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07/29/2004 Meeting Notes

2004/07/29 Meeting notes

These notes are a best effort.

Blog your corrections and commentary.

Attendees:

  • WK: Wendy Koslow
  • j: j Baumgart
  • VD: Vernica Downey
  • Sun
  • SR: Shimon Rura
  • JA: Josh Ain
  • RF: Randy Fenstermacher
  • LW: Lisa Williams
  • JD: Jared Dunn

SP: Steve Pomeroy

  • RH: Rick Heller
  • AG: Andrew Grumet
  • MF: Michael Feldman
  • RM: Rebecca MacKinnon –>

    There will be no Webcast.

    Agenda

    Notes:

    • Still working on getting stuff for the Webcast
    • JA: What’s our goal for the group?
      • j, always the cynical realist: Do we need one?
    • LW: I’m here for the schwag
    • WK: I have Chilling Effects keychains. Would anyone like one?
    • ::WK hands out keychains::
    • LW: If we invite software developers and Webmasters, maybe we can get some logo mugs. Let’s invite some.
    • LW: I want to use this group to learn things I don’t know.
    • LW: let’s invite some people to come talk to us.
  • SR & Frassle Alpha 7
    • Frassle is free, please try it. You’ll like it.
    • Frassle It: a nifty link for starting a blog post in Frassle based on what Web page someone’s looking at.
    • Categories
      • JA: each category has its own RSS feed
      • RF, a library staff member, is drooling: can I put things in multiple categories?
      • SR: Yes!
    • relates other notes on the same subject
      • SR is demoing how Frassle makes these connections
      • Related Items view shows other feeds with similar categories, subjects
      • Frassle looks at the categories and the URLs linked in those categories and compares them across blog posts
        • it looks at the link under the title of the blog post, not links in the body of the post
      • LW: One problem is that Frassle doesn’t have many users, so the universe of posts it’s pulling from to decide what’s related
        • SR: Frassle also sucks in all the feeds that people subscribe to, so the universe is larger than just the people writing on Frassle
      • LW: What about having a link log as part of a blog? I’d like to have one, but I don’t want to move my blog. Is it possible to encapsulate something like that on my blog?
        • SR: Why, yes! Yes, there is: the Frassle Publisher. If you paste certain code into your blog, you can get what you want. That’s how the Publisher works.
        • SR showed some of the programming for the Publisher people can use to set up what displays
      • LW: How do you spend time doing this stuff? Binges? Set blocks of time? What?
        • SR: Well, we had a bootcamp a few weeks ago. He’s so familiar with this stuff, he needs to find a way to get some distance, so he invited some friends over and they spent the weekend playing with Frassle. He spends time in very little chunks.
      • JD: wants to play with it, but wants it on his own terms
        • SR: We’re thinking of going open source
      • LW: What about the ability to publish Frassle content to another server?
        • JD: syndication on there might work for me
      • JD: server/server admininstrator problems put things in jeopardy
        • SR guards against some of that, but recognizes at some point, he might vanish into the night
        • WK: backup your blog
      • RF: with regards to finding blogs to read, is Frassle part of the problem or part of the solution?
        • SR: hopes it’s part of the solution. It’s ability to relate posts and stuff should help someone find things worth reading
      • WK: Frassle seems to have a learning curve
        • j finds Frassle easy to use. Bug her for assistance.
      • LW: I don’t think it’s too bad.
    • RF: what’s an aggregator and what’s a feed?
      • LW: You use an aggregator to receive feeds; it’s easy
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