Three great sites now feature screencasted Flash tutorials. A wealth of stuff here to chew on:

gotoAndLearn()
FlashExetensions
Mac Lab Flash

Tim Bray has some good words and criticism for BlogBridge – the only desktop RSS reader I know that has a server component that allows you to save subscriptions across devices.

Google’s custom home page will now all you to add – My Yahoo! style – RSS feeds.

My Yahoo! and Google stand in rather stark contrast to where Microsoft appears to be going.

Blog Maverick: How many bloggers love me… let me count the ways:

…Its deja’ blog all over again.

Today, there are what seem to be thousands and thousands of bloggers who spend most of their time writing about what other bloggers blog.

Thats not a bad thing.

There are people who read my blog and often link back. In fact, its a good thing. It expands my audience to the upstream bloggers’ audience.

What is getting a little wierd, and I have to admit entertaining, are the “incentuous networks� and how they sometimes try to game blog search engines to increase their rankings.

Some of the blog search engines try to rank “authority” based on links to a blog post. Thats cool , and its a valuable tool

Lots of bloggers like to show how many other sites have “linked in”. Again, thats cool and its a nice little ego boost, even though because of the different ways to count the links, its not really of much use beyond bragging rights. But hey, if someone stumbles upon your blog and there are lots of big numbers, they are more likely to read. So I guess its useful from that perspective alone

But all of which has led to an interesting type of pressure occurring in the blog search engine market.

Bloggers want blog search engines to have features designed for bloggers.

Thats not a bad thing. As different bloggers do evaluations of different search engines, we will find out more features that are desirable for bloggers and how best to implement them.

But it leads to a question.

Should a blog search engine be designed as a tool for bloggers, or as a tool for people who happen to blog and everyone else.

Of course they arent completely mutually exclusive. You can have features that support both, but as the number of features grow, the responsiveness of engine declines.

And since blog search engines are relatively new, It could create a lot of confusion for those who dont want to use a blog search engine as a blog reference tool, but rather as a more traditional search engine that is keyword based.

This post of course is a long way of saying that despite all the evaluations going on around the blogosphere, blogs.icerocket.com will focus on providing a service to the majority of internet users who dont blog, or who blog as a social experience.

In particular we will focus on supporting business users who want a continuous feed of fresh information relating to those things that are important to them.

So far it seems to be working well. Our traffic is exploding.

Hopefully the bloggers who use our tags , scripts and other tools we will be providing will notice lots of new traffic driven to their sites. Hopefully it will be mostly first time blog readers experiencing all the great content bloggers create every day and they will love your site so much , they will subscribe to it.

First check out Kathleen Connally’s breath taking pictures of rural Pennsylvania at “A Walk Through Durham Township“. Then read Albert’s great interview with her at Philly Future.

Smart. Very smart. Good move Yahoo!: Yahoo Buys Maker of ‘Widget’ Applications – Yahoo! News:

Hoping to pave a new path to its popular Web site, Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO – news) has acquired Konfabulator, a tiny software maker that provides a computer platform for monitoring the weather, stock prices and a wealth of other customized information without opening a Web browser.

The deal, finalized late last week for an undisclosed price, gives Yahoo access to a toolbox of mini-applications — known as widgets — that have built a cult following since Palo Alto-based Konfabulator first introduced them for Apple Computer Inc.’s Macintosh in 2002.

Apple liked the concept so much that it includes a widgets dashboard in the Mac’s operating system. With just three employees, Konfabulator designs its widget software to run on the ubiquitous Windows operating system as well.

…To help popularize the widgets, Yahoo plans will give away the Konfabulator software that empowers the applications. Konfabulator had been charging $20 for the software. Anyone who bought version 2.0 of the software since mid-May will be given refunds, said Konfabulator CEO Arlo Rose.

Yahoo can afford to be generous, having made $755 million in its most recent quarter, including a $563 million profit from selling its remaining stake in Google.

The Sunnyvale-based company still expects to make money from Konfabulator.

Yahoo is counting on the widgets to make users more curious about certain topics, services or events, ultimately driving more traffic to its Web site so it can serve up more moneymaking ads and expand its current base of 10.1 million subscribers who pay for premium services, Schneider said.

Konfabulator’s widgets can be programmed to perform a wide variety of tasks. The most popular applications are local weather and stock quotes, Rose said, but third-party developers have developed thousands of other uses.

For instance, there are widgets that monitor the local traffic or show the remaining power left on a laptop computer’s battery. Other more whimsical widgets serve up comic strips and horoscopes.

The Yahoo deal “gives us whole new buckets of content to grab stuff from.” Rose said.

