After reading Peter’s posts today “The difference between a web site and a blog” and his subsequent correction, “I goofed,” I feel compelled to riff a bit and share a story about a face-to-face interview I had with a local attorney and business owner on the same subject: “What makes a blog different?”

For some time now I’ve felt that even those positioning themselves as blog consultants/experts are still feeling their way around figuring all this stuff out. How to define it, how to measure it, how to sell it.

[…]

It is hard to define something personal. I mean, everybody know that a good alimentation(can I say that in English? I do not find the good term ) and exercise make you feel much more better. However, how would you explain it? It is really, really hard. The only way is to experiment it, change your alimentation habits and start doing sport every 3 days, then you will know what i mean.

It is the same for blogging. Blogging is personal, it’s a way to express you and get feedback from other peoples. You can’t fully know what it will bring to you until you start it and that you discover the way you will blog.

Interesting article on ways to jumpstart your brain into action by changing something physical.
By mimicking the sympathetic reactions to a threatening environment (sitting up straight, standing, moving quickly, deeper breathing), it appears to be possible to activate the sympathetic system, which then takes over. We are ready to act, or in our case, be productive. We can also change our environment to one that causes the sympathetic system to activate, one that is more spartan, threatening, or simply uncomfortable. The result? We take action. We are more productive.
This doesnt surprise me a bit, and if its all true, it might confirm my hunch that sitting still and staring at a screen all day is a recipe for lethargy, lame thinking, and productivity inertia.
[…]

However, I think that it is much more easy to say than to do; unfortunately. The problem in my case, tell me if I am the only one in this situation, is that you know that your time is precious and need to be productive. You also know that changing your environment would help you but you also know that it take times to change your environment, and you think that you do not have that time. So, this is hard to tell you: “He! you need to spend 30 ou 45 minutes of your previous time to go to that cofee shop, you will be much more productive this way!”. No… it is not easy

Many new bloggers, especially the professional or business kind, find it difficult, and ultimately a bit frustrating, getting people to come read their blog, especially via search engines like google.
Ive been asked many times if I know why a site doesnt show up in Google results after a reasonable about out time and what can be done to help move things along. Now, Im not 100% sure of all the details, I mean, Google is in large part a mystery even to someone like me who thinks he knows quite a bit about how it all works, but I do think it takes time to build worthwhile traffic and the best way to do it is to keep at it.

[…]

I think that the whole process start by creating relationship with other bloggers. Then, when other bloggers will read your posts, they will leave comments and ultimately link back to your good posts. Only then you will build your reader auditorium(can I said that in English? ).
How? I think that the first step his by doing what Im doing right now: by commenting other posts. Not only by commenting with posts like: Good Work!…. It was a good reading… etc. No. Try to bring something new to the discussion, ask questions to the author, etc. You also can leave email messages to the author to thank him for his work, etc. Its always appreciated.

I keep being surprised at how such a large fraction of people around me want to hoard knowledge as if it was food. It is wrong on many levels. Your knowledge is more valuable when you share it. We are not competing for knowledge because knowledge is not scarce. In global economy, if you don’t share your knowledge, someone else will, you will simply be put out of the loop. You have to think yourself as an information node. Information nodes where data comes in but not out are broken and of little value.

[…]

Well said Daniel. What make profesionals (when I say profesionnal, I am talking about someone that work and learn about his domains for decades) worth his pay is not his “secret” knowledge of the domain, no, it’s the commun knowledge he have of it, and the intepretation he do of it.

I’ve had so much great feedback on my “Be a more productive blogger” post that I’ve decided to dedicate a Web site (and blog) to the concept. Way back I did a series of posts over at Asterisk on how to design, build and maintain a successful blog. Those posts were very popular and seemed to help quite a few people. After that I’d write on a fairly regular basis about tips, tricks and techniques for bloggers and, again, those posts seemed to be helpful for many people.

