New Blog Toys!
today i discovered BlinkList, which works just like del.icio.us with a few differences. for one, the name is much easier to remember. you also have the option to make some of your links private (like, you know, for certain free sites on the Web), and you can e-mail the link to your friends as you bookmark them. i’ve started my own BlinkList, which is nowhere near finished that you can see here. there’s also a link in the sidebar under "Blogrolls & Links."
speaking of that, today i came up with the brilliant idea of merging all of my links pages into one page. duh. i don’t know why it took me this long to come up with that. the link is still listed under "Blogrolls & Links" but is now called “view all links” (dead link, may recreate, 12/12/05).
another site i found is called LibraryThing, which allows you to catalog your books online. you can list up to 200 books, and while the site is in beta, you can pay $10 for a lifetime membership. since the 200 limit is nowhere near enough to cover my books, nor do i want to catalog all of them, i’ve decided to use it just to keep track of my Star Wars books. comic book issues aren’t listed, so i’ve had to add them by the TPB title. you can also tag your books, which is cool, and display them on your blog or Web site by tag, randomly, recently added, and so on. finding this was serendipitous because i’ve been planning to add the Star Wars myMediaList from Cell 2187 (old Star Wars blog, now part of this one), but the site seems to be defunct.
since i have a mood disorder, it’s a good idea to keep track of my moods, which is why i’ve started using imood again. they have a bookmarklet that you can add on your browser’s toolbar, which makes it convenient to use. i replaced this once with MoodSmilies, but their site goes down too often for my taste, and you’re left with a messed up iframe on your site. the nice thing was that people could leave you comments and their icons were cooler, but it wasn’t worth it to me. with imood, people can click on your current mood and read if there’s anything else you added. for example, i just changed my mood to "bummed." if you click on it, you’ll see it’s because Ohio State lost to Penn State. viewers can also see your current IM online status, interests, and Web page URL.
finally, i was using the free version of NeoCOUNTER for a while, which tells you how many people and from what countries are currently online. it began to annoy me, though, because for a while now it seems like every time i check it on my blog, i get some Google ads and an error message that says my counter will return in "X" minutes. then i came across UsersOnlineCounter, which is exactly that. it isn’t too flashy, it’s easy to use, customizable–and free.
have fun experimenting!
Great to see that you discovered blinklist! If you have any more ideas, please let us know, we are always working hard at improving our service. Just so you know there is a bunch of additional cool features that we enable that you did not mention but might like. 1) starring tags, links, and users and 2) seeing what your friends have been up to by adding them to your watch list. Just check http://about.blinklist.com. Happy blinking! Mike
October 9, 2005 11:41 am
Blinklist is pretty nice, I’m just a little paranoid it’s going to cost money down the line. I hope not though, lol. I could easily integrate it into my site, but right now, my site is down. I messed it up again, long story. However, once I get the wordpress plugin I want working, you’ll see why I went through hell to get it.
October 9, 2005 7:15 pm
[…] recently, i wrote about LibraryThing. it’s a place where you can keep a catalog of your books online. as i use it more often, i’ve found that you can subscribe to other people’s library catalogs via RSS, find other people who also own the books you do or have similar libraries, leave comments for them, and all sorts of cool stuff. […]
December 12, 2005 2:16 pm