asides: blogging edition 3

Asides is an occasional feature in which I post interesting tools and links I've recently discovered. I've started grouping them in categories.  You can find them all by clicking on the category archive for Blogs, links, and the like.

This is the third edition on blogging.

• FeedRinse is an RSS filter.  Maybe you only want to read posts from a blog that are about flatulent Cuban birds, or a particular author.  Maybe you want to filter out certain words.  Like "flatulent."  FeedRinse means you don't have to read all your feeds, just the tasty morsels. Free, or pay for more features.
• Stats packages are flourishing.  Performancing Metrics is the newest freebie. I like it, and find it supplements but does not replace my favorite package, Stat Counter.  I recently did a one-month free trial of Blogbeat. It was okay, but for me not even worth the reduced $2/month fee after the trail ended.  The coolest thing was that it generated a city cloud of visitors for various periods.  Here is a screen shot of my city cloud after a month -- 1300 or so cities around the world (I have no idea why I get so many hits from San Francisco).
• As a compulsive list maker who seems to forget things no matter how many lists I make, I have tried many reminder systems.  After my PDA died, I started keeping my calendar on Yahoo, but have been disappointed at the functionality of the Yahoo Widgets I've used, including the ones tied to the Yahoo Calendar and Google Calendar.  Now I'm using the new Firefox extension Reminderfox. I can type in both date reminders and to-dos, and see them when I hover over a little string in my task bar, which changes colors when there is something happening that day, or upcoming. If only the data didn't reside in my Firefox profile on my hard drive, meaning I have to repeat the lists on each computer I use.

Comments

[Clare]

Obviously there are a lot of people with good taste in San Francisco.

[Nuthatch]

What a sweetie!

[Lene]

Thanks for posting the random tips, especially about blogs. I've never had a counter or a "feed" (still don't know what a "feed" is) even after having had Leaning Birch for a year with 250+ posts and whorled leaves since Nov. It's about time I got up to speed. Thanks for giving me a headstart. :)