www.josschuurmans.com

Typepad export - WordPress import fail; @wordpressdotcom support fail :-(

<update>

Okay, it seems to have worked now after I tried uploading for the 4th time, emulating Lucy's sigh of relief:

"After multiple tries with this, it finally worked. Whew."

Immediate observations:

• Some embedded media content (images, video) shows fine, other doesn't (video, audio);
• Category link syntax differs from Typepad, hence my old category permalinks won't work this way;
• Like on my Typepad blog, I want a category cloud not list;
• I need to work on the right-hand sidebar widgets to add things like easy email subscription and my microblog (Twitter) stream;
• Now that I see the same content in the Wordpress "monochrome" theme - which I like best of the 102 themes available yesterday - I realise how fresh and pleasing the layout of my Typepad blog actually is;
• I like the form factor of the "monochrome" theme, showing blog post metadata in the narrow left-hand sidebar;
• I definitely want Disqus and AddThis integrated in each post;
• I pray that permalinks can be restored without too much suffering after domain-mapping the WordPress.com blog (currently josschuurmans.wordpress.com) to www.josschuurmans.com.

</update>

I can't describe it better than jantink did some 22 months ago, on the WordPress.com Forums:

"(...) I tried importing my blog from Typepad after creating a new blog here at WordPress. I exported the blog from Typepad onto my desktop, then attempted a couple of times to import the blog into WordPress. I selected the option, "Import from Moveable Type or Typepad", then selected the file I exported from Typepad and pressed "Upload".

After import has finished, it prompts me to assign an author to associate with the user name of the imported posts. I do that and after I hit "submit", nothing happens. There are no posts imported at all. All it says in the bottom status bar is "Done", but the screen next to the tool menu below the header is blank...there is nothing there. (...)"

And here' are some other users who've encountered the same problem:

Can't import from Typepad

Trouble importing from Typepad

Typepad blog won't import into Wordpress

It's one thing that the WordPress.com support people are on holidays when you need them most. It's another that these forum topics get "closed" without the problem being resolved.

Fail :-(

Posterous better for podcasting than TypePad?

Uploading audio files to be embedded in posts on TypePad - and in the RSS/podcast feed which is managed by FeedBurner - appears to be excruciatingly slow.

I'm wondering if it would be more convenient to email the file onto Posterous, which will then post it on TypePad. I could then create a "multimedia/podcast feed" from Posterous, using FeedBurner, and offer that multimedia feed as a separate link on my TypePad blog.

Just a thought.

TypePad's post-by-email feature out of order?

In the last 13 hours I've made four attempts to post a blog entry from the email client (via Google IMAP) on my Nokia N97, as well as from Gmail on a PC with Firefox, onto my TypePad blog at www.josschuurmans.com.

The last time I tried, I first reset the "secret" email address on TypePad. With the new address it didn't work either.

So here comes what I wanted to post, copied from my email:

[STARTS]

(TITLE:) Wanted: mobile podcast client with audio annotation

Something I would find really useful in a (mobile) podcast client: the ability to annotate while listening.

I often listen to podcasts while driving. It would be a wonderful thing that could record audio notes (compare text notes in Google Reader) that would be somehow stored with or linked to specific points in the podcast audio file.

Anyone heard of anything even close to this? (S60 would be great)

[ENDS]

l'll keep trying...

The blog content portability debate needs to happen in public

I feel like caught in a crossfire. Let me first explain my own position:

As I have repeatedly blogged ('Is it worth switching from TypePad to WordPress?', 'If you were to start blogging today...', 'Hopes and fears of switching to WordPress'), in my opinion bloggers suffer from a lock-in to blog services which probably shouldn't be all that difficult to unlock.

I don't really understand why there doesn't seem to be an easy way to export, convert and import the contents of any blog between any of the major blog platforms.

My blog runs on TypePad. If I so wished, it should be dead simple for me to click "export" in the TypePad interface, save an export file on my local hard disk, then import it to a new or existing blog on Blogger or WordPress. And vice versa.

Portability

It's like number portability between mobile operators. Nowadays it's a snap to switch between operators while keeping your phone number (at least in Finland and generally in Europe), the moment a more attractive pricing plan comes along.

Not that any operator volunteered. Number portability is something the competition authorities have forced through. It's been good for competition. It's been good for users. It's been good for new entrants to the market. It's been good for those companies that offer the best price/quality.

So, that's what I would like to happen to blog conversion. I'm not a geek and it's been prohibitively intimidating to me to even start  trying to convert my blog from TypePad to e.g. WordPress.

Now, someone came along offering to "rescue" TypePad blogs. They're called Foliovision and they are campaigning agressively, in a tone of voice that is rather hostile to TypePad.

