blog vs. blog

I've opened a new blog at Wordpress.com (WP) to compare it to Blogger (BL). First impression: Blogger is friendlier.

Some other quick observations:

• Both are FREE (though WP offers purchased upgrades)
  
• Blogger interface (for bloggers) is more "intuitive" and clean.
  
• 3 main tabs to WP's 5
• BL "settings" is a main tab; in WP "settings" is way off to the right in smaller font-size
• WP uses light blue text on light blue background (low contrast)
• "Delete blog" comes to the left of (before) other menu items (counter-intuitive)
  
• wysiwyg and HTML customization is quick and easy in BL (didn't see option to customization of CSS)
  
• WP allows customizing CSS but requires purchasing upgrade
  
• Load times in WP were sometimes slower (at least on a Mac)
• WP documentation is a bit wordy, search terms aren't highlighted (they are in BL) -- e.g., finding clear info on permalinks was easy in BL, but not in WP
  
• Both have forums
  
• Both allow some recovery from errors, as by doing CTRL + Z; it's easy to delete posts and even the whole blog
  
• Etc.
  

Basically, I continuously got lost navigating WP ("Where was that?"). Also, it took a while to get clear on the difference between WP.com (hosted) and WP.org (open source, not hosted), as well as what is on offer at WP.com.

Both BL and WP are good options, but I would probably go with Blogger as the best (most user-friendly) blog for novices, even though I have questions about Google's privacy ethics.

facebook losing face?

We're not to the social networking class yet, but this news appeared on BBC today: Facebook is being challenged by a Canadian privacy group.

Brings up the question of privacy with any of these 2.0 tools.

Tim Berners Lee:
"Imagine that everything you are typing is being read by the person you are applying to for your first job. Imagine that it's all going to be seen by your parents and your grandparents and your grandchildren as well." [taken from here]

first post

It's a fine day in Princeton, NJ. The cicadas are not yet emerging for their frolics, but the Princeton alumni are beginning theirs.


But how could the intelligentsia and the Insecta have anything in common?