2004
Today I tried to migrate my weblog from Movable Type into WordPress. I like the WordPress interface a little bit better and it manages multiple categories more efficiently. I’m already using dynamic templates with Movable Type, so I wouldn’t really benefit from WordPress’ dynamic system. The switch was just too much of a pain for it to be worthwhile. The WP installer is great — literaly takes five minutes. However, I would have to spend hours modifying my template code because I make extensive use of MT plugins. In the end, I gave up on the effort because I wouldn’t have gained amything from the switch.
However, it was a fun experiment. I’m now more familiar with the WordPress templating system, which is well done! Until Matt and the WP worker bees roll out some more killer features that trump MT, I’m going to stick with Six Apart’s baby. I’ve been very happy with the progess made in version 3.0 so far and the quick response about the server load issue made me a very happy user. WordPress is a great system, but in the end I just wasn’t compelled to make a switch. Maybe in the future.
I talked to Om Malik today, who has also been toying with the idea of switching to WP. He agreed with me that after experimenting with it, there just wasn’t enough reasons to make a switch. So when I roll out a new design for his site in the next few weeks, the site will still be powered by Movable Type.
This morning, I booted up iTunes to see if I could purchase a song from Rare Earth, an R&B band that James Lavelle sampled for the U.N.K.L.E. project. U.N.K.L.E. opens every show with this song, and I wanted to hear the original in its entirety. The song is available on iTMS, but of course you have to purchase the whole album to get the song, because the RIAA knows that kids like me wouldn’t buy any of the other songs.
Shame, shame, shame. This model is already broken, which explains why P2P is growing in popularity once again.
Apple markets the iTMS as being able to buy the music you want on demand. Well, I think this is a load of garbage. Take a look at the Rare Earth album. Supposedly you can buy tracks for 99 cents, right? Well, the Rare Earth album only has seven tracks and yet the album costs $9.99. Well, it must be because two of the tracks are long, right? Well, Apple has never made a distinction about that. Apparently, only “radio friendly” singles are 99 cents a pop. Sheesh.
The other offering that pissed me off lately was The Complete U2. I’m a U2 fan and I wanted to download some of the tracks from that package that I can’t get anywhere else. However, for all of the unreleased tracks, you have to buy the whole set. I already own numerous U2 albums on CD and I don’t feel like purchasing them again. The set is way too expensive, priced at $140.
This is from yesterday’s logs:
#reqs: #pages: %bytes: URL
-----: ------: ------: ---
48: 44: 2.44%: http://www.best-deals-online-gambling.info/
37: 33: 1.18%: http://www.best-deals-weight-loss.info/
27: 25: 1.03%: http://www.top-deals-online-pharmacy.info/
23: 23: 0.67%: http://www.top-deals-pills.info/
22: 20: 0.99%: http://www.best-deals-hotels.info/
19: 19: 0.70%: http://www.best-deals-diet.info/
18: 18: 0.90%: http://www.best-deals-tramadol.info/
17: 13: 0.54%: http://www.top-deals-viagra.info/
15: 15: 0.79%: http://www.best-deals-levitra.info/
10: 10: 0.02%: http://www.best-deals-roulette.info/
Has anybody else noticed this happening lately? Apparently the owners of these sites think I’m going to give them a visit because they’re bombing me with fake traffic.
I added a script from Flickr that displays my latest 6 photos to the front of my site today. The process was very easy since Flickr generates the code for you. I got it up and running in less than a minute. What an amazing service. Flickr will be all the rage in 2005, just like when Blogger or LiveJournal started up.
This morning, I switched my journal over to dynamic publishing. That means no more rebuilding, which is a godsend. I have over 1,000 entries in the journal, and rebuilding takes forever when I make a template change. That’s now a thing of the past.
The migration is straightforward as long as you don’t use too many Perl plug-ins in your templates. Luckily, the plug-ins I use, namely Markdown, SimpleComments, and SmartyPants have all been ported over to PHP. I do use a couple of Plugins that haven’t been ported, but I worked around it. I’ll have to wait for Amputator, Compare, and Columnize to get an update.
