Feature Requests

In addition to these six feature requests, I hope that Blogger will implement the following:

• As recommended by this guide, I'd like to control per-post security settings to selectively restrict my readership. It shouldn't be a huge challenge because most modern file systems support access control nowadays.
• I'd like to group my posts by category so a reader interested in movies can quickly glance over all my movie reviews (and nothing else) by choosing the corresponding category view. This is also a nice way for me to organize my posts, narrowing the specific content of a post. A full featured database as the back end is probably necessary for such a task.
• I'd like to automatically trackback my blog—ie, to report everyone who responds to one of my posts on his or her own blog. This could be tough. I still have no idea how this notification protocol works. HaloScan.com provides free blog comment and trackback services.

A Firefox Tip

I learned a useful feature today. In Firefox one can associate a keyword for a bookmark, which can simplify surfing and searching. For example, bookmark www.washingtonpost.com with the keyword post. Hereafter just typing post in the location bar (easily activated by Alt-D) will take me directly to . Of course, saving a few mouse clicks using Smart Keywords is not a big deal in itself. However, this shortcut becomes really handy when looking for something at a searchable website (ie, it deploys http-POST style forms). For example, bookmark http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?s=%s with the keyword a and file it somewhere (such as in the Quick Searches folder). Then simply typing a bookmark in the location bar will tell me all there's to know about the topic of bookmark at Answers.com. In other words, anything after a keyword in the location bar will automatically replace %s in the corresponding bookmark. So a bookmark fully expands to http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?s=bookmark. I haven't found a quicker way to search.

First Review

It's been exactly one month since my inaugural post. My original purpose of blogging is to improve the effectiveness of my writing. To that end, my efforts have been dismal. Instead, I find myself frequently using the blog as a playground for experimenting web designs. One fringe benefit is that I can now use my blog as a portal with all my bookmarks conveniently available anywhere on the web. Anyway, I shall focus on not the appearance but the content of my blog hereafter.