[…]

I am sure that you learned a lot in the process, the opposite would be surprising

It’s the same for me. I initially started blogging to try increasing my English skills and it worked like a charm (It’s not perfect but far better than 8 months ago hehehe)

I also meet really interesting people; I constantly clarified my thoughts by posting and discussions about these posts with my readers, etc. Only a fool could not learn from such a process that blogging is. It’s the magic of writing: something I had not discovered, and even suspected, before starting to blog.

One thing all bloggers and webmasters want is return visitors. Many of us watch the stats and monitor this critical measurement of web success…if you come back time and time again, you must like me. If you like me and return enough you’ll finally heed my call to action – make a purchase, register, click on an advertiser, etc. Stickiness makes a blog and return visitors are paramount to ecommerce success - repeat buyers are a critical component to revenue growth.

How best do you get people back to your site time-after-time?

[…]

As other readers said: Content. However, I will also add feeds. It’s the easiest way for your readers to get in touch with the news things you post on your website. Remember, feeds can containt anything… not just messages.

This is a bit off the topic of cancer, but very much on the topic of putting together this new site. For the last few day I’ve been putting in some long hours at the computer, piecing together this blog, which I now call Cancer NewsWatch. As I was taking a break this evening, I cruised the sites of a few well-respected bloggers (culled from a recent list by Darren at ProBlogger,) and came upon two similar posts, one at ShaiCoggins.com, the other at The Blog Herald, lamenting the outright theft of original content, presumably for the goal of making a quick buck on ad-revenue, and wandering what could or should be done about it. As a person fairly new to blogging, I have to say I find the subject disturbing, though certainly not surprising.

[…]

Hello Cary,

You see why you ought to write about this topic? Because it reach intimately millions of people that have questions about how to handle it. I never had been confronted with cancer in my near surrounding (the few family members I have) but I know that soon or later there are good chances that it happen and then I will have many questions about the situation I’ll face, and people like you will help me in the process.

Keep going your good work Cary, I think you will help many people,

Salutations,

Fred

LONDON, England (CNN) — A revolutionary machine that can copy itself and manufacture everyday objects quickly and cheaply could transform industry in the developing world, according to its creator.

The “self-replicating rapid prototyper,” or “RepRap” is the brainchild of Dr. Adrian Bowyer, a senior lecturer in mechanical engineering at the University of Bath in the UK.

It is based on rapid prototyping technology commonly used to manufacturer plastic components in industry from computer-generated blueprints — effectively a form of 3D printer.

But Bowyer told CNN the RepRap’s ability to copy itself could put rapid prototyping technology within reach of the world’s poorest communities by alleviating the need for the sort of large-scale industrial infrastructure common across the developed world.

“People can start manufacturing goods at a low price,” said Bowyer. “All one needs is a computer and a machine that can copy itself. It can spread without enormous expenditure of capital and where labor costs are low.

“It is the first technology that we can have that can simultaneously make people more wealthy while reducing the need for industrial production.”

Prototyping machines currently cost around $45,000 but Bowyer believes that price could drop to a few hundred dollars as the number of self-replicating models increases exponentially.

“It makes industry a little more like agriculture,” said Bowyer, who specializes in biomimetics, the study and application of natural processes in technologies such as engineering, design and computing.

“Farmers have been dealing with self-replicating products for years.”

Rapid prototyping machines work by building a succession of layers, either bonded by a laser or held together by alternating layers of glue.

The key feature of the RepRap is its ability to print electrical circuits by squirting a metal alloy with a low-melting point from a heated nozzle.

It seems a great machine. However, the problem with today electronic devices is that they are all using processor, micro-processors or micro-controllers. What you seem to be able to do with this machine is to replicate an electronic board, but you will always need to have these high-tech micro-puce and other electronics devices like resistances, relays, conductors, etc. It is sure that it is better than nothing but I can agree, for the moment, with the following assertion:

“People can start manufacturing goods at a low price,” said Bowyer. “All one needs is a computer and a machine that can copy itself. It can spread without enormous expenditure of capital and where labor costs are low.