More:

Om Malik’s Broadband Blog: “Yahoo will keep the app as a free product, and apparently Yahoo will refunding people who purchased it in the last couple of months). Pixoria was just 3 guys – Arlo Rose, Perry Clarke and Ed Voas. This will clearly be a way for Yahoo to spread its API (OpenYahoo) into various desktop applications. Apparently the deal closed last Tuesday”

Paid Content: “The company had built a cult following since it first introduced these “widgets” (geek-speak for these customizable dektop apps) for Apple’s Mac in 2002. Apple liked the concept so much that it includes a widgets dashboard in the Mac’s operating system.
The widgets are designed to make it easy for outsiders to develop and share new applications – a concept that Yahoo wants to encourage as it experiments with new ways to make the wealth of information on its site more useful, the rationale goes.”

Slashdot: “The reason they purchased Konfabulator was they wanted an easy way to open up its APIs to the developer community and allow them easy access to the information on the Yahoo web site.”

Roland Tanglao’s Weblog: “Awesome! Go Yahoo! go!”

Jeff Jarvis: “I think it’s part of feedthink. The difference is that widgets are dynamic; they get current information; they gets feeds…Widgets should be available anywhere, anytime, on any device…Widgets should also be collaborative…It’s all part of feedthink. Yahoo taking this over means that it could do both those things to widgets. We’ll see.”

Yahoo! has already launched widgets.yahoo.com.

BuzzMachine – Blog Archive – Undervalued:

Glenn Reynolds realizes he’s undervalued. Well, yeah. Based on News Corp.’s $580 million purchase of MySpace with its 17.7 million visitors per month, his visitors – about a quarter of that – would make him worth $145 million … and he’s hiring a banker.

Hell, that’d make li’l old Buzzmachine worth a few mil, even.

But seriously… I had complained that Glenn undervalues himself with his ad rates (though they are coming up now).

But the real problem is that we’re all undervaluing out little medium. The big, dumb money comes along (mind you, these were the folks who tried to shove $400 mil down Pointcast’s throat and those sods were stupid enough to cough it back up) they have no way to spend it. We make it difficult.

Then again, Maddox has posted an interesting list of buzzwords he cant’s stand and some sacred ones are listed:

Blog: The word “blog” is literally shorthand for “boring;” a vulgar, overused word that strikes your ear with the dull thud of a cudgel to the soft spot of a child. It’s an abbreviation used by journalism drop outs to give legitimacy to their shallow opinions and amateur photography that seems to be permanently stuck in first draft hell. Looking in the archives of the blogs, one would expect someone who has been at it for years to slowly hone their craft and improve their writing and photographs, since it’s usually safe to assume that if someone does something long enough, he or she will eventually not suck at it. Even with lowered expectations, you’ll get a shotgun blast of disappointment in your face.

…If the thousands of mid-sentence links don’t annoy you, the long slender columns of text will. Most of the screen on a blog is blank for an imaginary populace of readers still using 640×480 resolution. I didn’t buy a 19″ monitor to have 50% of its screen realestate pissed away on firing white pixels, you assholes. They don’t print books on receipt paper for a reason. Every time I see this layout, I want to choke the creator with my dry, crackled, and bleeding hands for making my fingers so calloused from having to keep scrolling the mouse wheel to read your dumb “blog.”

Podcast: Someone had the revolutionary idea of taking a compressed audio file and putting it online. Yeah, doesn’t sound so sexy when I describe it for what it is, does it you morons? It would have been a great idea if streaming audio wasn’t already around for over a decade before the word “podcast” entered the lexicon. Man, I can’t stand the word “lexicon.” Talking about all these shitty words has made me start using shitty words. I’m so pissed, I just slammed the door shut on some kid’s nuts.

Podcasting: It’s snob for “streaming audio.”

Podcatcher: Any idiot with an iPod, web browser, or ears.

Warblog: A blog that primarily deals with war. Filled with whiny blow hards who are fixated on their stubborn ideas and conspiracy theories. For example, there are countless hours pissed away by conspiracy theorists who think the WTC towers were demolished by bombs planted by the government. These armchair engineers write endlessly about how the physics of the collapse was impossible, how the temperature wasn’t hot enough to melt steel, and how the planes were carrying missiles. Of course, the one thing they don’t postulate is a REASON.

My personal favorite warblog was one that had a flash animation with people who were quoted as saying “it didn’t sound like a plane to me… it sounded like a missile.” Thank you Joe Nobody for giving me your expert opinion on what missile sounds like, because gas station superintendents are usually the best people to ask about the sonic signature of ballistic missile thrust.

