Bernard Hickey, a Jo-Blo who gets it
Bernard Hickey is a financial journalist, this blog post isn’t about Finance…
99 posts categorized "Weblogs"
01 July 2008
14 June 2008
I know the identity of Aussie Stig!
It should have occurred to me at the time. A famous Aussie auto-blogger suddenly announces he’s giving up, actually scaling down, blogging because of work, family and other commitments. Then a week or so later they announce the talent for Top Gear Australia complete with a down-under Stig.
So it’s the age old question: Who is the Aussie Stig?
The answer is rather obvious: it’s Swade!
25 May 2008
Weblog design changes - Work in progress
If you’re reading the feed you won’t have noticed but visitors to the weblog page will see some layout changes. I’ve changed the side-bars to a right hand layout and tweaked the layout a little. This is part of a general overhaul as detailed in this post on my CAD Blog
31 March 2008
4th Anniversary!
It’s blog’iversary time again. 4 years since that first tentative post. To everyone, everywhere, thanks for visiting and subscribing!
10 February 2008
TUMEKE!, The New Zealand Blogosphere & me
I was browsing the TUMEKE! Kiwi Blog rankings and was rather surprised to see #36. I was amused to see ? : ? for Ideological Position : Political Affiliation as it’s accurate!
The current mob have not impressed, especially in recent years, yet I don’t see John Key as the new messiah. I’m even more troubled by the legacy National’ites he’ll drag into power with him. What to do…?
TUMEKE! NZ Blogosphere Rankings
A comprehensive list ranking of New Zealand political and news blogs with directory information for the nz blogosphere community.January 2008
#36 [new] RobiNZ personal blog : www.rcd.typepad.com/personal/
03/2004+ "no CAD here! Just the other stuff"
Robinz : ? - ? : NZ
nzn/a * 527,307 : c.200 (0.5 x home page traffic) + 11 + n/a (11) + 8 = 230 [new]
13 January 2008
Online Photo Sharing in Plain English
Lee LeFever’s latest video is a brilliant explanation of “Online Photo Sharing in Plain English”. Kiwis who use New Zealand's largest ISP Xtra, said to be 500,000, already have a "free" Flickr Pro account as part of the Yahoo!Xtra Bubble offer. Watch the video, get over to Flickr and start sharing!
See more videos like this at www.commoncraft.com
31 December 2007
2007 Blogging Highlights
It’s time to do a Blog related review of the year so here goes…
Best Blog Discovery:
I use this heading every year but it isn’t really appropriate for this years selection. Simon’s Web Journal made a huge impression and it’s for that reason alone that it was “best”. The story it told, the feelings it shared and the eventual outcome of events were as far from “best” as it’s possible to get. It began as blog about Life, Linux and everything but tragic events changed that within days. I didn’t know Corwin before I read it, and sadly never will, but won’t forget sharing his journey. Best, worst, and unforgettable.
Best Comment:
I got an email, not the usual spam but it was a “recruitment device”, suggesting I watch a video on a Agel. They use a very complex distribution structure to sell “Health Supplements”. I was somewhat skeptical of the product but even more so of the “business model” and it’s commission system. My resulting post has generated quite a bit of traffic and comment but the best came from Jon M. Taylor, MBA, Ph.D. His site has a wealth of information on Multi-Level Marketing.If you, or anyone you know is considering getting involved a MLM business do them a favour and have them read: http://www.mlm-thetruth.com/
Best Blog Event:
Well, it’s not really a blog event but Autodesk University probably brings together more bloggers than many dedicated events manage. I was fortunate to attend again this year and the real highlight is meeting fellow bloggers and readers. It was great catching up with old friends and meeting new ones I won’t name names for fear of leaving someone out but to all I met at Autodesk University thanks for reading and saying hello. I’m constantly amazed people all around the world invest their time in reading this stuff
It’s for that reason Autodesk University is again, as in 2005 and 2006, the best Blog Event I attended this year.
Best Podcast:
I don’t listen to every episode of “Sunday Night Safran” but do hear most and enjoy the mix of topics, John’s views and the delightful Father Bob.
- The Triple j podcast page – SNS Podcast Feed: http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/safran/podcast/safran.xml
Biggest Surprise?
A year later and I’m still called “the Paper Plane Guy” at Autodesk University!
Busiest Month:
Huge Top Gear related bump in December/Jan and mostly Auto related posts in August for the Personal blog. On the CAD blog it’s usual Autodesk launch related peak around March.