So, yesterday I read this article, 'Typepad Export Options: Congenial Lies from SixApart's Anil Dash', on Foliovision's website. I don't like the tone and I can't judge if everything in this article is true. But the topic certainly seems relevant to me.

| (re-blogged!)

So I shared this piece through Google Reader as I do with most of the stuff I read online and find interesting. My shared reading is posted automatically onto a number of social media sites, including my account on Twitter.

By reblogging stuff I read, I do not endorse its contents. Instead, I merely intend to indicate: I've read this, I find it interesting and worth keeping a trace of for future reference, and I'm sharing this as part of the conversations I care to engage in.

Now, I totally understand that Anil Dash is upset because Foliovision's Alec Kinnear is calling him a liar. And yet, I was surprised to receive a direct message from Anil via Twitter, saying:

"I'd appreciate if you checked foliovision's lies with me before you reblogged it."

I was surprised that Anil wanted to tell me this off-public. And by sending this message to me directly, I feel that he implies to me that I should resolve this topic with him through a back channel.

So, it seems to me that my answer to Anil must be:

Anil, I was only sharing what I had read and deemed relevant. I have no reason to think that you are lying, nor do I endorse such notion.

However, the debate about the portability of blog content has to happen in the open because it concerns everybody.

I invite you to explain what you mean by "Foliovision's lies". Did the interview take place or not? In which way do you feel you are not correctly represented? Which part(s) of the article is/are, in your view, not true?

More to the point, does Foliovision's 20-step guide for TypePad to WordPress conversion hold water? Or is there a considerably easier way? A way that would not compell TypePad customers who'd like to "switch operators" to pay $350 for someone like Folivision to help them?

After all, the bigger issue is: how can we make blog conversion push-button simple?

(BTW, I just found DataPortability.org. Hopefully they are doing something about this problem as well...)

Capturables from Bad Hair Day #6

http://badhair.us/2009/07/31/00025.html

Every once in a while I review my blog hosting options. The first time I did this was in this post: 'Is it worth switching from TypePad to WordPress?' I was impressed with Anil Dash's swift comment. What prevented me from moving to another platform back then was Anil's point that I would loose "the ability to get professional support right within the application".

In 'If you were to start blogging today...', I tried to compare different platforms as systematically as I could.

The last time I compared blog platforms, in my post 'Hopes and fears of switching to WordPress', I again came to the conclusion to stick with TypePad. The main reason this time was that I haven't figured out how to export my blog's content from TypePad and import it into, say, WordPress, in such a way that the URLs of all my entries would remain the same after domain-mapping WordPress. I still don't know how to do this; if you do, please let me know.

Anyway, Anil was a guest at Marshall Kirkpatrick's and Dave Winer's Bad Hair Day podcast this week. He is SixApart's chief evangelist (the makers of TypePad) and has a keen eye for the latest social Internet technology.

The threesome talked about Anil's vision of the pushbutton web, on which he wrote an insightful post recently, how this relates to Dave's recent work on rssCloud, and to Google's PubSubHubBub.

From Anil's post, 'The Pushbutton Web: Realtime Becomes Real':

"(...) Before Pushbutton, in today's systems, when you create a message (a blog post, tweet or other update) that's published in your RSS or Atom feed, every application or site that wants updates from you has to repeatedly request your feed to know when it's updated. You can optionally notify ("ping") some applications to tell them it's time to come collect your new updates, but this is time-consuming and resource-intensive on both sides, especially if you want to notify a lot of people. (...)

Pushbutton-enabled applications will improve upon the current state of affairs by proactively delivering not just the notification that there's a new message, but the content of the message itself. And instead of requiring all those applications to come to your site to read the update, it uses a hub server in the cloud to pass along the message directly to all the receivers that are interested in it. (...)

1. You, the Sender, create a message to be delivered via RSS or Atom
2. Your application gives the messsage to one or more PubSubHubBub or RSSCloud hubs, which reside in the Cloud
3. The PubSubHubBub or RSSCloud hubs deliver the message to any Receivers, the applications or sites that have requested updates from you (...)"

The result is that updates happen within a second or two. The live streams can have powerful applications. One application Anil dreams about in the show is of a spreadsheet which' cells are populated with formulas and live RSS feeds, so that streaming data can be analyzed in realtime.

Interesting stuff!

My previous posts on Bad Hair:

• Capturables from Bad Hair Day #5
• Capturables from Bad Hair Day #4
• Capturables from Bad Hair Day #3
• Capturables from Bad Hair Day #2
• Capturables from Bad Hair Day #1

See also the FriendFeed group at http://friendfeed.com/badhair.

