internet

After reading a couple of blog posts on a comment system called Disqus, I want to give it another shot.

I tried Disqus back in the day, and it was really slow and generally fairly annoying. Most of their issues seem to be resolved, and they've picked up a lot of steam in the meantime. So now I'm considering swapping out my current comments for something a little more hip and magickal. But I'd like your feedback on the issue. So here's what you've gotta do:

1. Leave a comment below.
2. Let me know how you feel about the experience.
3. That's it!

You'll notice that there are several ways to identify yourself. If you have a Disqus, Facebook, or Twitter account you can use one of those. Feel free to try out a couple of accounts, or choose none at all. You can also link to this post on just about any social media site (FriendFeed or Twitter or Reddit or YouTube, for example) and it should pull in those comments as well.

So I'm curious what you think about it.

How is the experience? Do you like it better than a traditional blog comment system? Can you see yourself actually voting on other comments à la Slashdot/Reddit/Digg?

Have you used Disqus (or Intense Debate, or another similar service) in the past? Was there anything about it that you couldn't stand?

Most importantly, will this make you more or less likely to join the conversation?

We don't need to make a decision right away. We can play with Disqus for a while and see how we feel. If it's horrid, the old comment system is just a pref setting away.

So talk to me :)

Note: This is the first post on my blog (and currently the only one) with Disqus comments enabled. All older posts still use the native comment system. So you've gotta try Disqus out on this post. Thanks!

one of my favorite features of the better gmail firefox plugin is the "smart read button". when you select a message, it says either "mark read" if it's an unread message, or "mark unread" if you've already read it. or at least that's what it used to do. apparently the updates to gmail broke that feature. i'm a bit bummed, someone will come up with a fix soon...

another notable change is the urls: gmail is combining url fragments with javascript to fake out your bookmarks and browser navigation. for example, you can now go directly to your spam folder by typing http://mail.google.com/mail/#spam

they also added a filter assistant, kinda like the one better gmail had. when you're reading a message, click the dropdown where you used to add labels. there's an option for mute (which used to be available only via hotkey), to create an event, and to "filter messages like these". the filter assistant is pretty slick... almost like they had some inspiration :)

it seems like gmail's been stagnant for a while, but it looks like they're following up the new Gmail IMAP support with a few more features. hopefully google has more good stuff in store for us. then maybe we won't need Better Gmail anymore.

i love firefox. really, i do. it can be speedy. it can be extensible. but apparently it can't be both at the same time... all my development plugins make it slow, and all my browsing plugins make it even slower.

how i fixed my my super slow firefox after the jump.

At the risk of sounding like a lunatic, nobody should own the Internet. Some legislative bodies (either government or non-profit standards based organization) decide what and how services are offered. But for the most part, the Internet is freedom. Nobody controls what you can or cannot post. Nobody charges you based on the content accessed. The Internet was built on a foundation of freedom, openness and sharing. This is how it should stay.

Attempts to regulate content or access almost always lead to preferential treatment. One of the early internet censorship activist sites, Peacefire, was blocked by most censorware programs as "pornography," "hate literature," and "adult content." This is a flagship example of great power being used for evil. But a completely unregulated internet leads to chaos. With no regulating body, nobody can control popups or trojan downloads. Nobody can censure a site for distributing programs that compromise a user's system. There are consequences to having a free and open internet.