Best Blog Decision:
Might turn out to be a mistake but I’ve decided to stop using both Vox & Blogger and concentrate on my TypePad Blogs. Both were interesting to play with but I still find TypePad is the best mix of ease & power for me.
Blog Related Concern:
I need to do more for CAD/BIM related posts on my “Cad Blog”. If you’ve got any ideas for things to cover email me or leave a comment!
Best New Blog Tool:
Last year it was Camtasia, this year it’s SnagIt. It’s not new but recent add-ins for Blog Platforms (like TypePad & Wordpress), Flickr and MindManager make it a tool I use for virtually every post, including this one!
“Doh!” of the year:
Finding a HTML error of my own making. Thanks to TypePad Support and Dimtry [BlogJet] for helping me track it down and fix it.
Boring Blog Stats – Only here so I can look back at them
RobiNZ CAD Blog [2006 figures]
Posts: 1,157 [860] | Comments: 674 [390] | TrackBacks: 74 [67] | Pages: 3 [New in 2007]
Page Views: Total 405,974 [284,009] | Average Per Day 298.07 [220]
Subscribers (via Feedburner): Avg: 576 [312] Max: 707 [640]
Most visited post of 2007: DWG to [Google] Earth, do you read me? - Autodesk Labs AutoCAD Google Earth Extension (from 2006)
Most Popular Post from 2007: Align, the forgotten AutoCAD hero
RobiNZ Personal Blog [2006 figures]
Posts: 1,216 [978] | Comments: 566 [398] | TrackBacks: 14 [12]
Page Views: Total 160,101 [128,072] | Average Per Day 156.20 [127]
Subscribers (via Feedburner): Avg: 49 [23] Max: 79 [47]
Most visited post of 2007: The Top Gear Stig (Although from 2005 it still generates loads of traffic and comments!)
Most Popular Post from 2007: Is the "Agel phenomenon" a scam?
Thanks for visiting during 2007, Happy New Year for 2008!
09 December 2007
Goodbye Vox & Blogger
I've decided to concentrate on my original TypePad Blogs (this & my CAD blog) and not post any more content to Blogger or Vox.
They were interesting experiments but don’t really offer anything I can’t already do on TypePad.
It's time to have a few less things to do.
22 November 2007
Caution, light blogging ahead
I’m currently on a trip to Autodesk University, the Autodesk CAD User Conference in Las Vegas, so all my blogging efforts will be seen on my CAD blog.
27 October 2007
One Way New Zealand & HelpX!
On the Adventure South cycle trips I’m often the only, or one of few, locals. It’s strange as you are travelling, and treated, as a tourist in your own land until people figure out you’re a local. Part of the fun of this is seeing the others “discover” New Zealand and re-discovering it yourself through their eyes.
The One Way New Zealand blog is being written as “The Rays” explore New Zealand (currently with help from Rob) with the possibility it may become home. In a recent post a photo (below) was titled “Stunning rolling hills down to the sea”. I see “just another farm” but that’s part of the fun of reading their site. If you live here you’ll learn to appreciate through their eyes what many Kiwis take for granted, if you don’t you see what you’re missing!
They currently have a good guide to show them New Zealand even if he isn’t a Kiwi. I worked with Rob a few years ago and it was good to catch up with him on his recent return from the UK. Since I saw him last he’s had a big prang paragliding in Africa (ouch!) and also set up his own web based business. If you’re looking for accomodation check out HelpX.
Happy travels One Way New Zealand!
One Way New Zealand - Travel, Experience, Information, Immigration, Emigration
So what's all this about then?
Hello, we are the Rays, Craig, Rachel and Myles our son. In September 2007 we are starting out on a trip / holiday of discovery to travel through New Zealand in order to find out more about the country, the people and its culture. After spending all our lives in the UK we are looking for a new place to call home and to raise our family. Could New Zealand be the right place for us to emigrate to? Let's find out…Help Exchange – HelpX
Help Exchange is an online listing of host organic farms, non-organic farms, farmstays, homestays, ranches, lodges, B&B, inns, backpackers hostels and even sailing boats who invite volunteer helpers to stay with them short-term in exchange for food and accommodation (board and lodging).
This scheme is primarily provided as a cultural exchange for working holiday makers who wish to have the opportunity during their travels abroad, of staying with local people and gaining some practical experience
27 September 2007
It started as a blog about Linux but rapidly, tragically, turned into so much more. 