The hassle of maintaining "about"-info on TypePad

Over the past week or so I've been updating the "About" information on my blog at www.josschuurmans.com and some other Internet destinations where I have a presence.

TypePad has some standard functionality to help members create and update an "About Page", as part of the TypePad user interface.

First, edit the content modules on your Author Profile from:
http://www.typepad.com/account/profile

Then, select the content modules for your standard About Page from:
http://www.typepad.com/account/profile/about

I wanted to not only update my info, but also have a description running on the right-hand column on my blog. So I created a TypeList note to display a summary of my "about"-info. You can create TypeLists from:
http://www.typepad.com/site/lists

Now, my account name on the TypePad sytem, "ojamies", differs from my own name and the name of my blog. I have domain-mapped my blog to www.josschuurmans.com, but it turns out that the default About Page which TypePad generates will not be mapped to the same domain. Instead, it will reside at: http://ojamies.typepad.com/about.html. (whereas my TypePad Profile lives at: http://profile.typepad.com/josschuurmans)

I find this odd.

As you may read below from the exchange I had with TypePad's support desk, re-domain-mapping my whole site in order to include the About Page would change all the URLs of my blog posts.

I find this odd.

The alternative then was to create an additional About Page, just like a normal page, and manually populate it with similar information as goes onto the default page. The new page lives where I would want it to, at: http://www.josschuurmans.com/about.html

Perhaps the "blessing in disguise" in this case was that the manually created page is more flexible, so I can edit and add information that I couldn't select to the default page.

One thing I would have liked TypePad to offer is the possibility to categorize pages. Then I could have categorized my manually created About Page under the "about" category, which now only shows blog posts, no pages.

To recap, I now have more or less the same "about" info in five different places on the TypePad system:

1. In a TypeList on the right-hand column of each page on my blog at www.josschuurmans.com;
2. In the About Page I manually created at http://www.josschuurmans.com/about.html;
3. In the About Page which TypePad has generated at http://ojamies.typepad.com/about.html;
4. In my TypePad Profile at http://profile.typepad.com/josschuurmans;
5. In blog posts categorized under http://www.josschuurmans.com/about;

I find this odd.

Not only is this a big hassle in terms of maintenance; I'm also wondering how it all affects search engine optimization?

Anyway, for completeness, here's my exchange with the kind people at TypePad's support:

[STARTS]

Automated Error

On Jul 30, 2009 2:21 PM, you (josschuurmans) said:

I created a new type list note. After saving it, I clicked the "publish" tab. Then I was presented with 4 destinations: my 3 blogs and my About Page. When I clicked the link to "view" the About Page, this error occurred. I wonder if this means that I don't have an About Page?

On Jul 30, 2009 6:03 PM, TypePad Customer Support said:

Hi, It looks like you entered a URL for a link without the http:// at the beginning. Try entering the URL with http:// at the beginning, as http://ojamies.typepad.com/about.html and that should work better for you. We hope this helps. Please let us know if there is anything else we can do for you. Thanks, Zalary

On Aug 1, 2009 4:50 PM, you (josschuurmans) said:

Okay, I found my About Page at http://ojamies.typepad.com/about.html However, I have domain-mapped my blog to: http://www.josschuurmans.com. How can we arrange this so that my About Page is also domain-mapped, i.e. to: http://www.josschuurmans.com/about.html ?

On Aug 1, 2009 9:34 PM, TypePad Customer Support said:

Hi, If you'd like your About page to use the domain URL, your entire site will need to be mapped. It looks like you currently have the domain mapped to a specific blog. You can delete the current mapping that you have in TypePad and set it up again. Changing the Domain Mapping settings, however, will change links to your existing posts. Instead of changing how the domain is mapped to your blog, you may want to create a new page with your About information. More information is available in the article on creating additional About pages here: http://kb.typepad.com/id/390/ We hope this helps. Please let us know if there is anything else we can do for you. Thanks, Zalary

On Aug 4, 2009 10:31 AM, you (josschuurmans) said:

How would the links to my existing posts change if I domain-mapped my entire site?