Warblogger: Like all other bloggers, an idiot. Usually a self-righteous prick with a political axe to grind. Tragically, these dullards fail to realize that nobody cares what they think. And no, the 2 comments per post you get on average doesn’t count. Get some real opinions, then maybe you’ll get some real feedback.

Xanga: The bottom of the barrel of blogs. It’s incredible that the user base is able to write so much, yet say so little. I have to give a bit of kudos though, considering the fact that many of the users have the reading comprehension of a bowl full of pubes.

LiveJournal: Here’s a little trick you can use to find out whether a link someone sends you is worth checking. If it contains the words “live, journal,” or any combination thereof, you can safely ignore the link without missing out on anything.

Read it for the rest. via Metafilter.

Hey, if you can’t laugh at yourself, ya got a problem.

Burningbird: “Feed the Feeds”:

Webloggers don’t edit. Webloggers do edit, but only grammar. Webloggers edit, but only to correct. Webloggers never pull posts. Webloggers pull posts, but then spend six posts apologizing for the pulled post.

Webloggers write short posts. A good weblogger is a short post weblogger. War and Peace: there was a city, there was a war, there was Napoleon, he didn’t blog.

Webloggers tag their posts. Webloggers are happy taggers. Webloggers don’t know why they tag their posts, but they’re happy.

Webloggers link. Webloggers live to link. I am linked, therefore I am. You aren’t linked, therefore you aren’t. Who are you?

Webloggers love Google. Webloggers love Technorati. Webloggers hate Google. Webloggers hate Technorati. Or is it, webloggers love Google, and hate Technorati? I’m so confused. What day is it today?

Webloggers like trackback. Webloggers like pingback. Webloggers love payback.

Webloggers ping weblogs.com. Webloggers ping blo.gs. Webloggers love comments. Webloggers hate comment spam. Webloggers ping, ping, ping. Webloggers love to ping! Webloggers also love to hammer fingers into pulp, and run with the bulls of Pamplona.

People weblog. Companies weblog. Newspapers weblog. Governments weblog. My cat weblogs-but she doesn’t link. Bitch.

Webloggers subscribe to feeds. Macho webloggers subscribe to a LOT of feeds. Muy macho webloggers subscribe to so many feeds, they can only afford to read the third word in every post. If you want to be linked by an A-Lister, this was your hint for the day.

Webloggers post in reverse chronological order. The sun will not rise if you do it wrong. It will just keep setting.

Webloggers provide permalinks. Webloggers provide cruft-free permalinks. Webloggers provide cruft-free permalinks that they promise to never EVER break. We can die. Our permalinks can’t.

Webloggers don’t write about their family. Webloggers write about their family. Webloggers write about their husbands or wives.

Webloggers divorce a lot.

Webloggers write about cats. No, no! Webloggers don’t write about cats. Webloggers never write in their jammies with their cats in their laps! Webloggers never write in their jammies with their cute little boojums woojums purring on their wappy lapp… Webloggers don’t write about cats.

Webloggers fact check. Webloggers sort of fact check. Webloggers fact check the fact checks, but not necessarily the facts. Webloggers don’t fact check, they give opinion.

Webloggers always write in valid XHTML. Webloggers will beat to death anyone who doesn’t. Or harass them in comments, whichever comes first. Webloggers always use valid CSS-and you don’t want to know what happens to you if you don’t. Webloggers never use tables. Oh, god, how can you think that webloggers would use tables? Webloggers can write gibberish, as long as it validates.

Webloggers support the semantic web. No, no! Not the big one! The other one. The little one.

Webloggers meet. You’re not a real weblogger if you don’t meet. There are only 100 real webloggers: the rest of us only think we’re here. HaHa, world! Fool you!

Webloggers make money. No! Money is evil! Webloggers are homeless, living off of free WiFi, and scrounging for moldy bread crusts in garbage cans.

Webloggers ask for money. Webloggers don’t beg. Webloggers get sponsors. Webloggers don’t sell out. Webloggers run ads. Are you kidding? Ads are evil. It’s not about the money. It’s all about the money.

Webloggers are journalists. No they aren’t. Yes they are. No they aren’t. Yes they are. Mooommm! She’s picking on me!

Webloggers provide RSS 0.91. No, that’s RSS 0.92. Idiot, I meant RSS 1.0. Doofus, what is your problem? That should be Pie. No, Echo. No, Atom. Why not Eve? Stop, don’t got there.

Webloggers provide RSS 2.0. For Microsoft. For Apple. For Microsoft. For Apple. For Microsoft. For Apple. For…

And finally, Webloggers support Atom 0.3. Webloggers don’t support Atom 0.3. Webloggers support Atom whassit.

Make sure to read the whole thing. I relate. Don’t you?