03 September 2007
Listen to a post in a click - Talkr FeedFlare!
Thanks for Mike Perry over on BLAUGI for letting me know a couple of features of this blog can merge to make every post talk!
I’ve had a feed for Talkr, which converts text to speech, available for some time. Thanks to FeedBurner Flare + Talkr you can now hear any post by clicking it’s “Listen to this” link. This relies on Talkr performing the conversion which seems to happen within a few hours of posting.
Talkr is pretty clever as tries to add appropriate expression to the sentence. It’s not just a boring monotone voice and also copes pretty well with “non English” technical terms. I think it pronounces hippopotomonstrosesquipedalianism better than I can!
It does stumble a little with my made up name “RobiNZ” but I find “Robe-in-zee” quite endearing!
If you have a Blog and use FeedBurner learn how to make your own posts talk here.
21 July 2007
Published at Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster!
19 July 2007
Did you come looking for "t"?
It’s weird that looking at source trends, incoming from searches, quite a few people arrive after searching for “t”
Top Ten Search terms:
- "who is the stig" 89
- "fiat 500" 53
- "agel scam" 48
- "t" 42
- "fiat 500 interior" 36
- "lesbian" 22
- "who is the white stig" 20
- "flight simulator" 20
- "the new stig" 19
- "who is the stig?" 19
I don’t find me when I search for “t”. What is it about “t”?
05 June 2007
TIME can't get RSS Feed time right?
You’d think TIME could get the time & date right in their RSS feed. Al Gore is podcasting from 2037 according to them! Thought it may be my reader but it’s there in the feed, <pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2037 16:28:16 EST</pubDate>
FEED Validator for Atom and RSS and KML
Warning: This feed is valid, but may cause problems for some users. We recommend fixing these problems.
line 21, column 41: Implausible date: Fri, 06 Feb 2037 16:28:16 EST (4 occurrences) [help]
01 June 2007
A tribute to Dodderyoldfart - My Favourite Blogging Roadworker
It was a shock to discover that a respected Kiwi Blogger died suddenly last Wednesday. I first found Dodderyoldfart’s blog – Rest Area 300m – via another and enjoyed seeing his posts pop up my feed-reader. It was gentle blog which revealed a wonderful sense of humour.
He worked on the roads in a beautiful part of the world, making all our lives safer, and entertained many with his blog as the comments on his final post “Dig This” reveal. As a tribute I’ll share a few photos from a drive to New Plymouth, through what I’ll forever refer to as “Dodderyoldfart country”.
Thanks Doddery, you’ll be missed.
I’ll quote Oswalds post in full, it’s how I heard the news & is a wonderful tribute:
Oswald Bastable's Ranting: RIP
A well known NZ blogger died suddenly this morning.
Dodderyoldfart had a unique blog. By all accounts he was the only known road worker blogger (I had tried to verify this and was unable to find any other!)
His blog was also unique in being always good humoured and devoid of any politics!
I would visit every weekday to see what the latest amusing picture would be.
Most blogs vanish by the wayside, but this one will truly be missed.
Farewell...
UPDATE 02–06–2007: Oswald has set up “New Zealand Back Country – A collection of NZ images from the Back Country” as a Memorial to Dodderyoldfart & his Rest Area 300M Blog.
16 May 2007
Sorry I used Sitemeter, it's gone but has impacted you
Sitemeter is a free/pay webstats service I used to supplement the very basic TypePad page count statistics. It shows visit/page view counts and generic info about visitors like OS, Browser, resolution which was useful to fine tune the site. You can see the sort of information they provided in my “Anniversary Posts”. However tonight Sitemeter is gone as I discovered some disturbing news about their service. Sadly it isn’t new as dates back to April, at least, but when I found Michaels post (linked below) it was the first time I’d heard about this.
Sitemeter were happy to put news of enhanced features on their blog, even admit to some technical problems but did not, to my knowledge, say a word about a change which places a SpecificClick tracking cookie on your machine or sharing tracking data with another partner. They have responded via comment on other blogs claiming that the cookie is not spyware and is from a trusted partner.
Even if that’s true it’s no longer relevant. Sitemeter know my email (I get a weekly email with summary stats) and I monitor their company blog feed but have not heard a peep from them about this change or their subsequent offer, again via other blogs, to opt out of the new “service”.
