Category: Blogging

Yzabel / July 27, 2005

In a few words, here’s what Wikipedia has to say about the matter:

“Blog client (weblog client) is software to manage (post, edit) blogs from operating system with no need to launch a web browser. A typical blog client has an editor, a spell-checker and a few more options that simplify content creation and editing.”

Truth be told, my first introduction to such tools was done through the excellent Semagic for LiveJournal. Semagic just has one huge flaw: it’s meant to update your a LiveJournal blog, and no other, which was leaving me somewhat in the cold regarding all my nice WordPress-powered blogs (and others, in case I’d like to try different ones). This is the reason why I went looking for a a blog client, and evidently a good one.What would be the interest for these, might one ask? Depending on the people, the answer will range from “none” to “plenty”. All blog systems available out there come with a posting interface that will basically let you write and save your entries before publishing, thus seemingly making such editors a moot point. The thing is, it’s really about comfort, and this can be quite important in the process of writing (after all, I blog for my own pleasure, not to see it turn into a chore with a depressing interface on top of it).Read More

Yzabel / July 26, 2005

There used to be this mysterious little word, “RSS”, which meaning I couldn’t understand… However, now that I’m myself more used to the world of blogging and of reading news slightly more often than on a sporadic basis only, I found that these weird entities of “feeds” are almost a necessity to keep track with everything; bookmarking one’s favorite blogs in a browser can only take you that far.In a nutshell, feeds are files that are generated in the background and gather data everytime a blog, news source or similar website is updated. Not every blog will have a feed, mind you, but with those that do, it’s quite convenient, since it hands the readers a quick and convenient way to keep up to date with the blog, instead of having to bookmark and manually check it. What may seem like an easy and normal behavior when you read two blogs only becomes a hassle when you want to check a half hundred of them. Or more, way more.So, each time you see these cryptic acronyms of “RSS” (Really Simple Syndication), “Atom” and other “Syndicate this site (XML)” links, these are feeds. What you need next is an aggregator – in other words, a tool that will keep all your feeds in one place, and will check them regularly and warn you when they get updated. This basically comes down to two types of readers: offline and online ones.Read More

Yzabel / July 25, 2005

Alright, I pondered this over the whole week-end, and yesterday, I finally made my choice.Highly influenced by Loïc Le Meur’s way of doing on his own blog, I’ll freely admit it, I’ve decided to reconsider my bilingual approach to this blog, and actually make two blogs – one in English, the other in French. Let’s not fool myself, I like writing in both languages, but having them contained in one post each time I want to share something will probably get tiresome (it has already begun for me, actually). I’m not sure that I, as a reader, would exactly care about having two versions shoved under the nose each time, especially given the fact that I can often write long posts as well.So, here it is:

• The English version of this blog remains here, where it has always been. (You can also access it through the domain name ylogs.com.)
• La version française se trouve à présent à cette URL. Elle sera accessible par le biais du petit drapeau placé sous “About”. Beaucoup plus facile comme cela, non?

Over the past two days, I’ve moved most of the existing posts and comments to the French blog. The remaining ones will very likely be translated and added there as well when I actually finish the whole move (well, not exactly a move, but you get the drift).Of course, this is NOT meant to be a hassle on anyone, feel free to follow one RSS feed only and not both, and so on. Same goes for the comments: I would never expect anyone to comment twice just because the posts exist in both languages. In fact, these blogs can be viewed as quite independant from each other. I may at times post one entry in French only because it relates to something that doesn’t need to be in English, or the contrary, but when I can, I’ll “translate”. You probably won’t miss a lot if following one of the blogs only.Now to fully realize that I’ve added yet another thing to do to my growing list of activities… it’s a good thing that I write fast!

Yzabel / July 10, 2005

This morning, I stumbled upon what I could call an “essay on the basic posting formats in blogs”. This is something I won’t reproduce here, given that the article is divided in seven parts (eight, if you count the index from which you can reach all other parts) and quite long; however, I’d encourage anyone to read it. You can find it here on Contentious.While I’m aware that lots of bloggers don’t exactly care about what their writing style is like, or even about actually having a “style”, I took interest in this from my point of view of aspiring writer, as well as simply driven by curiosity. It doesn’t have anything to do with languages themselves, it doesn’t show a limited interest due to “being written for English-speaking people only”, and thus was instructing on more than one account. Whether in blogs or in other kinds of articles — who knows where the future and potential changes of career can take me or anyone else? — concision and editorial skills can be a valuable asset. So, I didn’t want to pass on the opportunity to take note, in case this would be useful to me later on.Some of these formats are very familiar; some others, such as the series postings, are seen less often. Regardless, there’s something somewhat fascinating in how all of this is shaped, and has developed over the years from simple links filters to a writing that can now be considered as a style.

Yzabel / July 5, 2005

Alright, alright, I’ve given in and taken the survey. I know everybody and their dog is taking it currently, but it helps them with their stats, after all, so I don’t feel too guilty.In other statistics, snatched from The Blog Herald: Business Week Online reports that 5% of French people are keeping a blog, which makes it about 3 millions of people in our nice country (and more than 2 millions of them using Skyblog, according to Loïc LeMeur’s Wiki, probably because it supports French characters and is easily available, I suppose).Oui oui, 3 millions de bloggers français. Certes, le pays est bien plus petit que les States, ce qui fait que les pourcentages grimpent vite en flèche… mais quand même!