Hello. I am Paul Kinlan.

As a user of the Windows Blogger Tool, I've identified some desired features for future releases. These include HTML editing before posting, image and table insertion, custom style application, accurate list creation (ordered and unordered), and proper handling of element shading. While the tool is currently not comprehensive, it serves as a decent starting point. Personally, I value control over post content, so I'll likely use it for drafting and later refinement, enabling quicker text entry without immediate tagging or styling concerns.

My first post using the new Blogger Word Blogging tool! It's easy to use and publishes really fast. I'm curious about HTML control since my AJAX tool outputs HTML. A few quirks: smiley icons show as "(", apostrophes look odd, and images/tables aren't supported. Planning a follow-up post with my feature requests.

Blogger has released a new plugin for Microsoft Word called "Word Blogger" (or "Worger" as I'm calling it!). It allows direct posting of Word docs to blogs. I'm excited to try it out and see if it maintains formatting. This release is timely; I've been frustrated with the current WSIWYG editor and its limitations.

I believe retailers need to embrace open APIs to their product catalogs and ordering systems to reach a wider audience. While I agree with Robert Scoble's view on the transformative potential of developer APIs in retail, I'm concerned about the slow pace of change. Costly per-call charges for APIs like eBay's hinder experimentation and development, especially for independent developers like myself. It's also difficult to find retailers who openly offer APIs. Amazon's free access model is a good example of how APIs can drive revenue. Are there any UK retailers offering cool, accessible web services?

This is the fourth installment of my AJAX application development journey. I integrated the Technorati API, focusing on the Tag Query to gauge keyword popularity and refine tag selection for better exposure. While the API was helpful, it lacked features like tag ranking and related tags, and the TagQuery's slow performance forced its removal. Future development will involve optimizing the TagQuery (limiting results or using an asynchronous call manager) and potentially requesting a lightweight metadata interface from Technorati.

In this third part of my series on my first AJAX application, I'm diving into the power of the Yahoo! API. It's been a learning experience, and I'm incredibly impressed with how much it offers compared to Google's. I've been exploring the Term Extraction and Related Searches APIs, and I'm starting to think about how to use the Contextual Search API. The Term Extraction API is great for pulling out keywords, while the Related Searches API helps me find relevant search queries. My app combines these to analyze blog posts and generate related searches. I'm hoping to use the Contextual Search API to add targeted search results. Future versions will incorporate more APIs, possibly from Technorati, to enhance functionality. Stay tuned!

Robert Scoble's recent blog post mentions the increasing number of blogs and photo-sharing sites, questioning how people can keep up with all of it, especially within large families. I'm interpreting this as a hint towards a new, private social blogging tool designed for families to share updates, events, and other information. This tool could potentially aggregate family blogs, prioritize certain members' posts (like the head of the family), and allow for filtered viewing (e.g., kids only seeing other kids' posts). It could even facilitate conversations between family members through blog referencing. I'm curious if such a tool exists or has been attempted before, and welcome any thoughts or insights on this idea.

The Feedster API has potential, but it's unclear what its purpose is. It would be more useful if it allowed content searches and provided metadata about searches, such as the number of blogs or pages a term appears in. Additional features like showing top searches and providing search result counts could be valuable. The current API requires a private key, which necessitates a proxy script for security. A simpler authentication method like Yahoo's Application ID would be preferred. Despite some limitations, the ability to publish search results as an RSS feed is a nice feature.

My Technorati URLs appear to have been incorrectly formatted, causing parsing issues.

In part 2 of my AJAX application journey, I'm tackling browser compatibility issues between Firefox and Internet Explorer. Key differences include handling XML node text, event triggers for synchronous XmlHttpRequests, and table object model inconsistencies. Looking ahead, I'm planning to componentize my JavaScript for better management and browser caching, and create an event-driven object model for my next application to improve structure and cross-browser functionality. My focus will be on supporting the lowest common denominator for broader browser compatibility.