today in brief

1. Great idea, hilarious execution, and even more so to me since I like neither story. Via iamcal. I wonder why it didn't travel Romania--to my knowledge--over e-mail.

2. Blogger finally posts comments with the date (and not just the hour) they were made and offers the option of receiving comment updates via e-mail (though I don't know how or whether that works when you're not logged into Gmail/ Blogger). Prior to this, there was no way to follow a certain post's comments, only a way to follow all comments, via RSS and not advertised by Blogger--you had to be a bit geeky to guess it existed and then find it. That said, here are a few things that Blogger would do well to fix soon:

a. Being able to add more than five photos at once, explaining the order they will show up in your post, and the maximum upload at one time (still 8 MB overall?).
b. Letting bloggers rename labels (categories).
c. Displaying all posts under a label (in a category).
d. Oh, yes: post titles as permalinks? I must stop before the list outgrows me.
e. Allowing one to browse the Picasa Web Albums, since that's where Blogger stores photos.

And speaking of Picasa Web Albums, the following would improve it immensely:

a. Faster loading at any moment throughout the application.
b. A-Z or chronological display of photos instead of the current random one.
c. Showing the real titles of the photos: since Blogger knows them (see image source code), I don't see why Picasa ignores/ hides them.
d. Make search work with photo titles, as well.
e. Connect photos to posts that include them on Blogger.

3. Addressing Google again, there's a simple way to learn how much storage space one has and uses over all free services: Manage Storage. However, click on the link only when you're logged in.

4. An interesting experiment: blogging monthly about how much money one makes blogging.

5. While it now makes sense for me to follow Daily Candy for London, you have an alternative if living in Bucharest/ Romania, albeit not daily: Psst! in either English or Romanian. I've received it for more than a year now, I believe, and it's alright. I've recently realised that its creator is Madeleine Florescu, whom I've seen once in ZF [RO], who is (was?) the manager of Geroaslan Cosmetics in Romania, and who is the owner of the newly launched premium perfume boutique in Bucharest, Madison. I wonder whether she's connected to the other Florescu stars of Bucharest. I also wonder whether Psst is a copycat of Daily Candy, as she's lived in New York for 15 years.

6. If you're living in the U.S., eCreamery lets you create your ice cream online, but what I like better than their existence is their slogan: for a life less vanilla. With apologies to two important persons in my life that are vanilla-crazed, I applaud this slogan. Finally someone who gets me, or at least gets that flavours do not begin and end with vanilla--which wrong belief led to so many vanilla-flavoured products that I can't care for them more than I would for the millionth lemon-flavoured one. Via Daily Candy. On a side note, I'm a bit sad that I couldn't order my premium ice cream: cinnamon and black raspberry with mint and basil leaves.

7. Today I learned that pidgin exists as a word and stands for simplified languages that are formed and used between communities speaking different languages. I wonder: does Spanglish qualify?

8. [...] women who carry weight around their tummies are more likely to be in a relationship. Gok for The Observer Woman, a monthly magazine you can skip, otherwise. Of course, the wisdom quote only refers to British women, as Romanian women are all fit and sweet.

9. Before you do so, amuse yourself with the magazine covering the same story as Romanian Psst! (which was first), because they're both following the craiglist, probably, or being in touch with someone who does. Either way, the story itself isn't worth; must've been an easy subject.

10. Dopplr opened its doors to business travelers: 100 large companies and MBA 100.