Blogging about blogging is boring, and if you agree (or disagree because you like meta posts) feel free to chime in via the comments. Which are now working, after more than what I consider a reasonable amount of effort and many consultations with my ISP's technical support tag-team.
Why is this so hard? I hand-coded my first web page in 1994. It had a lovely gray background, a long list of boring links, and was old school Web 1.0 about a decade before anybody started talking about Web 2.0. But the thing was, I understood everything that went into that page, and for good or ill it looked the way I wanted it to look. If you've seen the cover for the first edition of Two-Fisted Science, you'll know it was more ill than good.
But even though I wasn't a good book designer, I used to be a pretty good programmer. I've written complicated and useful code in Basic, LISP, Perl, PL-1, Pascal, Fortran, and probably a few others that I can't remember, using punch cards, dumb terminals, Cray supercomputers, and dedicated mainframes at nuclear power facilities. So formatting a blog should be easy (and basic functionality like commenting should just work, right out of the box.) But beyond not working, right out of the box, when I try to do something simple like change the message at the top of the comment form so it doesn't mislead you into thinking you're going to comment completely anonymously...I can't do it. The text you'll see ("Sign in to comment, or comment anonymously." even though you have to enter a name, made-up or otherwise) lives somewhere, but your guess is better than mine where that is.** It's no doubt embedded within a module embedded inside a widget embedded inside a template embedded inside a page or an entry or maybe even a comment preference (nope...looked there), and I can't find it. Movable Type is offered by a company called Six Apart, and the irony of that name smacks me upside the head when I try to navigate the degrees of separation between what a page looks like and the code that controls it.
If there's a MT wizard out there who knows where to look, comments are open. And I promise the next post will be about something less boring.
** This phenomenon is not confined to the web, of course. I could actually identify almost everything I saw under the hood of my 1980 Dodge Omni, and most everything in the 1994 Saturn. The 2007 Civic Hybrid? It might as well be powered by unicorns and elves cleverly disguised to look like metal and plastic thingees, as technology continues its march towards magic.
Why is this so hard? I hand-coded my first web page in 1994. It had a lovely gray background, a long list of boring links, and was old school Web 1.0 about a decade before anybody started talking about Web 2.0. But the thing was, I understood everything that went into that page, and for good or ill it looked the way I wanted it to look. If you've seen the cover for the first edition of Two-Fisted Science, you'll know it was more ill than good.
But even though I wasn't a good book designer, I used to be a pretty good programmer. I've written complicated and useful code in Basic, LISP, Perl, PL-1, Pascal, Fortran, and probably a few others that I can't remember, using punch cards, dumb terminals, Cray supercomputers, and dedicated mainframes at nuclear power facilities. So formatting a blog should be easy (and basic functionality like commenting should just work, right out of the box.) But beyond not working, right out of the box, when I try to do something simple like change the message at the top of the comment form so it doesn't mislead you into thinking you're going to comment completely anonymously...I can't do it. The text you'll see ("Sign in to comment, or comment anonymously." even though you have to enter a name, made-up or otherwise) lives somewhere, but your guess is better than mine where that is.** It's no doubt embedded within a module embedded inside a widget embedded inside a template embedded inside a page or an entry or maybe even a comment preference (nope...looked there), and I can't find it. Movable Type is offered by a company called Six Apart, and the irony of that name smacks me upside the head when I try to navigate the degrees of separation between what a page looks like and the code that controls it.
If there's a MT wizard out there who knows where to look, comments are open. And I promise the next post will be about something less boring.
** This phenomenon is not confined to the web, of course. I could actually identify almost everything I saw under the hood of my 1980 Dodge Omni, and most everything in the 1994 Saturn. The 2007 Civic Hybrid? It might as well be powered by unicorns and elves cleverly disguised to look like metal and plastic thingees, as technology continues its march towards magic.
Hi, Jim!
I think what makes a blog interesting is not the subject matter but the writing ability of the person posting. You have a way with words that is just a joy to read, so you could write about just about anything and make it interesting. I wish they would hire people like you to write the general election guides that explain the propositions we have to vote on.
If this is a version of MT anywhere between 3 and 4.2, I should be able to help you out. Give me a call or chat some night. MT's a pretty good program, but the help manuals for it might as well be written in Linear A.
I was gonna make some suggestions, but don't want this to come all crashing down.
Ah.. the Cray Supercomputer. Saw one at the Strategic Air Command back in 1985. They said they were using it to forecast weather. Sure...
As for myself, I once programmed BASIC on a 2K, barebones Timex Sinclair computer. I did code my AOL homepage, which now resides on a CD somewhere. And I found "Hello My Baby" in a fake book, translated the notes into letters, then translated that into tones on my cellphone so I could tell when my sweetie was calling. Sadly, that cellphone went bits up a few years ago, and my new phone doesn't let me fool around with tones.
And yes, I am the kind of guy who comments via his cellphone, typing out T9 words one at a time. (Not today, though.)
So, old timer, did you have Arabic numerals back then? Did they make you postulate the existence of zero before allowing you to program? How many Leyden jars did it take to run your programming code? (Or did you use caged squirrels? Underclassmen? Members of the football team?)
Linear A? p-shah... our manuals were passed on by word of mouth, in assembly code, as we memorized each instruction by heart. On Friday nights, we would debate the merits of each codex, arguing what the text really meant, and postulating new procedures. On Saturday, we'd go out drinking, make obscure computer jokes, and try to pick up cute librarians. ("Hey, what say we go back to my place, and you can thumb through my Funk & Wagnalls.")
Hey ya, Jim!
I used to fix my 80-something Dodge Omni by myself!
Though, I can't remember it taking much more than a screwdriver and a good kick now and then.
I had to tear off the front of it and put in a new bumper, myself, though. Driving in MT in the winter wasn't easy on the poor thing. ;)
Ver good site! I am loving it!! Will come back again - taking your feeds also. Thanks.