If you’re just a reader or don’t want to display the list on your site, just a bookmark should do: Oklahoma Netroots

For bloggers and webkeepers, please feel free to use the collection to …

add a blogroll

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://www.google.com/reader/ui/publisher-en.js”>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.google.com/reader/public/javascript-sub/user/02091792386555904184/label/ok netroots?callback=GRC_p(%7Bc%3A%22blue%22%2Ct%3A%22OK%20Netroots%20blogs%22%2Cb%3A%22true%22%7D)%3Bnew%20GRC"></script>

or add what Google called a "clip" that shows the latest 10 posts (like a widget):

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.google.com/reader/ui/publisher-en.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.google.com/reader/public/javascript/user/02091792386555904184/label/ok netroots?n=10&callback=GRC_p(%7Bc%3A%22blue%22%2Ct%3A%22Latest%20from%20OK's%20Netroots%22%2Cs%3A%22true%22%2Cb%3A%22false%22%7D)%3Bnew%20GRC"></script>

This gives you the latest 10 posts from all blogs in the blogroll, in date order and looks like:

If you want the output with different colors, or no style at all the options are: black, blue, gray, green, khaki, Pink, slate, none. Just replace the color in the code where you see "blue" above. 10 is the max but if you want fewer list items, use any number 1-9 instead of "10" in the code where you see "n=10"

I will have the clip on my local page until I (or someone else) comes up with something better.

And, of course, if you have or know of a blog I haven't listed but should, let me know.

Update: just noticed that some of the posts in the feed are not in proper date order -- I think that's because they are not dated in a conventional manner, so were just dated with today's date. Anyway, it should work out as the feed moves along. Sorry for any confusion!

Of course, I have blogged very sporatically, and using at least five different URLs and using the following blog tools

• Movable Type
• Blogger
• WordPress
• Xoops
• Wordress again
• Drupal
• WordPress again

What have I learned? Unless something revolutionary happens in open-source software for running blogs, I’m sticking with WordPress.

If I had it all to do over, I would just use Blogger. The main reason is that it doesn’t require any software upgrading, and — a factor getting more and more important to me as I start to recognize my own mortality — it will exist after my domain registration expires, my hosting account is closed, and I am no longer able to drag myself to the keyboard. If Blogger decided to finally add an import feature for non-Blogger formats, I’d probably use it.

There are several downsides to Blogger, and for some projects it’s not the way to go. I’m just talking about a personal blog.

If I were advising a new blogger with limited tech skills who doesn’t care much about the design of their site, I would point them at WordPress.com for a free blog with a very accessible and easy to use interface, that is probably also relatively timeless.

When I started with Movable Type, I didn’t know markup or code of any kind. I downloaded the manual and taught myself how to completely redesign the templates. Although I soon thereafter abandoned MT when its owners revealed hostility towards open-source, I did get a good idea of the general principles that are used by all the php based blog platforms.

In 2004, I got a book on X/HTML and basic CSS, and taught myself the basics. Deconstructing an HTML site design that was contributed to the Oklahoma Green Party(where it’s still in use) in order incorporate it with blogging software, I learned a couple of very useful php commands that make life easier for web-keepers.

That’s about the extent of my code knowledge, but by experimenting with a ridiculous number of open-source software offerings, including (in addition to above) Xoops, B2, Mambo and its derivatives like Joomla, I’ve learned that I don’t need to know how to create what people smarter than I are creating and giving away. I also am constantly scouting out free scripts and services that are available for bloggers and web-keepers.

I believe in the democratic principles behind blogging, the netroots, copyleft and open-source technology. I encourage — and provide hands on help where I can — progressive activists to become bloggers. I read and/or participate in (probably way too) many blogs in the loose leftist confederation that has become known as the Netroots, which I consider the revival of grassroots democracy in this country, and the hope of democracy around the world, lighting even its darkest corners.
That the Internet turned out the way it did (thanks to the corporate entities who didn’t see its potential and passed on buying into it during the early stages), is a miracle. Without the Internet, I think it’s possible that the past eight years would have been the decimation of our beloved form of government in the U.S. Through the instant global communications provided by the Internet, advocacy campaigns were created and activists mobilized in new and powerful ways. And we are only at the beginning of that process.

What’s more, now we will have a president who understands and appreciates this resource, and will use it to improve government and policy. I believe the Internet and the open-source movement and the transparency principles that guide the blogosphere were instrumental in guiding Obama’s political ideology and agenda.

For these amazing tools, and all who have embraced and expanded them, I am eternally grateful. However strange it may be to those who think of Thanksgiving as a time to forgo technology and focus on “real” communication, for me, Thanksgiving has become the tech holiday, a time I think most pointedly about the digital threads that have connected all the world in a global family that 20 years ago was only science fiction, and a time to renew my commitment to use its power for the common good.

