Category Archives: Weblogs

Feeding Zotero

Zotero is where I keep an eclectic library of background to works in progress, works in incubation, and topics of interest. Zotero 2.0, which is still in beta, allows registered users to synchronize citations between computers and a page on the Zotero server itself. The citations are stored as a library with collections in subfolders, with feeds available at both levels, and can be made public. I liked the idea of pulling feeds from my collections into relevant pages, like my Women scientists in fiction page. It’s a work in progress, but figured I’d make notes before I forgot the convolutions and the useful links found along the way.

Currently there is no option to sync or make public just part of a library. That’s coming, but at the moment it is all or nothing. It is possible, using a Zotero-generated API key, to access a feed from an individual collection (folder) within a private library, but (naturally) click-through is not allowed so the full citation is not accessible. The Lifestream plugin gave a certificate error, when I attempted to add the Zotero feed as a generic blog, but the ZoteroFeedWidgit worked handily out of the box, installing a compact  Zotero feed in the sidebar. It’s not there now; in the sidebar was not where I wanted it, but it is an option for those wishing a sidebar feed. There’s an attached CSS file which grants the user some latitude in styling. The recommended syntax for calling the feed is:

http://feedaddress/top?key=APIkey

To get the feed address, bring up the page of the individual collection (ie, folder or subfolder). At the bottom of the page, there is a standard RSS symbol with a link to subscribe to this feed. Right click and copy the link; it will be different for each collection.

An offered workaround was to create a separate public collection with a separate registration. To enable me to use both my larger private collection and smaller public collection simultaneously, I have the first in Firefox and the second in Flock – otherwise I would have to relaunch Firefox to switch collections. The feed from the public collection (no https) works in Lifestream (in fact, it has taken over my Lifestream for the moment, with a great bolus of migrated articles). Still no in-page feeds, which will require use of a plugin that enables the execution of php in a page. So as I said, a work in progress. I might look at a more generic means of mashing together a Delicious feed and a Zotero feed – the first is very useful for links, the second obligatory for properly formed citations.

For more discussion on Zotero feeds and websites, there’s this thread on the forum.

Northern Voice: 50+ ways to tell a story

Ask and ye shall receive. Just after I posted that last, I wandered into the next session "There are 50 Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Story", by Alan Levine, wherein he managed to give the highlights of about 12 of his list of 50+

. The ones that went whisking by as I huddled in the back over the dimming ember of my ASUS were –

Xtimeline, Photoshare, VoiceThread, Comicsketch, Scrapblog, Googlemap, Comiq, Flickr, Blabberize, Toofee, Vasmo, Zentation (?), MyPlick.

Northern Voice 2008

Drifting around the UBC forestry center like a wistful cyberhobo, with my backpack – including pillow-roll, since I’m heading straight for the ferry after the final session – on my back and my ASUS in my hand, in perpetual search for a power-outlet. Perhaps that it my ghostly destiny: long after civilization has either become battery-independent or has collapsed completely from want of energy, my shade will wander with ancient spectral laptop in hand, looking for a recharge.

Just come out of a session with direction by Chris Lott and art by Nancy White, plus contributions by various people whose names and links I will add, on "The Blog is Dead! Long live bloggers!" which was the first to strike a deep chord in me because it touched upon blogging as a means of creative expression as well as a means of self-expression and social networking. This was late in the session; it started with an exploration of the definition of a blog, CLs attempt to liberate the form from the tool – as he said, nobody calls a book or a magazine ‘publishing’. Then it explored how the tools had evolved and expanded, how other tools had arisen to let people do what they had done with their blogs do in other modalities, or let them do what they had not been able to do with a blog – the blog, as a predominately written form, was not appealing to people who did not like to write, but they have adopted audio blogging, Flickr, videoblogging, YouTube. The discussants explored the difference between their use of the blog as a permanent archive, versus their use of other more ephemeral forms (eg Twitter). They compared relationships maintained in virtual space as well as in person, and those maintained purely in person – more in-person catch-up time in the former – as well as the peculiar asymmetry of an encounter with a stranger who knows them through their on-line presence. That is not, I thought, something new to the modern age; writers have always encountered people who knew their writing and thought that they thus knew the person behind the writing. Then CL stood up for the blog as a creative medium ("nobody would have said Picasso was creating content") and I pricked up my ears at a distinct glimmering of possibility. I used to experiment with form in story a lot, particularly in my early years, but then settled into conventional narrative forms of the novel and – occasionally – short story. Might be time for some experimentation again …

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Preventing TypePad posts from appearing in Google cache

This post describes the modifications I have made to TypePad’s Advanced Templates to insert a noarchive tag, intended as an opt-out from Google’s cache. Working with Advanced Templates requires a minimum Pro membership, and if anyone knows how to do it more simply (on TypePad), please tell the world, because I was not able to find an alternative.