On Aug 4, 2009 9:48 PM, TypePad Customer Support said:

Hi Jos, Thanks for the note. If you change domain mapping, the folder name would be added to its URL. instead of your weblog being at http://www.josschuurmans.com/ it would be at http://www.josschuurmans.com/josschuurmans/ instead. So a link like http://www.josschuurmans.com/2009/08/jacob-nielsen-on-social-intranet-software-opening-up-corporate-communication.html would become http://www.josschuurmans.com/josschuurmans/2009/08/jacob-nielsen-on-social-intranet-software-opening-up-corporate-communication.html instead. This will break all outside links to your site, so like Zalary mentioned, we would recommend you use a TypePad Page and create a new About Page within the blog instead. I hope this helps. Please let us know if there is anything else we can do for you. Thanks, Kymberlie

On Aug 6, 2009 11:15 AM, you (josschuurmans) said:

Zalary, Kymberlie, thank you both for explaining! (I'll close this ticket now) Best, Jos

[ENDS]

Ping.fm to your Typepad blog via del.icio.us

Even though Ping.fm doesn't post your micro-blog entries / status updates directly onto Typepad blogs, there is a nice workaround: set up daily links posts to your Typepad blog from your del.ico.us account, then set up Ping.fm to post to del.ico.us.

At least if your Ping.fm post include a web link, del.icio.us will save it as a bookmark and then include it in the daily links post to your blog.

I like the Ping.fm integration with Blogger and Wordpress better, but I do find this acceptable for now.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: Ping.fm, Typepad, del.icio.us, Blogger, Wordpress, micro-blogging

Now let's disqus on www.josschuurmans.com

Impatient as I am, and disappointed with the lack of portability between Typepad and Blogger, I decided to stick with Typepad for now. Portability was the show-stopper now, but I also must say I don't like the Blogger branding at the top of the blog, and I somewhat sympathize more with the smaller provider, SixApart, since Google is scarily all-pervasive already.

So I've just upgraded my Typepad Plus account to Typepad Pro, mainly for two reasons: (1) access to "advanced templates" which allow more design flexibility, and (2) allowing for more than three blogs on the same account. Here's Typepad's price/features comparison page.

Now that I have "advanced templates", I was able to integrate the Disqus commenting federation system. Well, this post is actually to test if it all works.

(I'm secretly also hoping that SixApart will improve the speed of Typepad's publishing system)

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: Typepad, Blogger, SixApart, Google, Disqus, commenting

Hopes and fears of switching to WordPress

So here I am (again) strongly considering to switch blog hosts. Currently I have it hosted on TypePad's proprietary solution, but I may have it run on the open WordPress platform. I'd say that, this time around, it seems more feasible than ever before, mainly because of WordPress.com, who nowadays offer to host WordPress.

Considerations:

• WordPress is free as in "freedom of speech". WordPress is the standard in open and free blogging. It's very big and enjoys a large community to develop and support the platform.
• The WordPress.com brand has credibility. It was initiated and is managed by people very close to WordPress.org. One may assume that they all share the vision on free and open software which underpins WordPress.org. That vision entails, among other things, a credible level of quality and continuity, as well as clarity that the bloggers will own their own data, now and in the future.
• Most of the features available via WordPress.com are for free, as in "free beer".
• For a reasonable fee, domain mapping can be purchased.
• TypePad's interface has been slow lately. I hope that WordPress.com will be lighter and faster.
• Lately I've come across several features I would have liked to add on to my blog, but couldn't do it in my current setup with TypePad. Notably:
  • Disqus
  • Ping.fm
  • More flexible blog post footers, e.g. to include ShareThis, Ping this, etc.
  • Even lighter and faster templates for mobile browsers? I actually don't know if this is available on WordPress. But it should be, so that we wouldn't need to add confusion with services like Winksite or Mofuse.
• Overall however, these things - i.e. switching to another platform - usually take more time and are more cumbersome than one would wish for.
• I fear that the permalinks of my blog posts on TypePad may get messed up even after domain mapping on WordPress.com.
• It remains to be seen if all of the features that I'm currently running on TypePad will indeed be available on WordPress.com. On the other hand, I must admit that, having followed some of my heroes quite intensively lately - Doc Searls, David Weinberger, Dave Winer, among others - I have become more appreciative of simplicity in layout and faster download times (especially over a mobile phone). I may actually do away with some of the bells and whistles currently running on my blog.
• I especially like following Dave Winer's blog on the mobile interface, because it's light and fast and he has these collapsable blog post titles. Wonder if that's a feature available on WordPress...
• In my experience, TypePad has a very professional and responsive support service team, easily available for questions through the user interface. It remains to be seen how well user support works on WordPress's forums.
• Unfortunately, CSS Editing is a premium feature and doesn't come for free. But, as mentioned above, this is probably not a biggy. If it turns out I really need them, I'll pay.

Note to self: after going through the switch, update my blog post from August 21, 2007: "If you were to start blogging today..."

Ping this!

My first 100 days with EverNote (day 1)

I signed up for EverNote online yesterday and installed the beta for Windows today.

 

At least when sitting behind a PC, this beats writing notes in Notepad, which has been my practice until now. One thing I like is that all my notes are available in one chronological view within the same application. It is much easier to switch between notes than this way than between Notepad files in a Windows file directory.

