This is a little bit of old news, as it came out last week while I was on vacation, but I thought I'd mention it anyway. PC Magazine named me, Ev, Paul, Ben, and Mena as People of the Year 2004 for our work in creating Blogger and Movable Type, respectively. My mom posted the "pictures" from the print version of the article: me, Ev, and pb and Ben and Mena. It's still difficult to believe that blogging as come so far, and of course, it wouldn't have if it weren't for the work of many, many others in addition to the "people of the year". So congratulations are in order to everyone — the writers, the readers, and the tool creators. Indeed it appears as if blogs have finally arrived, which means 2005 will be the year of the blog backlash. 😉

From the American Academy of Family Physicians comes this detailed publication on Hip Pain in Athletes. While it's obviously written for medical professionals (ones who recognize words like 'acetabulum' and 'femoral head'), I found it useful in preparing for my trip to the orthopedic specialist. I've had a nagging pain since before the marathon, nothing too severe so I just ran through it. Now that I've been back in NYC and sitting much more than before, the pain's gotten worse. So I finally broke down and went to the doctor. I've been laying off the running, except for my races, and hopefully today will get to the bottom of the issue. I think (hope) it's just inflammation that will pass with ice, rest, and NSAIDs.

After nearly a day's worth of fiddling (and two years worth of delay in getting a mobile with a camera), I've got my phone posting photos to both Flickr and my new sidebar section Photographing. Right now the pictures are just junk shots from around the apartment as I trouble-shot many issues. And here's a weird one for those of you contemplating the Nokia 6600: I was unable to send my photos (as multimedia messages) to anyone until I'd first sent one to myself. Wha? Yup. That's what T-Mobile support told me.

I said to the woman, "Well it's good I called. How on earth was I supposed to figure that out? Why's it like that?"

And she said, "That's the way the system is designed."

Of course that's the way the system's designed. [Insert requisite rant about retarded systems design here.] Aside from that, I'm psyched for more moblogging about town. Now I just need to get out of my bathrobe and actually go "about town."

It's that time again, time to upgrade the mobile phone, and though I've pored over reviews, and talked to sales people at the shops, and read friends' weblogs, I'm still not sure how to proceed. So once again, I'm turning to you dear readers, to hear your thoughts about the latest and greatest in mobile technology. Here are my requirements:

– Reasonably decent camera on phone (doesn't have to be 1 MB pictures, but something decent that I can post to Flickr, etc. and have things be recognizable)

– GSM so I can use it abroad

– Works on T-Mobile

– Decent form factor and interface, if possible. I'd rather it weren't a giant phone too large for my pants pocket, or one with some annoying interface like my current Ericsson T68 (which seems to require an inordinate amount of inputs just to add a contact)

Any suggestions? Do you love your phone? Or hate it? And why? Thanks so much for your help!

Update: I've closed the thread because I've gotten enough recommendations and I've decided on the Nokia 6600. More to follow once I've had time to play with it.

According to this New York Times article, Signs of a Glut and Lower Prices on Thin TV's, prices are due to drop on flat panel TV's over the next twelve months due to increases in production capacity by manufacturers.

According to several manufacturers and analysts, the prices for L.C.D. flat-panel TV's will drop in the new year, falling by as much as 30 percent by the end of 2005. The prices of plasma flat-panel TV's are also expected to fall significantly.

That is not a message that the electronics retailers want to be heard during the holiday shopping season. They are hoping that the price cuts that have already occurred will spur more people to buy flat-panel sets, and many are already offering discounts to increase traffic in their stores.

"We do not want to talk about predictions of price drops," said Lee Simonson, the director of Best Buy's television division. "We want people to buy now."

Of course they do. But according to people quoted in this article, a $4,500 set could be going for $3,100 next year (and ~$2,200 in 2006). So maybe instead of buying that TV for this holiday season, you should give an IOU, or something else, and save the TV purchase for next year — even if the Consumer Electronics Association says, "a plasma television is the most desired holiday gift this season."

