publishing on SWiK

DocBook Quick Reference

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:59:04 -0700

scribus.net | Scribus Open Source Desktop Publishing

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 07:57:55 -0700

Technology Review: TR35

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 06:56:51 -0700

Google Moves to Mainstream RSS With A Simple Name Change

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 18:12:01 -0700

For all its supposed simplicity, Really Simple Syndication or RSS has continued to confuse and intimidate millions of people online years after its introduction. What can be done to make RSS more mainstream? Google plans to roll out a small but simple feature that could go a long way. We wouldn't be surprised to see every blog publishing service follow suit.

"Follow this blog" is a clear call to action and those words will soon grace the header of every blog on Blogger.com around the web. When users click that link they'll be taken to either a tab on their Blogger dashboard, presumably if they have an account and are logged in, or be introduced to Google Reader, the company's RSS reader. It's a simple, brilliant plan and we wonder what took so long.

What it Will Look Like

As this new feature is rolled out over the coming weeks, it appears that users will be brought to three key screens.

Blogger users will now see a mini version of Google Reader in their dashboards.

Apologies for the blurry pic, that's what Google posted.

Google Reader users will get a new folder for "blogs I'm following," and new users will apparently be shown Common Craft's fabulous 1 minute introduction to Google Reader.

Why It Matters

Do you think the word "follow" could make a big difference in RSS subscriber levels?
( surveys)RSS is life and work changing technology. It's what makes an ecosystem of blogs possible by lowering the investment required by readers to follow and support a larger number of blogs than they would visit manually. It's what keeps those podcasts coming after you might have forgotten to download episode after episode. It makes search an ongoing practice instead of a one-off shot in the dark. RSS is huge, but the name alone intimidates many people who ought to be diving into it.

Surveys over the years have offered a wide range of estimates of the extent of mainstream RSS adoption. We know, though, that many many people do not ever use the technology.

"Follow" is clear language that we expect to go over well. It aims at the long held goal of getting people to use RSS without asking them to embrace the acronym. Update: Several people have argued since we posted this that "follow" will be far more clear to young users of social media sites like Facebook than to older users. Do you think "follow" is still too unclear? We think it's pretty good, but let us know in comments or the poll on the right.

We expect that Blogger.com blogs will see a big increase in subscribers following this change and we would not be at all surprised if other blogging platforms, Wordpress in particular, roll out "follow" language and links soon if the Google move is well received.

Free digital texts begin to challenge costly college textbooks in California - Los Angeles Times

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:03:57 -0700

Projects - Emacs Muse

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 09:38:55 -0700

アメリカで同人誌を売るということ - shi3zの日記

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 05:06:09 -0700

dblatex

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 13:11:15 -0700

Free Software Turns the iPhone Into an E-Book Reader

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 12:14:07 -0700

LaTeX Bibliography Styles Database :: Search

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 09:10:45 -0700

scribus.net | Scribus Open Source Desktop Publishing

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 00:05:06 -0700

Marc Abramowitz " Emacs: TRAMP bookmarks = awesome

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 17:04:56 -0700

Creative Commons

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 11:05:12 -0700

PostSpectacular: Faber Finds generative book covers

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 10:04:47 -0700

generative book covers for print-on-demand of out of print works. building a "design machine".

Movable Type: Movable Type: Business blog software combined with social networking

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 04:05:06 -0700

Du blog au réseau social : la solution Movable Type.

Flat World Knowledge LLC

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 03:05:06 -0700

Quark: XML Import and QuarkXPress — A step-by-step example

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:06:35 -0700

libsyn // podcasting made easy

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 09:05:12 -0700

Apple - iLife - iWeb - New in iWeb '08

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 08:04:46 -0700

Make Internet TV : Shoot, Edit, Publish and Promote Your Videos

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 00:08:40 -0700

Make Internet TV - A guide for shooting, editing, and publishing online video

scribus.net | Scribus Open Source Desktop Publishing

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 19:09:32 -0700

Scribus

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 15:09:30 -0700

Using XSL-FO to create printable documents

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 11:11:06 -0700

My Podcast - Free Podcast Hosting & Directory

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 11:08:11 -0700

Science Commons

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 18:09:01 -0700

Feedbooks: Food for the mind

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 03:13:23 -0700

"Feedbooks is a universal e-reading platform compatible with all mobile devices where you can download thousands of free e-books, publish and share your own content, and create customized newspapers from RSS feeds and widgets."

Re: Latex exporting

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 15:07:30 -0700

Munging LaTeX headers with org.

Jahia - Enterprise Web Content and Portal Management - Jahia

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 02:11:35 -0700

EDItEUR

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 22:10:29 -0700

ONIX (Online Information eXchange) for Books

LyX - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 21:09:05 -0700

>LYX (written as LyX in plain text) is a document processor following the self-coined "what you see is what you mean" paradigm (WYSIWYM), as opposed to the WYSIWYG ideas used by word processors. This means that the user only has to care about the structure...