 

The synchronization between the PC client and the online tool seems to work nicely. While staying logged in through Firefox, I've been switching between the browser and the PC client without problems so far.

 

In terms of features, as mentioned in the Web Tick (Wired?) article, an RSS feed could be really neat. That way, my public online persona, by way of my blog entries, could be captured by EverNote automatically.

 

Reversely, I'd very much like to blog straight from EverNote. Let's say that EverNote would publish /synchronize all notes tagged "www.josschuurmans.com" as blog entries through the TypePad API. Have to find out if something like this is possible.

 

Perhaps equally urgently, I'd really like a Symbian client, which would then compete rather heads-on with Nokia Lifeblog.

 

I wonder about compatibility. Can today's exports be read by next releases of EverNote? By other applications? Will there be an open source, more future-proof alternative?

 

I wonder about privacy. Is the CIA going to read my notes? Or rather Supo, who according to Sitemeter dropped in on my blog after I posted about the Jokela drama. Or my neighbor? Can it be hacked? Leaked?

 

I wonder about data security. Can EverNote guarantee sufficient physical backup? Should I do as Crhistian, and keep physical backups in several countries. (the answer is yes, of course)

 

I also wonder if the competition will be more reliable. Nokia is part of this value chain through the device input, Lifeblog and Ovi. Google can be. My email provider is.

 

Further, Flock comes to mind. Haven't heard much about the "social browser" lately. Sounded so nice, in particular - and most relevant to EverNote - the capturing functionalities.

 

Okay, so far so good: this works quite nicely as a blog post drafter/editor. So I think I won't spend too much time on Qumana.

My Kyte channel

Lifeblog is a blogging application!

Yes it is, Ivan! :-)

Granted, Nokia Lifeblog is foremost an attempt at a memory prosthesis, as Christian Lindholm explained in that interview before the launch of the beta version in 2004.

Gordon Bell is making a more thorough attempt, albeit one that would be unpractical for the Nokia Multimedia Business Group's target customers at this stage. But don't worry, we'll get there. (See also Wikipedia: "lifelog")

The content you consciously capture (photos, video, sound, text) is part of that extended memory, as is the context information which mobile devices will be able to capture for you in the background. Both consciously created or selected content and less consciously captured context are part of our human memory, so the metaphor still applies.

As you mention, Ivan, content and contextual information is not all that valuable unless it can be searched. True, or, to put it in somewhat broader terms: real value is derived from all that information only when you start using it.

Now, this is where the onions come in.

Huh?

Trust your life to a piece of Nokia

The following text is a condensed version of an article published on Nokia's intranet (restricted access) on March 11, 2004. I've omitted part of the original text for reasons of company confidentiality and the confidentiality of interviewees.

[STARTS]

Trust your life to a piece of Nokia

By Jos Schuurmans March 11, 2004, 16:00

HELSINKI, Finland. -- A dozen brains at NVO Multimedia Applications in Ruoholahti have combined their visions of mobility, their entrepreneurial spirit, technological expertise and marketing skill to work on... the "memory prosthesis".

Well, sure, there you have an exaggerated metaphor. No external device is likely to replace the human brain any time soon. But the larger idea certainly holds water and the first tangible result of their efforts will be version 1.0 of Lifeblog, a preview of which will be shown at the CeBIT fair in Hanover, Germany, next week.

NVO Multimedia Applications team's Director Christian Lindholm has been pushing the case for usability within Nokia for a long time. He invented the Navi-key and has, more recently, been standing at the crib of the Series 60 platform, which he is now actively promoting and developing.

"If you were to start blogging today..."

Once in a while I get this question:

"If you were to start blogging today, which blogging platform, software and/or hosting service would you use?"

The answer isn't necessarily straightforward. In general, it depends on:

1. Which features are most important to you as a blogger;
2. How design-savvy and how tech-savvy you are, and how much you want to tweak by yourself.

I drew up an Excel sheet to compare some of the blogging services that I've used, on some of the criteria that I personally find most relevant.

The solutions in the comparison are:

• Vox, SixApart's third-party branded, community blogging service that allows you to publish different content to different groups of people: public, friends, family, and just yourself.
• Blogger, the inventors of blogging, now part of Google.
• Blogsome, a hosted service running on WordPress, an open source blogging platform.
• WordPress, open source blogging platform which you can download and run on your own or hosted server.
• Moveable Type, by SixApart, blogging solution which you can download and run on your own or hosted server.
• Three service levels of Typepad, by SixApart.