Read more at The machine that can copy anything

‘Indian scientists claim to have invented a new robot which has the ability to improve couple`s sex lives.
Dr CRJP Naidu, of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence & Robotics, says the robot can simulate body movements and he boasts of its “sexual prowess”.

He told that the robot could be used to help couples with marriage problems.

Dr Naidu said, “One of the reasons for marital break-ups today is physical inadequacy. Couples are so stressed out that there`s no time for foreplay, so essential to get the juices flowing. A smart machine can bridge that gap in no time.”

The Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility robot (ASIMO) is being produced by Honda, and scientists are working to improve it further before it is marketed to “gadget loving” Indians.’

It is not really a breaking news, but I blogged it because I think it open our mind on what robotic could bring us and how it can be use in our daily life. I have to say that I never, ever, thought about this application of Asimo when I saw him at Pittsburgh, walking, dancing and climbing stairs.

Read more at Robotic relief for stressed couples

‘NASA’s next mission to Mars will attempt to put a long-armed lander on icy ground in the north.

The agency approved Thursday the Phoenix lander for an August 2007 launch.

Phoenix will look for possible water ice and signs of life.

The project was selected in 2003 for planning and design, and will now begin to prepare for the trip. It is the first project in NASA’s Mars Scout Program of competitively selected missions, the agency said in a news release.

Unlike the still-active rovers Spirit and Opportunity, Phoenix will be stationary. It has a robotic arm to dig down to the martian ice layer and deliver samples to sophisticated analytical instruments on the lander’s deck.’

After the Canadian arm comes the Pheonix’s arm. What is awesome is the price of the mission: around 386 million USD. This is the new way NASA makes things: multiple little low cost space projects. The only way for them to archive this is by continuing to develop current and new robotic platforms, and this is what they do.

Read more at NASA Approves Long-Armed Robot For Next Mars Mission

‘From building cars to exploring other planets, robots have proven to be useful partners in advancing human achievement. These magnificent machines have been the focus of many movies, in which they are depicted as mimicking their human counterparts by walking, talking and behaving like human beings.

With the latest breakthrough in robotics technology, robots may actually be capable of what many modern movies have depicted, and thus become even more indispensable to our society.

University Electrical Engineering Professor Jessy Grizzle and a team of French scientists have designed a robot called RABBIT that can perfectly mimic human ambulatory patterns.

When RABBIT is nudged it can regain its balance instantly, which prevents it from falling over like its predecessors would have done.’

While I am reading things like this about biped robots, I always think about the goal of the RoboCup competition: having a team of biped robots to win over the best human soccer team by 2050. I think they will be able to reach their goal.

Read more at Researchers take the next step in robotic technology

Mr McLurkin, a postgraduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is designing robots to work together to make collective decisions. If he succeeds, swarms of robots could be put to work in business, in the home, and by the military, perhaps in space.

“A swarm or a team can collaborate to overcome what a single robot might not be able to do,” explains Paolo Gaudiano, who works on swarms at Icosystem in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Soon, teams of 40 robots could be employed as border security guards and outside airports. Frontline Robotics in Ottawa, Canada, installed collaborative software on its vacuum cleaner-sized PC-bots and its much larger vehicle-sized “Grunts”, which it plans to put to work patrolling a runway at Ottawa airport. The firm has also sold Grunts to a South Korean company called DoDaam Systems, which is hoping to win a contract from the South Korean Government to patrol its border with North Korea.

The patrolling robots will use wi-Ff to share what they see, sniff and hear. They may even be able to triangulate the exact position of an intruder, or the source of a plume of smoke from an explosion, something no single robot could do.’

ā€œSwarmā€ is a new Artificial Intelligence domain that scientists explore since some decades. I think that the most promising avenues of the technologies are in military or for the space exploration. I know that the NASA works on such robot teams to eventually send them to explore a new planet or to build a pre-base for humans.

