Feedburner ate my Subscribers!

They were there yesterday, honestly!

But something is wrong with this picture:

Or was it something I said?

Oh good – seems I’m not the only one – Andy Merritt

Declaring Email and RSS Feed Bankruptcy

Following on from yesterday’s Ultimate Guide to (un) Productivity, I have had an extremely productive day, and feel really good about that Baby steps.

An article today in the SMH rang a bell with me (my husband Theo pointed it out).

It’s what I did inadvertently with my Google reader the other day. I was in “list view” and instead of hitting “refresh”, I hit “mark all as read” OOPS! There goes 100+ unread posts in a folder. After momentary panic, I realised it felt good! So I went through my other folders, skimming the headlines, reading those that jumped out at me, and then was absolutely ruthless with the “mark all as read” button (don’t worry – I’m sure your post was one of the ones I read ).

It felt somewhat liberating to start from scratch again! So I can relate to this quote

“I am so far behind on email that I am declaring bankruptcy,” New York-based venture capitalist Fred Wilson wrote in his blog last week.

“If you’ve sent me an email (and you aren’t my wife, partner, or colleague), you might want to send it again. I am starting over.”

I tend to stay on top of my email, and I move emails that require action into a “TO DO” folder.

Anyway, have a look at Under Seige, Users Declare Email Bankruptcy.

The term “email bankruptcy” was coined by Stanford Law School professor Lawrence Lessig in 2004, when he was inundated with an average of 200 non-spam emails a day and had spent 80 hours in a week sorting through unanswered email.

Have you ever declared email or RSS Feed Bankruptcy?

The Ultimate Guide to Productivity

My friend Alister Cameron has written a very poignant post entitled “If you don’t have Passion and Purpose, Greater Productivity won’t help you!” It’s not a quick, throw away read by any stretch of the imagination and Alister delivers a meaningful message. I daresay there may be an “aha” moment for many readers – there was for me. He begins:

If what you do with the best hours of your day is not also the thing you’re passionate about, stop right now!

Stop right now and confront the cold hard facts for what they are: no amount of effectiveness training, time management skills, productivity tips and tricks or goal setting know-how will replace the critical missing ingredient of your life: passion.

Continued The Ultimate Guide to Productivity

Google PageRank Update Underway

For those of you interested in the Google PageRank metric, you’ll be pleased to know that the PageRank update is in progress (this happens about four times a year).

Google PageRank is a measure of how important Google sees a particular page on a website, and is determined by the number of websites linking to a page and also the authority of the originating website.
You may not see the new rank automatically as Google has a number of data centres that update independently. So depending on which data centre you access will depend on the number displayed.

If you are curious, you can check your PageRank according to various data centres. So far no change indicated for dLook (currently a PR4), and Obits (PR3 to PR4).

This is my first update since starting this blog (so currently PR-0), but it looks as though I’m going to have a PR5.

Frankly, I’m surprised that such a high initial PageRank would be given (in comparison to dLook say), but I guess Google have their algorithm and a PR5 certainly isn’t atypical for a blog. I’ll take it

Aussie Bloggers Index Update

I’ve updated the Index again. Debuting in the list are the following:

http://infosthetics.com/
http://www.skeptics.com.au/
http://andrewlanderyou.blogspot.com/
http://www.business2.com.au/
http://www.thinkprospect.com.au/blog/
http://nickcowie.com
http://www.cantcoachthat.com/
http://the-riotact.com
http://mattstone.blogs.com/
http://altnews.com.au/drop/

And missing from the list (should be at # 37) is Neerav’s Rambling Thoughts Blog. I’ll get that in next time, Neerav – thanks for letting me know.

Duncan Riley has posted an OPML for the top 100+ Australian blogs on the list, so anyone looking for an Aussie Blog fix can import the whole list. Duncan writes

….I still believe that …. collectively we should be promoting blogs more in this country, and that’s to the benefit of all Australian bloggers. Hopefully expanding the reading list of some people (including myself) may play a small part in this jigsaw puzzle.

Well said!

Rod has also posted an OPML at his Australian Blog Directory.