SpecificClick may be a trusted partner of Sitemeter, sadly Sitemeter is no longer a trusted partner of mine.
If you use Sitemeter; The Sitemeter code was removed from my blogs at 00:22:08 16–05–2007 (NZ Local) & their meter replaced by a link to this post 
and I’d recommend to anyone using their service to do the same.
To clean up your machine: The tracking cookie is from SpecificClick. You can read more about it here & will need to remove from your machine. I recommend deleting cookies via your browser and/or running spyware scanner and also blocking specificclick.net. Michael’s post has more detailed instructions if you need them.
Sorry for the hassle.
Things you should know before using Sitemeter « Michael Sync
It’s so sad for me to hear that SiteMeter, a well-known web stats providers, is pushing specificclick tracking and advertising cookies on to visitors of sites using their service.
13 May 2007
Listen via Talkr?
If you’re interested in listening to, rather than reading, this blog its being converted to an audio “podcast” by Talkr. It does a good job of reading the posts into an MP3 file. The speech conversion is pretty good even for strange technical terms. I like the way it calls this blog “Robe-in-zee Personal Blog”.
The feed is: http://www.talkr.com/app/cast_pods.app?feed_id=4262
24 April 2007
Comments held, until I return
I’m currently travelling and unlikely to be on-line for a week or so. Feel free to comment/trackback but, to avoid spam pollution, they will be held for approval on my return. I don’t get a huge volume of spam but there is enough to make this hassle necessary.
UPDATE 01–05–2007: Comments back on
10 April 2007
The curse of Twitter
Your are browsing a Tweet polluted blog feed thinking:
- I enjoyed your blog, pre-tweets.
- I still enjoy the longer format posts.
- Twitter proves more isn't always better.
30 March 2007
3rd Anniversary!
It’s blog’iversary time again. 3 years since that first tentative post. To everyone, everywhere, thanks for visiting.
25 March 2007
Freedom
We take if for granted, until it’s gone…
China, and the Forbidden Blog - Ruth's Reflections
“The pandas in Chong Qing he’s seen
But he’s denied the WordPress screen.”
05 February 2007
Last weeks Top 10 - Jan 29 – Feb 04
- The Top Gear Stig http://rcd.typepad.com/personal/2005/05/the_top_gear_st.html 440 +5%
- FIAT http://rcd.typepad.com/personal/fiat/index.html 59 +34%
- Automobile http://rcd.typepad.com/personal/automobile/index.html 26 +4%
- http://rcd.typepad.com/personal/ 25 +9%
- Build a Ferrari Formula One Racer at home? http://rcd.typepad.com/personal/2004/10/build_a_ferrari.html 25 -22%
- July 2006 undefined http://rcd.typepad.com/personal/2006/07/index.html 18 —
- Aviation http://rcd.typepad.com/personal/aviation/index.html 16 +7%
- Nuova Fiat 500 Interior http://rcd.typepad.com/personal/2006/09/nuova_fiat_500_.html 13 +18%
- Chris Sayer (Mini Transat) http://rcd.typepad.com/personal/chris_sayer_mini_transat/ind 13 -13%
- New Zealand http://rcd.typepad.com/personal/new_zealand/index.html 13
18 January 2007
Blogging helps people help people - Whale Rider, a Blog and a helpful Author
I received an email, via the blog, from Swedish Television regarding subtitles they are preparing for the film Whale Rider.
They queried the meaning of a couple of Maori words – one I thought was only a slang term – but I’m certainly not an expert in the language. Not wanting to be “the Kiwi who put Swedish TV wrong” I tried to find an on-line translation but didn’t have any luck.
Wondering who to ask, I decided why not start at the source. Whale Rider is a 1987 novel by New Zealand author Witi Ihimaera. The 2002 movie Whale Rider is an adaptation of the book, with the author's involvement, by Niki Caro who also directed. A quick net search found Witi Ihimaera’s contact details and, kindly, within hours he’d answered the query.
It’s great that this wonderful New Zealand story will be seen on Swedish TV. It was cool that a blog, net search, email and a very helpful author combined to provide the correct translation. I hope my Swedish readers enjoy the movie & thanks Witi!