The criteria for comparison which I looked at are:

• Branding
  • domain mapping
  • third-party branding
• Access control
  • distributed access
  • multiple authors
• Design
  • easy layout templates and customization
  • advanced, CSS editing
• Features
  • easy-to-use backend interface
  • moblogging
  • widgets
• Application control
  • running the blogging solution on you own or hosted server
• Pricing

In some cases, where I haven't got the latest information about specific features, I have insert a question mark ("?"). I'd love to receive feedback and will be happy to turn those question marks into plusses ("+") or minuses ("-"). Please do correct me if I'm wrong about any of the inserted values.

Sometimes it's easy to choose

By way of illustration, I think there are a few "easy" use cases (or ways to narrow down your selection):

a) If you are rather tech-savvy, i.e. if you know how to install and maintain software on your own or hosted server, you can probably narrow down your selection to WordPress and Moveable Type  (- or even Blogsome in case you don't care about domain mapping). If you're not tech-savvy, you can count WordPress and Moveable Type out.

b) If domain mapping is important to you, and you don't have the technical skill to run blogging software on your own or hosted server, you should probably consider TypePad Plus.

c) If you want advanced control over your blog's design (and you don't want to run your own server), you should probably consider Blogsome (without domain mapping) or TypePad Pro (with domain mapping).

d) If you don't mind third-party branding, you don't care too much about domain mapping, and you are looking to share different blog content with different groups of people (i.e. public, friends, family, or just yourself) in an online community setup, have a look at Vox.

e) If you don't care too much about domain mapping, and you are looking for a free blogging service, try Blogger or Blogsome. Both are very straightforward and user friendly. Blogsome has a slightly richer feature set, including multiple authors and different access levels.

f) One reason to use TypePad basic, which is a paid service, rather than Blogger or Blogsome, is TypePad's customer service: the help ticketing system inside the blogging platform can be very useful.

Do you agree with my assessment? Can you help me fill in the gaps? Let me know!

"(...) It seems very simple when you see that you can have a web host and your name registered simultaneously. Numerous web hosting providers offer you to register your domain name with them at the time you do business with their company. It might sound great like registering cheapest domain name idea because of the convenience of getting everything done at once. But it is better to do domain name registration by your-self because this shows clearly who owns the name. There are many companies like godaddy which give domain buy service to their clients along with web design services. These services are also provided by wireless internet service providers. But to connect the internet they need to install wireless internet booster and give free wifi hotspot through which people can access the internet. (...)"

The hassle of killing a TypeKey bug

Over the past few weeks I've been transferring the content from one TypePad Plus account to another, primarily because of a problem I encountered when I tried to use TypeKey.

The below copy-paste of my Support Ticket shows that, again, the kind people at TypePad were very patient and helpful to me.

But equally I must say that the whole exercise was a rather cumbersome one. In particular:

• I had to create a separate email account in order to separate my correspondence with TypePad relating to the two different accounts.
• I had to use two different browsers simultaneously in order to stay logged in to both accounts while downloading content from one and uploading it to the other.
• While exporting and importing the text content of my blogs and my TypeLists was fairly straightforward, it appeared virtually impossible to move the images with my blogs. I would have to manually download each image to a directory on my PC, then upload them one by one to each respective blog post on my new account, and remove the existing image links from the posts' HTML. (I haven't yet found the time to do this; in fact I am strongly considering just to remove all image-HTML from all posts before May 2007)
• I was informed I couldn't move my Photo Albums; the only way was to re-create them in my new account.

Quite a hassle to kill a little bug.

Observations about (social) bookmarking

(1) Capturing ranks rather high among my ten most pressing reasons to blog. Especially with the daily links now working, social bookmarking is becoming something of a "blogging-light" to me. It's a very time-efficient way to capture sources, references, information that I've read or scanned. I interpret the notes field in the bookmark popup as a mini blog entry. The space is limited, you can't insert links or images, and the headline of the "daily links" post is meaningless, but nevertheless. It's an economical way to blog.

(2) I've wondered about standardization of tagging before. Wouldn't it be oh so Web 2.0 if search engines, social tagging sites and online blog tools standardized on exchanging tags in the background? At present I'm typing categories and keywords in TypePad, tags on del.icio.us, and then there is Technorati drawing its own conclusions. Slightly frustrating. (although I heard Burks Oakley mention a slick tool called the Magical Sheep Bookmarklet in his podcast on Technorati and the Blogosphere - I'll have to test that.)

(3) Maybe I'll post this one on the LazyWeb: I'd very much like a searchbox on my blog that lets me search not only the full content of my blog (like the Google and Technorati search boxes on the left), but which also indexes the contents of all the URLs that my blog links to. One vision of blogs is that, as they evolve, they will contain (links to) most of the information a blogger has come across and found relevant. It's that vision of a memory prosthesis. So, as a blogger, I want to be able to search that repository of my own collected knowledge.

