In the ‘subscribe to my brain’ post I promised to blog on how-to get your own
button up and running on your homepage. It seems rather unlikely that I’ll ever keep that promise if I don’t do it right away. So, here we go for a quick tour :
step 1 : set up a rudimentary FoaF-file : read the FoaF post if you dont know what it’s all about. The easiest way to get a simple FoaF-file of your own is to go to the FoaF-a-matic webpage and fill in the details you feel like broadcasting over the web, crucial is your name and email information (for later use) but clearly the more details you fill out and the more Friends you add the more useful your file becomes. Click on the ‘foaf-me’ button and copy the content created. Observe that there is no sign of my email adress, it is encrypted in the mboxsha1sum data. Give this file a name like foaf.rdf or myname.rdf and put it on your webserver to make it accessible. Also copy your mboxsha1sum info for later smushing.
step 2 : subscribe to online services and modify your online-life accordingly : probably you have already a few of these accounts, but if not, take a free subscription just for fun and (hopefully) later usage to the following sites :
- del.icio.us a social bookmarks manager
- citeUlike a service to organise your academic papers
- connotea a reference management service for scientists
- bloglines a web-based personal news aggregator
- 43things a ‘What do you want to do with your life?’ service
- audioscrobbler a database that tracks listening habits and does wonderful things with statistics
- backpackit a ‘be better organized’ service
- flickr an online photo management and sharing application
- technorati a Google-for-weblogs
- upcoming a social event calendar
- webjay a playlist community
So far, I’m addicted to del.icio.us and use citeUlike but hardly any of the others (but I may come back to this later). The great thing about these services is that you get more value-information back if you feed more into the system. For example, if you use del.icio.us as your ‘public’ bookmarks-file you get to know how many other people have bookmarked the same site and you can access their full bookmarks which often is a far more sensible way to get at the information you are after than mindless Googling. So, whereas I was at first a bit opposed to the exhibisionist-character of these services (after all, anyone with web-access can have a look at ‘your’ info), I’ve learned that the ‘social’ feature of these services can be beneficial to get the right information I want. Hence, the hardest part is not to get an account with these services but to adopt your surfing behavior in such a way that you maximize this added value. And, as I mentioned before, I’m doing badly myself but hope that things will improve…
step 3 : turn these accounts into an OPML file : Knowing the URL of your foaf-file and sha1-info (step 1) and your online accounts, go to the FOAF Online Account Description Generator and feed it with your data. You will then get another foaf-file back (save the source in a file such as accounts.rdf and put it on your webserver). Read the Lost Boy’s posts Subscribe to my brain and foaf: OnlineAccount Generator for more background info. Then, use the SubscribeToMyBrain- form to get an OPML-file out of the account.rdf file and your sha1. Save the source as mybrain.opml.
step 4 : add/delete information you want : The above method uses generic schemes to deduce relevant RSS-data from an account name, which works for some services, but doesn’t for all. So, if you happen to know the URL of RSS-feeds for one of these services, you can always add it manually to the OPML-file (or delete data you don’t want to publish…). My own attitude is to make all public web-data available and to leave it to the subscriber to unsubscribe those parts of my brain (s)he is not interested in. I know there are people whoo are mainly interested to find out whether I put another paper online, would tolerate some weblog-posts but have no interest in my musical tast, whereas there are others who would like me to post more on 43things, flickr or upcoming and don’t give a damn about my mathematics… Apart from these online subscriptions, it is also a good idea to include additional RSS-feeds you produce, such as those of your weblog or use my Perl script to have your own arXiv-feeds.
step 5 : make your ‘subscribe to my brain’-button : Now, put the OPML-file on your webserver, put the button
on your homepage and link it to the file. Also, add information on your site, similar to the one I gave in my own subscription post so that your readers know what to do when do want to subscribe to (parts of) your brain. Finally, (and optionally though I’d wellcome it) send me an email with your URL so that I can subscribe (next time you’re in Antwerp I’ll buy you a beer) and for the first few who do so and are working in noncommutative geometry and/or noncommutative algebra, I’ll send a copy of a neverending book. Mind you, this doesn’t apply to local people, I’m already subscribed to their brain on a daily basis…
