Great post by Tom today, Just A Couple Of My Terrible Blunders. Tom gives a couple of examples from his past about mistakes he’s made as a sysadmin or when communicating with partners or customers.

I probably ask too many questions these days. I suppose when you’re comfortable enough to ask questions, indicating that you don’t know something, the things you do assert become more believable, even from a bag of hot air like myself.

Blundering is one thing, but not learning from your blunders is another. Being able to laugh at them comes later. 😉

Missed this last week (Oct. 29) from the Stars and Stripes, Army steps up efforts to monitor military bloggers:

A new Army effort to monitor soldiers’ personal Web sites is raising concerns among military bloggers, who worry the service is discouraging the online community’s positive efforts.

Since July a new 10-man branch of the Virginia Army National Guard’s Data Processing Unit — a team of guardsmen trained in security issues — has been surveying the Internet for the Army, looking for online postings that might violate operational security standards.

The group isn’t reviewing things like soldiers’ e-mail accounts, but it is looking at blogs and photo-sharing sites like myspace.com.

From Media Buyer Planner: Another feature [in the upcoming Skype 3.0] allows users to set up text-based chats with up to 100 web users, whether they use Skype or not; it mirrors Skype’s group audio feature, called Skypecast. The public chat feature can be embedded into blogs to encourage conversation.



Sounds interesting… I’d bet that becomes quite popular…

Des Walsh was speaking at a convention today:

What I hadn’t planned for was the keenness of the people for me to show them how to actually set up a blog.

I took up the challenge and opened the BlogHarbor site. Five minutes later, they had a site up, with their first post – no need to futz about with credit cards, confirmation of emails, no special geeky knowledge required, no configuring databases…

The effect was so positive and the people so enthusiastic about the possibilities, that I know I just have to make sure I include this process in any future presentation.

Awesome – a big thanks to Des for showing how you can get blogging in 5 minutes!

Technorati Tags: BlogHarbor, blog+host

Google Docs & Spreadsheets is a new service for Google account holders and Gmail users. Derived from Google’s acquisition of the Writely service earlier this year, this service allows users to create word processing and spreadsheet documents within a web browser, so they can accessed from anywhere. These types of web-based applications are often referred to as “Office 2.0” applications, implying an evolution of the standard desktop-based Office software. Google describes their service on the docs.google.com home page:

Google Docs & Spreadsheets is a web-based word processing and spreadsheet program that keeps documents current and lets the people you choose update files from their own computers. You can, for example, coordinate your student group’s homework assignments, access your family to-do list from work or home, or collaborate with remote colleagues on a new business plan.

What’s exciting about Google Docs & Spreadsheets is that it also provides you the ability to post your documents directly to your weblog. It even can update your blog post when you update its original GDS document!

Google has made it easy to configure GDS to post to BlogHarbor weblogs by including BlogHarbor in the default list of blog services (thank you Google!), so all you need to know to configure GDS to post to your BlogHarbor weblog is your username and password.

BlogHarbor users see How to Configure Google Docs & Spreadsheets to Post to your Blog…

Technorati Tags: Google+Docs, BlogHarbor, Google

Bart Giamatti, former MLB commissioner, on the game of baseball:

It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.

I heard that it rained pretty hard overnight in the NY area…

Technorati Tags: Mets, baseball

Congratulations to the New York Mets for a fantastic 2006 season! The Mets lost to the Cards last night in a very dramatic baseball game, one that Mets fans will be talking about for a long time… at least until Opening Day 2007.

And a thank you to Matthew Cerrone’s Metsblog.com, one of BlogHarbor‘s most popular weblogs (public stats).

Matt’s done a fantastic job over the past few years building Metsblog.com, not only publishing great content, but also creating a strong community. It’s so exciting to see our platform helping people to share their passion, and for some to even make a living off of it: Publishing the site is now Matt’s full time job!

Technorati Tags: Mets, Metsblog

Mets fan? Please see The Bobby Burger and How the Bobby Burger Came to Be to learn more about the new revolution in hamburgers.