monkeys on typewriters

Or: Piggybacking FTW.

Austin (Taco Widgets design ninja) recently wrote a piece entitled “A Guide to Blogging”, in which he describes 1) why you should blog and 2) how you should blog.

He also mentions me incognito as “software developer”. (At least, I think it’s me.) I dunno if I’m the one of the three who actually blogs — I’m not sure if this counts. But I digress.

It’s a great article and if you don’t blog, you should read it. I agree with everything he has to say. I simply wanted to add one little tip of my own on how to blog. This tip is brought to you by John Gruber of Daring Fireball:

That reader I write for is a second version of me. I’m writing for him. He’s interested in the exact same things I’m interested in; he reads the exact same websites I read. I want him to like this website so much that he reads it from the top to the bottom, and he reads everything. [transcript link]

That is the exact same spirit that you should write your blog in. It will help ensure that you’re writing the right blog and not pretending to be something you’re not. It’ll make your blog feel more authentic and, in the end, will result in better content.

Go.

Time recently did a short piece about Twitter, that love-it-or-hate-it web service that is the next up-and-coming star of Web 2.0. The article is a really good read, and it brings up several interesting points.

Since then, the fawning attention to the seven-month-old service [Twitter] has come full-circle as reviewers have begun to realize how boring most people’s lives really are. (As if YouTube’s gallery of puppy and kitten videos hadn’t already driven that point home.)

Well, there you have it. That’s about what Web 2.0 all comes down to.

OR: Google Really, Really Wants to get Sued.

Their new code search lets anyone search the entire internet for code. Ya know, geek stuff. Try searching for “This file contains proprietary and confidential information”.

The first result that comes up (I’m not going to link to it, for fear of getting sued too) has this warning:

This file contains proprietary and confidential information and remains the unpublished property of [company name censored]. Use, disclosure, or reproduction is prohibited except as permitted by express written license agreement with [company name censored again].

Now, I’m no lawyer, but Google’s disclosure this information seems like a direct violation of that warning. I’m also aware that me reposting it here directly violates that warning on multiple counts, however, I don’t think that any lawyer in their right mind would take me to task for it. (However, if you really, really don’t like it, leave a comment.)

Admittedly, most of the copyrights on this results page are from the mid-90s, so many of these companies probably aren’t even around anymore, but it still doesn’t seem very safe to me. My only question: Why didn’t someone inside Google think about this before it went live?