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Category: ma.gnolia

Whatever happened to the daily “Silicon Florist’s links arrangement”?

Rick Turoczy on February 13, 2009

I could hear you asking. I could. And I was just sitting here. Biding my time. Holding out hope as long as I could. But now, even I must admit defeat.

If you’re asking “What the…?” allow me to bring you up to speed.

There used to be a regular feature here—Silicon Florist’s links arrangement—that came out on an almost daily basis. It featured links to interesting things that were happening in the Silicon Forest that I either a) didn’t have time to cover as I would have liked or b) did a better job of describing a topic than I ever could have.

Suddenly, around the beginning of February, the feature up and wilted.

Why?

Well, the links arrangement was an automated feature of a social bookmarking service I was using called ma.gnolia. I know. Appropriate for a florist, hunh?

Anyway, I saved the bookmarks there and it automagically published posts full of linky goodness.

And all was right with the world.

Until January 30.

ma.gnolia FAIL

On that day, ma.gnolia crashed. Not just a “we need to reboot” crash. A “catastrophic data loss” crash. What’s more? The whole “backup” thing is a little murky, but it seems to be inaccessible, as well.

It’s unfortunate. I really like the folks who run ma.gnolia and I really appreciated the service—for any number of reasons. And honestly, I was quite lucky. Probably 95% of the 2000+ bookmarks I lost were published in the link arrangements. So I still have the bulk of my data. Thousands of other ma.gnolia users weren’t so lucky.

But it’s time for me to face the facts. I don’t think ma.gnolia is ever coming back. So I’ve started to research new solutions for the links arrangement.

I just wanted to give you fair warning, because there may be a hiccup or two, here and there, as I work to find a new solution for handling this feature.

But, rest assured, the Silicon Florist’s links arrangement will be back. And better than ev… Well, actually, it will likely be exactly the same as it was before.

Thank you in advance for your patience during this transition. And, as always, feel free to throw advice my way. It’s greatly appreciated.

Silicon Florist adds ma.gnolia to the arrangement

Rick Turoczy on January 2, 2008

Based on advice from Portland-based social-media guru Marshall Kirkpatrick, I’ve been spending some quality time with ma.gnolia, this year. I’ve had a personal account for some time, but I never really grasped the power of the the tool until Marshall opened my eyes.

You’d think a florist would have been more into ma.gnolia. But so it goes.

So now, I’m in the midst of weaving some of those tools into the Silicon Florist. Like Baby’s Breath in a wedding bouquet, if you will. Or I guess, more accurately, like a magnolia, since that’s a flower.

So far there are two additions to the site, based on ma.gnolia’s offerings:

  1. Weekly link arrangement. Each week, I’ll be publishing a list of Silicon-Forest-oriented links that I’ve found compelling, but for whatever reason (likely lack of time or sheer volume of information) haven’t written up in the traditional fashion. Look for those arrangements to arrive on Thursday.
  2. Pitching the Florist using ma.gnolia (or del.icio.us). I’ve set up a Silicon Florist group on ma.gnolia and I think you should join (I was subsequently asked to setup a del.icio.us one, as well) . When you find something that you think everyone else should know about, save the link to ma.gnolia and share it with the Silicon Florist group (or send it to siliconflorist on del.icio.us). I’ll keep track of the incoming links and write them up (or add them to the weekly link arrangement).

Look for more features and insights as I work to make the Silicon Florist a more valuable resource for everyone. If you have any suggestions, please comment or drop me a line.