My Name is Kate

Internet Goodness: RSS & Feed Tutorial

Recently (at TED), I heard James Surowiecki (author, The Wisdom of Crowds) talk about blogs. He mentioned that one reason people get so engaged in blogs and in self-publishing is the build-up of reputational capital.

There are so many people out there doing so many amazing "public service" initiatives on the Internet. One that I came across today (via Micropersuasion) is Preetam Rai's tutorial on using Bloglines (an RSS aggregator). I use NewsGator myself (and Trillian with the News plugin at home where I'm not running Outlook). However, Rai's tutorial gives a good overview on the types of feeds available as well as on the in's and out's of using Bloglines. Really great work! Thanks, Preetam!

Amazon and Your Local Library

John Udell has one of the best toys ever! He's created a bookmarklet that lets you, with one click when you're surfing Amazon, see if your local library has the book.

Udell's LibraryLookup Bookmarklet works with a number of standard library catalog systems, including the Toronto Public Library (TPL uses iPac). To add the bookmarklet for the TPL, just right click on this link and choose "Add to Favourites".

So very cool!

Toronto's Film Fest Season has Arrived!

Film Fest Season in Toronto has started! The ReelWorld Film Festival wraps up this weekend. HotDocs starts next week! The Toronto Jewish Film Festival starts May 7th. And Sprockets International Film Festival for Children starts the week before that, on April 29th.

This year, when trying to make and then share my selections with friends, I discovered that most film festival website suck. Seriously. Most of them don't let you link to individual films -- so it makes it very difficult to send URLs around. Sprockets does, but then they ruin their website by using "click here" EVERYWHERE. The TJFF doesn't even have HTML versions of their film information. They have a link to a PDF labeled "TJFF Mailer". How am I supposed to know that the mailer is the film schedule and descriptions.

All film fest web designers, please, just put a big link at the top of the page labeled "List of Films" and another one labeled "Schedule of Screenings".

The crazy thing is that all these festivals do a great job promoting themselves in print. The Sprockets booklet is great. I haven't seen this year's TJFF book yet, but last year it was phenomenal. HotDocs makes a nice newsprint magazine. It seems that there are still issues with making the online experience as positive and seamless as the offline. What's going to happen when more and more people want to surf these sites via a mobile device. Tiny screen, limited bandwidth. These festival sites need to model the interactions that their site visitors want to do online and then support those interactions. Most of them have tons of content, they just aren't labeled very effectively.

I must say that the Toronto International Film Festival had steadily improved year over year in their online user experience. Their calendar tools are exceptional ... finding movies, adding them to a personal calendar, time comparisons. All really easy to use. Also, their video tutorials on "How to Festival". Really great content. Which makes Sprockets' shitty website all the more disappointing -- because they are part of the same group. (Though the promo spots for TIFF last year were some of of the worst EVER! Was the director sleeping with that chick who danced in meadow barefoot? Terrible.)

So, this year, at HotDocs, I'm seeing:

[Yeah, I had to go into the HTML where there is a Shitload of javascript (Seriously, why are you exposing all that code. Sloppy.) and get the db code for the film and then paste it into a URL. But, hey, for my loyal readers (Roro and Deuce) NOTHING is too much work.]

Ice Breaker

The Cross and Bones

Between Midnight and the Rooster's Crow

The Vanishing Ice

Keep Not Silent (Ortho-Dykes)

9 Months, 6 Blocks

Gymnast

Oh, I almost forgot, the Inside Out Film Fest is coming up too. April 28th. And the Female Eye Film Festival June 10. And one of my favourites, the Canadian Film Centre's Worldwide Short Film Festival, June 14. IMDB has a great film festival list, though it makes me chuckle that TIFF doesn't have 2005 dates on their site yet, so I had to get them off this list. Sigh. Maybe I'm being unreasonable with the expectation that all this information should be available on-demand, in multiple formats, in an easy-to-use interaction model. But I don't think so. If you want to be taken seriously, particularly in a town like Toronto, you have to raise the bar.

Comment Spam and Yahoo 360: Sharing the Love

I haven't really implemented any good anti-"comment-spam" technologies on my blog yet. I'm using an older version of MT, so it's not fully automagic (unlike MT 3.0 which I'm using for a work project and it is quite nice .. particularly the comment approval system). So, I browse comments manually and delete them manually. [nb ... post written prior to my move to TypePad]

Recently, I've noticed, comments have moved from being just a string of words that have something to do with the website they're hawking to fake comments about your blog. "Hey, great blog, check mine out at www.jakeshouseofpornandrealestate.com" or whatever. So, a little sneaky.

In reading these comments, I've become quite bemused about the subject line and/or labels for these websites. Most are crass or unoriginal. But today's was: Female Gloryhole.

Now call me naive, but I have never heard the phrase "Female Gloryhole" (to Roro's chagrin, I have also never heard the phrase "Camel Toe" but that is an entirely different story) and I am just enchanted. Gloryhole. That's some pretty serious description. Creates a sense of anticipation.

Oh ... Roro tells me that she has heard "gloryhole" several times, in a porn context.

All the more reason to reclaim it! Reminds me of the scene in Rose Troche's Go Fish where several of the main characters are lying around (literally, it's one of the great cinematographic scenes in the movie) discussing their preferred euphemism for "down there".

Language is so powerful and evocative. Words are inherently imbued with creative power ... creation power. "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with GOD and the Word was GOD." Wow. GOD spoke the universe into existence. Not just mixing clay and water, mind you. But spoke it into existence. Across magical cultures, all spells have some kind of verbal component.

What words do you find derogatory or problematic? What words do you need to reclaim? What's your gloryhole?

Also about sharing the love ...

I've been secretly coveting an invite to Yahoo 360. Because I'm a geek and I like to play with new tech toys and I like to be one of the cool kids.

Well, I got one today. Not from Yahoo, but off a site where some guy is generating good karma as well as invites.

You can get one here: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=3719

I had to scroll down a couple of pages to find one that wasn't used.

Or, if you know me and want one, email me at kate [at] mynameiskate [dot] ca and I'll send you one via Yahoo.