2:20PM - My First Hipcast test
This is my first test of the Hipcast Video Blog Recorder. I hope to be posting this as a test to several blogs that I use.
Over the past several weeks, I’ve been writing snippets of how to add a ‘Rate on NewsTrust’ link to various blogs and content management systems. You can see them here, here and here.
My latest effort was to see if I could add them to TypePad. Unfortunately, the hosted solution for TypePad, like the hosted solution for Wordpress, does not appear to give users the ability to modify a template enough to add rate on NewsTrust links.
TypePad is part of the Six Apart family of content management systems, and I did check to see what can be done with Livejournal, also part of the same family. It turns out that LiveJournal can be modified to add a Rate on NewsTrust link relatively easily.
You need to have a paid account to add a Rate on NewsTrust template. If you go to the “My Livejournal” page when you are logged in, and then click on Customize the look of your journal, you will see an advanced tab that includes Create a new style.
First, I changed my Most Recent Events style. In the LASTN_EVENT section, I added
< a href="http://www.newstrust.net/webx?sto
Like with my other examples, values for story_type, publication_type, publication_name, and unlisted_publication_name are hardcoded. The URL is gotten with the %%permalink%% value and the subject is using %%xe:subject%% It is worth noting in doing this, I took the formatting out of the LASTN_SUBJECT section and put it in the places where %%subject%% is used. I did not work with the date, since the formatting would be messed up for other places where the data is used.
I inserted this code before the %%talklinks%% part of the LASTN_EVENT.
I followed the same procedure for modifying my Friends View template. The only difference is that I added &journalist_names=%%user%% to the string to get the name of the friend who had written the journal entry.
While I don’t expect a lot of people to be writing stories on Livejournal for submission to NewsTrust, it is useful to see how to do it here, and if there are some good citizen journalists on Livejournal, I hope they will add a ‘Rate on NewsTrust’ link to their templates.
I have not made the Most Recent Events style public since has information specific to me. However, I have made the Friends View template available since it doesn’t have anything specific to me in the style. It is available as styleid 674122. Give it a try.
Update 11/12/2007: NewsTrust has updated their site, and I've updated this message to reflect the changes. Most importantly, you should now use http://www.newstrust.net instead of http://beta.newstrust.net
In addition, they have added server side javascript to make it easier to add the Newstrust button.
<script type='text/javascript'>
newstrust_icon = 'http://www.newstrust.net/Images/newstr
</script>
<script id="newstrust_button_script" src="http://www.newstrust.net/js/submit
However, I could not get it to work in Livejournal. In addition, on other platforms, this is good for when the visitor has the specific story open, but isn't good for pages that list multiple stories on it.
This is my first test of the Hipcast Video Blog Recorder. I hope to be posting this as a test to several blogs that I use.
 | VoicePost  111K 0:39 | “Background sounds from the CT state convention, I believe :) Transcribed by: ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} cos |
| VoicePost 629K 3:41 | “*you just have to listen -- it's GREAT :)*” Transcribed by: tikimonkey |
| VoicePost 118K 0:39 | “(someone is singing "where have all the flowers gone" -- but i don't know who it is)” Transcribed by: tikimonkey |
Friday of DemFest: Kim and I arrived in Austin around noon. We called around, trying to find places to be and food to eat. We ended up at a restaurant called Angie’s for lunch. I saw a woman wearing a Democracy for Texas pin and started up a discussion with her. It turned out that she was David Van Os’ wife. We chatted a little and as she was leaving, she stopped by with David and we talked a little more. Like Kim, David was a Dean Dozen candidate last cycle.
In the evening, he had meeting to address his supporters. Richard Morrison spoke briefly about his support for David Van Os. I had heard of Richard as the person running against Tom Delay yet I had never heard him speak. He did a great job speaking.
Then David came up to the microphone. He delivered a great speech. He provided a great history of progressive politics in Texas and spoke about why Texas needs a people’s attorney general. He spoke about how he had done well in rural districts where Kerry had done poorly. He spoke about how we need to avoid those political consultants that tell people that Democrats can’t win in certain districts. He spoke strongly about the importance of people getting involved in every race.
As I left, a friend commented about finally finding a bumper sticker to put up over his Kerry sticker.
We also had a chance for Fiona to do a photo op with David.
The server for Orient Lodge and Democracyforct.net is down, so I'm putting up a couple quick posts here. I'll get them over to the appropriate blogs soon.
I haven’t been writing a lot for my blog over the past couple weeks because I’ve been really busy with the DeStefano campaign, going to my college reunion, and work stuff.
Now, I am down at DemFest. I’m tired from how busy I’ve been. However, I am getting a few moments to write a little bit and I hope to have a bunch of blog posts go up over the next couple days, depending on what sort of connectivity I can get.
Today, I have started as Blogmaster for Mayor John DeStefano of New Haven who is running for Governor of Connecticut. This is a paid position.
I also would love people to visit the blog at http://www.destefanoforct.com/blog.
For some of my personal thoughts on this, check out my personal blog.
I'm in San Francisco this weekend for a CivicSpace Users and Developers Summit. Last night I went out for Ethiopian food, joining the birthday party of a Verified Voting person. I met a neat couple, one of whom is on Livejournal and works with Archive.org. Hi!
I will be writing in more detail over at Orient Lodge when I have a little more time.
If there are any San Francisco people reading this that I should get together with, let me know and we can try to meet up.
| VoicePost 115K 0:31 | “42nd street...phew!...in crowd control, in front of the library. Lot of police activity, quite a few people are out standing ... pretty messy ...lot of people yelling "they're our streets, take 'em back"...lot of people yelling "shame, shame!" at the police. More demonstrations going on, the police have asked people not to block the sidewalks, we're just moving out of the way...that's it for now.” Transcribed by: multiple users |
| VoicePost 70K 0:19 | “I'm sitting on the train coming into New York City, I've just got 10 messages on my cell phone about the police arresting people at the Fox News and down on Church Street, and I will off to see what's going on with them shortly.” Transcribed by: multiple users |
I'm in New York right now, writing via wireless from Bryant Park. I just put a longer posting up at Orient Lodge. I hope to get a bunch of posts in today.
Rate on NewsTrustAfter months of kicking around the idea, I have finally set up Orient Lodge. Orient Lodge is named after the house I currently live in. It will be my home on the web, where I will try to gather all of my thoughts, writings, etc. Please stop by and have a look sometime.
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