Alexandar Tzanov ~ The Titan

This morning I implemented Google Buzz. You can see the button on the left of this paragraph. After playing around with the code, I buzzed my last post, which was about high fructose corn syrup. When I checked my Google profile I noticed that after the title of the article there was a “null”, which linked back to the home page of my blog.

After spending few minutes searching on the Internet, I wasn’t able to find much information on the problem. Next I decided to look for API documents and other help information published by Google. Seeing that the Google Buzz button works by sharing via Google Reader, the best place for the answer was in the Google Reader help docs . I found this post – Adding a ‘Share in Reader’ link to your website or blog.

The solution to the problem is very simple and logical. As “title” – the title of the item you are sharing, is to “url” – the address of the item you are sharing, “srcTitle” is to “srcUrl”. In which case the former is the name you want to use for the source of the item, and the latter is the address to that...

Why, why, why is this part of our food? I recently noticed that high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is one of the main ingredients in maple syrup. Why? Am I buying maple syrup or am I buying maple flavored corn syrup? I’m so tier of reading the ingredients on various products’ packages and seeing high-fructose corn syrup listed. It seems that this “poison” is part of the ingredients of almost everything. Last time I was surprised to see HFCS as an ingredient was when I read the label on a Heinz ketchup bottle, where I discovered that it made 40% of the product!

Yes, high-fructose corn syrup is a cheap sweetener alternative to sugar, but its long term negative effects to Americans greatly outweigh its sweet qualities or its monetary benefits to the price of our consumables. The results can be seen in the public’s health care bills. I only mention Americans because I haven’t heard of any other country using high-fructose corn syrup in the quantities or the extend it is being used in the United States. Personally I rather pay an extra dollar or two for a product, but know that whatever my children, my family or I are consuming has real sugar in it, and our organs or ... Read More »

Skribit, a topic suggestion tool, which I have been using on my blog for over a year now, is ready for the big time. Last month the Skribit team announced the release of changes to the service and new features. They continue to add new features, some of which you can see below:

• Follow your favorite bloggers on Skribit and see their recent activity
• Sort suggestions by status, hotness and more
• Merge similar suggestions
• Ignore suggestions by user and IP (Internet Protocol or Intellectual Property) address
• Reduce clutter with new comment and suggestion spam protection
• Customize your the URLs for your Skribit blog and user profiles
• Easily share suggestions through Twitter and Facebook with a click

I do find the Skribit service interesting, and as I have see it on other sites, it can prove a valuable tool. By the way, I first came cross Skribit on Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger blog.

Bonus: There is also a promo code – ackbar42 – which you can use by Jan. 27th, 2010, to upgrade your account to Skribit PRO at half-off the cost for 1 year.

Enjoy!