Author Topic: What are your top 10 Tech/Software Blogs? (Read 35926 times)

mouser · « **on:** October 12, 2007, 10:21 AM »

Martin from ghacks.net (which was awarded our best site of the month in May 2007) has started a little experiment asking his favorite blog-type sites (DC is one) to list their 10 favorite tech/software blogs.

So I thought I would start out with my personal 10, and then we can have a thread here where people can add their own recommendations as well.

My 10, in no particular order:

Cybernetnews - one of the absolute best bang for the buck in terms of quality content at an increasingly impressive pace of updates. right now i'd say this is one of the very top (if not *the* top) software site for Windows users to visit every day.
ghacks - similar to cybernetnews in content and spirit
Freeware World Team - one of the lesser appreciated sites that reports on a volume of new small indie freeware tools that other sites should be envious of. i wake up each morning hoping that they are still doing what they are doing - they actively go out and find new small freeware tools you won't hear about anywhere else.
Freeware Genius - very nice short reviews of cool freeware.
DownloadSquad - downloadsquad has been slacking a bit lately but they are a first class top-of-the-line software blog, no doubt about it.
Shell Extension City - a few freeware tools featured each day. again this is pushing the edge of what would be considered a blog, but it's one of the longest-running most consistent source of finding out about cool freeware for windows.
JayIsGames.com - for my daily fix of casual flash games. i don't really have time to play games but i love visiting jay's site once a day to see if there is something new and fun to spent 10 minutes on. and i like how they bring attention and offer a platform for indie coders.
Wired Blogs - there are quite a few blogs here and they are all occasionally original in ways that most other blogs aren't.
Coding Horror - my favorite programming-related blog. Jeff Attwood is one of my favorite writers in this genre and most of what he writes is for a general audience and easy to read and entertainingly opinionated.
Gadgetopia - nice original essays and reporting on software / web services / technology.

So what are yours?

ps. note that i read tons and tons of blogs, and it wasn't easy picking just 10, so if i left you out it doesn't mean i don't love your blog!

cybernetnews · « **Reply #1 on:** October 12, 2007, 10:55 AM »

Thanks Mouser! We actually found a really useful article that you wrote a few years back, and we referenced it in a giveaway we have coming next Tuesday. So thanks for all of your great product reviews as well because it made writing our article a bit easier.

nosh · « **Reply #2 on:** October 12, 2007, 11:38 AM »

I haven't come across any tech blog that matches the combination of frequency of updates and detailed coverage of Cybernetnews. I don't even want to imagine how much effort goes into maintaining that kind of a pace. I'm always amused when Ryan posts here coz I just can't imagine how he finds the time.

I'd add Digital Inspiration to the list coz he does cover unique/interesting stuff and is fast with breaking news. Lifehacker (Downloads feed ONLY, since my sanity is of value to me) does have the occasional really good post if you're willing to sit through a few blah ones.

Edit: Pogue from NY Times is an excellent read even when he's covering not-so-interesting stuff.

cybernetnews · « **Reply #3 on:** October 12, 2007, 04:59 PM »

Thanks for the compliments Nosh! I wish I could post here more often, but we are definitely pretty strapped for time. We've never really posted what our schedules are like for working on the site, but here's a quick run down:

Note: All times mentioned are in central time

Ashley and I are both working by 7AM each weekday, and are done around 7PM
The first two hours of our day is typically spend finding what we consider to be the best news, and for that we go through close to 500 different feeds. In a days time we normally look through 10,000 to 20,000 feed items. It's really disappointing when we go through all of the feed items and don't find a single thing that interests us, which happens more than you would believe.
We normally keep up on the news feeds throughout the day checking them periodically. In all we probably spend about 3 to 4 hours everday just going through feed items.
We are normally done writing articles for the site by 3PM, and then...
- on Mondays we do some general maintenance to the site that typically takes a few hours.
- on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays we knock out the CyberNotes articles for the next week. Yep, these are all written at least one week in advance.
- on Friday we write extra articles that are posted on the weekends. We try not to write on the weekends so that we are able to get a break from the site.
Our day kind of ends around 7PM, and that's when we normally eat dinner, watch a little TV, and such. Around 9PM or 10PM we will go around replying to the people who have left comments on our site and our forum, and that's normally when we stop at other sites as well. About an hour is spent doing this.

So we are definitely busy, but we're having a good time trying to build up the site. Hope I didn't bore anyone with this post, but I thought some of you might find it interesting as to what actually goes on in a day's time for a fulltime blogger. It's not quite the cakewalk that some people make it out to be.

