Clarion Folk

For a few weeks now Clarion Folk has been using a new Comment web service, Intense Debate (This review for the Wordpress flavour, as that’s what I use).

It’s good. That’s my kudos meter-reading at the moment.

There is a lot to like. They take care of comments, they give you stats, they’ve got plugins to call on the blog (e.g. Recent Comments), and it’s all bundled into a very easy to use interface.

(Some of the Stats you can get with Intense Debate)

In the above image you’ll see some of the stats available. Clarion Folk doesn’t have a lot of comments, but take a look at a couple of the posts, and you’ll see that what the community lacks in quantity it makes up for in crazy .. ahem. I mean quality.

Although I’m just using Intense Debate for one blog, they are really trying to hit a multiple blog, global-wide audience. Some of the functionality is only really useful if you have more than one blog running Intense Debate, and if you comment on other blogs running Intense Debate.

I really hope they can get some momentum. It’s a good service.

It’s a service, which means Wordpress (or whatever engine you are using to power your blog/site) will make a server call or two. These slow down the site for a little while, but it’s nothing too bad. And really, that’s not a complaint you can lay at the door of Intense Debate. It comes with the territory, at least to some extent.

Anyway, kudos to Intense Debate! I like what they are doing.

One more thing, before I forget. Support is stellar!

They are using a forum service known as Get Satisfaction. It seems fast enough, and has a few nifty response options. Social Network/Media geared.

But above this, I have found the actual level of support (from a particular fellow by the name of Michael, look see) to be fantastic.

So thank you to Intense Debate for you work.

Any readers who blog, take a gander. Actually, comment here! I’d love to hear some feedback as to how you find the commenting.

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Clarion Folk Lore #2 is live!

[audio:2008-04-01/ClarionFolkLore-002.mp3]

Download: Here (8:24 mins)

Apologies Jan for mis-pronouncing your name! Didn’t realise it was a y not a j.

I’m still working out Audacity. I seem to have reached the limit of what it can handle with how many different streams, one for every time someone speaks.

Which reminds me, I need to splice better.

I’ll be breaking up the segments again, exporting to high quality mp3, then importing them all in together for #3.

Notes:

• Dave’s experiences at the MS "Heroes Happen" event ..
  here.
• Linked In (cheers again Jan), http://www.linkedin.com.
• Schedule up for the Aussie DevCon, here.
• Trebuchets, All kinds of funny .. here (youtube).
• Google Docs, updates here.
• Google Docs, OFFLINE!
  • Ars Technica Post
  • Google Docs Blog Post
• Wordpress 2.5, http://www.wordpress.org

Answers:

1. How do you get code to run in a procedure AFTER you’ve RETURN’d?
   1. have a class that is instantiated in the scope of the procedure, make sure that class has a .DESTRUCTOR2)
2. Name two ways to run code in a procedure PRIOR to getting to the CODE statement
   1. use a class that instantiated in the scope of the procedure, and make sure it has a .CONSTRUCTor
   2. (may require C6+), declare a variable with an initial value, that is an expression
      1. that expression can even be a procedure call
         1. ex:  MyVar  LONG( SomeProc(42) )
3. How do you figure out where the running executable is?
   1. see COMMAND(‘0′)
      1. Obviously Rastus got this a little wrong in the podcast.

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Welcome to the first of a new Category of Clarion Folk posts!

Project Dimes will be ideas for any kind of Projects. They might be brand new, they might already have been done half a hundred times.

A single Screen Name across the entire Web. That’s my proposal.

"What!" I hear you say, "That’s stupid."

"OpenID is the big thing for the now, people are fighting with big words over whether or not to do it .. silly silly boy, don’t even step into that overly large pond."

That’s true. OpenID is the big talking point these days. But hear me out.

The Big-Ass Name Grabber

Instead of getting everyone to subscribe and wotnot, turn the whole thing on it’s head.

The idea is that you go to the people, not the other way around.

1. Develop a lean mean fighting machine of a "Bot" and send it throughout the web, probably just starting with blogs, reaping all the names of comments, posters, and others that it can find.

The problem here is Emails. You need the Email, but to get it, you become a spam artist. And therein lies the problem with my idea. Found. Debunked. Done.

But I’ll keep going :)

2. Contact the Names and ask them to come and verify their "Name".

See, here’s the rub. How do you contact them without being a spammer? And without getting them to come to you first?

3. First person in gets the name first, and then you do a kind of "Gravatar" ish thing, making deals with the bigwigs like Wordpress and Drupal and all the hosted Blogging places.

4. Because you’ve successfully done what noone else could, retire at the ripe age of twenty three and live out your days playing badminton or Halo or even Warcraft. Whatever floats your fabulously wealthy boat.

Okay. There is _something_ in that idea .. but it’s not much. And the whole "Get Email Without Being a Spammer" thing would really seem to put the kybosh all over it.

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