You might want to check out safercar.gov, the NHTSA's site for all car-related safety information, including NHTSA Safety Standards and Regulations and online access to Five Star Crash Test and Rollover Ratings.

If you're dog crazy, or even just someone who like dogs, you'll want to check out the recently launched Modern Pooch. My friend Andrea and her dog Sparky, the founders, have big plans for the site:

We publish the cutest dog pictures, the most outrageous dog stories, and links to essential information you need to take care of your own pooch.

It sure is the spot for your daily doggy fix!

On a mailing list I'm on, someone pointed out the difficulty of starting a blog because he didn't know the audience he would be writing for. That got me thinking about getting started blogging, and I realized two "rules" I have for megnut.com. I thought I'd share them here as well:

1. I write about things I feel passionate about

This ensures that I'll take the time to get facts right, that (hopefully) the excitement will show through the writing and make the posts engaging to readers, and I always have topics to write about because I have lots of passions. It doesn't ensure lots of readers (a la Glenn Reynolds) but that's OK, because I'm not interested in mass audience. I'm interested in someone who'll email me with the story of their first marathon, or with a pointer to a great recipe they enjoyed. It ensures I connect with readers who share my passions, and those are people I want to meet.

2. I won't write something I wouldn't want my parents/grandparents to read

This doesn't mean I won't write about some annoying XHTML compliance issue, it just means I'll do it in a way that might make it comprehensible to them if they choose to read it. I've heard through the family grapevine though they, "just skip those posts." More importantly, it means I don't write about something I wouldn't tell them in person, and in a way I'd tell it in person. So I rarely swear. And I don't talk about intimate issues. And I try very hard not to whine or complain, because my Yankee family has very little tolerance for that.

I don't know if those two rules are useful for anyone else, but in looking back over 5+ years of blogging, those seem to be two constants I can identify.

My former business partner and Pyra co-founder Evan Williams announced he's leaving Google as of Friday. It's hard to imagine that Blogger will soon be without any of its original team. I don't mean that in a bad way, in fact, I have absolute confidence in the team Ev's assembled at Google, but more in a sort of, "wow, we've all grown up" way. Grown up, and moved (or are moving) on to new projects, both online and off. I guess it's inevitable, but in a way it really marks the end of an era. It doesn't seem so long ago that we had those brick walls in SoMa, a team of four, and Blogger running on a desktop next to Ev's feet. My how far we've all come. Best of luck Ev on your next great adventure!

There was a time when I spent all day on my computer. Actually there was a lot of time like that, like pretty much all the time from 1995 until May 21, 2004. And that meant that I had time to go through my email as it arrived, more or less in real time. As the amount of spam I received increased, it became more annoying to go through mail, but it was manageable.

I use a combination system, with Spam Assasin as the first line of defense. If it makes it past Spam Assasin and it's from a mailing list, it goes into the appropriate folder. If it's addressed directly to me *and* the sender's address is in my address book, it goes into my Inbox. All else get shuttled into a folder called Suspect.

It used to be that I'd keep my eye on Suspect throughout the day, deleting bad stuff, moving legitimate emails from strangers into my Inbox. But now I'm rarely online for more than ~30 minutes a day. Some days I'm not online at all. And so my Suspect mail folder has grown from 1,000 messages to 3,000 to 5,000 to its current tally of 7,990 unread messages. Even if I manage to go through 500 in a day, by the next day I've downloaded hundreds more. I am losing the battle, and I admit defeat. The spammers have won.

I've created a new mailing address specifically for readers of the site to use to contact me. It's available on the contact page. If you need to reach me, please use that, as I'll be sorting that from now on into a different folder. And if you sent something and you haven't gotten a response — and you're not likely to be in my address book — you might want to resend. The chance of me getting through 8,000 unread mostly spam messages any time this year is slim to none.

Update: Several people have written to point out that having my new address as a link on my contact page will only result in more spam. If you view the source on the contact page, you'll see I'm using JavaScript to write the address, so there's no easy address for the spam bots to scrape. I appreciate your concern though, and thanks for writing.