AOL is number 1, and deservedly so. Unfortunately, there are still some rural folks who have no other affordable choice but AOL dialup to get online. This is unforgiveable in the “most advanced nation on Earth.”

However, if those folks also use IE, they have no one to blame but themselves. PLEASE people, love yourself enough to get Firefox.The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time – Yahoo! News

1. America Online (1989-2006)

How do we loathe AOL? Let us count the ways. Since America Online emerged from the belly of a BBS called Quantum “PC-Link” in 1989, users have suffered through awful software, inaccessible dial-up numbers, rapacious marketing, in-your-face advertising, questionable billing practices, inexcusably poor customer service, and enough spam to last a lifetime. And all the while, AOL remained more expensive than its major competitors. This lethal combination earned the world’s biggest ISP the top spot on our list of bottom feeders.

AOL succeeded initially by targeting newbies, using brute-force marketing techniques. In the 90s you couldn’t open a magazine (PC World included) or your mailbox without an AOL disk falling out of it. This carpet-bombing technique yielded big numbers: At its peak, AOL claimed 34 million subscribers worldwide, though it never revealed how many were just using up their free hours.

Once AOL had you in its clutches, escaping was notoriously difficult. Several states sued the service, claiming that it continued to bill customers after they had requested cancellation of their subscriptions. In August 2005, AOL paid a $1.25 million fine to the state of New York and agreed to change its cancellation policies–but the agreement covered only people in New York.

Ultimately the Net itself–which AOL subscribers were finally able to access in 1995– made the service’s shortcomings painfully obvious. Prior to that, though AOL offered plenty of its own online content, it walled off the greater Internet. Once people realized what content was available elsewhere on the Net, they started wondering why they were paying AOL. And as America moved to broadband, many left their sluggish AOL accounts behind. AOL is now busy rebranding itself as a content provider, not an access service.

Though America Online has shown some improvement lately–with better browsers and e-mail tools, fewer obnoxious ads, scads of broadband content, and innovative features such as parental controls–it has never overcome the stigma of being the online service for people who don’t know any better.

[...]

8. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (2001)

Full of features, easy to use, and a virtual engraved invitation to hackers and other digital delinquents, Internet Explorer 6.x might be the least secure software on the planet. How insecure? In June 2004, the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) took the unusual step of urging PC users to use a browser–any browser–other than IE. Their reason: IE users who visited the wrong Web site could end up infected with the Scob or Download.Ject keylogger, which could be used to steal their passwords and other personal information. Microsoft patched that hole, and the next one, and the one after that, and so on, ad infinitum.

To be fair, its ubiquity paints a big red target on it–less popular apps don’t draw nearly as much fire from hackers and the like. But here’s hoping that Internet Explorer 7 springs fewer leaks than its predecessor.

The Grokster file sharing decision was the most notorious of the ones handed down today. But the court also came down on the wrong side in the so-called “Brand X” matter, saying cable Internet access providers companies don’t have to provide access to third party ISPs. They own the cable, so they get to decide what data gets sent, in what order.

Given that there are only two “broadband” providers in most communities — if that many — this is an invitation to a media consolidation that makes the current one look pale. The decision, which ratifies Congressional and FCC failure to address the open-access question in a way that promotes freedom of speech, is a gift to the cable/phone duopoly. They will abuse their power, because history shows that’s how they work.

Do you care? Or are you a sheep, baa baa, ready to be just a consumer of the crap Hollywood feeds you? Are you willing to let the phone and cable companies dominate tomorrow’s media, having built “their” networks on the backs of monopoly deals with government that they now leverage to capture entirely new markets? Baa baa.

If you care, fight back. Call, and especially write, your member of the U.S. House and U.S. senators. Tell them that the law is now grossly out of balance in the hands of the entertainment cartel and data duopoly. They won’t pay much attention if you’re the only one who calls, but they may begin to wake up if enough people care.

..wherein you will learn such important points as “[...]we’re going to take you into the world of blogs by delivering this story — call it Blogs 101 for businesses — in the style of a blog. We’re even sprinkling it with links. These are underlined words that, when clicked, carry readers of this story’s online version to another Web page. [...]

and so on. I will give the writer credit for at least making one critical point:

But one thing is clear: Companies over the past few centuries have gotten used to shaping their message. Now they’re losing control of it.

Couldn’t be happier about that, myself.

Stripped Down. This article from New Scientist magazine tells of an idea for bringing low-cost computing to the poor in developing countries. The key to making it possible: no Microsoft.