Blogging Tools 2004/6

Google's Site Flavored Search

I've added a Google Site Flavored Search to my blog. so I can play with this and figure out if it is valuable for the narrow range of topics typically covered here. Its located in the sidebar so you'll need to go the site if you are reading this through syndication.

What it is supposed to do is tailor your searches to categories that are related to my blog but the choices for categories that were available when I set it up were a little broad.

Its an interesting service though. Another first for Google.

PyCS Hits Today Ranking Broken?

I've been noticing that the Hits today component of the Rankings report for the community server has been growing for several days now .... is that thing working right? I expect at some point that the number should dip down as we cross 11:59 pm somewhere in the world ....

"Backlinks by Bloglines" bookmarklet

Seb has produced another nifty bookmarklet ... this time one that performs a backlinks search on Bloglines for the page you are currently viewing. Neat!

Now If Only I could add an Image to my RSS feed ...

I've noticed that some of the feeds I regularly read feature a lovely image along with their data ... that seems to be something buried in the PYDS rss implementation and is not easily customizable ... Perhaps could this become a feature in the next release of PYDS?.

This Blog Features Furl Links in the Sidebar!

If you only read this blog through syndication, you might not notice that I have added topical links as a sidebar to each of the categories that make up this blog. I have been using Furl to track my bookmarks for some time and have found it absolutely indispensible as a personal research tool. My bookmarks are available as both RSS feeds and html views for the public. To see what that looks like check out the html view and the RSS view.

I have now discovered that I can display categories of my furl bookmarks in my blog. I use PYDS as my blogging tool of choice and its use of a powerful templating system (Cheetah) I was able to quickly setup PYDS to display a sidebar of interesting links that matched the category of the weblog you happen to be looking at! Now when you look at the Jythonic cateogry, you see Jython and Python specific bookmarks in the sidebar. When you look at Biblio, you see bibliographic and academic writing tools related links in the sidebar.

The transformation of my blog is not yet complete but you get the general idea. Now all I need to do is add the RSS feed to match the links and I'll have an automatic linkblog that is driven by my actual web link management tool! Cool!

If anyone is interested in what the PYDS customization looks like, post a comment here and I can post the changes.