iamom | Entries tagged with blogging

Garden State was a really fantastic movie, written and directed by Zach Braff of Scrubs fame. I've never followed Scrubs, so this movie was my first real exposure to Braff's writing and acting, both of which I thought were amazing. (As was Natalie Portman, by the way, who was some kinda hotttt in that flick.)

Anyway, I added the RSS feed for Braff's weblog to my LJ friends page a long time ago, but the first post I've ever seen (see the LJ page entry or Braff's original blog entry) just got added today. It's a very funny read, especially near the end with his description of the role he just won in the next James Bond film:

I am going to be Vesper Lind (the new Bond love interest). After the success of certain films this year, they have decided to "shake things up" this time around. And so Bond will be gay. I play Vesper Lind, a German spy who loves trip-hop and raves. I assassinate my victims by forcing them to drink the fluid inside of glow-sticks. James and I meet when our hands accidentally touch during a "Licensed to Kill" seminar in Dusseldorf. We were both reaching for an "Ain't Misbehavin" CD that kills an enemy after he/she listens to the Act One curtain closer. Not very effective as a means of assassination since the target would have to make it through some really mediocre numbers in the first act, and like I said, it only works on "he/she's" which aren't very common in the spy business outside of Thailand. Can't say much more it's all very hush-hush...

Add his feed to your LJ friends page here, or else subscribe to his feed directly with your favourite RSS reader. Braff's blog's home page is here.

http://www.bloggersblog.com/cgi-bin/bloggersblog.pl?bblog=104063

Blogs by soldiers, also called milblogs, are being shut down almost as fast as they're established, according to this article in Bloggers Blog. The military has attempted to establish milblog registration through the chain of command, which has resulted in a bunch of squeaky-clean, patriotic bullshit blogs that don't actually provide any insight into the true soldier's experiences in Iraq and elsewhere.

Freedom of speech issues abound, but as usual with this administration, they're trumped by so-called "National Security." Luckily many soldiers are still finding ways to get their personal thoughts online, though. This Wired.com story about milblogs has more details, and this Yahoo directory page also lists several milblogs.

Three other milblog directories were also listed by the Bloggers Blog entry I referenced at the top of this post: Blogs of War, Milblogging.com, and Blog Catalog. And of course, my favourite means to find stuff remains through Google: here's a Google blogsearch for milblogs + one more on Military Blogs.

The default display for my LJ tags appears to be a simple alphabetical list:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/iamom/tag/

I would rather, however, see them displayed in descending order by usage, if not more ideally as a cloud (examples: brad | wickenden on del.icio.us).

Does anyone know how to do this? Changing the order on my tags management page doesn't translate to my LJ.

bridgetester? LJ's FAQs on tags don't seem to address this. Is it perhaps not currently a feature on LJ?

My favourite website usability guru Jakob Nielsen (handsome guy, ain't he?) just published a good article about usability design errors in weblogs. Obviously these guidelines aren't pertinent to people whose blogs are mainly for personal consumption, but I found them to be helpful tips when considering how to lay out more promotional-style weblogs. From his article, his list of Top 10 Design Mistakes in Weblog Usability is as follows:

1. No Author Biographies
2. No Author Photo
3. Nondescript Posting Titles
4. Links Don't Say Where They Go
5. Classic Hits Are Buried
6. The Calendar Is The Only Navigation
7. Irregular Publishing Frequency
8. Mixing Topics
9. Forgetting That You Write For Your Future Boss (ooh, that's a good one)
10. Having A Domain Name Owned By A Weblog Service

It's funny, because last week I updated the front page of my LJ with some of these ideas unwittingly in mind. Increasingly, I find myself aware of how I present myself through my blog. It's so easy to find it on Google that I find myself thinking of it as a personal greeting card or something.

I finally jumped into the 2000s and added a few syndicated RSS feeds to my LJ friends list last week. One of them is musician moby's blog, and a recent post of his provides this list of US politicians who have and haven't served in the military, grouped by their political affiliation. There's also an LJ comments page for this blog entry.

The way moby presented this data, Democrats appear to have served far more consistently than Republicans. If that's true, it's pretty interesting. And sort of ironic.

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31

Dustin LindenSmith

father | musician | writer

Entries tagged with blogging

Zach Braff's Friends of Garden State Blog

U.S. Military Clamps Down On Soldiers' Blogs

Q: How can I change the way my tags are displayed in my LJ?

weblog usability design errors

Musician moby lists which politicians have served in the military

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January 2013

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