Read more at Robot swarms must learn to bee hive

‘It looks like a watermelon-sized eyeball on wheels that glows in hues of purple, blue and orange while gurgling with whimsical buzzes and rings.

The new Roborior gadget works as interior decor, but itā€™s also a virtual guard dog because it has a digital camera, infrared sensors and videophone capability ā€“ to notify householders of intruders while they are away from home.

The Ā£1,400 contraption by Japanese robot maker Tmsuk Co. Ltd. and electronics company Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd. can connect with the ownerā€™s mobile phone to relay streaming video taken on the robotā€™s digital camera.

It can be remote-controlled with a handset to go forward, backward, left or right. The buttons also adjust the angle of the digital camera to look up or down.

The US army is also developing such type of robots. The only difference is that they are shipped with build-in RPG.

Read more at New Japanese Robot Works as Guard Dog

‘Toyota Motor Corp aims to start selling robots that can help look after elderly people or serve tea to guests by 2010, the Asahi daily reported on Tuesday.

Japan’s top automaker sees a declining birthrate and aging population leading to growing demand for robots that can help in tasks such as child care and nursing care, the report said. ‘

The World will chance in a near future with these new robot projects. I saw Asimo in action in Pittsburgh some years ago: he was astonishing. Japanese have a great problem: the population is getting older and the young generations seem to stop mating. Itā€™s why they started a national robotic project. The project is intended to build domestic robots to take care of elders. They will benefits from these new products. In a near future we too, Canadians, will benefits from these robots because we will face the same demographic problem in 10 or 20 years.

Read more at Toyota aims to sell service robots by 2010

Warning: I am about to discuss code. Your eyes may experience a slight ā€œglazing overā€ sensation.

Iā€™ve spent the last year or so devouring countless books, tutorials and articles pertaining to CSS, web standards and blog and CMS technology. In many ways it feels like Iā€™ve had to unlearn everything Iā€™ve been practicing for the last half dozen years or so and start from scratch. This transition was not an urgent necessityā€”I could have very well continued to build websites the way I always have and they would work just fine. For now.

But I know that the web will look and function very differently than it does today in a few years time, and I intend to be prepared. I am not only looking out for my own career, but for my clientsā€™ investment in the web as well. They may not want to know about web standards now, but soon they will (or at the least, it will surely affect them), and I need to be an expert when that time comes.

One of the main things that the semantic web changes is the search capability. Search will, theoretically, be much more effective than current keyword search. You will be able to enter search string like “I am searching for a used car in Montreal for less than 3000 dollars”. Then the search engines will analyze, semantically, this string and find the best entries.

What to tell to your clients? Simple: if your employees are spending 45 minutes by days to search things, they will now spend only 15 minutes to search what they really want. He will save approximately 75 hours/year/employee or around 2250$ if he have a salary of 30$/hour. Only for each employee… I think it could worth it

However, if you want a good introduction book about the Semantic Web, there it is:

A semantic web primer

Another way to Build Blogging Relationships is to be a good host on your blog.

V and I went out to a friendā€™s home recently for a meal and had one of the best nights weā€™ve had in a long time simply because of the efforts of our hosts. They went to a lot of trouble to make sure that our night was just perfect on so many levels. Our wine glasses were never empty, they had a wood fire burning, they took genuine interest in us and asked a lot of stimulating questions, they offered us the best seats in their living room, they served some wonderful food and basically spoilt us rotten all night. As I look back on the night I realize that because of all of the little things that they did, V and I went home feeling very special and wanting to return the favor and have these friends over to our home as soon as we could.

A post like the ones I like to read Darren

How could we not agree with such a writing? Itā€™s impossibleā€¦

So, I would like to suggest a book to David: ā€œOn Writing Wellā€ by William Zinsser. For Zinsser, a good writing is a ā€œhumanā€ one. One that you know it was written by someone human This is applicable for any type of writing: corporate, personal, memo note, technical, anniversary card, etc.

