News: July 27

Image by Thomas Hawk via Flickr

Digits

Q&A: WikiLeaks and the Future of Whistleblowing
Smartphone Help for Typhoon Alerts
Going for Cheap: India's $35 Computer
Hong Kong Goes 'Crazy' as iPad Launches
AT&T on Its Network, iPad Usage and the End of Unlimited Data
Baidu Advances on China Mobile Search
Digits Live Show: Welcome to the Age of WikiLeaks
Q&A: Upstart Takes on Google, Microsoft in the Cloud
App Watch: A Photo Tour of Your Favorite Foods
New TV Tech Could Be Boon for Venture-Backed Chip Companies
If You Tweet, Japan Will Come
Tech Tweets of the Week: Facebook, Flipboard and Phones
Ten Things We Learned From Tech Earnings Season

Bits

What We’re Reading: Technology Obsession
Meet Google’s Space Commander
Ask.com Reverts to Its Q.& A. Origins
Citi Discovers Security Flaw in iPhone Application
Bringing Data Mining Into the Mainstream
What’s for Sale on the Bug Market?
Part I: Answers to Questions About Internet Privacy
What We’re Reading: Femme Fatales
Dell’s Trouble Kicking the Intel Habit
What’s Behind the White iPhone 4 Delays?
Microsoft Grabs Hold of ARM
Diane Sawyer Interviews Mark Zuckerberg
What We’re Reading: Flipboard
Apple’s Web Browser Allows Sites to Collect Personal Information

TechCrunch

Apple’s Magic Trackpad Signals The End Of The Mouse Era
Not Only Is Google Places Going After Yelp, They're Doing So With Yelp's Content
Apple's Innovative New... Battery Charger?
37signals Buys Campfire iPhone App Ember
Dude-Centric Video Network Break Media Moves Into 3D Programming
Stieg Larsson Is The First Author To Reach One Million Books Sold On The Amazon Kindle Store
Yahoo: comScore Underreported Our U.S. Page Views By 1 Billion Last June
Apple On The Defensive: Jailbreaking Your iPhone May Be legal But It’ll Still Void Your Warranty
Apple Outs A 27-inch, 16:9 Cinema Display
Voilà! Apple’s Magic Trackpad Appears. Multi-Touch On Any Mac For $69
LearnVest Launches Financial Bootcamp Programs To Keep Women Fiscally Fit
Yahoo Japan To Use Google Search (And Not Bing) In The Future
Seesmic Web Adds Desktop App-Like Abilities, Facebook And LinkedIn Support
Listiki Offers A Smart Way Of Gathering Opinion Through Crowdsourced Lists

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This Blog's Design Inspired By Google, Craig's List

A netizen is not some kind of a king, but an average person. I put much thought into the name of this blog. I am a citizen of the Internet, and I hope you are too.

I have used a mainstream platform - Google's Blogger - that anyone can use. I have used a domain name that does not smack of exclusivity. Blogger gives it to you for free.

I have tinkered with the blog's design a lot over the months and years to finally come up with what I have come up with. I have got rid of many elements to make the blog load fast for the readers. Speed is a fundamental element.

I like the blank, white background. When I sit down to compose a blog post that makes me feel like I am facing a blank canvass and I am about to paint something beautiful. I would not want the blog to look snazzy and inaccessible.

The colors are for the most part default. The only color I changed was for the post titles. The default was weird orange. I changed that to pitch black.

New York Times, Time magazine and this blog all use the same font: Georgia. That is no small detail.

The header is a good one. It introduces me to the world, to the reader. It makes the blog stand out, I hope. When you pick from the popular design templates, you are not offering something unique to you.

As for snazzy design, I have saved that for my BlogRoll.

I am fond of linking. You might have noticed that. But then I am also fond of sharing pictures and video clips. If you are only interested in what I have to say, usually you get to skip the other parts of the blog. They are almost organized like sections, often, the image at the top, the links at the bottom.

Redesigning My Blog

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The Art Of Reading Headlines

I have decided to make news posts a regular feature of this blog. I experimented with it months back. But I did not keep it up. I thought, maybe I should only link to articles I read. I no longer feel that way. Often times reading the headlines is enough. You don't need to read the full article. The idea should be that you read 30 headlines, about 15 article summaries, and five full length articles, and it would be like you had your morning coffee and you are good for the day. Not only are you well informed of the happenings that affect you and are of  interest to you, but you also have some idea of what's going on in the tech sector at large, in the world at large.

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Perhaps this should be a daily feature at this blog. I am not much of a morning person. And so maybe this ought to be a lunch time feature. You show up during lunch break to read up on the headlines for the day and to read a few articles from the top sources. That would beat having to visit all those various sources individually.

And I really like doing them. I am a big picture person. Before I can really enjoy the top three stories for the day, I need to know what is going on generally speaking. In preparing these news posts, I get to read summaries of many, many articles. I like that.

Along the way I also come up with ideas for new blog posts. Like today I came across an article in BusinessWeek that inspired me to write this post that I am proud of: The Economy: Uncharted Waters.

The innovation is that this simple feature allows me to act like a layer on top of many top news sources. A blogger is not just a writer, but also an editor. In my case I am a netizen. A netizen stays informed in the most efficient ways possible.

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