What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Google Reader RIP

    In the midst of the hubbub over a certain election in the Vatican earlier this week, I noticed one or people tweeting “This would be a good time to bury bad news”. As it turned out, there was quite a significant piece of geek news that came out at that time which has got quite a lot of people riled and got quite a lot of people bewildered as to what the fuss is about.

    Seems that Google is going to turn off the Google Reader service. Now, I don’t need to explain what Google Reader is to readers of this blog, do I gentle reader? Oh no, you’ve all read, bookmarked and inwardly digested that post I put up about blog aggregation in 2010.  (What do you mean you don’t have it at your fingertips? You can find it here: http://thurible.net/20101111/how-to-read-blogs/)

    It is rather a significant moment in the life of the blogosphere when google announces that that particular service is coming to an end. It works, it beats everything else I’ve tried and I’m surprised that they are pulling the plug. It may well mean that overall blog reading will shrink and it will be an inconvenience to move to another kind of reader.

    Four thoughts:

    1. This is a Woolworths moment. I know I check Google Reader less than I used to do because somehow my brain has come to believe that those posting and linking on social media are more up to date, happening, switched on voices than people who don’t. That means the first sight of interesting content most often comes for me on twitter or Facebook. If we look at a service less, it is of less value to the people providing it and hence, the Google Boffins can probably read the runes. They practically dominate web analytics in any case. My guess is that they can see that the use of this service is falling fast. If you don’t shop in Woolworths, Woolworths will close, no matter how nostalgic you are for the pick and mix that you never actually bought.
    2. This was a free service. They don’t have to provide it. Get used to it.
    3. All those people who are worried about privacy and Google do have a point. Untangling the individual from the corporation one of the major themes of our day. This is a day of victory for the Open Source movement whose advocates can rightly look smug.  (They will anyway).
    4. I expect I will find another reader to follow RSS feeds. RSS is a lovely thing. However, like wikis, the great unwashed don’t get it. I’d like to say that they want their content served up on a plate for them without any effort. However, it would appear that they don’t, doesn’t it? That’s what RSS does.

4 responses to “Wiki?”

  1. Tim Avatar
    Tim

    Experience here is
    a) TWiki is amazingly awful to migrate between versions, requiring a fair bit of Perl knowledge
    b) Dokuwiki might be only written in PHP, but it’s an absolute joy to use, especially the plugin system (paste URL to zip-file into box, it downloads and unpacks it for you!)

    One of these I use for work, the other is rapidly becoming my general to-do-list / organization / life at home. Major plug for dokuwiki 🙂

    Reply
  2. Avatar
    Anonymous

    Docuwiki
    I’ll have a look at Docuwiki though I do have a working version of TWiki currently running at the moment. I know no Perl, and it was a bit of a challenge installing it in the first place.

    Reply
  3. Avatar
    Anonymous

    Docuwiki

    Well, I’ve looked at Docuwiki but can’t install it.

    Life is just too short for this:

    • Set up the correct permissions
      • Usually the webserver runs as a unprivileged user eg nobody, www-data or apache
      • The webserver needs to be able to write to some files and directories (so change the chown nobody to match your configuration e.g. chown apache …)
      • If you’re using access control, you need to change the group ownership permissions on the appropriate files and make them writeable by the web server user’s group (use group ownership, because as a user/web site admin, you’ll need to edit the files directly) – otherwise, users won’t be able to register, and you won’t be able to set ACL controls via the web interface, and you’ll get error messages; I always forget these steps when I do an install using ACL features, so that’s why I’m adding them here.
      • The group name the web server runs as is usually identical to the user name, except in the case of the “nobody/nogroup” combo – but check your server config just in case (just a user, TL)

     

    Reply
  4. muratore Avatar
    muratore

    molella discotek people molella discotek people serx serx midi file graqtis midi file graqtis cenangium cenangium sansui amplificatore sansui amplificatore le ragazze di viterbo le ragazze di viterbo nissan terrano autocarro nissan terrano autocarro torturatore torturatore akg terni akg terni mercedes 270 serie c mercedes 270 serie c rokepo zola predosa rokepo zola predosa totò peppino e la dolce vita totò peppino e la dolce vita la rubrica di costantino e alessandra og la rubrica di costantino e alessandra og effects processor pro 2 2 effects processor pro 2 2 ludmila radchenko ludmila radchenko officer officer ospedale umberto primo ospedale umberto primo le tre demo di lords of everquest le tre demo di lords of everquest magicolor 2450 magicolor 2450 santo domingo viaggio santo domingo viaggio back street boys non mi lasciare cosi back street boys non mi lasciare cosi haiduchii din tei dragostea haiduchii din tei dragostea comunita economica comunita economica tm net my tm net my paradise cracked trailer paradise cracked trailer lettori cd gemini lettori cd gemini consultazioni provinciali 2004 consultazioni provinciali 2004 at 160ml siracusa at 160ml siracusa certificazioni di qualita certificazioni di qualita ipod 20 accessori ipod 20 accessori forbidden colours forbidden colours depurazione delle acque depurazione delle acque limpbizkit behind blue eyes limpbizkit behind blue eyes localizzazione localization localizzazione localization snow bo snow bo diablo editor diablo editor speed (lazy dog software) v1 0 speed (lazy dog software) v1 0 shakira screensaver shakira screensaver scuole di regia scuole di regia computer cable computer cable siti lesbici siti lesbici maradino maradino milano teknival 05 milano teknival 05 prg torino prg torino trasporti piemonte trasporti piemonte honsen honsen trenet charles trenet charles chi ti dice chi ti dice testo e traduzione emon testo e traduzione emon muratore muratore muratore

    Reply

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