Adding noarchive to Advanced Templates

My first step, since I’d not already done it, was to create a set of Advanced Templates from the customized templates of this blog, as described in TypePad’s support knowledge base (Creating an Advanced Template Set ID53). (The support knowledge base links are dynamically generated, so I’m going to cite the ID and avoid broken links if there’s a restructuring.)

The strategy described in Advanced Templates: Creating and Customizing Template Modules (ID542) comes down to creating new versions of the template modules that are to be modified, and then amending the line(s) of code in all the templates where the default template modules are included –

<$MTWeblogIncludeModule module=”module-name”$>

to include the modified module:

<$MTInclude module=”module-name”$>

Straightforward enough in principle, however, for efficiency, the modules are nested – modules are included within modules within templates. Things got complicated, and required reference to multiple reference articles and a query or two to Typepad support (who referred me back to the reference articles).

There is a common header module: head-common.

It is included in the following specific header modules:

  • head-archives
  • head-category
  • head-individual
  • head-index
  • head-date-based
  • (supposedly) head-extra.

These modules in turn are included in the following templates:

  • head-archives in Archive Index Template
  • head-category in Category Archives
  • head-index in Main Index Template
  • head-date-based in Datebased Archives
  • head-individual in Individual Archives, Pages

I had to create new modules for head-common, head-archives, head-category, head-individual, head-index, and head-date-based, based upon the code provided on various support knowledge based templates. I could not find code for head-extra, which I understand is an additional module.

Then I had to edit all the relevant Index and Archive templates to incorporate the new modules.

Common header module: head-common

Code for head-common is provided on the page Advanced Templates: Shared Template Modules (ID534). There are a couple of omissions in the list of where head-common is included.

head-common contains the code controlling the behaviour of robots for blogs set to private (enclosed in the MTBlogIfPrivate tag). Initially I thought about modifying the code, but decided to leave the code in and add a new line, so that in the unlikely event I decided to revert a blog to private I wouldn’t trip myself up. The line is (nofollow is optional).

meta name=”robots” content=”noarchive,nofollow” /

Add the angled brackets fore and aft; even with a blockquote to protect it, TypePad’s publishing system is suppressing the line with the angled brackets in.

I created a new template module, called it (for example) head-common-mod, cut and pasted the default code, and inserted the new line. I saved, but did not publish at that point.

Individual header modules

Since head-common is included by head-extra, head-archives, head-category, head-individual, and head-index, all these modules had to be replaced by an extra module, based upon the default modules, but amending the include code:

<$MTWeblogIncludeModule module=”head-common”$>

to:

<$MTInclude module=”head-common-mod”$>

Default code is found in the following pages in the knowledge-base:

  • head-archives in Advanced Templates: Archive Index Template (ID 544)
  • head-category in Advanced Templates: Category Archives Template (ID 545)
  • head-index in Advanced Templates: Main Index Template (ID 548)
  • head-individual in Advanced Templates: Shared Template Modules (ID 543)
  • head-date-based in Advanced Templates: DateBased Archives Template (ID 546)

See also Advanced Templates: Template Modules (ID 137), which lists all the types of template modules.

In each instance, I created a new template module, named it appropriately, cut and pasted the default code, and edited the required line. I saved, but did not publish.

Templates

The templates themselves are accessible through the control panel: TypePad Home > Your Weblog > Weblog Name > Design. In all instances, the edit is the same, only the module name is different:

<$MTWeblogIncludeModule module=”module-name”$>

to:

<$MTInclude module=”module-name-mod”$>

The edits are:

  • head-archives in Archive Index Template
  • head-category in Category Archives
  • head-index in Main Index Template
  • head-date-based in Datebased Archives
  • head-individual in Individual Archives, Pages

Publication

Having saved all the module and template changes, I republished the blog and checked to see if anything is broken. On inspection, Incidental Findings looks all right, unlike the first time, when I interpreted the instructions around head-extra as allowing insertion of additional code and nixed my layout. The controlling tag is appearing when I look at View Source. It will take a while for me to determine whether my entries are still being indexed but without the Cached link, which is the objective of the exercise – and whether it has broken anything else!