For Dreamhost users, you do have to modify the default .htaccess file present in the MT documentation. You need to change the line:
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /mtview.php [L,QSA]
to a modified version:
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://yoursite.com/blog/mtview.php [L,QSA]
You also need to change the error section:
<ifmodule !mod_rewrite.c>
# if mod_rewrite is unavailable, we forward any missing page
# or unresolved directory index requests to mtview
# if mtview.php can resolve the request, it returns a 200
# result code which prevents any 4xx error code from going
# to the server's access logs. However, an error will be
# reported in the error log file. If this is your only choice,
# and you want to suppress these messages, adding a "LogLevel crit"
# directive within your VirtualHost or root configuration for
# Apache will turn them off.
ErrorDocument 404 /mtview.php
ErrorDocument 403 /mtview.php
</ifmodule>
Here’s the custom version:
<ifmodule !mod_rewrite.c>
# if mod_rewrite is unavailable, we forward any missing page
# or unresolved directory index requests to mtview
# if mtview.php can resolve the request, it returns a 200
# result code which prevents any 4xx error code from going
# to the server's access logs. However, an error will be
# reported in the error log file. If this is your only choice,
# and you want to suppress these messages, adding a "LogLevel crit"
# directive within your VirtualHost or root configuration for
# Apache will turn them off.
ErrorDocument 404 http://yoursite.com/blog/mtview.php
ErrorDocument 403 http://yoursite.com/blog/mtview.php
</ifmodule>
Also, dynamic caching is great. Take advantage of it. My blog is very zippy when using caching and it now I don’t have to deal with rebuilds.
I’ve been using del.icio.us for the past two weeks, and I like the system a lot. There are new plug-ins available which let you synchronize your bookmarks to Firefox and post with a right-click menu directly in the browser. The site is really coming along as a web platform.
However, I keep running into too many issues getting the links to display on my site. I’ve been posting links in an integrated format on my weblog for quite a while now, and there really isn’t a perfect way to get the links seamlessly integrated. Jeff Veen’s Perl approach is almost exactly what I’m looking for, but not quite. That method still clumps the links together by day. I also don’t want to deal with setting up cron jobs which tax the server unnecessarily.
The other main problem with del.icio.us is no import/export. I’m sure this is being worked on, but for me I can’t use the system until it’s made available. Until that day, I’m sticking with MT for all my publishing.
My friend Sung aptly compared the new Episode III trailer to the George W. Bush presidency:
It’s weird how i’m tantalized by this trailer, having seen Episodes I and II. I should know better. Let’s compare Episode II to George Dubya’s first term in office. It was so bad I should never expect anything out of Episode III. Yet people line up to buy tickets, as people voted for Bush.
iTunes is currently my favorite music player because it works flawlessly with the iPod (big surprise) and has an easy to use library with ratings. Of course the program has a few shortcomings, as does pretty much all software. One thing that has bugged me with the program is that you can’t fast forward through a song or rate tracks with the keyboard. You can pretty much control everything else in iTunes with the keyboard.
I hunted around on Google this past week trying to find a program that uses the iTunes COM module and enables you to use global hotkeys. I finally came across iTunes Remote. Don’t confuse this with the Mac version. It’s a totally different program. iTunes Remote for Windows lets you create a custom skinned iTunes miniplayer and global hotkeys. I’m not using the miniplayer feature currently because it uses more RAM and I don’t need it. The hotkeys work perfectly though. You can specify song rating commands as well as fast forwarding.
The program is still in beta and requires .NET framework 1.1. Give it a go if you want to rate your songs faster and have more control over iTunes though. It’s worked fine for me so far.
I found a new program called iTunesKeys that is more stable than iTunes Remote and it works perfectly with iTunes 7.
I was optimized my computer for performance today and noticed a blank entry in my startup items. The item was referenced to HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run even though I specified in Steam not for it to run at start-up. I unchecked the startup item but left the registry information in tect. Let’s hope Valve fixes this one before the Half Life 2 release.
Went to see Sky Captain this afternoon, and I thought it was really well done. The story was cheesy but the visual effects were amazing, reason enough to see the film in theaters. Jude Law and Gynweth did an excellent job as usual and Giovanni Ribisi was perfect for his part. I thought the ending was a bit stupid, with the whole “Noah’s ark” theme, but the beginning of the film was reason enough to see it.