31 December 2006
2006 Blogging Highlights
It’s time to do a Blog related review of the year so here goes…
Best Blog Discovery:
Jack Yan – Http://www.jackyan.com/blog/. I found Jack via his blog but this multi-media megastar has a multitude of talents. Heck, he even had me recording morning television so I could follow the blog posts relating to his “You’ve got Male” appearances. He’s an expert on Branding, a Publisher, Type Designer and wonderful blog writer.
Best Comment:
Jack Yan's comments! I think at one stage he was adding more content to my blog via comments, close to 100, than I was via posts! Below is a favourite as it led me to an awesome BMC/Leyland/Rover site:
Jacks comment on New Mini 2 - another successful failure
Thank you, Robin! At last, someone who gets it! I was a big fan of the Mini Spiritual concepts—10 ft long, mid-engined, rear-wheel-drive, and had ambitious interior space targets which it met. Apparently, that was what the Poms thought Mini should be, and they were right in my opinion.
Best Blog Event:
Well, it’s not really a blog event but Autodesk University probably brings together more bloggers than many dedicated events manage so, as in 2005, it’s the highlight. Having the AU plane as Camtasia Screencast of the week was also cool.
Best Podcast:
Penn Jillette (of Penn & Teller) CBS Radio's Free FM pod-cast. I start work late, both to miss traffic and because I'm not a morning person, and finish late. Sometimes when the office gets quiet I retreat into Penn's world while I work. It's a great mix of comedy and craziness with a healthy dose of skepticism. There is one thing I find strange from “The land of the free…” given the language that's accepted on New Zealand public radio. He can't say the name of their TV show without "sanitising it" to “bulls hit!”!
It was also great to see them perform in Las Vegas at the end of perhaps the longest possible “Skeptical Saturday”. I awoke on Saturday morning in New Zealand to hear great radio interview with NZ Skeptics Chair-entity Vicki Hyde and boarded the flight to Las Vegas that evening. It arrived 15 hours later but thanks to crossing the dateline it was Saturday afternoon, again. That evening, something like 30 hours after hearing Vicki, I saw the Penn & Teller show. It was brilliant and my only regret was I didn’t hang around after to say hello in person.
Biggest Surprise?
Phil Bernstein read it. I must admit when VP Industry Relations & Strategy - Autodesk BSD Division walked up to me at AU and said “A client mentioned your blog about my presentation in Seoul so I read it today, in the car, on the way to meet them” my immediate thought was: “Oh shit, I can’t afford a lawsuit!”. It was something of a relief that he thought it was OK!
Busiest Month:
Huge Top Gear related bump in December/Jan and mostly Auto related posts in August for the Personal blog. On the CAD blog it’s usual Autodesk launch related peak around March.
Best Blog Decision:
Was one thing I didn’t do. At one stage during the year I seriously considered giving up, but I changed my mind.
Blog Related Concern:
What went wrong with the Origami? Microsoft nearly managed to be “iPod cool” but they blew it. A combination of poor marketing and a spectacularly crappy Microsoft style name sunk any hope of coolness for the “Ultra-mobile Personal Computer”. I wanted an Origami but I haven’t even bothered to try a UMPC. I haven’t seen any effort to promote them in New Zealand so I doubt few know what a UMPC is and even less care.
Best New Blog Tool:
It’s not really a blog tool but adding GyroQ to MindManager has been a nice addition to retain the thoughts that eventually become posts. Anytime during the day a couple of clicks captures it ready to consider when blogging time arrives. As I generally write and post after dinner that can be anything from 22:00 to sometime the following morning!
“Doh!” of the year:
The post Auto magazines, Print vs Web. Imagine you wrote a lengthy rant about how your favourite auto magazines should change their business model to cope with the increasing influence of the interweb; posted it and emailed a copy to the Editors. Then you discover, unknown to you, they were in the process of doing exactly as suggested and had started several months before. I will blame this Doh! on the fact that the web changes were on-line but the printed explanation didn’t arrive on our shelves until well after my post was written.
Best Reader:
You!, again! I said it last year and TIME copied me! Thanks to all who visit and to all I've met via the blog over the year. Have a Happy New Year and see you again next year
Boring Blog Stats – Only here so I can look back at them 
RobiNZ CAD Blog
Posts: 860 | Comments: 390 | TrackBacks: 67
VISITS: Total 159,389, Average Per Day 144
PAGE VIEWS: Total 284,009, Average Per Day 220RobiNZ Personal Blog
Posts: 978 | Comments: 398 | TrackBacks: 12
VISITS: Total 90,681, Average Per Day 92PAGE VIEWS: Total 128,072, Average Per Day 127
26 December 2006
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas, happy holidays & thanks for visiting!