I’m currently checking 270+ blogs, but the script written by Scott Yang is proving to be a big help! Thanks Scott you’re a genius

And nothing to do with the Index, but in case you missed the latest dLook News, I thought I’d show you a screen shot of how our new maps and more information pages look. I’m really happy with the way it’s turned out. And more exciting news in the next couple of weeks – think web 2.0.

Milestone

I just realised I notched up 100 posts today. I knew it was coming, but it just snuck up me.

Thought I’d share one of the advantages of working from my home office:

This (Olympus C-2100 ultra zoom) camera may be over seven years old and weigh about a kilo, but I wouldn’t swap it for any fit-in-your-pocket compact.

Rage Playlist Competition

I have never been a big music video connoisseur, but I’ve been tagged by Richard from Scouta to list my top 20 music videos.

The Thinker’s Podium started the meme based on the Invade rage Competition to celebrate the music video show’s 20th anniversary.

The idea is to compile your top 20 favorite music videos, as you’d like them played on the television show rage. If you enter the actual competition you have a chance to guest program and host rage itself.

Unlike Bronwen from PerthNorg, I’ve gone mainly for songs that I like, and consequently a few on this list aren’t what you’d call music videos (but they all have the original songs).

I’ve added my selections to the My Rage Top 20 Scouta group.

I’m going to tag Leigh, Dan, Duncan and Greg (since he’s got some time on his hands). I’ve also added Jamie to my tag list.

My list is below (in no particular order)

Believe – Cher
Steam Roller – James Taylor
Days Like This – Van Morrison
Never Ever – All Saints
Torn – Natalie Imbruglia
Buses & Trains – Bachelor Girl
I feel Good – James Brown
Dock of the Bay – Otis Redding
When a Man Loves a Woman – Percy Sledge
Bat out of Hell – Meat Loaf
Man! I Feel Like A Woman! – Shania Twain
Mambo #5 – Lou Bega
When You Say Nothing At All – Ronan Keating
The Animal Song – Savage Garden
American Pie – Don McLean
Love Shack – B52s
Bow River – Cold Chisel
Gimme one Reason – Tracy Chapman
Hotel California – The Eagles
Me and Bobby McGee – Janis Joplin

dLook.mobi – Mobile Search

Our dLook business directory turned one today! What a crazy year. I could bore you with statistics, but I won’t. Instead, I’ll tell you what our birthday present was!

To celebrate we have launched a new application for mobile search, so next time you’re out and about and need to find a number or address, you can by-pass the expensive directory calls and simply do it yourself.

The address – couldn’t be easier!

dlook.mobi

That’s it – 10 little characters. Save it to your bookmark and it’s there for good.

I’ve been searching for other dot mobi sites for the Australian audience, and I know that they’re out there, but I’m really having difficultly finding them.

PLEASE NOTE: This service is on available on WAP enabled phones 

I’m Going on a Blog Hunt…

(The parents in the audience should relate to that one)

Over the last number of days I’ve put my RSS reader obsession aside (well, when I say that I mean it hasn’t been cleared to 0 in days), and replaced it with another – just surfing purely Australian blogs There’s some great stuff out there. I’ve now got 82 Aussie Blogs on Google Reader.

One blog I found tonight is Cruftbucket by Mick (who coincidentally posted the smart dog clip I uploaded yesterday – about 3 weeks ago). It’s a fun site and who can’t benefit from a little bit of fun in their day!

Here’s a photo from one of his posts

Stop by and have a laugh. Great stuff Mick!

How Many Australian Blogs are There?

I have previously written about the state of blogsearch in Australia and how difficult it can be to find Australian content. I’ve mentioned gnoos, the Australian Index and AustralianBlogs (more a blog directory than blog search) as being our only really viable localised search options. I’ve also lamented it would be great if Google blogsearch was available for our au domain.

Over the weekend I fell over a site called www.blogs.com.au. This site was released on April 2 this year. At present it is a customised Google search, which searches the 1,200+ blogs that are included.

Continued How Many Australian Blogs are There?