So I looked for one of those WordPress plugins that can periodically create a post automatically from updates to a feed. WP-o-Matic looked like a good thing to use, except that (it turns out that) it converts every RSS item to a seperate post. The result: I click a link and spam my feed with 35 new posts, each a single link. Even worse, they all get automatically posted on Livejournal, and when I delete them from the blog, they don’t get deleted there – I had to go and delete them manually using the even suckier (for deleting) interface of LJ.

So, if your feed reader just got stuffed with 35 new posts from me, I apologize.

If you have a LiveJournal account, you can turn off this off for your entries and your friends page – in the menu, go to Journal > Settings and you’ll get to a page titled Viewing Options. Uncheck the option called Graphic previews to end this madness and make your journal fit for humane consumption. I’d consume your RSS and not bother you, but sometimes you post locked entries.

I hope LJ turn this off soon – I guess they made it on by default just to bring this feature to people’s attention. At least I hope so – I shudder to think people are actually clamoring for this travesty.

Update: A discussion of the Snap previews on the lj_no_ads community, where Anil Dash from SixApart writes Regular people on the web *love* Snap previews. [via Simon Willison]

The downside to the recent widespread adoption of Wordpress by Hebrew bloggers is that they’ve adopted on masse some of the worst eyesores of the global Wordpress community, specifically an annoying bit of blog-bling that pops up (Pop. Up. doesn’t that already sound like a bad idea? Haven’t most browser advances since 1997 revolved around finding ways to disable and remove things that pop up?) a preview image of each website just as soon as you move your mouse over an external link. Not only is this annoying and distracting, it’s bringing you information you really don’t need at a time you really don’t want it. I mean, who cares what the site you linked to looks like? 99% of the time, it’s going to be another damn blog, using another damn bog-standard blog template.

Now, of course, annoying javascript widgets like this send any self-respecting geek scrambling for a greasemonkey script or even firefox add-on to disable it (user stylesheets, maybe? hosts file hacking?). Turns out there’s an opt-out option described in the FAQ of the company that provides this worthless “service” (it toggles a cookie from the snap.com site). Of course, it feels like a sissy’s solution. But the freedom from distraction is worth it. Update: I found a way to do this with greasemonkey.