April 2003

Six Apart announced yesterday that it is going to set up a Blogger-style weblog publication site called TypePad. Six Apart’s current product, Movable Type, is a decentralized content management system, meaning that users have to install it on their own web sites for it to work. TypePad is a centralized CMS, simply requiring a username and password.

According to Ben and Mena, TypePad will be much more powerful than Blogger, sporting the features of Movable Type. The site is not yet open for user accounts but you can sign up for service notifications. This is an excellent alternative for nanopublishers who don’t have CGI or mySQL installed on their servers.

However, I’m going to stick with Movable Type for the time being.

Joi Ito announced on his weblog that his company, Neoteny, has financially backed TypePad development. Thanks Joi! Six Apart also announced that Anil Dash is its new Vice President. There’s a press release on the Six Apart site entitled “Six Apart Ltd. Announces Close of Series ‘A’ Financing” which you should read too.

The May 2003 issue of Discover Magazine has an amazing article on thermal depolymerization entitled “Anything into Oil.” The upcoming waste disposal procedure can convert virtually anything into “high-quality oil, clean-burning gas, and purified minerals.” Thermal depolymerization won’t solve the global warming problem since it still releases carbon into the atmosphere.

However, the output isn’t very high and this technique is possibly a great way to reduce the landfills across the globe. Even hazardous agents such as anthrax can be run through a thermal depolymerization plant. It will still end up as oil, gas, and minerals. The plants will take quite some time to build but Changing World Technologies definitely has a great solution to waste build-up.

SharpReader is a .NET 3-pane RSS aggregator that I prefer over AmphetaDesk. Luke Huttman released 0.9 this week and I’ve started using it for catching up on weblogs and current events.

To use the program you have to have .NET framework installed, which can be downloaded from Windows Update. Sorry Mac users but Luke has only published the Windows version so far. It’s a great program though.

I’m in the process of downloading Syndirella so expect a comparison soon. However, the author of Syndirella, Dmitry Jemerov, has noted on his site that he may not continue development.

Here at UCLA over the past week there were two student deaths that made the front page of the Daily Bruin. Cynthia Rabuy died on Wednesday night in a car crash and Peter Santos died from natural causes. Peter was featured in the April 1 issue and Cynthia in the Friday issue. It is quite creepy to see students dying so frequently but then again we do have a big campus here, so these tragedies are bound to happen.

My condolences go out to the Rabuy and Santos families for the losses they suffered this week. Peter and Cynthia are in my prayers. They will be remembered fondly, especially since they were featured so nicely in the Daily Bruin.

You might have noticed that CNN isn’t saying much about the war on Iraq in its television coverage. They show some nightvision shots, transition to a news reporter miles outside of Baghdad under light enemy fire, cut back to Wolf Blizer and call it a day. I know when I watch CNN, I think, “Great, but what really happened today that the news media isn’t telling me?” Thanks to Warblogs:cc, the most up-to-date news on “Operation Iraqi Freedom” is at your fingertips. The site even syndicates its headlines in RSS so you can add it to your news aggregator.

The release of version 2.6 of Movable Type includes a new feature that enables the publisher to declare entry comment status as open, closed, or none. This is a great new addition because you can control the flood of comments on your site while still leaving the old comments on the entry page. I’ve been using this on my site since 2.6 but I wanted to be able to hide the comment form on entries with the comment status turned to closed.

There is a way to do this but it isn’t documented in the Movable Type help section (as of publication of this entry).

By using the following code, you can display the comment status on your web page and customize its appearance:

<mtentryIfAllowComments>
  <mtentryIfCommentsOpen>
    <$MTEntryCommentCount$> Comments
    <mtelse>Comments are closed</mtelse>
  </mtentryIfCommentsOpen>
  <mtelse>Comments not allowed</mtelse>
</mtentryIfAllowComments>

Hopefully Ben and Mena will add this to the documentation in the next release.

John Fraser is busy at work developing a compact, inexpensive Macintosh clone that will be available for $250-350. A fully loaded iBox will go for $650-2,000. Apple has not allowed Mac clones since 1997 but Fraser’s new product is so cool that Apple just might allow it. Here’s hoping at least. The latest specs on the iBox are:

• G4 466-1330Mhz (Dual Capable)
• 128MB-2048MB PC100 Memory
• 1000base-t Ethernet (10 and 100 also)
• AGP Slot for AGP Video
• Support for ADC Monitors and Video Cards
• 2 PCI slots
• Airport Slot for 11mbps 802.11b
• USB 1.1 (2 Ports)
• Firewire 400 (2 ports)

I have wanted to get a Mac with OS X for quite some time but current Mac hardware is just too expensive. The iBox will solve this problem for many users, myself included. Fraser has already begun talks with plastics manufacturers to get the iBox into production. Keep an eye out for its release.

Thanks to Wired News for reporting on the iBox’s development today.

It’s April 1st and the Internet has gone mad. Download.com published a Pro-Virus Tools downloading guide which helps you stay up to date on the most vicious computer viruses. I still prefer LiveUpdate for my infection needs but I guess it’s a matter of personal choice.

Google is going after Arseblog because the site improperly uses the word “blogger.” I knew that Google would be up to no good after it bought Blogger. Don’t take the news report too seriously though…

Joi Ito chose to report that today he met with Pope John Paul II and set him up with a Movable Type blog so that Catholics everywhere can opt to avoid confession and just send trackback pings straight to God. Why hadn’t somebody thought of this sooner? It’s so brilliant!

Have a great April Fools Day but don’t let the Internet scare you too much.