April 05, 2006

I Want A New Toy!

So, as you may have noticed, I haven't posted here in the past year. Some of that is due to having a new job, and some of that is because nothing has grabbed me and said Write about me!!. Oh, I've used a few "new" things:
  • JBidWatcher - eBay bid tracking and sniping software that is platform independant. Nifty, open source, Java based, and free. The guy who writes is updates it frequently, and earns every penny (and then some) that satisfied users send him.
  • Jabber2 and Gaim - setting up internal IM and clients to use it was interesting. Jabberd and its integration with LDAP went okay, but I never got through the directions on installing the conference server. A big problem was the version 1 vs 2 incompatibilities in add-ons and plug-ins, mostly un- or under-documented. It seems to be a rather stale project. Gain works ok, but doesn't want to talk to the enterprise version of msn messenger for a stinkin' damn. Ugh.
  • RHEL 4 64 - well, the 64 bit version of this didn't want to install via the iLO card on the HP hardware. It's the damned broadcom/tigon card and driver again. It was a PITA on RHEL 3 and Dell hardware too. I wish whoever is dealing with that driver could put out and maintain a good one - in the distro!! Then there's the issue that some 32 bit software won't run, even in 32 bit emulation mode. Nothing ticks me off more than having to run a 32 bit OS on nifty 64 bit hardware because of some critical bit of lame code.
  • HP LJ 5si - my new (used) printer at home. It's manual feed tray paper lifter is borken, but otherwise it works real nice. Finding and installing the jet direct support sofware for windoze boxes can be a PITA, but that's what you get for running Windows.
    • So, all in all, nothing exciting. I suppose I could blather on about making soap, but that's a different kind of geekery. I want new toys to play with.

    Posted by ljl at 03:10 PM | Comments (0)

    June 20, 2004

    Movable Type

    As you probably have noticed, this blog runs on MovableType (MT). So it makes sense to review the underlying software here.

    I first started using MT in November 2002, with version 2.51. My first blog, Iconoclast Blast was started after reading Essential Blogging by Doctorow, et al. I found MT easy to set up with the default Berkeley DB. A few tweaks to a config file, and I was off and running. Being an inveterate fiddler, I soon was mangling my stylesheet to suit my fancy.

    Then disaster struck. My hosting provider, C-Soft, decided to "upgrade" from Linux to FreeBSD, and just run all of the old Linux software in "compatibility mode". They did this without any notice to their users, at least not that I got. Bzzzzt!! My happy little blog, with its Berkeley DB (1 or 2) files, now had Berkeley DB 3 files, and I couldn't even log in! Seems that MT's perl didn't talk to Berkeley DB3. I have still been unable to downconvert my data. All of the conversion software is designed to go the other way! C-Soft was rather snotty about the whole thing, too.

    So my blog languished without update for six months, while I fussed, fiddled, fumed and finally found another provider, DreamHost. Mind you, I administer about 10 domains, for myself and my roomies, and C-Soft's attitude lost them our business.

    Once on Dreamhost, I decided to revive my blogs as best I could. I still like MT, and so downloaded MT3.0D Limited Free Version. Since it was just a resurrection of personal material, I was not going to take the plunge and pay. Also, their initial pay licensing scheme sucked rocks through a small straw. They have since fixed their licensing to be something far more reasonable.

    This time I decided to go with the MySQL option, especially since Dreamhost had a nice utility for creating databases quickly, and I didn't have a lot of time to pour into it. I even tried to import my old data from Berkeley DB 3, but it didn't work. OTOH, MySQL is a lot more common, and has export and backup routines. Also, MT 3.0 has a few more import and export features itself, which means you can dump your entries out raw, and keep them that way, too.

    MT 3.0D has a few other new features. The primary one of interest to me was comment moderation and the handy TypeKey integration. You see, while I was unable to log in to my blog, link spammers were dumping porn links into 90% of my entries!! I *hate* that! MT 3.0D lets you moderate comments, and with the TypeKey system, other bloggers and people who are generally "real" canlog in to TypeKey, comment in your blog, and not have to be moderated by default. This cuts down on the crap, but doesn't have you scrambling to moderate everything.

    Now the default stylesheets and layout I still think need work. For one, the index page design is very non-liquid. It will take me a month of fiddling to make it a variable width again, instead of assuming that all monitors are 800 pixils wide, and thus that's what all blogs should be. Also, the default fonts are all sans-serif, and I consider them to be virtually unreadable on a monitor or paper - "i" "1" and "l" in sans-serif look all the same. But that's a taste thing. Since it's all done with templates and CSS, I could really go to town on it if I had the time and urge.

    When I get the money, I will probably buy a license. It is now reasonable. I like the fact that they took into account the views of the community of users when the first attempts turned out not to be happy making. However, if you plan on running MT with a simple Berkeley DB, be sure that you either a) control the server and it's underlying software, or b) make a backup every time you make an entry.

    Posted by ljl at 02:20 PM | Comments (1)

    June 16, 2004

    test

    This is a test of the emergency MT 3.0 bloggging system

    Posted by ljl at 08:49 PM | Comments (0)