Word comes from Dick and others that the Salon Weblog community in which I and many others got our start may be winding down. Buddhist though I may be, I admit to being sad to hear this, even though I’ve long since left that community. It was through that community–a community that fostered more than a few notable books–that I got to know many of the people that appear along the right side of this page. Its apparent pending demise should at least be noted.
Yet for those of you who have been part of the community and have moved on, or would like to move on, but would also like to maintain some connection to that community, I might be able to help. Karen Armstead was able to get some AppleScript code from Christian Crumlish that allows former Salon Webloggers to have updates to their now diasporal Weblogs continue to appear on Salon’s Recently Changed Weblogs page. What does that mean? It means that if you have a Mac running OS X, you can host your Weblog somewhere other than Salon’s servers, using software other than Radio UserLand, but still have updates to your Weblog noted by Salon. (Separately, it’s also possible to have visits to your Weblog counted on Salon’s Rankings by Page-Reads page.) If this is something you’re interested in, let me know.
morgannels 
Well, I just re-upped with them for another year, so I guess I’ll be there until the dilithium crystals flame out. I’m using Bloglines to track the Salon diaspora, and I’ll add yours. What was your original Salon blog, Morgan?
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Brilliant – big thanks to you, Morgan, & to Karen for persevering on this one. The little bit of Buddhism lodged in me by my Dad says that this shouldn’t matter – but it does, & thanks for your efforts!
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I had this AppleScript years ago, when I first left Salon, and then lost it. The credit really goes to Karen for retrieving it from Christian, and, of course, to Christian for still having it and for having written it in the first place. But now that I have it and know that others need it, I won’t lose it again.
Also, the version I gave you, Dick, is specific to your Weblog. There are parameters in the code that have to be changed for it to work for another Weblog. If anyone has questions about that, let me know.
Phil, I’m glad to hear that someone’s keeping track of us. My original Salon Weblog was Gnosis.
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I’m glad you’re improvising ways to stay connected. Sorry we couldn’t keep building on the structure of the original Salon Blogs program, but I hope we can at least carry on its spirit with our next projects.
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Thanks for the support.
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If you learn of a way to ping Salon for non-Mac users, do let me know. Wish I had your skills!
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Hey, to set the record straight, it was actually Christopher Filkins (filchyboy) who wrote that AppleScript. When Karen asked me for it I went back to filchy as I no longer needed it (though I am stilling pinging the Salon Radio Community Server, with Movable Type and WordPress which both enable you add ping servers to a list.
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Thanks for the clarification.
As I’ve looked into making XML-RPC calls and seen how simple it really is, it occurred to me that an application shouldn’t be necessary to make these calls, that most Weblogging software should be able to do it pretty easily. If Movable Type can ping the Salon server, does that mean that Typepad can as well?
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