These buds for you
Since the ineptitude of major airlines has frightened me away from checking baggage, I’m looking for the tiniest gadgetry out there. When I’m on a Skype call, these earbuds sound just about as good as my Bose headset. They come in this nifty reel pack. They cost $1 when you’re boarding JetBlue.
Microsoft Live Writer (Beta)
I ike everything about WordPress except where you enter text. The fancy input screen creates garbage if you try anything tricky (like making corrections.) The plain-vanilla interface leaves you staring at code, which makes it impossible to see if images are where you want them.
Microsoft Live Writer (free) provides a WYSIWYG input display and connects easily to any of my blogs. I can save drafts. It offers categories. It hasn’t crashed on me yet.
New York Times Reader
This morning I saw a notice in the New York Times for Times Reader. I downloaded it (which requires Microsoft .net 3.0.) It’s free for subscribers. And now I am hooked.
A very clear screen. Simple navigation. Searchable. You can read it offline. It maintains a seven-day archive. Free access to Times Select, Premium Crosswords, and archives back to 1851.
I’ve saved the coolest thing for last. This is truly a newspaper. Every half hour, my paper is updated with fresh stories. No more of this morning paper and evening paper; this is a whenever paper.
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A thought about WordPress I should have made above.
I used to be as loyal a fan as Blogger ever had. I pushed Blogger on friends like an Amway salesperson on speed. And then I was won over by Movable Type, because their feature set was better. And then I migrated to WordPress when the squabbles and confusion over pricing erupted. (I was running Learning Circuits Blog at the time, and the initial formula price would have set me back $100+ a month.) Then I switched to WordPress.
WordPress is a breath of fresh air. It’s supported by a community of volunteered who take pride in their work. Changes come along as needed. Development is driven by users’ needs, not a corporate view of the “marketplace.” Hoo rah. I just came upon this quote from Matt Mullenweg which is spot on:
“Someday I think there will be a realization that the real story is more exciting than the cookie-cutter founder myth the media tries frame everything in. It’s not just one or two guys hacking on something alone, it’s dozens of people from across the world coming together because of a shared passion. It’s not about selling out to a single company, it’s dozens of companies independently adopting and backing an open source platform for no reason other than its quality. I’m not a millionaire, and may never be, but there are now hundreds of people making their living using WordPress, and I expect that number to grow to tens of thousands. That’s what gets me out of bed in the morning, not the prospect of becoming a feature on an Internet behemoth’s checklist.”
– WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg