Template Authoring

Just a demo

2003-12-10T13:46:00.000+01:00

In this larger box, I type in my blog post, which will be published with the colours and layout I selected from a collection of templates

Kinds of pages

2003-09-08T21:55:00.000+02:00

I was toying around with some geocities templates again today, trying to decide which could be tweaked into something useful. I find that most such templates are either for written pages or lists. What if I want something in between? I think it may be sensible to list a few kinds of pages: The overview or menu or table of contents page; the "story" page; the "newspaper front" page -- contents with tempting paragraphs; the file record page, like an address lookup; the photo album page (probably a sub-type of the previous kind); the "tool" -- forms feeding into a database.

Apple's .Mac Homepages

2003-09-08T21:51:00.000+02:00

Incredibly narrow! The templates can hardly be used at all outside of the narrow pages they are designed for, as there ar many strange panes with limited numbers of characters, and most headlines can't be edited. The menu pages are the most versatile, but they are also very limited in how long the descriptions can be.
Many of them look nice, but they are oh, so slow to use, as all images you want to insert must come from your iDisk.

Two kinds of restrictions

2003-09-04T14:34:00.000+02:00

Some restrictions are genre traits, not technological prescripts. There are many things I can't do in Blogger, or that are difficult to do. But there are also many things that one could do on the Web that would be totally outside of the Blog genre. It is too simple to criticise Blogger for making it difficult to leave the genre it was meant to serve

Engineering

2003-09-04T14:30:00.000+02:00

Here's how I think (naively?) engineers work: 1. pose a problem; 2: hypothesise a solution; 3: test the solution; 4: evaluate the results.
I will need to pose the problem and evaluate the results precisely.

Proof of method

2003-09-04T14:28:00.000+02:00

In the Hypothetic-deductive method, you can only prove something false. In algorithms, much of algebra, and in engineering, it seems to me you can only prove that things work. You cannot know if something is impossible, you can only demonstrate what is possible.

Time for thinking

2003-09-04T10:42:00.001+02:00

It is time to get theoretical. Now I need to think about the analytic-syntetic method. Read paper.

New blogger

2003-09-04T10:42:00.000+02:00

Isn't really an advantage to me. It is some small new features, but the interface is slow. Way too slow. The link tool, however, is excellent. It was a breeze to link to, say, Mark's blog.

Hypertext blogging

2003-09-04T10:40:00.000+02:00

Two features of the blog are now implemented: hypertext (that is, children) and unique stylesheets. It took a whole day plus a little this morning. I am very pleased with the outcome.
Whatever Mark says, Tinderbox does strange things with relative linking. Images invariably get a preceding "/", and relative links from pages with ^include are wrong.
Left to fix: overall look, tempting intros on front page, bookmarks, blogroll, random old post.

2003-09-03T10:26:00.000+02:00

Spent all of Monday and a few hours of today on rebuilding the blog I deleted. Still not quite finished.

Then I took my paper to Dayan's half-baked seminar. He has a way of telling anyone that their project is big, important and with deep theoretical impact. It was nice. Books to read: Eco's Open Work, Kristevas Verisimilar.

2003-09-03T10:22:00.000+02:00

Daniel said that PowerPoint is like power dressing: it is a costume you put on to look impressive.

What he meant was to say that templates are a way of performing yourself. You choose the template to look like who you wish to be to others. I think he is right on the spot.

Most templates, like Blogger's do not prescribe much of your writing, it just dresses is up in visual codes, that but a second meaning on your message; the meaning of your self -- your power suit.

2003-09-03T10:18:00.000+02:00

Daniel Dayan suggested a great term for the limits of templates: prescriptions or prescripts. Something written in advance, with the double meaning of something that is good for you.

20 august

2003-08-20T19:40:00.000+02:00

Found the bug in Tinderbox, and a workaround. It seems that a don'tExport item blocks all other items further down the Outline view. When I moved the item to the bottom of the Outline, it worked. Big step forward.
I can't decide what's best, to have the previous and next buttons on top or bottom.

Blogthis

2003-08-08T09:14:00.000+02:00

BLOGGER
Ah. The blogthis button. One-click linking with annotation. A revolution in my mind. Come on, Mark, we need this for Tinderbox!

Tech script 3: Size of writing box

2003-07-01T10:41:00.000+02:00

The bigger box, the longer average post. Jill noted this long ago. Blogger new has a way bigger box than the lofi version. Nielsen has noted this for search boxes, by the way.

Technology script 2: linking

2003-07-01T10:39:00.000+02:00

It seems to me that linking has no tools provided for me in Blogger. And then I hesitate. I feel too grown up to type <a href="blabla">, remembering to close the quote marks and the anchor, check the URI, and typing in a link title. In Tinderbox, I link much more frequently, because it's so easy. But it Tinderbox, I don't link as I write, as it's so clumsy to get out of the link anchor again. Instead, I write the post first, and then add the links as a gloss.

These differences are tremendously important, as links are what makes some kinds of blogs what they are. According to Jill, the ODP people consider a blog without links a journal. Historically, that makes sense. Didn't these things start off as lists of sites visited? Anyway, as Adrian or Jill has noted: links are what turns blogs into networked writing. That is a different notion than quick texts.

Secret gem

2003-07-01T10:32:00.001+02:00

This post is an experiment with Blogger. Can I keep it without publishing?

Technology script 1: time of publishing

2003-07-01T10:32:00.000+02:00

Why are Mark's blog posts more polished than many others'? 'Cause they're written in Tinderbox, with the "ready to go" folder. It allows you -- no, not allows you, it merely makes it easier, which is what technology scripts are about -- to save ideas for later. You can't do that in Blogger lofi. With Netscape or Mozilla (which I am using right now), you can "post" before you "publish", but to save for a couple of days seems harder. Hmm, let me try.

Blogging is activity

2003-07-01T10:29:00.000+02:00

the last post went into a spur of insight, so a new note was in order:
There certainly are many blog genres. Jill knows this, I've said it a couple of times. Of course there is. But what seems to me is that blogs more than being a genre are an activity. We should speak of blogging rather than blogs. I'ts a quick writing-and-publishing technology and a resulting writing habit, resuliting in a reading habit, a commenting habit, etc. ad infinitum.

Golublog

2003-07-01T10:26:00.000+02:00

Via Jill. A blog that "looks like Lynx." Which of course isn't true. It's classic typography in black, red and gray. Georgia, very conservative and classic in the American way. But no sidebars or columns, which of course makes a lot of sense. Why use columns in electronic texts?

Very few links, Golublog is writing experiments. Amazing long excerpts of (science) fiction. It sure gripped me, this Alex is a talented writer.
He also has long post, which I bookmarked, on slow conversations/quick texts. I think that is the post Torill linked to recently. Now, this is true for many blogs, like Adrian's and Torill's. Maybe Mark's, though Mark is very good at keeping his posts short and pointed. (Guess he spends quite some time weeding them down). Jill is like that at times, but she mixes those posts with shorter link texts. And those are certainly different: consider the very linky blogs of Gonzalo or Lisbeth.

Day summary

2003-06-30T14:31:00.000+02:00

Collected a long list of bookmarks, mostly from Mark and Jill. Will read tomorrow. Judging from the look of Mark's link collection, he likes what Jill called micro-narratives. Bad name, they're not narratives, but episodes. Will write about that. And about McClouds closure, which Mark comments. Think branigan has a term for it already.

2003-06-30T13:46:00.000+02:00

This note is posted from Tinderbox 1.3. I am trying this as I find that Blogger may be a bit restrictive for research notes.

2003-06-30T11:21:00.000+02:00

Welcome to GeoCities

I have made my first homepage with a Wizard. Works fine, but all the templates are butt ugly to my taste. There's no help in making several interlinked pages -- a site -- but that might be a premium option. Why only four links? How do one link in the text?

2003-06-02T14:08:00.000+02:00

Day summary

Yep, i wrote the <h2> code for the heading, and it worked. Well, well.

Today, I:
1. Wrote down objectives for the project.
2. Made this blog.
3. Played with Blogger, and downloaded Mozilla.

2003-06-02T14:06:00.000+02:00

Heading?

I see the template example has headings for the posts. Do I type them in HTML? Mozilla seems to work fine with the new layout. Don't really see the big difference, though.

2003-06-02T12:45:00.000+02:00

OK, so I changed the paragraph setting and the time code. Already a bit technical. The time zone could be a question in the setup process, if you ask me.
I may change the template completely, but will have to edit the raw HTML. I know how to do that, but again, it's technical. Now this is BloggerLoFi. Will have to reenter in some other browser.

2003-06-02T12:39:00.000+02:00

Wow, cool template! I like both the colours and the typography. Links have to be edited, though. Capital letters in the subtitle isn't that great an idea, and I have to shorten it to make it look nice. It's CSS, which is very good.
I notice it won't take note headings. That's a script. What if I want them? Who says dates are always the best way of identifying posts?
Next will be to check out the settings.

2003-06-02T12:34:00.000+02:00

I hereby declare this blog open. It won't really be a blog, but a research log. It will be my archive during a seven-month research project on "technological scripting." More on that later.