About
About TechTraction
TechTraction.com is an outlet for my personal commentary on technology along with a sprinkling of tech-tips and how-to articles. Previously, the site focused on various aspects of blogging with WordPress, which explains the large archive of articles on this topic. Unfortunately, I found that topical focus too narrow and decided to broaden my focus in an effort to make weekly publication easier to achieve.
I do my best to publish 3 times a week: Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Monday and Wednesday articles cover a range of technical topics but Friday is reserved for a category called “Friday Finds.” In this category I briefly write about various web resources that I found interesting or useful in hopes that TechTraction’s readers will also find these resources interesting or useful.
I hope you enjoy visiting and participating in TechTraction.com. Thanks for stopping by.
About TechTraction’s Owner and Author (Bret Swedeen)
I started working in the computer industry back in 1989 doing network and system administration along with general information technology (I.T.) fire fighter (e.g. solving everyone’s printing problems). I’ve dabbled in a little bit of everything computer related over the years but have stayed closest to network and system administration work.
My publishing experience over the years includes numerous articles on Lotus Notes and Domino in magazines such as the Lotus Notes Advisor, Database Advisor, LAN Magazine, and LAN Times. In 1997 I took the next step in publishing and wrote the Lotus Notes 4.5 Administrator’s Guide for Sybex Publishing. During that same year I found my way to the “promised land” for Notes/Domino administrators: Lotus Development Corporation (a.k.a. IBM).
Currently I’m working in for IBM Global Services Real-Time Collaboration Services team supporting IBM’s internally deployed collaborative services applications (Sametime, QuickPlace, Web Conference, etc). My role on the team focuses on developing custom tools to help maintain and monitor our collaboration environment.
I took a long break from publishing but returned in 2006 with new material published in The View and IBM DeveloperWorks, and none of it was about Notes/Domino. I may publish another book someday, but for now I think I’ll just blog.
If you’re interested, you can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/TechTraction
About RSS and Email Feeds
An RSS feed is a way for a website (typically a blog) to distribute its content to readers beyond the confines of the site’s home page. People can subscribe to a site’s “feed” and automatically receive the site’s updates in a “feed reader” such as NewsGator, BlogLines, or Google Reader (to name a few). Through a “feed reader” individuals can quickly see all of the new content from their subscribed feeds in a single location instead of having to visit each of their favorite sites individually and search for new content.
An Email feed is similar to a newsletter subscription with the notification schedule of an RSS feed. Newsletters typically get sent at some predetermined publishing interval (e.g. weekly, monthly, etc). An Email feed sends the latest content from a site directly to a subscribers inbox once the article gets published on the site.
RSS and Email feeds are very similar in that new content is delivered to a single location once the content is published. That location can be an RSS reader or an Email inbox: you, the reader, can choose which suits your needs best. Keep in mind, however, that not all sites offer Email feed subscription but commonly offer, at least, an RSS feed subscription. Fortunately, TechTraction offers both.
For more information about RSS and Email feeds read my Friday Find post from 9/21/2007 which providers several useful links that can help you learn more about RSS and Email feeds.
About del.icio.us and Technorati Favorites
All browsers have the ability to “bookmark” a web site. This features allows users to remember and organize their favorite sites to make future reference easier; however, with the introduction of “social bookmarking” users can now use a centralized website, such as del.icio.us or Technorati, to not only store their bookmarks, but share them as well.
Their are several different options for “social bookmarking” available on the web but del.icio.us is probably the pioneer. You can sign up for a free account at del.icio.us and then start to compile your list of favorites on their web site. Once your favorites are on the web, you access them from any computer that has an Internet connection. To learn more about the benefits of del.icio.us and social bookmarking, visit the del.icio.us home page.
Technorati is different from del.icio.us in that it is much more than another social bookmarking site. According to Wikipedia, Technorati is an Internet search engine for blogs; however, with a free Technorati account, you can flag your favorite blogs like del-icio.us, and read the latest content from those sites in a central location, much like a traditional RSS news reader. If blog reading is “your thing”, then you should consider signing up for a free Technorati account and see what they have to offer, and, if you don’t mind, please add TechTraction to your list of favorites.
About Twitter
According to their FAQ, Twitter defines itself as “a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?”
On TechTraction I use Twitter as a microblog to supplement my weekly blogging schedule. I can’t maintain a daily posting schedule, and sometimes my 3 times a week schedule is tough to meet; however, some readers like daily updates and for those readers I have resorted to using Twitter to provide that level of publishing frequency.
Twitter is a very interesting and versatile application. There are many different ways to use this technology even if you’re mildly reluctant to jump on the latest “technology craze.” If you haven’t tried Twitter, I highly recommend you take it for a test drive. I believe you’ll quickly see the value in this simple little application. And by all means, if you sign up and find you like Twitter, you’re welcome to “follow me” if you enjoy what I’m doing here at TechTraction.