Lashiec · « **Reply #4 on:** October 12, 2007, 06:25 PM »

20,000 feed items!

. You guys really work hard

OK, the selection of sites I check up daily barely reach the magic number, for reasons I disclose later. I usually go through the lighter sites in one rush, these include File Hippo, for the daily software updates, various emulation sites and Cybernetnews, which I recently started to check up in such fashion. The heavy sites come later, including Ars Technica, The Tech Report and ShackNews, the latter being a recent addition to replace a Spanish gaming site going downhill

And that's all. Why not more sites? Well, the three mentioned later always led to some other sites to complement information or to give the scoop about what's going on somewhere, particularly the last two, which, apart from working in a semi cooperative fashion, have this 'shortbread' thing which summarises what other important tech and gaming sites carry in the front page.

I'll probably change later (read: when I have time and stop procrastinating after the daily reading

) the process, to be RSS based, as it's faster (now I'm checking up the entire sites, and it's time consuming, much more than I wish) and I can add more sites (for that I need to sort my huge bookmarks file

). I also need a good reader... Now if most sites added properly written RSS feeds, instead of redacting mere link baits...

I think this qualifies as a rant

zridling · « **Reply #5 on:** October 12, 2007, 10:29 PM »

mouser, I'm with you on this one — here's nine, since you covered a couple of my favs.
________________________________________________
OSNews — Reports on every OS out there, and sadly, all the damn lawsuits.
Bob Sutor — Bob's Open Blog covers a lot of interesting ground, and not always on software.
Rob Weir — Where logic and tech meet, and tech doesn't always come out ahead.
Steven Sinofsky — His I Started Something Windows blog is funny and pretty classy.
Groklaw (Pamela Jones) — Giving Microsoft and other corporations pure hell, and jeez, the woman is superhuman-smart.
NixCraft — GNU/Linux administration and tips. I learn something new every day.
Grand Stream Dreams — An incredible comparative software blog that does a lot of heavy lifting to find the best apps.
Flow|State UI — A blog about UI design; moreover, what not to do.
Adam Eiberger — His Inkwell hardware blog isn't just techcrunch, he takes you behind the scenes on what motivates newer/better everything.

Renegade · « **Reply #6 on:** October 12, 2007, 10:44 PM »

I don't read blogs that much unless there is something specific. I'm just short on time for it, and prefer to waste what I have in forums.

I might check out some of them though. I'll need to find a good aggregator though to save time reading them. Newsgator perhaps? Not sure... Haven't really played with any yet.

My poison is podcasts. Can't get enough to fill my commute time at the moment. If anyone does, please post good tech or software podcasts here.

muntealb · « **Reply #7 on:** October 13, 2007, 03:12 AM »

There are also :

Digital Inspiration : http://labnol.blogspot.com/

Lifehacker : http://www.lifehacker.com/

Both are similar to CybernetNews.

zxcvbn · « **Reply #8 on:** October 17, 2007, 09:30 AM »

1. Sarah in Tampa http://www.sarahintampa.com/sarah/

2. Clif Notes Freewarewiki http://freewarewiki.pbwiki.com/ but this is perhaps more a newsletter

The other eight I just forget for the moment

mouser · « **Reply #9 on:** October 17, 2007, 01:01 PM »

Cliff's Newsletter is a must read:
http://freewarewiki....ifsCurrentNewsletter

We need to start a new thread of our top newsletters don't we?

anishm · « **Reply #10 on:** October 17, 2007, 08:06 PM »

Joel on Software - very opinionated, brash, in-your-face, know-it-all New York style of commentary but worth reading if you value an honest and sometimes critical view of software development and the state of technology. www.joelonsoftware.com

mouser · « **Reply #11 on:** October 17, 2007, 08:14 PM »

Joel is a very good writer but it seems in the last year or two the only thing he ever writes about is pure self-promotion. i miss the more general insightful posts he used to make but at this point i don't even bother checking out his blog.

at least he hasn't gotten as bad as robert scoble yet $:-\$

mouser · « **Reply #12 on:** October 17, 2007, 08:17 PM »

Paul Graham is one of the writers on creative tech business stuff. he writes in essay form but no matter what you call it, he is good:
http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html

zridling · « **Reply #13 on:** October 17, 2007, 08:52 PM »

Paul Graham is indeed classic. Sam Hiser is another I like who hits on a wide variety of tech topics.

housetier · « **Reply #14 on:** October 18, 2007, 10:33 AM »

I read too many blogs and news sites already! I cant keep up anymore...

I like techcrunch.com when they bash services and websites.

In Germany you can't get around reading heise and golem; programmers should read worse than failure. I will not mention slashdot because they are too slow.

