Mixed feelings Clearing Out my Feeds

I started to use Netnewswire in the last few months. I didn’t do much with it until a few weeks ago when Feedly made the headlines about their AI protest control thing.

I learned they have an exporter so I exported the OPML file of my feeds and there were so many of them. Netnewswire slowly started filling in the posts and surprisingly, considering the lack of attention I’ve paid my feeds in many years, it found plenty of posts. My unread count sat at over 10,000 posts at one stage.

Still, there are far too many where the last post was in 2009 or 2012. A few were still blogging in 2019. Yet more announced they were moving from Blogger or WordPress.com to their brand-new website at some custom domain that is now sadly a spam trap for unwary visitors. The long abandoned blogs are a deep dive into history. They celebrate events that happened oh so long ago. The sites are frozen in time.

I have to say, it was sometimes lovely to read the musings of a lost generation of writers. They’re either offline or now on Facebook or one of the other walled gardens we humans seem to love. I was going to list some of the blogs that are still updated, but it turns out there are quite a few of them. You’re probably familiar with most of them. Matt, XKCD, Laughing Squid, and Simon are some of the more famous blogs I have followed for many years.

Here’s a few you might not know. Feel free to middle-click and open them in a new tab. Go on, have a look.

And oh, there’s more! I’ve also come across some incredible photo blogs that I used to love visiting. I would always wonder how they managed to capture such breathtaking photos. And there are so many WordPress blogs too, with a wide range of topics and interests. I haven’t had the time to go through all of them yet, but being on Mastodon has taught me that it’s okay not to keep tabs on everything.

One feature that has been a game-changer for me is the “Today” smart feed. It shows me updated feeds, and just by scanning through it, I can quickly see which sites are still very active. It’s helped me realize that I don’t need to follow some overly busy sites any more. It’s been a freeing experience, letting go of the need to keep up with everything and instead focusing on the feeds that truly matter to me.

Also, “Mark All as Read” is very liberating.

A screenshot from Netnewswire showing the right click menu and "Mark All as Read" is highlighted.

BTW – I’m still blogging (after all this time) here (of course) and on inphotos. My last post there is the 840th daily post in a row. I gave a talk to Blarney Photography Club recently, showing some photos from Automattic meetups over the years. I found a bunch of old photos I wanted to publish. That’ll explain the American photos that went up recently!

I was permanently banned by Facebook

My Facebook account was permanently banned on Wednesday along with all the people who take care of the Cork Skeptics page. We’re still not sure why but it might have something to do with the Facebook algorithm used to detect far-right conspiracy groups.

When your account is disabled you’re given the opportunity to upload some form of ID. That is the price of requesting a review. Unfortunately if you are permanently banned you will only be informed after uploading the photo that permanently banned accounts cannot be unbanned. It’s a particularly evil but clever way for Facebook to gather real world identifiable information about a user who may be desperate to get back into their account.

The good news is that our accounts were restored last night after two days in which we tweeted about it and contacted everyone we knew who might be able to help. Thank you to everyone who RTed, liked or commented on those tweets, or helped in other ways behind the scenes. I really do not know how this decision was reversed so don’t bother asking, sorry. We’re not the only group to be banned in error. It happened to a group of seventeenth century historical re-enactors who were banned but then unbanned.

The first thing I did when I logged in again? I downloaded all my information so if it happens again at least I have a copy of what I posted there. I haven’t come across the photo of my ID in my downloaded information however, though it might be there. I haven’t looked at all of it yet. Thank you GDPR.

If you have a Facebook account you should download your information too because it could happen to you too, even though you did nothing wrong. Go here and click the “Create File” button now.

Yeah, I know you won’t do it but you really should.

People say the age of personal blogging is over because everyone is on social media but I beg to differ. At least I won’t be banned from my own self-hosted blog any time soon.

Inchydonney Beach, December 12th 2020.

Update: All the admin users of Cork Skeptics were once again banned from Facebook on Friday, January 22nd 2021. If you know anyone in Facebook I would appreciate a word with them!

Update: Much later. Our accounts were restored and the Cork Skeptics page was restored but that’s twice now so we have deleted the page to avoid any more problems.

Make sure you do regular backups of your Facebook data!

The Irish Blog Awards in Pictures

As I may have mentioned once or twice before, we were at The Irish Blog Awards on Saturday night. Here are a few photos. They’re after the jump because there are 70 there and I’d hate to see them load every time someone loaded the front page of my site!

Gallery of shots from the photowalk to come tomorrow. Possibly over 100 shots in that. I do like to take photos don’t I?

grandad

BTW – Please Photoshop Grandad above. What’s he saying? Two example to follow ..
Continue reading “The Irish Blog Awards in Pictures”

Do you read any Irish blogs?

If you’re not Irish or living in Ireland, can you name an Irish blogger that you read on a regular basis? (Besides me of course!) And more importantly, why? Is it because of their niche, or is it their witty and insightful commentary?

I ask this because Kathy Foley blasted Irish blogger Twenty Major’s new book and proceeded to question whether the Irish blogosphere had anything to offer the world. Has the land of saints and scholars become a land of consumers without giving anything worthwhile back?

I haven’t read Twenty’s book so I can’t comment on that but I do not agree with her assertions regarding the Irish blogosphere. If you’d like to find out for yourself, here’s an easy way to immerse yourself:

Happy reading!

I'd rather be blogging

What is your most precious commodity? Mine is time. That’s why I’d rather be blogging than twittering.

  • 85 great photography sites suggested by the readers of DIY Photography, including my photoblog. Thanks for the link!
  • Mark celebrates the 25th birthday of the Commodore 64. Is it that old? Wow. commodore_64.jpg
    More: Wired Gallery, Interview with Jack Tramiel, Apple rejected by Commodore? (phew!)

    With no money to build thousands of Apple II machines, Wozniak and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs both approached Commodore with the Apple II. “Chuck Peddle from Commodore came to the garage and he was one of about three people we showed the Apple II prototype ever,” Wozniak said.

  • Mark welcomes MTOS. (sort of)

PS. almost forgot, Alan Whelan of Trocaire emailed to ask me to mention their ethical Global Gift campaign to help, “poor families around the world this Christmas.” While we’re on the topic of Christmas charity, by supporting Bothar you can help send cows to needy families. A bizarre item on the radio a few days ago involved a reporter accusing Bothar of keeping poor people poor. He reasoned that Bothar need poor people to operate. Weird stuff.

Verify your comment

Verify your comment

As a final step before posting your comment, enter the letters and numbers you see in the image below.

This test is used to prevent automated robots from posting comments.

Oh dear. How many times have I clicked submit on a Typepad blog comment form and moved on to the next site only to accidentally come back hours later and discover the CAPTCHA waiting for me?

I don’t think I’ve lost a comment yet, but they could have put the CAPTCHA on the same page as the comment form. If that’s impossible, the comment form should warn the visitor that a second page needs to be filled out. It’s not rocket science.

The most prolific commentators of June 2007

Short and sweet, the people who left the most comments on my blog in June 2007 are:

  1. Robert
  2. Dankoozy
  3. David Precious

Thank you guys for participating!

It doesn’t take much to get to the top of that list, but I will delete or ignore comments from people who I feel are just taking the mickey and leaving one or two word comments!

Why blogs are better #368

How else could I get on to Google Finance’s page on MSFT? It might be gone by the time you check it, but click the thumbnail for a screen capture. My boss at Tradesignals.com would have given his right arm for exposure like that!

Did I get many hits from there? Only 9 so far, but it was pretty cool to see that url pop up in my referrer stats!