15 December 2006
5 things that people don’t know about me?
Hobie tagged me to blog 5 things that people don’t know about me, Hmmm….
- My musical career did not progress beyond Grade 1 Piano. I now only play the CD’s…
- As a kid I did, and liked, small boat sailing. I still like it but not enough to bother having a boat.
- My dad is a talented mechanical engineer & machinist/toolmaker. I did not inherit this skill at all.
- I’ve been to Las Vegas twice and never gambled. Not because of any anti-gambling conviction, just not interested. It’s actually possible to like visiting Vegas without gambling!
- I like cycling but haven’t touched either of my bikes since getting home from a cycling holiday in APRIL
It’s now December and I have to change that as have another trip booked for next March. - I hate, and bin, chain letters and chain emails but don’t mind these blog tag things. Perhaps it’s because there is no claim it will result in illness, tragedy, riches, poverty if you do/don’t participate…
- I can’t count!
The Mindjet Blog » Tony Tagged Me
Tony Goodson just tagged me and four other people to blog 5 things that people don’t know about me. Thanks, Tony.
And I tag Marc Orchant (oops, someone already tagged him!…nearly a year ago. Hmmm, I guess this is a bit of an old meme. Who cares, it’s a cool one!
OK, I will tag Nick Duffill (who, by the way, will hate being tagged. Sorry, Nick!), Jamie Nast, Robin Capper, Jason Dorko and Chuck Frey.
12 December 2006
Around the World in 366 days | The World Is Not Flat (TwinF)
It really doesn’t seem that long since they were in New Zealand but after 366 days travel, Lee & Sachi are home. It was a privilege to meet you and follow your travels.
A Ton Of Licks | The World Is Not Flat (TwinF)
03 October 2006
XtraMSN have a new Homepage + it has RSS Feeds
XtraMSN have a new look home-page. That’s not big news but they now offer RSS feeds which is a nice way to keep up to date with the content. I’m not sure if these arrived with the updated home-page or it’s the first time I noticed them. Either way it means the new home-page is more user friendly!
RSS is a great addition and nicely set up as you can choose “Channel feeds”, like “Sport”, or specific topic feeds like “Motorsport”. When one of New Zealand’s most visited sites offers RSS perhaps it’s a sign that RSS is moving from geekville to the mass market…
XtraMSN: RSS Feed Overview
XtraMSN offers the latest news across New Zealand and around the world, the hottest entertainment gossip, travel advice and lifestyle tips. Now you can choose what content you're interested in and we'll deliver it to you instead!
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is a free, time-saving way of getting the latest news and updates from XtraMSN…
now with
20 September 2006
Comment/trackback approval is back thanks to the spammers
Due to some recent comment spam I’ve had to re-enable full comment/trackback approval. Comments aren’t censored other than to remove obvious spam or legally dubious content. If you submit a comment/trackback they will appear as fast as I can approve them.
05 September 2006
Ginny's Kiwi Adventure Blog
I met Ginny on my first Adventure South (Island) cycle trip. It’s not uncommon for Adventure South’ers to return – I’ve just booked my 5th trip for March 2007 – and Ginny did, it was the first of several visits to New Zealand as a cycle, climbing, hiking tourist and triathlon competitor. Now she is back again, this time to live!
I know it was a shock coming from Californian summer to Christchurch winter (a balmy 2ºc) but that’s just the start of this Kiwi Adventure. Of course you can’t have Kiwi adventure without having a Kiwi Adventure Blog to share your experiences with friends, family & the interweb so here it is;
Ginny's Kiwi Adventures
My new life in New Zealand - for the edification and entertainment of my friends and family who aren't lucky enough to be heading off to New Zealand to live…
04 September 2006
US Labor Day Meme Kiwi Style
Jack Yan tagged me with this US Labor Day Meme…
1. Are you craving anything and if so, what?
Yep, tamarillo's and vanilla ice-cream, but not for long as there’s some waiting for when I’ve finished this!
2. What is the weather outside, and do you wish it would change?
It’s dark (it’s night!), fine (I can see stars so it must be) and cool (14cº) but summer is on the way. I wish it were here & that’s what I’d change.
