Recently in ZDNet Category

Even though I, too, am a Web developer involved in redesigns, whenever one of my favorite sites totally changes things, I'm never happy.

That's because the redesign isn't for the loyal, regular reader. It's for the people who are NOT going to the site and sticking around. That's why I hated the last ZDNet redesign way back in 2008.

I couldn't find what I was looking for. The commenting system was (and is) painful.

But I got used to it. I never got over the layoff of George Ou.

And ZDNet still doesn't have a single writer I can name who's equally passionate, knowledgeable and skeptical about free software, especially Linux and BSD. ("Passionate, knowledgeable, skeptical" - a hard combination, I know ... but there are literally hundreds if not thousands of us out there blogging from just this confluence of perspectives.) And no Dana Blankenhorn doesn't count, even though I do enjoy his work.

Even so, I like ZDNet.

Tonight, http://news.zdnet didn't resolve to anything for awhile. Then it led to http://www.zdnet.com/news.

If you can't easily find the bloggers you want to read, what's the point? Just like in the 2008 redesign, about which I wasn't crazy (but got used to), you can click the "by blog" tab under ZDNet Blogs under the "main" teaser and have blogs and their recent entries ... except that in this "improved" version, those blog listings fill only a third of the screen.

That makes more room for aggregation. (if it's worth linking, why not just blog it?) Ads. Links to stuff I really don't care about.

Brilliant.

Anyhow, it's the content — the blog content — at ZDNet that keeps me coming back despite ill-advised redesigns, each worse than the last. (Note: most links to past news.zdnet.com stories are not working at present; presumably the redirects will be fixed at some point.)

Last time posted about ZDNet shooting itself in the virtual foot, I believe that somebody from the site came to its defense. I'd love for that to happen again, or for everybody's favorite Linux-hating, Microsoft commenter Loverock Davidson to come over and tell me I'm a fucking idiot.

In Loverock's honor (and that of the defunct URL http://news.zdnet.com), I will now recompile absolutely every package in my Ubuntu Lucid system just because I can.

Morale/story: Before you redesign, think — will you gain more than you lose?

A lot of tech Web sites don't make it easy to find their best stuff. CNet is no exception.

I always say that the best way to present just about any quantity of news is in a sequentionally arranged blog (also known as "just a normal blog").

I've been reading Matt Asay's The Open Road for months now, but I had no idea that I could get his entries and the proverbial "so much more" not at the somewhat worthless CNet News page but at the very useful CNet News Blog site.

It's another one I'm now reading every day. I've even been going there before ZDNet, since the blog format makes it so easy to scan the entries and actually figure out what they're about.

Zack Whittaker's iGeneration blog has quickly become a must-read. His post on The Killer Apps of Academia is well worth bookmarking for future reference.

He mentions quite a few apps I use every day, from the obvious (Firefox, OpenOffice) to the less-so (Notepad++, Audacity).

Among the ones I hadn't heard of but want to try immediately are LogMeIn Free, which, if the description is correct, is like GoToMyPC, letting you control a Windows PC from a remote location, but without the costs involved. There is a "Pro" version with more features, but the fact that there even is a free version warms my cockles considerably.

I'm really only doing this entry for the killer title. But behind it is a new ZDNet blog called iGeneration and written by a seemingly youngish Brit named Zack Whittaker:

His bio:

Zack Whittaker started playing with computers before he could even tie his shoelaces; although that skill wasn't discovered until he was 10. Amongst many things, he is a good-for-nothing, pink sock wearing, British student at the University of Kent in Canterbury, UK studying computer science. In between studying, drinking, and occasionally sleeping, he works with researchers studying neurological illnesses like Tourette's syndrome (of which he suffers from), gives talks and lectures on disabilities, and throws in a little child protection and family safety work now and then.

He grew up in "Robin Hood Country" in Nottinghamshire, UK for the best part of his life, but still heads there on occasion to see his ever-supporting and loving family, godchildren and his friends. Although due to his age he may seem inexperienced and misguided, but he's already totalled up many years of work, education, knowledge and general (mis)adventure.

I had one of those days this morning when I go to the ZDNet blogs page and find literally 20 entries worthy of comment. I'm at work for the first time in five days, and I have about three Firefox windows open with between five and 20 tabs each. I open a few other programs, and the whole thing starts turning to sludge.

I have to close everything and reboot.

I could open all of those entries again, plus the six or so on LXer, worthy of blogging on, but let me just say that ZDNet has hit on a very good formula for tech blogs that are heavy on news in many different sectors of the tech world. Windows, Mac, Linux, SAAS, storage, digital cameras, education, project failures, green technology, mobile technology ... and more that I'm forgetting about. Let's just say there's a lot there -- and you will have a pretty good grip on the day's tech news if and when you visit.

I hesitate proclaiming the ZDNet blogs the best the Web has to offer, but from the way they're presented (better than anything else I've seen) to the actual content on them, I find more interesting and relevant news there than anywhere else -- and that includes MANY big-name technology-news sites.

Just today, I found all these links that are worthy of a look; I just haven't had time to blog them in detail:

Google vs. Microsoft = Search + Apps
Amazon’s latest web service? A database
WordPress vs. an army of clunky content management systems
There’s still a lot of life left in desktop office suites
Will consumers scrimp on paid security software?
If viruses are no threat to Macs …
Why metered Internet is a really bad idea
Dell needs DNA housecleaning
Red shift meets event horizon
I love Linux, but it’s not going to save the world
Resistance is futile…I want to buy a Mac
And last but not in the slightest bit least, the new ZDNet Digital Cameras blog

I read a lot of tech blogs, and none of the other big ones do it as well on a consistant, day-to-day basis. For some, it's mostly a design problem. The way ZDNet presents its content -- with a longer first item -- gives you more of a clue than usual about what the items contain. And the writers are uniformly top-notch. From breaking news to how-tos to out-and-out opinion, it's all there.

The one problem: The way ZDNet handles and presents comments is annoying. I can understand requiring membership to post a comment, but the fact that you can only see one comment at a time and must click for every new comment is abusive to the reader and nothing more than a cheap way to up ZDNet's page views. Other than this quibble, call me an unabashed ZDNet fan.