The LinkedIn Bloggers group is starting a "boost" project to highlight a member's site per week with members promoting it. In an effort to get a better idea of exactly what kind of sites are even represented by the group, I pointed my OPML sampler script at the sites included in their database.

The LinkedIn Bloggers Sampler Page is the result. I've already found a couple that I hadn't noticed before, but subscribed to, including the site that will be featured first (tomorrow).

LinkedIn is a business networking site that helps you connect with others on a professional level. Instead of being about dating or finding new friends, it's about building your professional relationships. Given that something like 80% of jobs (and similar percentages of new business) come from referrals and not public listings or advertising, networking is the single best thing you can do to increase your career prospects.

The "old" way of networking was, when you needed a job or a new client, etc., you called up people you knew and asked them. The problem is that they often don't know that someone they know could actually help you. What LinkedIn gives you is access to your contacts' rolodex. Now, instead of bothering everyone in your network to see if you can get a referral to Company X, you can search LinkedIn and discover that Bob knows Jim who is the Director of IT at Company X. You can then make a request to talk to Jim, which Bob will pass along because he trusts you.

My LinkedIn profile is available if you'd like to see. I'm open to connecting to both people I've worked with in the past as well as new contacts. However, for new contacts, I ask that you change the default invitation to let me know a bit about you and how the connection makes sense. Just a couple of sentences is fine.

I realized this morning that I hadn't followed up on my post about renting technical DVD's from Technical Video Rental. A couple of weeks ago, I rented 3 DVD's from them.

The DVD's themselves were on knitting, silicon mold making and creating instructional DVD's. The knitting one was of "craft store" quality, obviously produced by a company that does this sort of thing. The other 2 were more garage-style productions. All 3 had valuable information and were worth watching. I see several others on the site that I'll likely be renting including basic welding, and a few on automotive topics to expand my knowledge in those areas.

As far as the service itself, it's really hard to have the clock ticking on DVD rentals these days. I subscribe to Netflix on the 8 at a time plan, but I have held on to a movie for several weeks before returning it because I haven't had time/mood to watch it. A fixed 1 week interval just chafes after that kind of freedom.

I understand the situation they're in for dealing with the producers of these DVD's. I just long for the day when this kind of library can be available on a more reasonable set of terms.

I already pay ~$100/month for access to every DirecTV channel and $40/month for effectively unlimited DVD movies. I'd love for there to be a way to do the same for this kind of stuff.

Dav Yaginuma wrote to tell me about his

new bookmark as an alternative to dogearing books

As we all know, I'm a notorious dogear user and have offended many a bibliophile by my folding of corners. I think I'll give this a try and see how it goes.

While I still contend that many of the biggest advocates of revering books tend to get their reverence of the text and of the physical object mixed up a bit. You can read the long litany of comments to see more of my thoughts on what constitutes respect of books, but the simple statement that "book" as a medium and the content distributed via that medium are NOT the same thing.

I will defend to the death the freedom of the press and text content. I believe that government censorship of the press is the single biggest method of oppression available to governments. I've taken to saying:

"A post 9-11 world is still a post 1776 world."

because I don't agree with suppressing huge amounts of information in the name of "safety". Reclassifying documents on the Korean War smacks of the exact same kind of secrecy throughout history that caused so many problems.

I feel VERY strongly about how we should protect content and ensure that it's available. However, in a digital age, ensuring that content is available is best served by digital versions and not in reverence of the printed copy.

So, to me, the treatment of books as objects has moved to the same category as stamps. They can be beautiful works of art, collected and treated with tremendous respect. However, most are just used to serve a specific purpose and discarded.

If you find yourself getting hot under the collar on this topic with me, ask yourself whether, if the book contained nothing but random characters, with no readable text, you would still feel the same way about it. If so, you're argument is about the object and not about censorship or bookburning or any other loaded free speech issue. Instead, it's more akin to how well you treat your DVD's and CD's.

Robert Nagle touches on something that's surely going to be obvious once I'm at SXSW.

I am a geek. I revel in technology.

Yet I have. . .

• No Powerbook.
• No iBook either
• No iPod
• No Razr
• Not even the slightest level of caring about whether that makes me cool

I carry a Windows laptop, Creative MP3 player, big metal Nextel phone and I'm fine. For the conference itself, I am not staying downtown and I am not going to be drinking. I just wanted to answer all of the questions up front. I am happy with my tech choices and have absolutely no shame that I will be using Windows while at SXSW.

Beyond that, I don't need you to offer me a Linux CD or to show me your Mac. I have machines that do both. I use what I use because of a whole series of rational choices and don't need any evangelizing. I am already well-versed in your religion. I'm just not looking to join up, thanks.

Maybe I need a t-shirt.

No Powerbook
No iPod
No Razr
My cool's in my brain, not my bag

I've been messing with the Metaweblog API and Javascript again, to hook into Outlook for writing up notes and posting to this and my other sites. I've been sorely disappointed in the documentation for this API.

What gets called "documentation" varies quite a bit. There are usually several different types:

• Object model documentation. This is a blow by blow explanation of every method and property in the code. When it's really good, it covers what the bit you're looking at connects to, as well as sample code to show how to use that method or property.
• Tutorials. These show you how to accomplish something specific using a set of tools.
• Descriptive articles. These are often written to give an overview of a topic. They aren't aimed at a particular task or at being exhaustive. These are great when, say, someone wants to know how PHP is different from Perl. You can cover the highlights and leave them to the object model docs, etc. when they need better details.

Unfortunately, the document that gets pointed to as the "API documentation" for the Metaweblog API is in the last category. It's a fine article, but as API documentation, it's really quite sad. I'm used to the detail that the PHP documentation has. When I'm busy implementing the spec, I need to know all of the details. I want to see examples.

For instance, when it tells me to pass in a "struct" without telling me the exact structure of that struct, it's a frustrating experience.

So, when looking for better docs, I noticed that the new MSN Spaces implementation happened to come with MSDN-style documentation and that Microsoft made a great move in choosing an open API (the same one I'm working with), but even better, they improved the documentation as they did it. I'm not generally a fan of Microsoft, but I'm also a pragmatist and tech agnostic and aim to use what works above any religious affiliation.

So, if you would like to understand the API or if you are Dave Winer and you're thinking of writing docs that will help people spread the standard you've come up with, go read theirs.