I bought an iPod a few weeks back and signed up with the iTunes Music Store today. The layout of the store is great — very easy to navigate and the transfer rate is very fast. I tried downloading a free song and it transferred in about two seconds to my computer. The service is very convenient and I might use it in the future. However, at the moment I still hesitate to buy songs on the store. Here’s a list of the things that bug me about Apple’s current model:
Not every song on the store is available for individual sale
Consumers are already getting screwed over by not being able to select individual tracks from every album available. Instead, you can only download some of the tracks from the albums, usually the ones you hear on the radio endlessly. What’s the fun in that? Already you can’t make a decent mix because you are locked out of buying singles straight from the store. While the entire store is not priced this way, I have noticed that many of the new albums posted do follow this pricing model, which indicates to me that the store is going downhill. For an example, take a look at the new PJ Harvey iTunes exclusive album. You can only directly buy half the songs from it without buying the whole album. If you want to buy the Madden 2005 soundtrack, you have to buy every song, even if it sucks.
The songs cost too much
99 cents a song is a rip-off. Real Networks made a move this week by pricing songs at 50 cents a track. I think that is realistic pricing and that should be the gold standard. I’d be willing to pay that amount per track for a compressed file loaded with DRM.
Short songs cost the same amount as long ones
Am I the only one who thinks that it doesn’t make sense for a 30 second Jurassic 5 MC interlude to cost the same as a 15 minute Sigur Ros opus? The pricing model must be revised to factor this in. Apple is right in charging the same amount per artist though.
No Apple Lossless
This would be a great addition to the store. Audiophiles would rejoice and Apple could legitimately charge 99 cents per song.
The DRM policy can change at any time
Already, Apple has changed its DRM policy. Yes, the company loosened the restrictions this time, allowing you to play the songs on five machines. But what protects consumers against the reverse? Apple could be pressured by the RIAA into further reducing consumers’ freedom to transfer music to portable devices and to burn CDs.
Remember, the heavily DRM’ed AAC files you get from the store currently cost around the same per track as their uncompressed CD counterparts. For now, it just makes sense to buy a CD and be free of the DRM. However, I would be willing to let a little DRM into my life if the iTMS songs were significantly cheaper.
My sister bought a new iBook the weekend before the new 4G iPods were announced. Apple was running a promotion on their site for college students that gave them a $200 discount on an iPod with the purchase of a laptop. My sister already ordered an iPod mini and the offer was only valid for the regular iPod. I took advantage of the deal and placed an order for a 20 GB 3G iPod. I figured that by the time the order was processed, Apple would upgrade me to a 4G iPod.
I was right. However, Apple surpassed my expectations. Not only did they ship me a 4G iPod but they shipped me a 40 GB model at $230 off the retail price. That’s right, they not only upgraded my model for free, they gave me one with twice the disk space and slashed it an extra thirty bucks.
So far, my iPod has worked great. The new click wheel is definitely an improvement over the last design. I thought the wheel was brushed aluminum but I turned out to be wrong. Yes, the wheel is gray but it is not made out of metal. The battery lasts fine and the 4G iPod is compatible with the iTrip.
Right now I’m working on getting my iTunes playlist up to snuff since I’ve been a long-time user of foobar2000. The switch has been painless so far. Again, kudos to Apple for making such a high-quality product. I’m one happy customer.
Today official Apple sources confirmed that the new iPods will be unveiled in August. My sister is buying an iBook for college and Apple is currently running a promo that gives a significant discount on iPod purchases. If you purchase and iBook and an Apple laptop at the same time, Apple will knock off $200 from the price of your iPod.
When I saw this, I thought, “Great! I can finally afford an iPod.” However, I’m hesitant to buy one because I still believe they have battery problems. I’m hoping the new iPods in August will address this battery issue. I heard the new ones are smaller and similar to the iPod mini, which leads me to believe the battery will be the same and the models will simply sport smaller hard drives.
From the June 23rd program of Larry King Live:
KING: Do you have thoughts on the war?
REAGAN: Sure, I have thoughts on the war.
KING: And what do you think?
REAGAN: And I think we lied our way into the war.
KING: You think it’s a mistake?
