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April 16, 2007

First Post with Movable Type v3.35

Movable Type Publishing Platform v3.35First post with v3.35 of Movable Type blogging software (uh, I mean, publishing platform) .. which represents the latest release from Six Apart (on 12.april, see here).

My old blog (v2.63) is still > HERE (same place it's been last 4 years). I installed that version in May 2003, and never upgraded (didn't wanna do anything that might risk losing hundreds of posts) .. until now.

Actually, this is a *new* installation .. not an upgrade (same strategy I took with the YaBB forum software recently). All went surprisingly well. Oddly enough, after the installation, I had a little trouble getting the StyleCatcher plug-in to work, but that's solved now.

StyleCatcher (btw) is a very cool plug-in feature (comes with v3.35 installation) that allows you to browse a truckload of different styles .. and change the entire style of your blog .. with a single click. (Told ya it was cool.)

Most of the styles suk, but all are better than what I could do on my own .. and some are pretty snazzy.

Continue reading "First Post with Movable Type v3.35" »

April 22, 2007

Dialing In Movable Type blogging software

Movable Type Publishing Platform (Blogging software)Been dinking around with my new installation of Movable Type (v3.35), configuring both the display page (the part you see) and the admin interface (where I compose entries).

As with Windows, the installation takes only an hour-or-so, but subsequent tweaking and configuration can take days to dial in (just the way you want) .. just like it did with the new forum installation.

I'm done playing with the part you see (.. for a while anyway). Content is always more important than (mere) style.

For example, I tweaked the published pages (you see) so *links* turn orange when you roll-over them with your cursor. (Default style makes them white.) That page can use a little more color to brighten it up.

But I couldn't figure out how to make the link's underline go away on the roll-over. I know how it *should* work, but it wouldn't go away. No biggie.

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April 29, 2007

Comparing Joomla vs Drupal Content Management Systems - Part I/II

Joomla! Open Source Content Management System (CMS)Thinking of splitting-out site content pertaining to my experiences as a dad .. to a NEW site, such as raddad.com (oops, that domain name already taken) .. or rad-dad.com (uh, that one is also taken). One reader suggested dadified.

Anyway, I'll find some new domain that will work. (Costs a measly $10/yr, and I already have tons of content I could transfer.)

What do you think of oneraddad.com? or radfather.com? Those two are still available. Ideas? (Shorter the better.)

Now that I have lastest version of MovableType installed (v3.35), and knowing that Movable Type allows you to publish multiple (unlimited) blogs, including to domains outside the one in which MT resides, I could use MT 3.35 to publish to a new rad-dad site.

In the grand scheme of things, despite how much I love cool technology, there aren't many things more important than being a good dad.

Update 03.May.2007 - I got new domain name today (hardnuf.com) as detailed in this post > New Domain Name: hardnuf.com (Adventures in Fatherhood)

Continue reading "Comparing Joomla vs Drupal Content Management Systems - Part I/II" »

January 10, 2008

Movable Type v4.1 vs Expression Engine v1.6

I've been looking into installing the latest version of MovableType (blogging software) .. which happens to be v4.1 .. which is currently in beta3, which was released 2 days ago.

The main reason I'm waiting for v4.1 is cuz (copy-n-paste from the "What's New in MT 4.1" page):

Valid, Well-formed XHTML Post Content

Movable Type's Rich Text Editor is now completely modular allowing a developer to create a plugin to swap in the rich text editor of their choice. A plugin for the popular FCK editor which outputs semantically valid XHTML has been created by Six Apart and is available in our plugin directory.

The biggest trouble I have with MT 3.35 (which I currently use) is with the editor. (I use TinyMCE.) It strips out code I want to use for Lightbox (among other things), causing much grief.

So the option to use a variety of editors, especially the FCK editor, which outputs well-formed XHTML (which I've been studying), will be very cool. (Wonder how they came up with that almost-profane name.)

MT4 now comes in three different versions:

  1. Commercial
  2. Open Source
  3. Personal.

People are grumbling (see comments) cuz *only* the Commercial version (which costs $235) will come with a feature called Custom Fields, a feature which moves MT in the direction of Content Management (like Drupal, for example), and away from pure blogging software.

I'm also interested in Expression Engine, (which supports Custom Fields natively). But EE is not free for personal use (like MT4). If they would comp me a license, I'd go that route (especially if they release a version with a WYSIWYG editor). Maybe I'll ask. Can't hurt, right?

For more real-world insight into this question of Movable Type v4.1 vs Expression Engine v1.6, see this thread titled > Six Apart Releases Movable Type Open Source! (v4.1) for why I feel MTOS is a better choice than EE (at least, right now).

Continue reading "Movable Type v4.1 vs Expression Engine v1.6" »

January 25, 2008

Six Apart Releases Movable Type Open Source! (v4.1) Woohoo!

Movable Type 4.1Now that the forum-update (to YaBB 2.2) is complete (first things first), my attention turns to Ye Olde Rad Blog .. for which I've used Movable Type (since 2003), and been waiting patiently for the release of v4.1. (Cuz it has the cool features I want.)

As fate would have it, MT 4.1 was released yesterday. (Woohoo!) Actually, I really want to use the new Open Source version (MTOS), which was supposed to provide the first stable release (of MTOS) concurrent with the release of MT 4.1.

Oh, wait. Here it is! (Downloading now.) Have to admit, I've been looking forward to this release. (Download complete.)

Been watching the progress of MT4 since it was released last summer. And *this* version (4.1) is the one to get. (I officially recommend it.) It's where I've decided to jump in (at the first stable release of MTOS).

Note that this will be a new/clean install .. NOT an upgrade. Only bad thing is that the documentation for MT 4.1 isn't yet complete, especially for the things I wanna do/use, such as the FCKeditor.

I was looking hard at ExpressionEngine, but they're in the process trying to release EE 2.0, which breaks backward-compatibility (for the first time in their history), which makes the current EE 1.x a dead end. And all X.0 releases always need bug fixes. So that would involve a long wait (for EE 2.0x), while MTOS 4.x is here now. Plus it's FREE!, unlike EE.

I've also been learning lots about XHTML/CSS, so I'm very much looking forward to redesigning the site. Now that I have the skillz to do whatever I want (regarding site design), I'm looking forward to translating my ideas into design. This is what I'm *most* excited about, and where I've been focusing most of my geek-energy (learning).

I also been getting letters from folks, asking about a re-design of the Black Beast, updated for 2008. I love doing that, but it takes more time than you might imagine, so I'm still on the fence there.

Continue reading "Six Apart Releases Movable Type Open Source! (v4.1) Woohoo!" »

January 31, 2008

New Rad Blog » Upgraded to Movable Type Open Source (MTOS 4.1)

This will be the final entry is this particular blog (Movable Type 3.35). I just installed Movable Type Open Source v4.1 .. which is the *first* open source release from Six Apart (makers of Movable Type). This is a big deal!

So you will find all new entries at the NEW BLOG .. see here » Rad's new blog » Ye Olde Rad Blog III (based on Movable Type Open Source v4.1)

Test » upgrade to MySQL 5.1.51

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