• New release DVDs feeds… for New Zealand release dates
• New release movies feeds… for New Zealand release dates
• New release New Zealand CDs (Amazon wouldn’t stock most of them, and they’d be imports and have later release dates)
• New release magazines (especially New Zealand ones I read) with feature article highlights
• New clothing items at my favourite stores (saves me going to the mall to see what’s new)
• Trademe feeds for search terms (our version of ebay)
• Latest news feed for the NZ Herald (their RSS service is overly complicated, doesn’t include breaking news and has only 40 words in the excerpt)

While much focus went into providing multi-language sites, many services are still very much US or North American-specific. I’d love to be able to find New Zealand RSS feeds but unfortunately we’re still a little slow off the mark.

When Outlook 12 comes out with a built-in RSS-reader, RSS will hit mainstream internet users - even if they don’t realise they’re using it. Perhaps then, companies will realise that RSS feeds are like the next generation newsletter.

I am waiting on this book to arrive from Amazon in the next week or two and got thinking about AJAX tonight. If you’d asked me what AJAX was six months ago or earlier, I would have said it was a household cleaner:

…which made me wonder, since AJAX is a registered trademark to Colgate, have there been any lawsuits over the use of it? A quick search on google brought up the following information:

Colgate-Palmolive vs. Ajax.org. Those of us over the age of 40 remember Mom using the blue can of Ajax to scrub the pots and pans after dinner. Colgate-Palmolive took exception to the use of that trademark name by “Ajax.org.” Public support for the general information portal website was so strong, however, that the corporate giant eventually dropped the suit. (Source, 2003)

Ajax.org is now practically an empty site. I can’t seem to find any information on Colgate taking legal action against the current use of AJAX. (Unlike Sellotape ®) Since books are now being published, I guess the cat is out of the bag.

I thought I’d share a little plugin I’ve been using that I recently wrote, because I wasn’t happy with the default display of trackbacks in Wordpress. If you have any problems, please let me know.

This plugin changes the display of trackbacks from:

[...] Trackback text [...]

to something a little more readable - I have it producing:

Trackback text …

but you could change the plugin code to suit your tastes, just change $pre and $post to what you’d like to appear before and after trackbacks.

Download
http://www.cre8d-design.com/code/rvc_trackback.txt

Changes
3 Jan 06: Version 1

(Taken last night…I’m still a big kid at heart!)

2006 is going to be a great year - full of plans and projects and anticipation already:

• We’re working on some exciting projects in January-March, more information about them as soon as we’re ready for beta-launches. (Might get onto Techcrunch yet.)
• Meeting up with some overseas bloggers in January.
• Walking the Abel Tasman with friends in February - five days of walking, kayaking, swimming, chilling out, fishing, camping and reading in some of the best scenery ever.
• Our first ever U2 concert on St Partricks Day in March!
• Speaking at ICOTS and touring South America in July.
• Designing blogs, websites and community sites, and of course blogging and running our various sites.
• Our first full year in our brand new beautiful home… and more.

Wishing you all the very best of success and happiness in 2006!

Yesterday we headed along to Kathmandu for their annual 50% off sale to get some gear for our trips to Abel Tasman and South America. On the way there, I was compelled to take this photo. Every time we drive past it the colour combinations make me cringe. This large shopping building was recently repainted from a pale tint of grey to this ugly brown colour. Why oh why didn’t someone put a white background area in behind the logos, even if they didn’t want the whole building that colour?

On a brighter note, we celebrated the New Year in last night by heading out to Muriwai beach and checked out the Gannet Colony with friends and saw some far prettier colours. The place was so quiet and peaceful and not many people had come out.