Richard MacManus

Now you tell me! There is in fact a way to automatically ping Topic Exchange from within Movable Type. Thanks to an old Ben Hammersley post, I found out that the category attributes page has a box to enter TrackBack URIs to automatically ping. So after all my work over the last week, I’ve managed … Read more

Topic navigation is up and running on Read/Write Web, including cross-posting to both K-Collector and Topic Exchange. You’ll notice on the main menu, it now lists internal topics (or categories if you prefer – you say tom-ah-to, I say tom-ay-to). And in my RSS file, I’ve added references to both KC and TE. Here’s basically … Read more

Matt Mower’s written a great explanation of how the K-Collector aggregation process works. KC is a very clever system and I’m pleased to hear it doesn’t actually require the KC client app on Radio or MT in order for people to participate in the KC community. What I will do is continue with my own … Read more

There’s already been a great response to my post last night (see the comments to previous entry). Greg suggested his aggregator Blogdigger could be included in this – I agree! Matt and Andrew also posted very thoughtful responses. Here’s some of my feedback (copied from the comments – I must get these enabled inline…): Overnight … Read more

A few weeks ago I suggested merging Topic Exchange and K-Collector together, or at least bring the two sets of functionality closer together. I figure I’ll take a leaf out of Marc Canter’s book and try and rally the community together on this project. I’m hoping the respective developers of Topic Exchange and K-Collector can … Read more

This is an article I’ve submitted to Computerworld NZ. I interviewed Ferry Hendrikx of the NZ E-Government Unit for this. Note that the target audience is mainstream IT people, so as well as writing about Ferry’s experiences in E-Government I decided to also explain what RSS is and put it in the context of everyday … Read more

All this hullaballoo about Movable Type’s new licensing structure is just another example of one of the Web’s enduring issues: how to make money on the Web when users are accustomed to free lunches. It’s not just an issue for developers either, it’s as bad (if not worse) for writers. But before I address that … Read more

I don’t want to wade into an RSS syntax debate, but I came across a practical example of why to duplicate the Guid and Link elements in your RSS 2.0 file. Rogers Cadenhead recommends that they be duplicated. It is one of two differences between Rogers’ new proposed RSS feed for Movable Type users and … Read more

More tinkering. Last night I made the header and footer fixed width, evened up the right-hand column’s width in relation to the left column, added more white space to the main content area, and made various other changes to the CSS. I’m much happier with the layout now – it looks more balanced and not … Read more

Yesterday I explained why I moved my blog from Radio Userland and today I’m going to explain how I did it. I’ll also talk a bit about my new CSS layout. The Move I have to give a big shout-out to Bill Kearney, whose Radio Exporter tool made it relatively easy to export all my … Read more

My transition to Movable Type is mostly complete now, at least in terms of migrating content from Radio Userland and getting my new CSS design to a position of relative stability. In this post I’ll explain my motives for switching to Movable Type. In my next post I’ll provide some details of the process I … Read more

Pardon my dust, I’m in the process of moving my weblog from Radio Userland to Movable Type. Also, as you can see, I’ve done a re-design. There are still a few CSS issues to iron out, so things may be a bit funky for the next few days. But I decided to publish my new … Read more

My article for Digital Web Magazine, The Evolution of Corporate Websites, has now been published. It’s a high-level look at web design trends over the past 10 years. Here’s the introductory paragraph: Hard to believe, but corporate Web sites have been around for over 10 years now. It’s fascinating to see how they have evolved … Read more

I’ve just arrived back from a business trip in Melbourne, Australia. I’m creating a strategy for and managing the implementation of a new Intranet site. While I was over in Melbourne, I saw some examples of strategic thinking in action – by the local taxi drivers. Everybody is strategic in some form. But taxi drivers perhaps have … Read more

In my previous post, I wrote about my early blogging efforts in March 2002 and the birth of Read/Write Web just over 1 year ago. In this post I review the past year and pick out some highlights. I’ll finish with some thoughts about what the next year may bring. Highlights of the past 12 months … Read more