This is a test to see if “this pinging service from Pingomatic works”:http://pingomatic.com/blog/archives/2004/05/20/metapinging/ as “gilmae”:http://www.avocadia.net/ tells me I’m not pinging blo.gs
Let’s see if trackback works too.
Wordpress has a final RC available and I’ve installed it without significant issue.
“Papascott”:http://www.papascott.de/2004/05/21/3023.php says something that has been on my mind this week :-
bq.:http://www.papascott.de/2004/05/21/3023.php With WordPress, if you want to do anything slightly different from what it intends (for example, customizing the text of the monthly archive links, or listing the 5 latest comments), you end up writing a hack, essentially rewriting one of its PHP functions to do what you want. But PHP is at least logical and well-documented. Movable Type has it’s own well-documented but esoteric template language, for which you can find plugins to make it even more esoteric
You have two options if you are a coder and want to write weblog software that is specific to your needs. Firstly, you can write your own weblogging system (e.g. “Epistula”:http://www.aquarionics.com/#article-75) or you can use a pre-built package and write hacks or plugins for it. As long as the plugin system is flexible enough, and in a language you know, you have the benefit of not having to code a system from the ground up and have the benefit of a well written performant weblog without having to design it yourself.
MovableType didn’t work for me because I didn’t know Perl. Wordpress is better because PHP looks easier to learn, but I’m holding off writing any plugins or hacks until 1.2 is released. I don’t feel confident enough in the language to contribute yet. Also, when I did have time last night to look over the forums and see what others were doing, there was a database problem and I couldn’t access anything. (btw, the best plugin system was in “Vellum”:http://www.kryogenix.org/code/vellum/)
Reading a few of the trackbacks at “Mena’s request for feedback on licensing (Commendable attempt to gather feedback but it will only produce more biased results)”:http://www.sixapart.com/log/2004/05/how_are_you_usi.shtml, I am quite stunned at how many blogs people run. “I’m running 27 non-profit personal blogs with 43 authors each all about Brittany Spears” (or something. Where do people find the time. I’ve had up to three blogs running concurrently, but the others always die and I only really count this one as currently active.
The problem with the MovableType license is not really price; there is a free version after all. It is the limitations imposed. Suddenly, MT has gone from being a very flexible tool, inspiring creativity to one with a limitation that if you want to be more creative you will incur a financial penalty for doing so.
Limitations on the use of a product will only stifle use of the product and in the case of weblog, it will stifle creativity and lead to users finding alternative products to do what they want.
Derek Powazek explains how he runs his very popular creative weblogs
bq.:http://www.powazek.com/2004/05/000405.html Similar story [to Fray] on City Stories. There are two blogs, one public and one private, and a ton of authors. 30 at last count. Again, it’s central to the concept of the site to have a lot of authors. That’s why I chose Movable Type to power it.
If someone was using the personal license and was at it’s limit, and had a crazy idea for a new weblog would they really bother to start it up if it was going to cost them extra money to do so? Or would they put it on the shelf for another day? Or would you instead start it using different weblog software to see if it popular? And if it works, would you bother changing it back?
I had an idea for a multi-author story weblog where all the authors were me. Is that one author or five? How could I prove it was all me to the licensing police? The idea was that you weren’t supposed to know I was writing it all, in fact you weren’t supposed to know which author wrote which post, and you were supposed to work it out. The free MT license covers me currently, but I would have had to pay $70 to set that idea up. I wouldn’t have paid for this pie-in-the-sky idea. I was too lazy to get it off the ground anyway, but that’s another story.
bq.:http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99995005 An amateur rocket called GoFast has made history by becoming the first such rocket to reach 100 kilometres altitude - the official edge of space.
Note this isn’t the X-Prize for the first civilian flight to carry a crew into space (twice) which carries a prize of $10 million.
The Bloglines Toolkit for Mozilla written by Chad Everett is something I meant to blog about last week before the “MovableType”:http://www.movabletype.com situation occurred. It puts the bloglines notifier into your Mozilla-based browser. I installed it straightaway, and have just “upgraded to the latest version (version 0.9)”:http://www.cxliv.org/jayseae/2004/05/13/bloglines_toolkit_v0r9.html.
Allowing me to subscribe to feeds, search for references or even search for highlighted text it is a very useful addition to my set of extensions.
I’ve just got tickets for Sunday at “V Festival”:http://www.vfestival.com/vfestival/pages/index.cfm which means I’m going to see “The Pixies”:http://www.ilovepixies.com/. (+ Badly Drawn Boy, Starsailor, Strokes, Zutons, Primal Scream, Snow Patrol). A week later, and it is time for “Morrissey”:http://www.morrisseymusic.com/ at “Reading Festival”:http://www.readingfestival.com/ (+The White Stripes) . It’s funny how neither are the main act on the night and are supplanted by the young americans.
But wait there is more because to keep me occupied until then is “Euro 2004″:http://www.euro2004.com/ which is guaranteed excitement and disappointment all rolled into one. Which team will have all the stars and yet fail to deliver? Or will Holland be this year’s Holland? Can England get past the group stages and the mighty France?
But hold on a minute longer, because this Saturday is the “FA Cup Final”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/fa_cup/default.stm and I haven’t been this excited about an FA Cup Final since 1996. Sure there was 1999 but that was the nervous middle cup on the way to the treble. The European Cup final overshadowed it.