However, when I read this book some months ago, I tought that all bloggers ought to read it. Everything is in the writing style

I think I blogged something on this bookā€¦ wait Iā€™ll check itā€¦ Yes I wrote something about the general idea of the book, but I tought that I had wrote some quotes, unfortunately, I didnā€™t. So, you can have an idea of the book by reading this post.

People often ask me how Iā€™m able to keep my sites moving forward and updated with (hopefully) good content as often as I do. Iā€™ve actually talked about this several times over at my ā€œflagshipā€ site, Asterisk and Iā€™m thinking about a book/site dedicated to the idea of successful content creation.

[…]

First of all, felicitation for this great post. Everything is here and it was a real pleasure to read.

You asked for new tips and tricks? There are some things I blogged about some months ago that I hope could be interesting.

ā€”ā€”-

My first trick is to use a Personal Wiki. I use it as my digital idea journal. There is the post that explain what a personal wiki is, which one I use and how I use it:

ā€”ā€”-

The second trick I use is a ā€œComments Blogā€. This is a place where I put all the comments I do one other blogs (like this one). This is a way to check back at the discussion I had; to find new ideas.

Follow the link read more about the concept.

ā€”ā€”-

What do I use as my paper idea journal?
ā€”ā€”-

I hope these tips and tricks will help you being a more productive blogger.

Salutations,

[…]

In a sense what Trevor has accidentally found with his post is the power of the long tail and his suggestion isnā€™t too far from the truth of what a lot of successful bloggers are doing with their posting about products. Take a look at Gizmodo and Engadget as to big examples - both are posting specifically about consumer electronic products - each post on a different one.

[…]

Is this because bloggers and blog-readers are gadget geeks? Personally I like to be aware of the last electronic gadget, they are so fascinating.

However, I think that this phenomenon is due to the current state of search engine algorithms. Iā€™m not sure that the result would be the same in a semantic web infrastructure.

Thanks for your comments, Fred, and especially for the follow-up on Andrew Coyne. He has indeed suspended his blog’s comments function. Evidently he found his readers’ behaviour as tiresome as I did.

I can’t resist commenting, however, on something else Coyne has just published:

“A Liberal less than a week, la Stronach already has the ly - er, lingo down pat. Ms Stronach pronounces herself hurt by the reaction to her last-minute conversion to the Liberal cabinet/cause, and touches all the right bases: new low, return to civility, why the focus on her private life, etc. As her old friend and mentor Brian told her, ya dance with the one that bought ya.”

The Brian in question is the former Tory prime minister, Brian Mulroney, who achieved for his party both its greatest majority and its near-total destruction. And what I hope he told Belinda Stronach was: “Ya dance with the one that bRought ya.” Quite a Freudian slip!

Canadian politic is becoming a national sport. All the things that happened 25 years ago come back in unexpected places like the commission gommery…

The most beautiful paradox in the Canadian history is that the vote for the separation of the Quebec the 20 may 1980 give the repatriation of the Canadian constitution some years later. Is that not so beautiful?

Now, the program that helped the vote of the “Non”, is separating the Canada one more time.

Canadian politic is a pearl of our beautiful country

Blessed as I am with the attention span of a gerbil, I tend to pursue new interests all too often.

Blogging has turned out to be the ideal answer to this traitā€”or the ultimate means of self-destruction, depending on your point of view. Since launching this blog in the summer of 2003, I’ve created at least a couple of dozen others. Some have been short-lived; others have persisted and flourished. All have taught me something about the nature of this medium.

[…]

Sometimes, things are incomprehensible… However, I think that the fact that Mr. Coyne is a columnist in some of the most popular journals in Canada have something to do with his traffic. However, I think he agree with you: http://andrewcoyne.com/2005/05/i-alienate-my-readers-again.php

Blogs would be a great educational tool. The problems is that it take time and patience, things that most students spend elsewhere, or simply do not have.