3. What two web sites do you think you will go to next after you are finished here?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/ for some local news, http://www.wrc.com/ to check out the Rally Japan news
+ several hundred RSS feeds4. Do you wish you were somewhere else and if so, where?
I’d like to be on a plane to Milan, ready for next weekend!
5. Do you wish you were someone else, and if so, who?
“Just be yourself, well that’s what they say, I barely know who I was yesterday”
David Byrne ~ Civilization ~ Grown Backwards
I tag Shaan, Scott, Jimmy & Melanie & Ginny (but only if you want to do this!)
31 August 2006
Auto magazines, Print vs Web
I’ve long been a reader of CAR Magazine and have read, subscribed to, a New Zealand car magazine Driver from it’s first issue. I still regard CAR as the best “World Title”, Driver the “Best local”. It’s strange that both have dabbled with the web in the past but have not really had much presence, certainly no match for their print editions. Recently, almost simultaneously, both have re-launched heavily revamped websites. It’s like they suddenly realised that the web was not going away!
The Driver website is part of a company site, they publish several titles, and it’s approach is to bring more readers to the print edition by posting news and limited content from the latest issue. CAR have a more aggressive approach with content related to the magazine but also plenty of web only material. They also offer a RSS feed making it very easy to incorporate CAR Online into my daily reading.
I have linked to some CAR articles recently and was approached about it. It wasn’t, thankfully, the lawyers asking me to remove the links but rather some research into the relationship between blogs, commercial websites & print magazines. I don’t know where that will lead but it’s something I was already thinking about thanks to a recent “clean out the garage” exercise.
I’ve been going thru stacks of old car magazines with a Stanley knife slashing out articles to keep in my “archive”. I don’t have space to keep everything but there are articles, maybe related to cars I’ve owned/would like to own, I’ve loved reading & want to keep for review. Hidden in those stacks of aging paper is brilliant writing (see the posts on LJK Setright & Phil Llewellin for a few CAR samples), photography and articles about places I’d like to visit, drives I’d like to do. Maybe that’s a clue for these magazines…
Their print editions cannot compete with the Internet for news. Every car, scoop, launch will be covered by the net based services long before the ink hits the paper. I’m not saying drop that content from the mag but don’t expect it to be the reason I’ll buy the mag. They could try competing via their websites but I suspect dedicated autoweb sites will do “web news” better. After all the mags should be concentrating most resource on the core business, a great car magazine.
I read the Internet for information, but regard the print editions as recreation. They are something to savour when off-line versus the quickest way to get the latest information. They are generating content that the websites don’t get time, or have the resources, to compile and that’s why I read them. Their opinions, drive stories, comparisons and local knowledge is what makes these mag’s worthwhile for me.
There is one thing the web news sites can’t match and that’s the magazine archive. Locked up in the paper history is a valuable resource but its not economic to reprint. Driver have spun-off a sister magazine, NZ Today, almost solely dedicated to their expeditions. Again it’s full of fascinating reading but within a few months it disappears from sale, forever.
It would be a mission to get it loaded, maybe rights/royalties would be a nightmare, but I wonder how much traffic someone like CAR, or Driver, could generate by simply serving up the back catalogue, maybe 3–6 months behind the print edition, in a web format with a decent search engine. Unless they have stacks of unsold back issues to offload there would be little impact on print sales. I think there would be enough traffic for some revenue and it makes a great resource for them to refer readers back to related stories from previous issues. You’ve got that history; why not exploit it!
Just a thought…
Driver New Zealand – http://www.drivermagazine.co.nz/
CAR Magazine (U.K.) – http://www.carmagazine.co.uk/
24 August 2006
Is Blogger Down - 24-08-2006 23:28:27
I can't connect to lots of Blogger feeds tonight?
19 August 2006
A Vox Invite?
I have 2 Vox invites, if you are interested in using this new service from Six-Apart (the TypePad people) leave a comment.
My Vox Blog: http://rcd.vox.com/
13 August 2006
Karin, I thought it was just me!!
Over the past few days I’ve been getting lots of TrackBacks from Karin. She (I presume) obviously loved my blog as always sent this:
“I am Karin, very interesting article that contains the information I was searching for in Google, thanks.”
Now I find it’s not just me, Warner has even interviewed “her”…
It seems 38,000+ people let this rubbish get to their blogs…
Google Results 1 - 10 of about 38,000 for "I am Karin, very interesting article".
If you get a TrackBack from KARIN about your very interesting article, found on Google DELETE IT!