Curt · « **Reply #15 on:** October 23, 2007, 05:34 PM »

Freeware World Team - one of the lesser appreciated sites that reports on a volume of new small indie freeware tools that other sites should be envious of. i wake up each morning hoping that they are still doing what they are doing - they actively go out and find new small freeware tools you won't hear about anywhere else.
-mouser (October 12, 2007, 10:21 AM)

I have not been able to reach all4you for 1½ day, and I have no idea, as to why.

Can you reach http://www.all4you.dk/FreewareWorld/ ??

- and if you can:
what may be wrong in my end of the line? -everything else is working as normal!

PhilB66 · « **Reply #16 on:** October 23, 2007, 06:53 PM »

@Curt

http://www.all4you.dk/ is offline.

Curt · « **Reply #17 on:** October 24, 2007, 09:36 AM »

Can you reach http://www.all4you.dk/FreewareWorld/ ??
-Curt (October 23, 2007, 05:34 PM)

Well; they are back on track.

Plasma Man · « **Reply #18 on:** January 19, 2008, 12:14 AM »

Add this for the list:

http://www.techbeta.org/

Techbeta is a site focussed on tech news, and freeware/open source software for Windows, Mac OS X, Pocket PC and Linux.

It's that simple.

housetier · « **Reply #19 on:** January 20, 2008, 06:39 AM »

Too bad I can't fill out the contact form: the captcha image is never shown.

Plasma Man · « **Reply #20 on:** January 20, 2008, 07:32 AM »

Too bad I can't fill out the contact form: the captcha image is never shown.
-housetier (January 20, 2008, 06:39 AM)

OK here using Moz. If the characters appear chopped off simply refresh the captcha until you see something sensible.

jgpaiva · « **Reply #21 on:** January 20, 2008, 07:32 AM »

Too bad I can't fill out the contact form: the captcha image is never shown.
-housetier (January 20, 2008, 06:39 AM)

Strange.. It is shown here, in opera, ie and firefox.

housetier · « **Reply #22 on:** January 20, 2008, 01:05 PM »

Strange indeed. I have reloaded the page several times now, I do not use a proxy, I have emptied the cache. For me it is just broken, and I do not feel like fixing it for them.

Almost all other captchas have worked so far, only blogspot's is constantly reloading itself without giving me a chance to figure out what they are showing

I don't think I am missing out on news though:

From your 102 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 10,948 items, starred 3 items, shared 0 items, and emailed 0 items.
-https://www.google.com/reader/view/#trends-page

relequestual · « **Reply #23 on:** January 20, 2008, 05:28 PM »

Thanks for the compliments Nosh! I wish I could post here more often, but we are definitely pretty strapped for time. We've never really posted what our schedules are like for working on the site, but here's a quick run down:

Note: All times mentioned are in central time

Ashley and I are both working by 7AM each weekday, and are done around 7PM
The first two hours of our day is typically spend finding what we consider to be the best news, and for that we go through close to 500 different feeds. In a days time we normally look through 10,000 to 20,000 feed items. It's really disappointing when we go through all of the feed items and don't find a single thing that interests us, which happens more than you would believe.
We normally keep up on the news feeds throughout the day checking them periodically. In all we probably spend about 3 to 4 hours everday just going through feed items.
We are normally done writing articles for the site by 3PM, and then...
- on Mondays we do some general maintenance to the site that typically takes a few hours.
- on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays we knock out the CyberNotes articles for the next week. Yep, these are all written at least one week in advance.
- on Friday we write extra articles that are posted on the weekends. We try not to write on the weekends so that we are able to get a break from the site.
Our day kind of ends around 7PM, and that's when we normally eat dinner, watch a little TV, and such. Around 9PM or 10PM we will go around replying to the people who have left comments on our site and our forum, and that's normally when we stop at other sites as well. About an hour is spent doing this.

So we are definitely busy, but we're having a good time trying to build up the site. Hope I didn't bore anyone with this post, but I thought some of you might find it interesting as to what actually goes on in a day's time for a fulltime blogger. It's not quite the cakewalk that some people make it out to be.
-cybernetnews (October 12, 2007, 04:59 PM)

WOW!

sure sounds like what id love to do if i had the time n wasnt already planning to go to uni!

cybernetnews · « **Reply #24 on:** January 23, 2008, 12:00 AM »

WOW!

sure sounds like what id love to do if i had the time n wasnt already planning to go to uni!
-relequestual (January 20, 2008, 05:28 PM)

We definitely have a good time doing it, but some days it can be quite tiresome.