inventive quirkiness and wrapped in Game & Watch geek chic. Runners up: Xbox 360 and PSP.

*Video Game - Mario Kart DS. Combines the SNES, N64, GameBoy SP and GameCube iterations with Wi-Fi. Do you need to know anymore? Runners up: Resident Evil 4 and Lego Star Wars.

Stay tuned for Best Album, DVD, Movie, Television series and more.

Open All Hours

You might have noticed the new link to my eBay page in the sidebar! In 2003, prior to a personal tragedy that is still in 'shakedown', I signed-up with the intention of buying elusive memorabilia and selling items (always in excellent condition). Please drop by and happy bidding (terms and conditions apply).

With the transition from established website management tools (including Macromedia Dreamweaver and Adobe GoLive), to an extensible blog publishing platform, gaining momentum. I thought it was beneficial to undertake a trial separation from GoLive (my preferred client since 2001) and spend some quality time with BBEdit. This blog's template is now exclusively hand-coded in Bare Bones' award-winning product. It doesn't suck.®

The web should be platform agnostic. Yet the Mac plays second fiddle to Windows and Blogger for Word add-in is the latest offender. Come on we demand better. Google rant over.

Hand In My Pocket

The success of the iTunes listing has eclipsed my very modest ambitions. Such alacrity of subscriber response (Mac and PC) is flattering and nerve wracking too. Following this I've added a Subscribe Via iTunes link to the sidebar and really welcome the support. Thank you.

A couple of weeks ago Odeo, which is from the creator of Blogger and currently in beta, automatically listed this blog. As a result I had to register and 'claim' ownership. Looks like a compelling new service. You can download Odeo Syncr here.

As a longtime fan of Alanis Morissette I cannot recommend Jagged Little Pill Acoustic (a Starbucks tie-in) highly enough! Her performance chills and that doesn't happen too often! A bit of indulgent Dawson Creek trivia. The producers originally wanted Hand In My Pocket for the opening titles, but Maverick Records were reluctant to grant permission. OK, it's a great song but Paula Cole's I Don't Want To Wait was on the money and captured the zeitgeist.