Widgets and All That Jazz

I was reminded of this post in the feed reader today…

http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/008547.html

Basically, Zawodny says widgets are bad because they are hard to skin, they might slow your site down, they don’t pass on value to search engines, they don’t work everywhere and they are not secure.

Hogwash.  You could say that about any online platform.  Widgets break down the html static pages and even blogs to a point where it threatens our own conceptions of ease.

Just look at what the MySpace generation has done with widgets and CSS.  Sure, there are some ugly MySpace pages, but that’s the future.

WordPress Error

Did I screw something up on CostPerNews?

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I changed the theme but haven’t played with the wp-config.php file or localhost.

Any ideas?

EDIT: Nevermind… everything seems normal now.  Except the new CostPerNews design crashes IE7.  Sweet.

Lost Ending in 2010

My favorite TV show, Lost, is ending in 2010.

That’s three more seasons.

As if that’s not sad enough (well, everything good has a definite ending… see Ze Frank’s The Show), but the final three seasons will be 16 episode seasons which will run from February to May.  That means no fall Lost shows from here on out.

I hope it sustains the audience because it’s only getting better.

Education and Web2.0

From Miguel Guhlin’s Around the Corner blog (one of my favorites on education and forward thinking)…

“K-12 education, as it’s structured now, prevents the use of Read/Write Web tools like wikis, blogs, and podcasts…and the ability of people to publish at will. Consider how many organizations allow their members to podcast presentations…that any organization might try to STOP people or control individuals publishing shows how quickly the paradigm has changed.”

We’ve got to get over this hump in education. Education should be cutting edge and not afraid of new technologies.  The fact that we try to restrict kids from interacting with social technologies or platforms such as Wikipedia because of teacher and administration ignorance is shameful.

I wonder what it will take to get us over this hump?

GMail and Such

I’ve gone back and forth on how I think and feel about things like Google Reader and GMail.

At times, I’ve been the loudest and most vocal advocate for web based apps and the mobile lifestyle it enables.  However, as of late I’ve switched back to using Liferea (Linux feed reader) as my feed reader and Thunderbird as my email client.  I’ve slowly been trying to get people to email me at my samharrelson.com address (me at samharrelson.com) rather than my GMail address and all of my feed subscriptions are now on Liferea.

Similarly, I’ve stopped using the chat program Meebo as much as I have in the past in favor of GAIM and the new Pidgin (Gaim2.0).

I wonder how many other techy people plunged into the web only lifestyle and have since pulled back into non-web apps?

Heck, I’m even writing this using Drivel, which is an offline blog composer in Linux.

First Democrat Debate in Orangeburg, SC

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Just got through watching and digesting the first Democrat debate in Orangeburg, SC at SC State University.

Barack was on his A Game, Hillary seemed flustered and Edwards was great until the very last question.

When asked “Who Is Your Moral Leader?,” Edwards paused for an awkward ten seconds before stumbling out something about his personal lord.

Come on, John.  I’m a huge fan.  I supported you in ’04 and I’m supporting you in ’08, but that was embarrasing.  Why not something like…

“Well, there are many.  My dad was my first moral example who showed me that money isn’t everything but character is. Then, when I had the opportunity to go to college because of my dad’s hard work, I came into contact with the works of Gandhi and MLK, Jr who opened my eyes to the importance of morality in politics and public service.”

That would have won you the presidency… no contest.

We’re behind you and Elizabeth, John… now get on your A-Game and be the candidate that we know you can be.