E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez

Updating my WordPress Blogroll – Not as Easy as I Thought

Tags: Metablogging, WordPress, Blogroll, Plugins, Categories, Hacks, Tips, Links, Blog Template

Yes, here we go again with another change that I am working on at the moment for this particular weblog. One that, hopefully, you would be able to benefit from a bit as well. You may have noticed already, if you have visited the site, that at this point in time I do not have a blogroll in the left column of the weblog template and the reason for that is because I thought I would go ahead and update it first with my latest additions, taken from my RSS and Atom feeds, so I decided to start from scratch and reload the list again. It was also a good opportunity to do some housekeeping and get rid of the feeds that are broken or those where no new content has been shared in a long while.

However, this time around I decided to split up all of the different feeds into various categories, so that it is easier for me to track down the folks I read on a regular basis based on whatever the topics and then other categories with feeds that I just get to check every other day. So I have now got my RSS feed client with a good bunch of categories and their corresponding feeds split up quite nicely. At least, easier to read, manage and navigate for me.

Thus I was hoping to keep that same structure in my WordPress weblog while updating the blogroll, but to my surprise WordPress does not seem to take the updated feeds per category. It just dumps it all into a single massive list of links very difficult to navigate through and find your way. I thought though that seeing how the vast amount of WordPress plugins keeps growing further and further with some impressive hacks that there would be one that I could use to display my blogroll in my site based on the categorisation structure that I put together.

But, alas I have not been able to find such plugin. At least, not yet, which is a pity. So here is the challenge. I know I could go ahead and add that blogroll with the categories manually one by one (That is not too difficult, I must say), but somehow I am not really sure I would want to do that for the over 500 feeds (Out of the 700 I currently have) that I want to display in my blogroll. That would be too much time consuming and perhaps too much effort put into it.

I have been searching around for a while and have not been able to find anything that would be easy to apply and that would do the trick. So I am writing this weblog post over here to check if any of you, folks, have been facing the same thing for your WordPress weblog(s) and find out how you actually solved the problem. I would love to hear from you how you actually managed to display your blogroll in your weblog template using the same categorisation structure you may have from your RSS feed client, whatever it is. Thus any ideas? Anyone out there who may be able to help me out with a cool tip on customising the blogroll with the least effort possible and obtaining the end-result I just described? Feel free to comment over here if you have got any suggestions, or contact me offline, on how to get that blogroll updated. Your help will be greatly appreciated since I would then be able to share with you all some of the latest additions to my blogroll. Yes, indeed, there are some surprises. And very shortly I will explain why…

IX Blogs & Gofio

Tags: Metablogging, Blogs, Blogosfera, Gofiosfera, Podcasts, Podcasting, Mangas Verdes, Manual Almeida, Víctor Ruiz, Planeta Canarias, Las de Gran Canaria, Gran Canaria, Pay per Post

Hace un par de meses comenté aquí mismo, en este blog, otro de los cambios que iba a introducir a partir de entonces: el hecho de empezar a escribir artículos en español para poder entrar a formar parte de la blogosfera española. Y aunque parece ser que llego un poco tarde (Más vale tarde que nunca, ya lo sabéis), el hecho es que aquí me tenéis escribiendo este primer artículo del año en español y esperando que las palabras salgan con la misma facilidad. Veremos.

Desde luego, la principal razón por la que me animo a escribir este artículo en mi lengua materna es por el hecho de que hace unos días otro de los blogs en español bastante populares que sigo con bastante frecuencia, Mangas Verdes, comentó algo que me pareció la mar de interesante: IX Blogs & Gofio. Efectivamente, parece que tanto Manuel Almeida como Víctor Ruiz la han vuelto a formar y se han decidido a crear el IX evento de Blogs & Gofio para todos aquellos bloggers de la Gofiosfera que quieran atender el evento. Y como hace ya tiempo que tengo este blog listado en Planeta Canarias pues me he animado y ya he dado la confirmación para atender este encuentro de blogueros en Las Palmas De Gran Canaria y que tendrá lugar este mismo sábado.

Aquí tenéis un pequeña descripción del evento, tomada del blog de Manuel, Mangas Verdes:

“Hemos pensado darle un pequeño formato a la cosa para animar y dotar de contenido a la velada. Antes de la cena y de la free tertulia se expondrán dos temas y se debatirá en formato de mesa redonda. Luego ya, el correspondiente desmadre propio de estos acontecimientos. Los temas propuestos son ‘Posts patrocinados‘ y ‘Podcasteando‘. En principio, y si nadie se ofrece para reemplazarme, yo haré de introductor al asunto de los posts patrocinados, que tanta polémica ha levantado en la blogosfera. Charlaremos un rato sobre eso y luego daremos paso al asunto de los podcasts. Acabo de hablar con Fran J. Saavedra y él también asume el reto, probablemente en divina conjunción con el equipo de Canarias Bruta. Nueva charla y al turrón, digo al gofio. Calculamos que toda esta primera parte no dure más de una hora (media hora por tema: breve exposición y debate).“

Pues eso, que ya me he animado y será la primera vez que me encuentre con un buen grupo de bloggers canarios. Desde luego, muy pero que muy interesante. Me apetece. Aparte de los dos temas mencionados también hablaremos un rato sobre las responsabilidades legales del blogger. O sea, que con tres temas harto jugosos y con mucho juego.