Technorati Tags: social bookmarking

Blog dev stuff that needs doing

This is a not-so-exciting entry with blog dev stuff I hope to do during a free moment (yeah, as if):

• Import last-millenium blog posts.
• Automate or give up Technorati links and del.icio.us bookmarks.
• Automate or give up "somewhat related" entries.
• Change user name on TypePad, because it returns errors when using TypeKey.
• Fix del.icio.us' "daily blog posting".
• Implement my new name and domain-map it (surprise!).
• Nifty CSS stuff (help needed!).
• Search.
• Stats.

Somewhat related op www.josschuurmans.com:

• Is this a common error by del.icio.us' "daily blog posting"? (December 16, 2005)
• TypePad feature request: pop-up for picking related links (December 14, 2005)
• I don't want to pay more for HTML and CSS editing (December 5, 2005)

Norman Walsh's folksonomy tags and comments feeds

So one of the sites I came across that referenced the illusion of the pink dots (see my previous entry, 'Visual illusions by Michael Bach'), was Norman Walsh's blog.

A couple of things catch the eye that Norman is dong very well (apart from the content, which should be the sine qua non of any blog):

1. Overal site layout: minimalistic, very clean and clear;
2. Excellent navigation features such as topics, subjects index, geographical coverage, search and related topics;
3. A great 'folksonomy tags' section at the bottom of each entry, with (a) Technorati classification as well as a link for (b) bookmarking the entry at del.icio.us;
4. A 'subscribe' link to an atom feed of comments to the entry.

Norman, me too! Which blog publishing tool are you on? How have you set up the Technorati classification, the bookmarking link to del.cio.us, and the atom feed?

I doubt that I can do the atom feed of individual entries' comments on TypePad, but perhaps the other features. Particularly if this could be automated, because copy-pasting is starting to get on my nerves.

(and - in case these are no-brainers - I do apologize for my illiteracy!)

Somewhat related op www.josschuurmans.com:

• Visual illusions by Michael Bach (December 22, 2005)
• Q: How best add tagging to Typepad? (December 20, 2005)
• TypePad feature request: pop-up for picking related links (December 14, 2005)

Q: How best add tagging to Typepad?

Technorati and del.icio.us are nicely taking care of tagging the blogosphere. But when it comes to tagging one's own blog entries on TypePad, the whole thing seems a bit cumbersome.

Since I'm not an alpha geek, I haven't figured out how best to tag my Typepad posts, other than like this:

1. Use intelligent category names (although, in the end, who will need them?);
2. Regard Typepad's keywords field as a tags field. (Does that make any sense?);
3. Use Technorati tags;
4. Bookmark on del.icio.us.

What's missing, obviously, is an integrated one-tag-fits-all approach. Tag your own entry and it will be posted on Technorati, del.icio.us and whatnot. Is anybody working on this or, generally, on a common tagging standard?

Somewhat related on www.josschuurmans.com:

• Rashmi Shinha's cognitive analysis of tagging (November 28, 2005)
• De.lirio.us intranet folksonomies (November 18, 2005)
• Brilliant hacks on Steve Rubel's Micro Persuasion (November 15, 2005)

TypePad feature request: pop-up for picking related links

There's still too much manual labor involved in posting blog entries on TypePad. For example, at the end of an entry, I usually add three links to somewhat related, older posts. I think this makes it easier for my visitors to see where I'm coming from.

I've worked with professional web publishing systems that offer a simple pop-up with a search to previously published headlines, and tickboxes to select them. Ideally, I'd like the pop-up to insert the selected headline links plus excerpts.

Possible? Anyone?

Somewhat related on www.josschuurmans.com:

• I don't want to pay more for HTML and CSS editing (December 5, 2005))
• TypePad 'feeds' claim too much real estate (October 21, 2005)
• Six Apart dubs its next-gen blogging tool 'Project Comet' (September 23, 2005)

WINKsite's David Harper invites me to "dig deeper"

Following my entry 'This blog was mobilized by WINKsite.com' the other day, I received a swift email from founder David Harper, submitting that WINKsite is much more than just a tool to create mobile portals and inviting me to "dig deeper".

(David, thank you very much for your response - I trust you don't mind my copying it here:)

[STARTS]

Hi Jos,

I read with interest your post on us. Re: "This blog was mobilized by WINKsite.com"

I think WINKsite provides benefits to people beyond the notion of merely creating mobile portals as defined in your post.

If you inclined to learn more please see us through the eyes and posts of your colleague - Charlie Schick.

