Category: Media

Just finished upgrading this blog and Battelle Media to Movable Type 3.2. Upgraded the J-School installation on Friday. Lots of cool new tools. My crude little comstop script has been obsoleted by the new Feedback Master Switch — one-click ability to disable comments and trackbacks for all blogs under an installation whilst undergoing massive spam-bombing. Slick. Also liking the new Junk “folders” for suspected comment and trackback spam. Ignore them and the system will auto-delete items after x days. StyleCatcher theme plugin already turning out to be a great timesaver at work for new class blogs. 3.2 turning out to be one of the most impressive upgrades in memory. These are the kinds of things computers are supposed to be good at.

File under “Long overdue”: With the release of Movable Type 3.2 finally comes the ability to switch between installed template styles with a few clicks, bringing weblog customizability more into line with what WordPress has offered for quite a while.

Several nice ones in the library of styles Six Apart is offering in its first round. Oddly, three-column designs are conspicuously absent from the display of new styles, though they say that the designs work neatly in three-column layouts (hacking a two-column CSS design into three columns has traditionally been non-trivial for general users; one of those areas where table-based design is vastly easier). Now that MT styles can be neatly packaged for download / install, looking forward to seeing what kinds of contributions the user community comes up with.

I’m pretty content with the current Birdhouse design for now, though I do enjoy messing with things from time to time. But lately I’ve been almost begrudgingly recommending that customers setting up new blogs use WP rather than MT, primarily for this reason. StyleCatcher evens the score.

“… with the nation’s libraries and classrooms filled with overtly liberal children’s books advocating everything from gay marriage to marijuana use, kids everywhere are being deluged with left-wing propaganda.” So what we apparently need is a primer for children of conservatives. Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed:

This full-color illustrated book is a fun way for parents to teach young children the valuable lessons of conservatism. Written in simple text, readers can follow along with Tommy and Lou as they open a lemonade stand to earn money for a swing set. But when liberals start demanding that Tommy and Lou pay half their money in taxes, take down their picture of Jesus, and serve broccoli with every glass of lemonade, the young brothers experience the downside to living in Liberaland.

Yep, that’s what we see at every turn — a deluge of left-wing propaganda. We’re swimming in it, apparently. Damn liberals and their damn broccoli.

When we moved into this place two years ago and discovered we could get 10 channels via antenna, decided not to get cable. Tivo helped keep an OK menu of OK fare available, but the pickin’s have become increasingly slim. As much intellectual nourishment as we get out of Nova, American Dad, Spark, and Fire Me… Please!, I can never shake the feeling that I’m painfully out of touch not having access to the Daily Show and Bullshit! But it’s been hard to cost-justify standard cable at $43/month, especially when we’re paying $50/month for Speakeasy DSL with static IP (it’s kind of amazing to me how popular cable TV is, given the pricing; but then I suppose a lot of people would consider DSL access non-essential too).

Finally decided to rearrange things and switch to SBC for DSL at $15/month, go dynamic IP and use DynDNS for the limited inbound access I need. Not expecting the platinum service I get from Speakeasy, as long as the reliability is good. But we’ll be able to put the money saved into cable for a few extra bucks per month.

All I need now is for cable subscribers to let me know what’s worth watching.

Addendum: When I was on the phone with SBC, they asked whether we were on Macs or PCs. I told her Mac and she reacted with surprise, as if a customer had never said that before. She asked me why, and I gave her a short version of the usual security spiel. She then proceeded to tell me that her entire office at SBC had been sent home early the previous day, as they had been hit so hard by the latest round of Windows worms. Someday the light will go on for the sysadmins of the world.

David Sifry posts an interesting chart comparing the number of inbound links (which are a strong measure of influence) to top blog and non-blog sites. Only Boing-Boing makes it into the top 10, but that puts it ahead of USA Today, Fox News, Reuters, SF Gate, Salon, and MTV. Other popular blogs are interleaved on the curve of influence with well-funded, heavily staffed, traditionally journalistic sites. Power to the people, or the death of journalism? Fascinating either way.

Posted about Steven Johnson’s book “Everything Bad Is Good For You.” Bought the book, start reading it, excellent, more on that later. A few days ago, Fresh Air airs an interview with Johnson.

mneptok sends me a link to a kuro5hin story on kite buggies (something I’d love to try). Later that day, hear Living on Earth piece on wind farms and other wind-harnessing technologies… including a segment on kite buggies. Part 1 of the piece connects up to previous posts here about the Altamont wind farm.

This morning, talked with a friend while kids played at the park about the French Laundry and the slow food movement in general. Listening to the radio while sanding today, caught an NPR piece on the slow food movement (not online), which I mentioned here just a few days ago. The piece included reference to the French Laundry.

At what point should I get freaked out?

Six Apart’s TypeKey is a damn fine authentication system, and its open API means it can be implemented in any application, not just in Movable Type. A common complaint about TK is that it runs as a centralized system on Six Apart servers. If Six Apart tanks or goes down for a while, your authentication system goes with it. LiveJournal’s Brad Fitzpatrick has launched OpenID, an open and distributed authentication system with similar goals, but without the problems of centralization.

But there’s no denying that despite its efficacy at stopping spam and limiting the strain on server resources, required authentication on comments inhibits free-wheeling conversation and casual commenting. To overcome this obstacle, an authentication system needs critical mass, needs not to be regarded as alien or invasive to the user’s privacy. If OpenID can solve the social barrier problem and gain mass acceptance, it could have legs.

But wait… Six Apart now owns LiveJournal, and OpenID will compete with TypeKey. The page says that Fitzpatrick is working to make TypeKey into an OpenID server. Making that so could amount to an implied admission by Six Apart that centralization of an authentication service by a commercial entity puts a lot of people off. This could be interesting to watch. Discussion on Slashdot.

Video archives from our last New Media Training Conference are now up, and the streamer is getting hit hard with requests for a presentation by Bob Cauthorn — an industry analyst who virtually handed newspaper executives’ heads to them on a platter for 90 minutes re: the madness of perpetuating business models that have resulted in a steady 30-year slide in product popularity. Cauthorn took ’em to school, no holds barred. Quite an amazing performance to watch live, but plays well on video too (though his slides are tough to read). E-Media Tidbits says of Cauthorn’s presentation, He May Never Get a Newspaper Job Again!. Quickly shaping up to be the most-trafficked video stream we’ve ever served.

The webcast of Amgine from WikiNews is also very worth watching, though a bit dark – didn’t have time to brighten it in post.