links for 2005-12-24

• del.icio.us daily blog post settings for WordPress.com users
  del.icio.us has an option to post lists of the sites you tag on your blog – but to call it ‘undocumented’ would be very generous. Here’s how it works.
  (tags: wordpress.com del.icio.us)

Design is a dying art

To design or not to design? If I’d been able to answer that question, this blog would have started weeks ago. But I couldn’t decide if I liked any of the WordPress.com themes on offer, or if I wanted to design my own in Blogger. In actual fact, if this still matters, it soon won’t. I read most of my favourite blogs via their (text only) RSS feed, in Bloglines. I almost never see their websites, and I genuinely don’t know what many of them look like. I don’t know why, but I just looked at Steve Rubel’s MicroPersuasion site – a feed I read every day – and got quite a shock!

Why I finally switched to Firefox

Until very recently, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was my browser of no-choice. By which I mean, in a world where one browser has a market share in excess of 90%, it’s insanity to work with anything else – especially if websites are your livelihood. In a clash between ’standards compliance’ and ‘90% market share’, I’m afraid standards have to go out the window. But today, I switched my default browser to Firefox – and here’s why.

Blogging on the move

OK, so perhaps you can’t email into WordPress.com, but I’ve found a possible solution. There’s a tool called Pocket SharpMT, which seems to speak to WordPress. I’m posting from it now. Only problem so far is that it doesn’t seem too keen on working with my PDA’s keyboard: not that it isn’t working, but I can’t see what I’m typing.

UPDATE (23.1.06): I’ve spotted a few hits to this item today; wonder why it’s suddenly of interest? Anyway, my new recommendation is the Windows Mobile version of DopplerRadio, currently in beta but working very well as a blogging client.

The perfect bloghost doesn’t exist.

Deciding to write a blog is very easy, especially if you’re someone making a career out of online communication. But deciding where to put it has been quite a struggle: I know precisely what I want, but disappointingly, I haven’t found it. In the end, WordPress.com has got my vote – but not without reservations.