So with the afternoon I suddenly had free, I re-did my LJ layout. It's less red, although I think it looks more red. It's all a bit academic anyway because the only people who will ever see it are people looking at my actual LJ, and me when I come across an unreadable one.

I also discovered the layout I have for Dreamwidth now has a sidebar on the left variant, which I've wanted ever since the layout existed. So now I have that. It's also red, suffice to say.

Since people are suddenly talking about Dreamwidth, I'll mention where I am. I write my posts in my blog, which automatically cross-posts them into my LJ: paranoidangel42 and my DW journal: paranoidangel. You're welcome to read or post in any of those three, I don't mind. But if you're reading by RSS then I would read the blog's RSS (or Atom) feed because it has more useful stuff in it.

Since I read by RSS, I don't care whether I read people's LJ or DW - unless one of them doesn't allow me to see full posts. So if anyone is crossposting to both and would prefer me to comment in one, then I can just change my link and I'll never notice the difference.

Permalink | No comments | Categories: Internet: Dreamwidth, Livejournal, WordPress

I got to thinking last night about how people use their journals/blogs mostly because I keep coming across people who use it completely different to me.

Personally, I post everything in my blog (which is so much better to post to than the LJ/DW interface) and have a plug-in that crossposts to Livejournal and Dreamwidth, so people who want to read on those sites rather than by RSS feed can do so. On the extremely rare occasion I post something I don't want the whole world to see (which is usually a rant about something/something specific and I don't want them to happen upon it), then I password protect it on my blog and friends lock it on my LJ and DW. Anyone can ask for the password and if you look back in my blog carefully enough (or use the search, it's pretty good) you can find the password.

When it comes to reading, I read everything, no matter what site it's on, by RSS Feed. It means I don't see LJ cuts and I can mark things as unread if I haven't got time to read them at the moment. Or I can mark things as read without reading them if I know I'm not interested or know I'm not going to get time to read. I also don't have to try and remember where I got to, like you do on the LJ friends page.

My LJ friends list is a copy of all the people I'm reading by RSS Feed. If I stop reading I take them off and if I start reading I add them on. I never use filters because I personally feel like that's lying to people about whether you're reading them or not. I sort of expect other people to do the same thing - so if they have me friended then they're reading me, and it annoys me when they defriend me the minute I defriend them - it feels as if they're too much of a coward to take me off their list before I do.

Dreamwidth is a bit different because on that one I allow access to everyone that has friended me on LJ but i haven't friended back. That way they can see my friends entries, but I'm not reading their journal, and they know I'm not. I am subscribed to a few people on DW that I'm not on LJ because they're the ones I'm occasionally interested in reading and I read my DW list on the site every few days ish. Course, that system falls down rather a lot because a lot of people have accounts at DW but aren't posting there.

To conclude: My LJ friends list is nothing more than a reading list and the word friend is a misnomer.

So, how do you use yours?*

*I know it's not Easter, but I haven't had a Cadbury's Creme Egg since 2004 and I don't watch adverts

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It was a good day and we somehow managed to avoid the worst of the weather. I was really tired when I got home, which I expected. What I didn't expect was how dizzy I felt Sunday. All I ended up doing on Sunday is lying on the sofa reading and watching tennis because I wasn't capable of doing anything else. Fortunately, there was tennis on - exhibition matches under the new Centre Court roof at Wimbledon and I enjoyed them, although I could have done without the camera moving so much. I didn't even feel like I'd done that much either. I'm less dizzy now but back to going to bed at 10pm.

But on Friday I'm going to see if I feel well enough after work to go and see In the Loop, which wasn't at the cinema walking distance from where I live now. But it is at the cinema walking distance from work on Friday and Saturday. Then it is at least a three day weekend, although I plan to do things with it - not least find a place for all these books to live...

Also, in the unlikely event that there's anyone left who doesn't have a Dreamwidth account that wants one, I have four invites. And, it turns out, Trillian Astra invites, since it's now in beta. And probably has been for a while, I've just failed to notice, just gave them money...

Permalink | No comments | Categories: Books, Internet, Life, Sport: Books, Dreamwidth, Ill, Tennis, Trillian

On my blog you can now comment using just your OpenID. It would have worked a year ago if I'd only known the plugin to show you a preview of your comment was interfering with it...