REAGAN: Absolutely, a terrible mistake. Terrible foreign policy error. We didn’t have to do it. It was optional. And we were lied to. The American public was lied to about WMD, the connection between Osama bin Laden and Saddam, which is virtually nonexistent except for fleeting contacts. But they’re still trying to pull that one off now, Cheney and all are out there flogging that.
KING: Can I gather from that, that you will not support this president?
REAGAN: No, I won’t.
KING: Will you support his opponent?
REAGAN: I will vote for whoever the viable candidate is who can defeat George W. Bush, yes.
A powerful statement from the son of arguably the most legendary Republican president.
I previously used pingToRebuild.cgi to rebuild my blog whenever I posted an elsewhere link to the site. This worked great with Movable Type 2.6, but it appears that the script does not work with MT 3.0. I’m not sure if it’s my configuration or the script, but I simply can’t get it to work. Does anybody else have a solution for rebuilding a blog that uses the GlobalListings plug-in to display entries from two different blogs on one page? I can’t simply use PHP includes because the entries are displayed inline.
I’m considering using a cron job to rebuild the front page periodically, say every couple of hours. However, this would unnecessarily tax the server since I don’t post that often.
I started work at the Buck Institute yesterday, and so far it has been great. I’m working in the Lisa Ellerby Lab studying Spinal Bulbar Muscular Atrophy (SBMA). The facilities are truly excellent, sporting three floors of research labs and a proteomics core. Everyone I have met so far has been really nice — this summer is shaping up to be a lot of fun.
The other plus is the commute, which is very short from Mill Valley. In the morning, traffic is sluggish going South on the 101, but luckily the institute is North of my house, so I don’t have to fight traffic. This cuts my commute time down from what would be at least an hour to fifteen minutes both ways.
Doug Bowman launched his complete redesign of Stopdesign yesterday and it looks absolutely fantastic. In this revision, he has scaled down his blog on the front page, incorporating it into a three column layout. The blog is now only 200px wide or so. He has also divided up the site navigation into two navbars: one at the top with all of his commercial services and one below the logo with his free content. The logo on the front page is taller than any other pages for emphasis, which I think looks nice and works well. Each free content section has its own color scheme, which has been redesigned from scratch. All of the schemes look great and are easy to read. At the moment he is still getting some of the bugs worked out, but so far the redesign looks superb.
I’ve been relying on my router’s hardware firewall for complete coverage this past year but recently decided that adding ZoneAlarm’s protection on top of it would be a good idea. I like to be able to open ports on the router for gaming and other applications. However, if you enable port forwarding but don’t run a software firewall on your machine, you are asking for trouble.
I’m a critic of Window’s software firewall built into XP. It is very difficult to customize and you can’t enable access permissions based on program usage. ZoneAlarm is my program of choice because it focuses on program permissions instead of port management. I use the hardware firewall to manage my ports and ZoneAlarm to protect forwarded ports when they are not in use.
However, you have to be careful what version of ZoneAlarm you run. Currently, ZoneAlarm 5 is a buggy piece of software that will crash your machine and slow your Internet connection to a crawl. This happened to me with both the free and Pro versions. When I rolled back to version 4.5, the problems went away.
ZoneAlarm is a great piece of software, but just make sure you install 4.5 instead of the current release. I’m sure Zone Labs will fix version 5 in the near future, but for now be sure to avoid it.
Shadow’s new hideout: Village Music in Mill Valley.
I was lucky enough to attend a screening of DJ Shadow’s new DVD entitled “In Tune And On Time” in Beverly Hills on Tuesday. The audience was about two hundred people large, which was great. Shadow introduced the movie and took a few questions after the show. He told the audience he is starting a new album in June. I asked him if he would be at Village Music throughout the summer in Mill Valley (Shadow lives there and so do I). He told me definitely and that Village Music is just beyond belief. No doubt. When the new album drops, expect more jazzy, old-school samples courtesy of Village Music. It should be hot.
Also, on a side note, Village Music is going to be offering 50% all vinyl in the store July 1-7.
Morrissey was originally slotted for tonight’s show but he cancelled, so Brody is going to fill in for him and do some stand-up. Be sure to tune in and let him know how it went after the show. He’s been on Kilborn twice now so he’s a veteran of late night television.