December 2004 Archives
The MovableType system has been upgraded to version 3.14. Things will look different when you log in. Most of the changes were "under the hood" improvements that make the system perform better and more secure. Two features I'll be exploring right away are sub-categories (you can double categorize posts) and scheduling (you can have something post in the future.)
Read more here: www.movabletype.org/docs/mt30.html.
And here: www.movabletype.org/docs/mt31.html.
In search of how to allow shortcuts to work in the Domino html directory (which stopped working by default with R6.) Article on Domino R6 website rules>
The 3-D Graphing Calculator that came on Macintosh PowerPCs running OS 8 and OS 9 was an amazing free utility. How did it become part of the official set of software shipping with the Macintosh System? A couple of guys built it for free, working inside (but not for) Apple.
On the occasion of his 100th blog posting, Ted wondered if he could create an all entries view. Scot Hacker has an All Posts Ever view, so I knew it was possible.
I went under templates and made a new Index Template (not archive template) called "All Entries." I made the output file = all.html.
I then chopped up a copy of the Main Index templates to get down to the minimal code needed to create the all.html file. You can copy/paste the code below to make your own all.html template like mine.
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=<$MTPublishCharset$>" /><title><$MTBlogName$>: All Entries</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="<$MTBlogURL$>styles-site.css" type="text/css" />
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="<$MTBlogURL$>index.rdf" />
</head><body>
<div id="banner">
<a href="<$MTBlogURL$>" accesskey="1"><$MTBlogName$>: All Entries</a>
</div>
<div class="description"><$MTBlogDescription$></div><div id="container">
<div class="blog">
<MTEntries lastn="1000000">
<span class="title">
<a href="<$MTEntryPermalink$>"><$MTEntryTitle$> </a></span> <span class="posted"><$MTEntryDate format="%x"$></span><br />
</MTEntries>
</div></div>
</body>
</html>
To give quick access to the file, I added an "All Entries" link at the top of the archives division in the Main Index:
<div class="sidetitle"> Archives </div><div class="side">
<a href="all.html">All Entries</a><br />
<MTArchiveList archive_type="Monthly">
<a href="<$MTArchiveLink$>"><$MTArchiveTitle$></a><br />
</MTArchiveList>
</div>
Scott Hacker reports an update on Hopkin, including the revelation that the original poster was drawn, not by a child, but by an autistic 16-year-old.
The library of images is growing. To "jump" ahead to where you last left off, try typing in a higher number.
Greg and Ted... are you guys even old enough to know how funny this one is?
It's even more funny to me because I first played "letter" in high school in Alan Cronce's basement on a terminal that used *paper* (not CRT) output. He hacked into the Georgia Tech network to play it. Alan and Charlie stole the terminal from BellSouth which was sponsoring our Boy Scout Explorer's group.... but that's another story...
I purchased an "Unlimted Personal License" to MovableType ($99.) This is the only way to move forward with future upgrades. No more free lunch (unless you want to only have one author... we have 12.)
I did a test upgrade on the old Blue Mac, and all went well. Watch for some changes the next time you log in. I'll point out new features as I uncover them.
One of the biggest changes is the (optional) integration with TypeKey to help combat comment spamming. I like our common password method, though. It seems to have solved the problem and did not require everyone to register with TypeKey.
Many years ago, Nicole kindly scanned almost all of my Simon cartoon strips. That captured the images digitally, but I've been waiting for the right technology to manage the comments I want to build around them and view them over the web. I think iPhoto and its ability to export to web pages may be the way to go.
Does this test of one week's worth of Simon's work as a way to read them? There is a bonus Saturday issue in this series.
I have disabled the Configure Weblog for all users except Ted, Kelly, and Eric. I did this because when enabled, there is an option that shows on the main menu "Delete Weblog" which wipes out a person's entire blog. It could easily be accidentally hit or enterpreted as "delete the last posting". This is what happened to Danny last year.
Deleting your log would not be a tragedy, because everything is backed up once per day. But it would be a hassle for me to restore.
For most people it means they will not see many of the settings that you don't really change, so it won't matter. However, it is fun to change your blog descriptions sometimes, and I think Kelly, Eric, and Ted are most inclined to do that.
I once saw an antique sign hanging in an Irish lawyer's office: No Irish Need Apply. I assumed it was real, and I've passed on this story. After reading this article, I'm inclined to believe it was a "false replica" based on a myth.
