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.
Interesting (Score:3, Interesting)
Yesterday, I was discussing Alzheimer's with my co-worker, Bob, who runs bland-o-rama.com [bland-o-rama.com]...we, like any techs, fear the loss of memory and our abilities. The factoid about nuns being highly resistant to Alzheimer's came up, and the running theory is b/c they are journaliing on a daily basis. Exercise for the memory system, I guess.
Personally, though, I'm just doing it because it's interesting to look back and see where I've been...and hopefully get a good idea of where I'm going. Plus I get to watch my friends that use LJ do the same thing.
Essential FOR blogging (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why? (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree. While I love Slashdot and Slashdot is essentially a blog, it's the new information and insightful comments that keep me coming back. Okay, I'll admit it, I've also got a morbid curiosity for reading -1 as well.
The critical mass of community Slashdot has - its main interesting feature, would be something difficult to recreate just by putting a blog online and hoping for the best. I'm sure there are some people that really get a kick out of finding out somebody on the Internet just got a new cat and his car is getting repainted, but that just isn't the level of intellectual stimulation that draws me to a web page.
Historical and Cultural Analysis (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course, it is easy to ridicule and mock the blogging scene, but an indepth look at it could be both honest about the shortcomings and faults, as well as the many lessons blogging has taught us. Google bombing [slashdot.org] anyone? And has anyone been more on the forefront of accessibility pages than blogs?
Maybe someone's already done this for some sort of masters thesis; if so, point out the links, I'd like to see some serious scholarship on the issue.
Re:Why? (Score:2, Interesting)
I was really bored one day and tried to see how much information I could get from a random weblog... it was frightening, not because of the information that I got, I got next to nothing. But becuase of the mind numbing nature of the weblog. My random subject was a teenage girl obsessed with boys, and booze. I'll tell you, you could write a program to make a random post for this girl. Her posts were basicly the same.
Point it, if you dont post addresses, or phone numbers, and stick to first names. Its pretty hard to get information based on the journal alone.