July 2008 Archives

Way hey! 8 minutes 43 seconds for an all-template all-entry total rebuild. My guess is this could be further optimized by redoing my templates (still using the 3.33 ones) and turning off a few templates that don't really need a refresh every time.

Considering the size of Donkey's database, the fact that it's being published to three parallel blogs (multiple template mappings for shufflebox, list apart and current) this is beginning to look really good, so congrats to everyone involved:-)

Well I've been running the iPhone plugin for movable type for a while now but had never used it in anger.

So I'm sending this entry as a test.

Fingers crossed:-)

Disclamer: We've had a bit of an ongoing debate on this one with Anil fanning the flames as he tries to support the MT cause. I should disclose that I'm a member of the Six Apart Professional Network and also a 6A partner for the Paris office just so's you know...

While I'm a long-time Movable Type fan and user, I remember the first time time I installed Wordpress. What a treat, the thing was completely painless and took no time at all. I was way impressed and have been since. Added to functionality, the open-source community around Wordpress has spawned a huge templating and design resource with hundreds of very high-quality designs for the lay blogger to chose from. In fact, for many a year I considered switching to Wordpress and was only prevented by the thought of having to maintain security on a php installation and how I would handle any serious load should one of my client's projects really take off.

Now I've pretty much stopped worrying about this in much the same way as I've given up on the flash/no-flash, mac/pc, tomato/tomahhto arguments—they seem a bit pointless and on average both options/solutions have their merits.

I had an experience of doing some migration and configuring last night which brought to light some issues I hadn't yet come across in any Wordpress v. Movable Type discussions. I was trying to replicate behaviours from an MT installation into a series of WP ones and came across the following difficulties where Wordpress let me down:

• I couldn't perform a search and replace of strings across blogs and their pages, entries, comments and templates. To get the job done I had to edit template and entry data outside of the WP environment
• I couldn't use my global templates. I use these to configure global variables that several blogs can then share (in particular, I use primarily to manage root path across different systems and to avoid multiblog-calling-itself errors)
• I couldn't re-use my user configurations across blogs and if I wanted to set up an admin to cover more than one blog I couldn't re-gen their password
• Cutting and pasting, or generally moving data between templates across blogs was very unproductive (ended up jumping between Firefox tabs)
• There were two other things that got up my nose and I'll get them down here as soon as I remember them...

Before the WPfanboys jump on me, YES, I understand there are workarounds, upgrades, plugins and other fixes to the above and of course I'm going to struggle working in an environment that isn't my first choice. I simply wanted to list these experiences as I hadn't seen them outlined anywhere else.

So Charlotte wants me to spread the web2 love re ex-classmate Dirk Blackman's new production Outlander and why not? (that's our in-house Viking Haldane on the big-boy climbing frame over there on the left for our family readers)

As Eva Metalios puts it:

Subject: Fw: Dirk needs our help
Hey all -
After working in the Sisyphean task of being a writer in LA for over two decades, and the three year odyssey that OUTLANDER took to actually be made, the movie our friend Dirk Blackman (Columbia class of '85) authored with his partner and the project's director Howard McCain, is coming out. It is a sci-fi take on the Beowulf legend, nach.

C'mon, we are talking Dirk here. This is not
your daddy's Viking movie.

And Charlotte makes the point

Douglas,
the Norway thing, the Columbia thing, the media thing...

Well, yes, she's got a point I guess (and only Charlotte and my mother can get away with calling me Douglas).

The Norway thing huh? well we named our boy Haldane in an attempt to ping him into investigating his Norse roots... He is named after King Healfdene (lit. "half-dane") whose name has survived from myth into modern Danish under the popular form Halfdan

I initially wanted to call Hal Healfdene but worrying got the better of me and in the end I didn't want to relive a boy named Sue so tried to anglicise it some. We could have gone with Haldan, also in use in modern Danish but in the end we settled on Haldane (also good because it's a Scottish name).

Oh, right, back to the link love;-)

• the Morwen character is in development here: G4 video
• Healfdene Goguen is as far as I can tell the only man online to sport the BW original spelling
• and here's another site about Outlander
• here's the trailer on Youtube

Judging from the amount of traffic already generated, Dirk's project doesn't need any help but I liked Eva's closer make the Weinstein Company to feel the noise. Take that Harvey!

You know it doesn't get more cutting edge than this. First, after much stress and waiting, I jailbreak my iPhone and go in search of hot software. Great, open, free liberating productivity apps here I come and lo, I end up with the iFart, which pretty much does what it says on the can...

So yeah, post Jailbreak briccups (handset would cycle instead of turning off--made reseting impossible), have replaced iPhone and wait patiently for the 2.0 firmware to be delivered via proper channels and sync away with itunes and visit the app store and yes! I know have the iPhone light-saber app installed.

Surely our parents could never of conceived of such a wondrous world;-)

I've been trying to get Nick interested in personal branding after listening to @garyvee at Seed3. Gary made a bunch of interesting points and got me thinking about how Nick should develop on her work so far as a journalist. The woman has huge amounts of life experience and when fueled, can tell many an exotic tale of Argentinean vineyards, Tuscan raw-food cooking or tea tasting in the Indian Ocean...

Tim says

...and translate it into an action model for your personal bottom line--how your brand will generate personal wealth ( Me Inc. ) and how you will create social impact ( Me.org )...

Which really resonated... Does Nick settle on a business partner or employer who can work with her to create value using whatever existing methods they might have in place and picking and choosing from a small selection of Nicki's mojo as required?

Or does she choose to leverage her whole experience and develop on her own, working to distribute her mojo-assets socially to a large audience?

I can't help thinking that option one sounds like a bit of a waste...

I think the nice man who went in search of my Identity theft woes last week would have liked me to update my previous post.

So here goes: according to his findings there is nothing wrong with either his payment-processing software or hardware and a review of staff at the branch revealed nothing untoward.

So just to confirm: all is well at Eat. You can pick up your soup and sandwiches safe in the knowledge that these guys pay attention to detail, act fast when required and are just generally a bunch of excellent people!

eat.co.uk

Please immediately tell this person (details updated, thank you Peter)

Judge Louis L. Stanton
Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse
500 Pearl St., Room 2250
New York, NY10007

Phones
+1 212 805-0252

Faxes
+1 212 805-0389

that obtaining your personal history will in no way assist Viacom in identifying which of their intellectual properties has been illegally distributed. Please add that the phenomenal (how many millions of users?) negative impact on personal privacy utterly outweighs any spurious copyright swinery...

Read it: Judge orders YouTube to give all user histories to Viacom (Wired) and eff response and Viacom CSR

Man this is infuriating, and while I'm on the topic can I add that the making available argument is tantamount to arresting car owners because their ownership makes available the possibility of running over a pedestrian or saying that owning a gun is legally equivalent to shooting someone:-(

Time to increase my donations to the EFF, and you should too OK?