E-Scribe News : a programmer’s blog

About Me

PBX My name is Paul Bissex, and e-scribe.com is my consulting business. I build web applications using as much open source software as possible. From September to June I teach web design and other important non-photographic professional skills to photographers. In the '90s I wrote technology commentary and reviews for magazines, newspapers, and web publications, including Wired, Salon.com, FamilyPC, the late lamented Web Review, and the Chicago Tribune. Feel free to email me.

Book Project

I'm co-authoring a book, "Python Web Development with Django", with Jeff Forcier and Wesley Chun. It will be published by Prentice Hall in July 2008, but is available for pre-ordering on Amazon now.

Colophon

This site is built on a fresh trunk checkout of Django, running on Python 2.5.1, served by Apache and mod_python. The database is SQLite. The operating system is FreeBSD, on a VPS hosted at Johncompanies.com. Comment-spam protection by Akismet. Vintage topo imagery from the Maptech archive.

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Stuff I Use

Akismet, del.icio.us, Django, dpaste.com, Emacs, FreeBSD, Freenode, jQuery, LaunchBar, MacPorts, Markdown, Mercurial, OS X, Postfix, Python, SQLite, Subversion, TextMate, Trac, Ubuntu Linux, wmii

A Django site.
(Finally!)

Copyright 2008
by Paul Bissex
and E-Scribe New Media

Blog flair backlash

It's now official: right-minded people hate those little "Blog me, digg me, add me to your feed baby!" icons attached to blog posts. References:

http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/93-its-the-content-not-the-icons
http://mezzoblue.com/archives/2006/10/10/mooching_20/
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000587.html

Maybe I'm part of the problem. I avoid the Nascar-style decorations, but I do have text links at the bottom of each post that cover three such sites. My links are tasteful, of course -- no icons, just gray text. Faster than a bookmarklet, even, since you can use them right from the front page of the blog. But I do feel mixed about them.

For the next version of my blog (coming Real Soon Now), one of my goals is to reduce the total number of links on a page. I took one stab at this by filtering my tag cloud (it only shows tags that have been used four or more times), but more drastic steps are needed.

Dynamically-generated content definitely carries its own special design risks. It's easy for an end user of blogging software to be enticed by the idea that with a single plugin they can add 23 bookmarking icons to EVERY post they've ever made -- even if that is, objectively, a terrible idea.

Wednesday, November 1st, 2006
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1 comment

Some related posts: Comment Spam Stats • Twittered • Comment Spam • Library of 1000 scammy spams • Reverse game: Codegolf edition • Akismet anti-comment-spam • Well blogs • Mining Monday: embarrassing Google searches • Mining Monday: Random Shakespeare • Mining Monday: Ungreek
• Comment from Jared Kuolt, 1 week later

I thought it was just me that hated those icons. Thanks for the links.

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