Essential Blogging 147
| Essential Blogging | |
| author | Benjamin Trott, Mena G. Trott, Shelley Powers, J. Scott Johnson, Rael Dornfest, Cory Doctorow |
| pages | 264 |
| publisher | O'Reilly |
| rating | 3/10 |
| reviewer | Alexander Moskalyuk |
| ISBN | 0596003889 |
| summary | Introduction to running Weblogs on the Internet |
Blog, Blog, Blog.
Recent media infatuation with the blogging effect seems to be overwhelming. It seems that newspaper journalists have just discovered the ability to post and comment messages on the Internet, while most of the computer aficionados and heavy Internet users just shrug their shoulders when told about personal Web journals that link to other articles on the Web.Blogging Essentials is mostly a generic guide to setting up and running your own Weblog using the software available out there. It doesn't require as much technical knowledge and Unix experience as Running Weblogs with Slash, and doesn't have a nice preface by CmdrTaco, but for a person who is determined to keep a daily journal available on the Internet, it would provide helpful reading material.
What's reviewed
Blogger, Radio Userland and MovableType are the primary products discussed in the book. Each of these packages has two chapters dedicated to it, one for beginners' introduction and one for description of advanced features. The main difference between these three products is in their hosting capabilities - Blogger wants you to keep the journal entries on its Web site and provides Web interface, Radio UserLand keeps the posts on its own server as well, while providing desktop interface, while MovableType assumes the user has a Web server on which to install the blogging software. Both Blogger and Radio UserLand allow for self-hosting, which is also covered in introductory chapters.
Another chapter is dedicated to server-based Blosxom, and in the review of desktop clients such blog utilities as BlogScript, BlogApp, BlogBuddy, W.Bloggar and Slug are covered.
What's good and what's bad
While the depth of covered material is surprisingly large for such a narrow topic, a lot of book pages are spent on displaying screenshots of the blogging software, and showing other people's blogs. The only thought that never left my mind while reading this book was "Who would buy it?" Why would you need 264 pages to explain you how to set up your own journal and run it? People who find satisfaction in running their own customized versions of online journals already know most of the material, and those who don't would probably opt in for easier Web-based interface like LiveJournal.
The book seems to be just a quick walk-through of the manuals, and if you consider that all of the reviewed products have pretty good help and FAQ sections, the need for such book decreases even more. I can hardly name anyone to whom I would recommend this book.
Table of contents can be viewed on publisher's Web site.
You can purchase Essential Blogging from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
O'Reilly's conundrum. (Score:4, Insightful)
The Value of Blogging (Score:5, Insightful)
With repect to this book, I would have to agree with the reviewer. Who would buy it? If you are familier with blogging, then you know what you need to know. If you are not, then you're more likely to buy a book entitled 'Websites for Beginners' or something. This book seems to be searching for a market where there most likely is none.
--CTH
the point of blogging...? (Score:2, Insightful)
would you buy a book "how to keep a journal"? this seems like it could be summarized in a one page list of "hints and tips"
Bad review... (Score:3, Insightful)
How about installing and using the tools, per the book, and telling us how if the instructions work?
And, why the gratuitous plug for the Slash book? And why the implied slur of anyone who wants a blog but doesn't need, want, or have time to wade through Slash? He might as well have said "Why would anyone not smart enough to understand Perl code even pretend their smart enough to use these tools?"
Next time, I'd like to learn about the book, not the author. This "review" is just another example of geek bias and elitism.
Re:Ebay - 2004 ad (Score:3, Insightful)
Let people write. No one's forcing you to click on that link.
Re:Oxymoronic title? (Score:2, Insightful)
Response from the editor of Essential Blogging (Score:5, Insightful)
The numeric rating really seems disproportionate, as the reviewer did have some good things to say:
- "for a person who is determined to keep a daily journal available on the Internet, it would provide helpful reading material"
- "the depth of covered material is surprisingly large for such a narrow topic"
The reviewer appears to think that people are either hackers, or will use LiveJournal (a system we didn't cover in depth in book). I take issue with that.The primary audience for Essential Blogging is someone who is new to blogging. If you already use a blogging system like Movable Type, you'll learn something from the book (Ben and Mena, the authors of Movable Type, wrote a lot of new material for their chapters), but you are not the primary audience. We even say this in the preface, and the back cover pretty clearly states what's inside: "Essential Blogging helps you select the right blogging software for your needs and shows you how to get your blog up and running."
Someone new to blogging can read Chapter 1 to learn about the different aspects of a blogging system; the pros and cons of self-hosting vs hosted, desktop vs server; and ultimately decide which web journal system to use. Then they can read the chapters specific to their chosen system to get started, and return when they're ready to customize the appearance of their blog.
While working on the book, I kept my Dad in mind. He's technical, not stupid, and if he wanted to start a blog, what I want him to know about? The audience also explains the screenshots--if you're new to blogging, you don't to know what to expect nor what the possibilities are. Although it's hard for the reviewer to imagine there are people who haven't been hacking web sites and writing their own blogging systems since 1996, such people do exist.
But even people who already blog and are entrenched in a particular blogging system should check out the others. I'm a Movable Type user myself, but it was a real eye-opener to use Radio Userland for a while. The whole approach to software and blogging is different in Radio Userland, and it makes you look at your own setup in a new light. I'm not saying you need to buy Essential Blogging to do this, but such comparisons are a benefit of having multiple systems presented side-by-side in the one book.
About the only thing I agree with the reviewer wholeheartedly on is that it's a shame we don't cover LiveJournal more. When the book was being developed, I didn't see the geek interest in LiveJournal that I see now. Perhaps in the second edition we'll have chapters on LiveJournal.
So to conclude, I sure hope the old saying that there's no such thing as bad publicity is true. I hope the next book gets a real review (more than six paragraphs) by someone who reads the preface :-).
--Nat
(blogs on O'Reilly Network [oreillynet.com] and use.perl [perl.org], as well as several Movable Type installations for family, and a Blossom blog for work)
Re:Book writing and neglect (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Oxymoronic title? (Score:4, Insightful)
Some may think this is flamebait, but blogging, and even keeping a private journal is an incredibly self-centered activity. It's no wonder there are so many people on anti-depressants. They spend all their time writing their thoughts down, and re-reading them.
It seems to be a generational thing. I don't know anyone in my peer group who journals, but a lot of 20 somethings and high school kids seem to do it. They are also the ones who whinge the most about their life. If you spent less time describing your sad life, and more time working to make it better, you might find you actually don't have anything to whine about.
It is true that earlier generations were noted for their diaries. We know a great deal about history as the result of the private writings of Pepys, Jonson, Addams, Jefferson, and many others. There are some fundamental differences between the diaries of Samuel Pepys, and the blogging of most 20 year-olds with a cable modem and a web-cam.
By contrast, most bloggers have a limited education, especially in the classics, history, rhetoric, and philosophy. They may be quite smart, but rarely have they been educated. Students in High School and college these days are more likely to be trained, to be good workers in the modern economy.
This has become more of a rant than I originally intended. I simply dislike the Blog culture, navel-gazing raised to a spectator sport.
Flame Away, I can take it.
Re:Oxymoronic title? (Score:3, Insightful)
Consider how that reflects on you and your peers at your leisure.
For every Samuel Pepys I promise there were thousands of journals of his era that were awful
You have to slay a lot of dragons to get a princess.