New Windows Live Writer Plug-in Submission Process

I just received an email from Microsoft about changes to the submission and and hosting of Windows Live Writer plug-ins.  It goes into effect on September 10, 2010 (one month from now).  Live Writer is a great blogging tool and it has a nice API for extending it’s functionality.  If you use Live Writer, you should check out the plug-ins at Windows Live Gallery.

I submitted a SmugMug plug-in a couple of years ago.  It will need to be resubmitted.  Actually, I’ll probably rewrite it.  I’m sure it’s obsolete by now.  Here are the contents of the email.

Dear Windows Live Writer plug-in authors,

On behalf of the Windows Live Writer team and all of our customers, thank you for the valuable contributions your plug-ins have made to the Writer experience.

We’re writing to let you know that Writer’s plug-in hosting and submission processes are changing.  Note: Existing plug-ins currently hosted on Windows Live Gallery will need to be resubmitted using the new process outlined below.  In the future, should you wish to provide additional plug-ins for Writer, we request that you also submit your plug-ins using this process.

We hope that you find the new plug-in submission process and hosting solution simple and lightweight. New plug-in submission process:

1. Author uploads plug-in MSI installer to Windows Live SkyDrive using his/her Windows Live ID (email address).
2. Author emails wleplugins@microsoft.com (Windows Live Essentials Plug-ins) including the following information:
   • Author name
   • Author Windows Live ID (that will host the plug-in MSI)
   • Author contact email address
   • Plug-in name
   • Plug-in description
   • Plug-in category (pick only one):
     • Formatting/clipboard
     • Post publishing
     • Pictures
     • Buttons
     • Other content
     • Miscellaneous
   • URL to plug-in MSI on SkyDrive
3. Writer team verifies that the plug-in works as described.
4. Writer team updates public list of Writer plug-ins that will include information on the plug-in and a link to the installer that is hosted on the author’s SkyDrive.
5. Writer team notifies plug-in author that plug-in has been listed.

We value your efforts and want to ensure that your plug-ins will continue to be accessible for the many people interested in them.  In order to do this, we need you to resubmit any existing plug-ins on Windows Live Gallery using this new process by September 10, 2010. You will be able to add more plug-ins after this date, but we need you to move existing plug-ins by then.

Please email us with any questions or concerns about the new plug-in submission process at wleplugins@microsoft.com. Other support requests should be directed to the Windows Live Solution Center.

Thanks,
The Windows Live Writer Team

Get ready to say good bye to Google Page Creator

When I get some spare time, I plan on revamping the layout of this blog.  Right now, it’s an ugly mess of hacks placed in Blogger templates.  I want to make use of external CSS and Javascript files, but Blogger doesn’t allow you to upload those types of files.  Since of the design goals for this blog is to run it for free, I wanted to have a way of hosting CSS and Javascript files without having to use a paid hosting account.

I read a cool blog article writen by Lars Gersmann on how to add WordPress style calendar pages to Blogger based blogs to jazz up the blog post timestamp.  Lars provided the links the .css and .js files, hosted on his Google Page Creator account.  That looked vaguely familiar, I have a Google Page Creator account gathering virtual dust out in the cloud.  I logged in my Google Pages account and saw an announcement that Google was pulling the plug on Google Page Creator.  if you don’t have a Google Page Creator account now and go to the site, Google Page Creator, you’ll see one of the messages.

On August 4th, Google posted an announcement that they would be shutting down Google Page Creator later this year in favor of Google Sites.  Both sites let you create simple web sites very easily, but Google Sites, will not let you host your own .css or .js files.  Sometime later this year, Google will be shutting down Google Page Creator and I’m assuming that any site left there will be purged.  Google Page Creator was part of Labs.Google.com, which basically means it was a beta project with no guarantee that it would be around as a permanent fixture.

Backing up your Blogger hosted posts

This blog is hosted on Google's Blogger platform.  It has it's own domain name, but it's still on Blogger.  While I have faith in our Google Overlords, I still like keeping a local backup of the blog posts.  There's a nice open source Blogger backup utility named "Blogger Backup".  It's written in C# in VB.NET and is hosted on CodePlex.

When it's running, you'll see a window that looks like this:

Sell photos on photrade | By Chris Miller

You save each post as it's own file, or put them all inside one big, honkin' file.  The posts are saved as XML to make it easier to process.  You can use Blogger Backup to restore the posts back to your blog.  That would be handy if you accidentally delete a blog post.  You could also use the saved XML files to port your blog to another platform.  While I have no intention of moving this blog off of Blogger, it's good to know that I would have a way of migrating all of my posts to a new platform.

Blogger Backup is a .NET application, you'll need to have the .NET Framework 2.0 installed.  To communicate with Blogger, it uses the GData.Net (Google Data API for .NET) library.  I wasn't familiar with GData, it's a Apache licensed API that provides programmable access to many of Google's services:

• Base
• Blogger
• Calendar
• Spreadsheets
• Google Apps Provisioning
• Code Search
• Notebook
• Picasa Web Albums
• Document Feed
• Contacts
• YouTube
• Google Health

GMail is not on the list, but that would be asking for trouble.  The last thing we need is a Google API for sending spam through GMail.  The API is not limited to .NET, they have versions for Python, Java, and Objective-C.  I think you could do some interesting things with the GData API and their Calendar.

If you are wondering about the screenshot, I'm playing around with the beta for Photrade.  It has some cool features, it's worth checking out.

[Updated on 6/12/2008]
For some reason I thought Blogger Backup was written in C#, when it’s actually VB.NET.

Identity hijacking on Twitter.

The other day, I got an email from Twitter announcing that someone new is following me.

SIOOMA! (Siooma) is now following your updates on Twitter.

Check out SIOOMA!'s profile here:

 http://twitter.com/Siooma

You may follow SIOOMA! as well by clicking on the "follow" button.

Best,
Twitter

If you are on Twitter, then you have seen that type of message before.  It means that a user with the handle "Siooma" is now following my site.  I took a peek at Siooma's Twitter page and sure enough it lists a Fake Steve Jobs blog post as the home page.  Siooma is one of the FSJ's favorite sayings, read that blog post for the full definition - I don't want to spoil the fun by taking it out of context.  I read some of Siooma's previous "tweet" and I don't think it's the real deal.  They were sort of FSJ-like, but they were missing the sharp edge that a real FSJ post would have.  Part of what makes FSJ so fun to read is how close to the truth he appears to get at.

If you do a search on Twitter for FSJ, you get a couple of hits.  None of them are the authentic FSJ.  His Twitter handle is FakeSteveTwit, which oddly enough doesn't come up in that Twitter search.  Doing a parody of a famous person can be entertaining, the "real" Fake Steve Jobs is both entertaining and informative.  He does more than a Mad Magazine style of parody, FSJ covers actual Apple events and applies the FSJ twist to the analysis.  The man behind the satire, Daniel Lyons, is a real journalist and does a good job covering the stock options backdating scandal that involved the real Steve Jobs a while back.  When you read FSJ, you wonder how to close he gets to the actual Steve Jobs and does the real Steve Jobs ever wish he could say some of things that the FSJ says.  None of the FSJ clones on Twitter have that magic.  Even if they could, it would hard to produce that in 140 character limit of a Twitter post.

Siooma is welcome to follow my Twitter feed, but I'm not planning on reciprocating.  FSJ has but some serious time and effort in his blog.  The FSJ wannabees are just riding on his coattails.  When they list his blog as their web site, it comes off that they are pretending to be the FSJ.  Lyons does not have a monopoly on being a fake Steve Jobs, but it's not right to claim his site as your own.  If Siooma and the other clones want to be another FSJ, then they should get their own FSJ blogs and develop their own personas.

Link rot and the ascendance of Wikipedia

As usual, Steve Tibbets hits the nail directly on the head with his post about link rot and Wikipedia.  I would have to say that the domain that I link to the most would have to be Wikipedia.  Most of the time I dot it because it's convenient, but link rot (there!  I just did it) happens a lot. 

Microsoft is pretty bad at this.  There have been too many times where I tried to follow a link into the MSDN, only to find that the MSDN has been reorganized and all of the links have changed.

If I link to another blog, I look for the permalink.  That usually indicates that the link will be around for a while.  I also try to find links on multiple domains.  That way, the odds are less likely that you will get the dreaded 404 page when you follow a link that has rotted away.

Steve posting his rules for linking and they just make sense:

• If what I’m linking to has a top-level domain, then I will link to it.
• If I’m linking to someone’s words (say, a blog post or magazine article), then I will link to that.
• Otherwise, I’m linking to Wikipedia.