Ya os contaré cómo fue el evento. De momento parece como que el sábado por la tarde / noche ya lo tengo ocupado

¡Allí nos vemos!

One Year of Weblogging – Happy Anniversary! – And a Lovely Present

Tags: Anniversary, Metablogging, Knowledge Management, KM, Personal KM, PKM, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Software, Web 2.0, Weblogs, Podcasts, Weblogging, Podcasting, Ted Demopoulos, Darren Rowse, Bill Belew, ITtoolbox, elsua

Nope, don’t worry. You are not having any kind of déjà vu. elsua’s First Anniversary was actually celebrated back in October 2006. The attached weblog entry is actually coming from elsua – The Knowledge Management Blog. Yes, that is right, this is one other change that I wanted to introduce for 2007. And I guess that it would also be a good excuse to have a little bit of a break from all of the stuff that is going on over at Lotusphere 2007. Gosh, there are tons of really good material in there, so keep on reading!! That is exactly what I am doing myself, trying to keep up with everything and working on a couple of entries to comment on some of the more interesting bits and pieces. But one step a time.

You may be wondering why I am actually starting to share from today onwards content that I have already posted over in my ITtoolbox weblog, right? Well, there is actually one main reason for it. And that reason is you. Yes, that is right. During the course of 2006 I have been receiving a number of different offline comments from different folks who read elsua.net that they actually do not check the different entries I shared over at ITtoolbox because when they subscribe to the weblog they only get summaries of the entry and not the full RSS feed. So you basically don’t come back.

Well, I have been checking things out and it looks like ITtoolbox is going to continue further providing partial feeds, so I thought it would also be a good idea to cross post in here so that you get a chance to read the stuff I get to weblog about over there. That way, you can comment in here about those entries, or if you would want to have a look into that conversation in ITtoolbox you can get a first glimpse of what the main subject of the conversation would be.

So from now on, I am actually going to include both the direct link and the entire content of the weblog post, so that if you are subscribed to elsua.net you can also check all of the content I am sharing elsewhere. Yes, indeed, this weblog is about to become your one single stop to everything that I write elsewhere on the Internet. Good, eh? Thus without any further delay, since I know I am already making this weblog entry a bit longer than what it should, here is the post I shared yesterday in ITtoolbox where I was actually celebrating my first year anniversary of weblogging over there and a little story of one lovely present I got in yesterday as well. But read on … (And stay tuned because there would be many more entries coming through from now on. Not to worry).

Earlier on today, while I was browsing through my daily RSS feeds, as part of my catch up right after the holidays, I bumped into Darren Rowse‘s ProBlogger entry on 66 Successful Bloggers and What They Can Teach You which points to another interesting article from Bill Belew with that same title. Bill’s particular entry actually references the recent book that Ted Demopoulos put together under the title of What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting and which featured 101 folks sharing their thoughts about what weblogging and podcasting is all about including plenty of different tips, tricks and advice on how to get the most out of both of them.

Well, Bill’s post just links to the 66 webloggers who shared their expertise around weblogging and podcasting with Ted. And Ted just put it all together quite nicely along with his own thoughts in a book. Quite an interesting read, if you would want to increase your OPML file adding a whole bunch of different feeds that cover a wide range of topics around different ways of using weblogging and podcasting. Specially, from a business perspective. Really nice!

But at this point you may be wondering why I am writing about all this, right? Well, as a starter, to mention that I am one of those 66 webloggers in Ted’s book and mentioned by Bill at #12 giving some advice on how weblogs can be used as Knowledge Management tools. Secondly, because, just today, I got my copy of the book in the mail (YAY!), after waiting for a number of weeks for it (Thanks Ted!), and it felt just like a lovely present from the perspective that today I am also celebrating the first year of weblogging here in ITtoolbox. Perfect timing, don’t you think?

Yes, indeed, today marks my first year of weblogging here in ITtoolbox and there couldn’t be anything better than receiving at home one book that I knew was going to be a fantastic, enlightening and educational read about something so exciting as weblogging and podcasting from a business perspective.

So, while I am enjoying my first weblogging anniversary over here, with 233 weblog entries and a total number of 447 posts, including comments, along with 43 connections made thus far, I am also starting to read Ted’s book to learn some more tips and tricks on weblogs and podcasts.

I must say that it feels like yesterday when I was kindly invited to join ITtoolbox but it is actually one exact year, 23rd of January 2006, that I got things started over here and, if anything, I must confess that it has been a wild ride all along. Having reached both star and super star blog status has been an incredible opportunity all along to meet up some amazing folks all over the place that, if anything, have always been sharing one passion: that one for Knowledge Management. Something that comes close to my heart as well, of course.

Because otherwise I am not sure I would have lasted for that long. It has been an exciting journey thus far and although I am not too much into resolutions and such one thing for sure that I have been thinking about while I took that long sabbatical month on vacation is the fact that it is great to be back for, yet again, another year ! So you can expect me to hang around over here for some more time sharing with you that same passion for KM that you all have as well and hoping that we can engage in some really interesting conversations, like we have been able to participate in thus far.

So here is to another year, or plenty more!, of weblogging at ITtoolbox ! Thanks a bunch to all those folks who drop by on a daily basis for some content on elsua – The Knowledge Management Blog and I look forward to some further interactions with you all during the course of 2007 !

(Time now to continue reading What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting and get ready that upcoming review on what I thought about the book… Stay tuned!)