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Category: Technology

Newsosaur: Newspapers Consider Printless Days

Newsosaur: Newspapers Consider Printless Days

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No time to write today, but I picked this none-to-delectible tidbit up from Alan D. Mutter at Newsosaur while surfing during lunch and had to share: In one of the most startling of the potential initiatives, an amazing number of publishers of all sizes are giving serious consideration to eliminating print editions on certain days of the week, according to private conversations with operators who requested anonymity. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday editions, which typically carry the least amount of advertising, appear…

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PC Magazine To Kill Print Version

PC Magazine To Kill Print Version

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PC Magazine announced last week that their January issue would be the last issue they actually print, from then on, they’re a web-only publication. From The New York Times:   It is the latest of several magazine publishers to drop a print edition, as advertising plummets and the cost of printing a paper version rises. “The viability for us to continue to publish in print just isn’t there anymore,” Jason Young, chief executive of Ziff Davis, said in an interview….

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It’s the web, use the WWW

It’s the web, use the WWW

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I’m noticing a lot of sites are now using their top level domain as their site address, such as mysite.com instead of www.mysite.com.  That can cause major issues for you later, so you might want to think twice about it.   Domain names are rather useful things.  There’s a lot that can be done behind the covers, by manipulating subdomains and such.  This is one of the keys to most Content Delivery Networks, such as the Akamai DSA service that…

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Drinking From the Fire Hose #2 – the China Syndrome

Drinking From the Fire Hose #2 – the China Syndrome

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One of the big complaints that the anti-Wordpress chorus croons is that the vaunted blogging platform doesn’t scale.  Certainly we’ve all seen sites brought low by the “Slashdot Effect” or the “Digg Effect” but my experience tells me that WordPress is getting a bad rap for poor server setup, poor plugin choice, etc. How do I know?  Well, one of the sites I work with last week experienced the “China Syndrome” or potentially “The Great Fire Hose”.  The site, TheTruthAboutCars.com…

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Newspapers – The Terminal UI Problem

Newspapers – The Terminal UI Problem

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Yesterday morning I sat at the counter at Puffins Restraurant in Millbury having a wonderful plate of Eggs Latin, and as I struggled to read The Worcester Telegram while eating, I realized the problem with newspapers in print: the User Interface is pathetic. Here are just a few of the UI problems: The newsprint is too thin – trying to fold the paper into something you can handle with one hand is virtually impossible. Ink stained fingers – it used…

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The New World Order – Thriving and Surviving in Turbulent Times

The New World Order – Thriving and Surviving in Turbulent Times

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I spent a significant part of the last decade working for a company that was in an utter fight for its survival in a declining market.   We had layoffs almost every 6 months for the 7 years I was there.  I’m repeatedly told I’m “old school”.  Maybe you could all use a little “old school” advice for working in troubled economic times: Companies are going to have to restructure – those that are configured for rapid growth will need to…

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My WordPress Plugins

My WordPress Plugins

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Over the past couple weeks, I’ve seen a lot more people making the switch to WordPress.  Why not?  The system is utterly configurable, with a plugin (or 5) for virtually every need.  The problem is that not all plugins are of the same caliber.  In fact, some are downright site killers.  Since I’ve had a close look at a lot of them, I thought you all might benefit from a look at the plugins that I use on my personal…

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Kiss a Pig

Kiss a Pig

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  Yes, sometimes it’s in our best interest to do something we don’t really want to do, to literally kiss the pig.  Nothing could better typify this than the great ad debate, that age old fight that occurs in media wherein the editorial staff seeks to maintain their supposed journalistic credibility by running a publication that is utterly advertising free, while the ad staff is running around trying to turn your hallowed publication into The Want Advertiser. When I worked…

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New wider format

New wider format

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Looking at my analytics package, I noticed that virtually no one is reading this at 800 x 600 screen resolution, so I devoted a whole lot more width to the content section of the page.  I’ll probably juggle things around a little more tomorrow and sort out some of the minor formatting in the right side columns and such.  It’s the age old story, the web developer’s site is the last site he pays attention to. In making this change,…

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Write to Done: Branding 101: How to Promote Your Blog Like the Big Guys Do

Write to Done: Branding 101: How to Promote Your Blog Like the Big Guys Do

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A great post I had to share from Leo Babauta at Write to Done. One of the reasons I was able to draw so many readers to Zen Habits within the first year was that I treated the promotion of Zen Habits as you would any other product — I branded it. Of course, there are other reasons as well — I really focused on creating as useful content as possible, for example — but branding is what really helped Zen Habits take off…

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