05 August 2006
Goodbye to my Chinese readers
I’m not sure if I had any Chinese readers via RSS but it appears their govt will ensure I don’t.
Micro Persuasion: China Blocks FeedBurner RSS Feeds
FeedBurner, which powers hundreds of thousands of blog, podcast and mainstream news feeds (including this one), is apparently being blocked by Chinese authorities…
01 August 2006
Jack Yan: Super Human Persuader!
Happy 3rd blogging birthday to Jack Yan. I originally found him on the Beyond Branding Blog but he’s since started his own and The Persuader Blog is a must read. He’s a complete car nut with an interesting view of the auto industry, posts like "Trim milked", but that’s only one of many topics covered.
When not blogging, running his virtual company, publishing Lucire, writing, speaking, creating fonts, appearing on Radio and TV*, or meditating he somehow even finds time to comment on this blog.
One thing I’d like to know, with only 24 hours in the day, how does he do it all?
Three years of blogging | Jack Yan:The persuader Blog
August 2006 marks three years since I began blogging. Picture it: Wellington, August 11, 2003. I had just got back from California and the “Total Recall” election. Not much to the post, but it was written to provoke thought…
- Blog: http://jackyan.com/blog/
- Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/JackYanThePersuaderBlog
- Website: http://www.jackyan.com/
* I’ve only seen You've Got Male (a segment on TVNZ’s Good Morning show) once as it airs when I’m usually at work. Coincidentally Jack was both a participant and the subject as Barry Soper & Co spent the whole time giving him heaps about his new romance…
25 July 2006
Technorati search is back
I was reading Jimmy’s post on 
and realised I’d lost their search box during my redesign. So now it’s back, in the side column under “Search”.
If is new to you click on the image to see the results of searching my CAD blog for “Jimmy”.
Technorati tracks the number of links, and the perceived relevance of blogs, as well as the real-time nature of blogging. Because Technorati automatically receives notification from weblogs as soon as they are updated, it can track the thousands of updates per hour that occur in the blogosphere, and monitor the communities (who's linking to whom) underlying these conversations.
JTB World: Technorati search
If you use a feed reader take a look at the left of the JTB World blog and you will see that I've added the option to use Technorati search.
30 June 2006
Guide to blogging
It’s based on the wine business but this is excellent advice for blogging on any topic.
23 June 2006
Popular Posts
It’s interesting to see what people look at and I thought worth sharing the top “Top 15 Entry Pages” for this blog. There are some old, some new and quite a mixture of topics!
- The Top Gear Stig - 2005/05 This is by far the most visited and commented post on the whole blog!
- Aviation Index
- Chris Sayer (Mini Transat Yacht Race) Index
- Punto Grande to bring Fiat back to Australia - 2005/08
- Build a Ferrari Formula One Racer at home - 2004/10 (Lego F1)
- Big toy - World's fifth-largest private yacht, Le Grand Bleu - 2005/12
- April 2005 Index (Probably thanks to The Stig post)
- The new Fiat Stilo? - 2006/01
- Paragon - McLaren's Technology Centre - 2004/05
- Carlos the kitten and The Bose Wave Radio - 2005/05
- Google Earth 2005 Formula 1 Circuits - 2005/07
- Ian Dixon (GP Podcast) visits The Mclaren Technology Centre - 2005/08
- New Fiat Grande Punto Photos @ www.autoblog.it 2005/08
- Big Boeing 747-8 takes on the Airbus A380? - 2005/11
- Air New Zealand's Flying Tablets - 2006/04
08 June 2006
My TypePad Feed has been burnt
This is only of interest to TypePad Publishers and Readers using my RSS Feed. As of tonight I’m using a new TypePad/FeedBurner feature to redirect all my subscribers, whether from the default TypePad Feed (via typepad.com) or Feedburner Feed (via feedburner.com), to one source feed.
Whichever you use there should be no impact but it makes management of the feed easier and reader statistics more accurate for me. If you experience any problems with the RSS feed please leave a comment or email me.
25 April 2006
Wwwwwwiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiddddddddddddeeeeeeeeeeeee OK?
Since most visiting this blog run larger than the average screen/resolution I’m trying a variable width post column. It should adjust to your monitor rather than the old fixed 500 pixel width.
Interested in any feedback, positive or negative as it may cause layout oddities. What does it look like at 1920x1200?