You said it: it’s a perfect tool for self-education. I’m like you, I first started to blog to learn something. I started my blog 8 months ago to practice my English writing. At first, it was not as enjoyable as I thought but I finally found a great pleasure to build it, write it and converse with my readers. I had a goal: I used Blogs to reach it. 8 months later, I found that my English has really increased despite the fact that all my social interactions here are in French.

By the way, I just subscribed to the feed of your English usage blog, it’s a great idea you had

[…]
In a medium where many argue ā€˜content is kingā€™ I would argue that its queen is design. This is not just the case in blogging but in many aspects of business. I live in a suburb where there is a local strip of shops. There is a huge variety of stores, cafes, restaurants and offices there but most of them are fairly run down with quite a few old ma and pa stores that probably havenā€™t changed much in the past 15 - 20 years. But things are changing - the suburb is becoming more popular and gradually new shops and cafes are creeping into the strip of shops.
[…]

Some blogs are pure peace of art. However, does it make it fun to read? I donā€™t think so. But, a blog well designed (not necessarily graphically) is essential because it could, unconsciously, tell the readers how he is committed to the task. So, if a blog is up-side-down, Iā€™ll check at it 2 secs and go away nonobservant the contentā€¦ because Iā€™ll not take the time to read it.

I knew that you would handle the problem and it’s what you done, thank.

However, this is a beautiful example of the security threats that could rise when more than one systems are using together (and that are not necessarily build to interact together). It’s the responsibility of everybody to be aware of the risks, specially the one of users.

If we have one thing to remember of this story, I think it would be this.

Do you use Gmail? Have you set up the ability to read your Gmail via an Atom feed?

Have you made the mistake of doing that in a Web-based RSS aggregator that lets you search other people’s feeds?
[…]

I confirm that it’s always working. It seem that my subscription have been changed over the night for the “bloglines news” but I’m always able to see the username/password of such feed url.

FYI, NewsGator Online has explicit support for feeds that require authentication, and you do NOT need to put the credentials in the URL as described here. In fact, you should definitely NOT put credentials into a URL, for the reasons you describe here and others. Just wanted to correct the point about NewsGator, though…since we have explicit support for authenticated feeds.

Thank alot for this comment. My point is not really to target any service. The point is to try say to users: wait, do not do everything without asking question… it’s sure that this new technology is really cool but depending how you use it, you could have some security/privacy problems.

I’m a big fan of mindmaps and moleskins - I find mindmaps much more flexible and dynamic for notetaking, planning or just general doodling. I find it easier to go back to a mind map and add in or update than I cna on linear form notes. BTW the blog is geat only found it the other day

Yup, I completely agree with you. But I think that they have two different functions. I mean, mind maps a great for what you said. However, when you write an article, write and rewrite it, your brain will work differently and you’ll deepen the knowledge you have of your subject and root it into your mind. So, I think that the two methods are complementary. Mind maps are soo great for the investigation phase of your thinking

Thank a lot for your kind words. I’m always happy to see that this blog is not just useful to me but also others.

YAFLE picked up on something from Common Craft with Whatā€™s Your RSS Reading Strategy?. He uses Bloglines and scans about once a day. I’ve been meaning to respond since he posted, but have just written something similar on a local mailing list, so I have a starting point.

I use an aggregator (NewsGator). There is no sense in visiting each website individually to figure out whether they have posted something new, particularly with the number I am reading. This means that if a blog doesn’t have a web feed, it is highly unlikely that I will read it. In fact, there are no blogs today that I read on their website directly.

[…]

Personally I’m using a stand alone software called Omea Reader. I prefer it because I can read my blog while I’m offline. The think I would like is a plugin to synchronize a blogline or newsgator account with it: it would be the best of the two worlds. I posted how I use this feed reader some weeks ago:

http://radio.weblogs.com/0140770/2005/03/05.html#a101

Like Americans, even in Italian bloggers are -sometimes- better than journalists.
What happened here two days ago is something incredible:

“In March, U.S. troops in Iraq shot to death Nicola Calipari, the Italian intelligence agent that rescued the kidnapped journalist Giuliana Sgrena. U.S. commission on the incident produced a report which public version was censored for more than one third. Now Italian press is reporting that all confidential information in the report is available to the public, just by copying “hidden” text from the PDF and pasting it in a word processor (Italian). The uncensored report can now be directly downloaded (evil .DOC format, sorry)”

Wonderful

It’s awesome to see how technology is misunderstood. It’s widespread, daily used and not understood. People, specifically in censitive fields, will need to get courses to get somewhat up-to-date with technologies usage.