Also, I'm using a new crossposter. The big advantage of this one is that if I create a password protected post here, it posts it on LJ as a friends locked post. Which is what I always wished the crossposter would do, so that's handy. You'll notice on LJ that the header has changed and now become a footer. Exciting, ay?

Since Dreamwidth made it from closed to open beta the other day (at least from my perspective) I now have an account there: paranoidangel. The crossposter posts simultaneously to both LJ and DW, so I now have three backups of my blog.

When I finally wade into RSS Bandit and the 1157 unread feeds I had in there this morning (some of which I've read in Google Reader, to be fair) I might well take some people off my LJ friends list, since that is merely a list of who I am reading and I suspect I will find that I will just mark some of those as read without reading them.

But it's ok because there are other ways of reading my very rare protected posts - which I only really want to hide from random people who've surfed in randomly. Either you can ask me the password and read it on the blog (or search the blog to find it). Or read it on DW. What I plan to do there is give access to anyone who wishes it - basically if you subscribe to my DW journal, I'll give you access. But if you friend my LJ, I will only friend you back if I'm reading your LJ. Clear as mud?

I also have a second DW account (which I did pay about £2 for but there's really nothing a paid account does that a free one doesn't - the same can be said of LJ). This one is paranoidangel42 and is purely for talking about RP things. So people reading my blog/LJ/DW who aren't interested aren't bored by it and I can have RP-related emails in the right email account. No really, that is important.

I know I have a load of comments to reply to and posts to read and people to subscribe to on DW, it's just going to take me a little while to catch up - feel free to subscribe to me and save me the effort

Permalink | No comments | Categories: Internet, Website: Dreamwidth, Livejournal, Website

In a nutshell, it's Yet Another LJ Clone^TM. It's Open Source which means that (in theory anyway, in practise it remains to be seen) if there's something you want it to do, it will do it. It's like what Firefox is to IE in that respect.

When it was first mentioned, back before I had this computer and I archived emails older than 2009 so I can't be bothered to look at when (although I have just searched my blog and found I mentioned it in August 2008, so that's a long time ago now!), the thing I liked most was that the friends list was no longer called that and split into two parts. So you have a list of people you're reading and a list of people you allow to read your locked entries. Which is the most fantastic invention ever, because there are people on LJ who have friended me who I will quite happily allow to see my (extremely rare) locked entries, but I don't particularly find their LJs interesting, so I don't have them friended - I dislike having people friended that I don't read, I find it really dishonest.

There was also talk of being able to link accounts, so if you have more than one you only ever have to log into one (so if you have a fic or icon account or for RPG accounts). This is something for the future though because they've had a lot of things to resolve in time for open beta starting.

Doubtless there are other things, but those are the two that stuck out in my mind. There has been a lot of talk on the mailing list from people being annoyed at certain things that LJ does (eg customised comment pages - I'd be fine with them except that I can't read 99% of LJ styles, mostly because they're obsessed with tiny text), so in the future there's bound to be improvements.

Also, some of the techy people who have written LJ add ons for Firefox and Greasemonkey scripts are doing some techy stuff in Dreamwidth so they'll be adapting them. Including hopefully the LJ crossposter, so then my blog, LJ and Dreamwidth accounts will all be the same and everyone can continue to read it wherever they like.

It's going into open beta on 30th April - 1st May if you're in Australia and probably here too as it's likely to be in the evening, American time. To get an account you either need to buy a paid account or find someone with an account who can give you an invite code on that date.

I'll be away at Conference from 1st-4th May, so when I get back there'll be, well, just gratitude really, for anyone who can provide me with an invite code so I can play on my week off while I recover from Conference and read my birthday presents. And I really hope no one nabs paranoidangel before I can get to it.

But the most important thing about Dreamwidth is: the current default site layout is read. Not as bright as the red on my website, but more of a tasteful red. But still, red. See, it tells you they have taste - only cool people can carry off red (cf my car, my website, my clothes, the carpet in my flat (ok, so it's rented but it was the first thing I saw when I walked in and made me like it before I even saw the rest of it)).

Permalink | No comments | Categories: Internet: Dreamwidth