Charlie Schick's Lifeblog
David Harper, of WINKsite, certainly gets it
http://cognections.typepad.com/lifeblog/2005/10/david_harper_of.html

Other posts you might find of interest from my blog:

Politics To Go: WINKsite Mobile Case Studies
http://winksite.com/site/help_bl_view.cfm?blog_id=5687

Direct-To-Consumer Mobile Portals & WINKsite
http://winksite.com/site/help_bl_view.cfm?blog_id=568

Hopefully I could then discuss our service further with you.

Your perspective both before and after my request for you to "dig deeper" would provide helpful insight.

"…the conversations we want to have. The conversations start from the content because we want to communicate, not consume.” - Charlie Schick, Nokia

This couldn’t be more true or more important to remember.

For tens of millions worldwide their mobile phone is their one and only daily pipeline onto the Internet, to the knowledge it contains, and to each other.

It is more than just creating and consuming content - it is about the individuals it engages, the people it connects, the dialogue that develops, the community that forms and the collective action that can result.

Cheers,
Dave Harper
Founder, WINKsite

[ENDS]

Now, I've read the references that David provides, and some more.

I don't want to pay more for HTML and CSS editing

Bummer. Just realised, reading Typepad's design instructions, that their "Advanced Template Sets" feature, which allows for custom CSS and HTML, is only available to Pro users. Guess I'll have to try and tweak the "Basic Designs" to my liking.

The alternative is either to pay more for a Pro subscription, or to switching to WordPress or somesuch. For now, I fear I'd need to invest too much time to get WordPress decently on track. Therefore, so far so good, Typepad's business proposition is still working for me.

It's Typepad's usabilty and the integrated online support that keeps me loyal. For now.

Somewhat related on www.josschuurmans.com:

• TypePad 'feeds' claim too much real estate (October 21, 2005)
• Six Apart dubs its next-gen blogging tool 'Project Comet' (September 23, 2005)
• 'TypePadVersusWordPress' on Wikispaces.org (September 19, 2005)

Technorati links to this entry

del.icio.us bookmarks for this entry

Emily Robbins figures out how to blog

Emily Robbins runs a blog on 'How To Blog'. "I am teaching myself how to create weblogs, comparing movable type to typepad to blogger to b2evolution, wordpress, blosxom, etc., figuring out customizing blog templates, domain mapping, blogrolling, etc, and am posting all my findings here," her page header reads.

[UPDATE, March 12, 2006: Emily moved her blog from TypePad to WordPress, with a new URL: http://www.emilyrobbins.com/how-to-blog/ - see comments below - JS]

I haven't been altogether satisfied with the "tips & tricks" that TypePad offers in their "knowledge base". For example, I'd love to set up a blogroll that syndicates my favorite blogs' latest headlines, rather than just a static list of blog titles. Does that make any sense? Is that perhaps where the Outline Processor Markup Language, or OPML (OPML.org / Wikipedia entry), comes in?

Related posts on www.josschuurmans.com:

• 'TypePadVersusWordPress' on Wikispaces.org (September 19, 2005)
• TypePadVersusWordPress (September 14, 2005)
• Is it worth switching from TypePad to WordPress? (September 12, 2005)

Is it worth switching from TypePad to WordPress?

I've used Blogger as well as Socialtext, MoveableType and Typepad for blogging. Now I'm taking a look at WordPress, which has an attractive value proposition, mainly because it's open source with apparently a sizeable following of developers.

[UPDATE, JANUARY 11, 2008: I drew up an Excel sheet to compare some of the blogging services that I've used, on some of the criteria that I personally find most relevant. See: "If you were to start blogging today..."]

The folks at WordPress seem ambitious enough: "We hope by focusing on user experience and web standards we can create a tool different from anything else out there".

Its feature set includes, among other things:

• Instant publishing with no rebuilding
• Comment spam protection
• Great themes
• Integrated blogrolling features
• Content management
• Password-protected posts
• Custom fields
• Dead simple upgrades and installation
• Multiple authors
• Sub-categories
• Comment registration
• Post to future
• Post by email
• Uses PHP and MySQL
• Free!

If it seems at least as user-friendly and well supported as Typepad, I may consider moving. I wonder, though, if moblogging is sufficiently supported, and if there is compatibility with Nokia Lifeblog.

Another forte of Typepad is their user interface for managing layouts. I wonder if WordPress can deliver a similar, straightforward walk-through.

By the way, WordPress is kind enough to list a handful of recommended hosts. That's nice, although there may be some bias as WordPress actually makes money from click-throughs... Typepad, on the other hand, offers both tool and hosting in one.

The thing is, comparing blog tools remains just as cumbersome as comparing hosts.