I have mentioned a book I wrote called Information Trapping. It was about using tools like keyword-based RSS feeds and Google Alerts to curate content across the Web. Fast forward 18 years later and, while keyword-based news RSS feeds are still useful, I’m finding Google Alerts increasingly clogged with junk. That’s why I’m trying to idea of monitoring Wikipedia categories to watch topics that aren’t easily defined by keyword-based RSS feeds.
An Updated Version of the OPML Peeler
One of the many web sites I’ve scattered everywhere is RSS Gizmos ( https://rssgizmos.com/ ) which has a number of tools for discovering, creating, and using RSS. One of them is OPML Peeler, which takes an OPML file (OPML stands for Outline Processor Markup Language; an OPML file in this context is basically a bundle […]
Your Regular Reminder That Tons of People Are On Reddit
Wow, I just got a serious reminder of the Power of Reddit. I’m making a new tool to monitor breakout pages in specified Wikipedia categories as a new kind of topical information trap. One of the test categories I’m using is Androgynous people and that’s how I found out about an 18th/19th century preacher named […]
Blaugust: Four Tools for Easier Date-Based Searching
Do your Internet research tasks include a lot of date-based searching? I find that date-based searching helps a lot when searching historical (and man do I feel weird saying that about stuff that happened just a couple decades ago) events, companies, people and information. The results you’ll find when searching for something in its contemporary […]
Blaugust: Bean Stew Night
One of the things I didn’t know about menopause until I was going through it was what it will do to your digestive system. Hot flashes would leave me feeling like I had snakes in my belly, and I’d have to go lay in the shower for a while and just let cool water run […]
Slicing and Dicing YouTube Searches Into Google Queries
I was doodlebugging around and made a YouTube-based Google query builder. It slices a topical query five different ways and builds a list of keywords for each set of results. (Unique ones are a different color and marked with a star.) Click on the keywords to add them to your Google query, the results of […]
Echo Chambers No, Everything Chambers Yes: Three Tools For Nook-and-Cranny Searching
Yesterday I wrote about making search spaces and got accused of making echo chambers. So today I’ll show you how to get into the EVERYTHING CHAMBER with 3 tools for randomish and nook-and-cranny searching.
Blaugust: Heard about Google’s “Preferred Sources”? Here are 4 Other Ways to Find Specific News Outlets
Have you heard about Google’s new “preferred sources?” I’ll show you three other ways to discover news sources and bundle them into a Google search and one way to find TV news by US metro area.
Blaugust: What Am I Supposed To Talk About?
I have several posts in draft but they’ve stayed in draft because I can’t convince myself you give half a crap. I don’t expect or require you to, of course: you owe me nothing. At the same time I’d like to entertain or teach you rather than irritate you, so shouldn’t I consider you, my […]
Blaugust Blogging: MiniGladys Has Replaced 90% Of My Google “Quick Reference” Searches – No AI Required.
I have been writing about and using Google for decades, so I get it — it’s super-easy to use Google for quick one-off searches like finding official web sites, getting a name spelled correctly, getting a quick topic overview, etc. But with Google’s insistence on using water and electricity on AI to summarize the information […]