Great! I have never thought about it before.
Yes, we can use a bookmark, anyway reading for pleasure is not alway easy if you have to work and/or study, and short chapters could psicologically help us to plan our reading time.
BTW, one thing I always loved are the chapter titles; not all books have a title for each chapter, but I think they are a delicious anticipation of what you’re going to read, like watching at the menu card at the restaurant. It’s like blog’s post, isn’t it?
The question is: why so many writers use long chapters? It could be a style choice, of course. Sometimes, the author could desire to give a specific rhythm to the story; it’s like movies: the director could choice to show the facts in a few minutes, or - au contraire - to give the spectator the time to reflect while they happen.
I do think there’s a rhythm in any story, and this rhythm should be given by the author. A pause in reading, sometimes, could be like a second of silence in a musical composition: it’s void, but important.
At the other hand, I think very often (not always) there’s no logical reason to trunk a story in a point or the other. Sometimes it really seems casual. What do you think about?
Another reason for chapters’ length could be a technical one: expecially when you are not famous, the editors use to ask one or two chapters to evaluate your work. Then, if you want to show your talent, you can’t give him just ten pages, even beautiful.

I love chapter titles too. I think in next years (10 or 20) the way to edit books will change according to blogs. We need the time to explore the concept and the way we’ll edit blogs; what’s the best way to do it. When blogs will get mature, I think that editors will incorporate some ideas in traditional books editing like chapter titles

Many authors say: think simple. Create short sentences with short and meaningful words. I thing that this “minimalist” vision could be applicable in a more global view: the chapters.

Iā€™ve previously mentioned Bay-area writer Anne Lamott in the context of her fondness for index cards and her belief in the importance of capturing ideas at the moment they come to you (itā€™s something I also really believe in). Itā€™s fun to hear her talk about this stuff, too. She has a discursive speaking style thatā€™s, by turns, insightful, frustrating, and very funny.

Over the past few weeks, Iā€™ve been reading her book Bird by Bird a section or two at a time whenever I have a few minutes, and I have to say, itā€™s one of the most inspiring books Iā€™ve read in a long time.
[…]

You enjoyed On Writing Well? I’m currently reading “Writing to Learn” also by William Zinsser. It’s another great piece of writing.

“[…]that we write to find out what we know and what we want to say […]”

“[…]Writing and thinking and learning were the same process[…]”

Also, “Page after Page” is another great piece of writing by Heather Sellers.

The first time I opened a blog (may 2003, now closed, always ateleven though), I asked myself: anonimous or not?
I decided to be anonimous, like I’m still doing (no surname or other).
Why am I an anonimous blogger? Why there are so many anonimous bloggers?
Everybody has his motivations. The most frequent could be:
[…]

Great post! I’m like you: real name but not the full one.

Personally it’s a question of adaptation. I never wrote of my whole life. I get my French courses and do as little as I needed.

Many questions rise: Is my work good? Do I want that my surrounding know that I’m writing. Do I want that people, around me, know all the things I think of?

This is an adaptation I decided to make and it’s going well. I started to blog 6 or 7 months ago and I done progress. I said to some of my best friends that I was writing on an “anonymous” web site.

It’s really a question of being discovered.

I don’t fear to associate my full name with all I wrote, because I believe in my ideas and thoughs; it’s… another question.

Months after months I open myself more and more and eventually I’ll probably became a full, non anonymous, blogger.

I’ll take another step in some days, check it out Max