It's still 2003 in the States!
How's 2004? Do you have flying cars yet?
Or not...
I'm trying to find a good RSS reader so I can read all my blogs in one place. I've used FeedDemon before and that was pretty good, but now I'm trying out clevercactus and I like the layout except that it has major issues in the "Reply on Weblog" button - the posts look weird, I can't do blockquote or any special tags or anything like that.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
HELP!!!
(viva munu)
I was recently emailed that when some people try to access my blog, they get this:
504 Gateway Timeout Error
Now, is it something I've done/am doing wrong? Does anyone else have a problem peeking at my cheese?
Please let me know, if so.
I cleared out the activity log again; it was getting kinda big. Jim has already baptised the new improved (or at least much smaller) activity log. I see.
I've kept a copy for posteriority, of course.
'Twas with sweaty palms and a nervous grin I dialled the fateful numbers. Soon enough, out of the bowels of a city office tower, came he who must be obeyed. Strangely his halo was missing. So were the adoring fans. And there was no flowing grey beard. Nor trumpeting music. Odd, I thought, very odd. We wondered down to sunny Sydney's Circular Quay. That was us at the table next to the very drunken mob throwing plastic spiders at each other. The ones with the pineapple fried rice (it actually came in the pineapple), the duck, the lamb. Soft drinks were ordered...just to recover from the long walk in 32 degrees. Centigrade, people, centigrade. Then a refreshing white wine. The conversation was wide-ranging and free-flowing. Dining with a man with an IQ of 205, such a strong build, a manly physique, and just a hint of his alter ego caused many passers-by to stare and point. Either that or the rice stuck in my teeth. I'm sure it was the former.
Other than that I can't say anything else. Pixy swore me to a solemn blog oath to never reveal the secrets he divulged today. Unless you too are prepared to make the journey to Sydney, Australia. Home of Munu. Sort of.
That said I may kiss and tell. Ladies get priority. Lots of priority. Or book publishers with outrageous advances. Everyone else has to wait.
Everybody!
My blog was featured on the "Personal Tech" page (Q10) of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution today with the following write up:
I'm new to the blogging world, but I found an interesting blog from Dan Moore at Georgia Tech. He is a nanogeek, and his site seems pretty popular.
I don't know about the popular thing, but the rest, I think, is true!
The NTU at work (where I just happened to be running the primary MuNu nameserver) died a horrible death on Christmas Day. Why, I don't know. We got the NTU replaced this morning and everything came back.
My boss is now convinced that we need a backup internet connection, so it's not all bad.
Everytime I try to SAVE a new entry at Blather Review I'm returned to the Main Menu, and no new entry is posted. Wassup wit dat?
This has happened sporadically in the past, but here I am typing the same dang thing four times and each time I click "Save" I'm back at main menu again. Am I repeating myself repeatedly again? Sorry :)
UPDATE: Woo hoo! Fifth time was the charm! (My post finally posted.)
This has been a chronic problem for a few weeks now. Any idea what's causing it?
2 days to go, people. That's all I'm saying. Then all Pixy's secrets will be mine to share with you all....bhuwhahahahaha.
I've never met a guy with such a big brain in such a big body before, so I'm really looking forward to it.
How about a site tweaking over here at Munuviana? I was talking [e-mail] to Pixy earlier today and he has agreed to let me do a few site tweaks to our group blog.
Now everyone knows that we will never agree on any one thing over here. Hell, we couldn't agree on what color the little logo button should be. So, I don't think I want to go that route and end up in the middle of a big argument.
What I have in mind is this: I want to skin this site with stylesheets from all the MuNuvians. There are some really good designs out there that would look neat in this site everyonce in a while. In order to do that, you will have to e-mail me your stylesheet or favorite skin from your site. Then, I will do the dealy that makes it all work real pretty and everything.
Plus I want to add the show comment script from Scripty Goddess so we don't have to wait for the stupid comment window to pull up so we can read the comments. And I wanted to add a little color to this main page so it doesn't look so... "templatey". Maybe do a rotating tagline/quote at the top of the page. Send me some ideas for that too.
I'll be able to start working on that as soon as I help Linda get up and running at Civilzation Calls, so you have some time to send me your stuff.
If you want to put your stylesheet in the skins, mail it to: MadfishWillie [at] hotmail.com It would be best if it is saved as a .doc file attachment as my e-mail does weird stuff sometimes to .txt files and will not allow code in the message body.
I'm looking forward to doing this for the group blog and giving it a bit of a facelift.
Nice timing guys. (Not you guys. Them guys. At the ISP.) The internet connection to the (old) MuNu nameserver has gone down. Either that, or the router has failed. Of course, I can't contact anyone to find out.
Whichever, the nameserver is not contactable. I've now set up the MuNu webserver as the primary MuNu nameserver. That means that if one part goes, it all goes. But at least one part can't break the other parts...
It seems to be working now, but with DNS there's always a time delay as problems appear and are fixed. This is because your local DNS server will keep a copy of things, and use that copy if there is a problem with the originating server.
Blerp.
The other problem is that I can't fix snoozebuttondreams.com, because it's not part of mu.nu. Jim - if you can point to 66.111.41.41 as your primary, and leave to old secondary as it is, I'll get that fixed for you.
Update: Damn! This has shut down the pixymisa.net domain as well, so I'm not getting email. That'll teach me not to put both my nameservers on the same network. Pfft. I'm going to go in and see if I can fix the problem now.
More Update: It's the internet connection. I've opened a support ticket, but I don't know when it might get fixed. They're normally pretty good on support, but this is not the best time of year for problems like this.
I'm having some wierdness here. I can't load any MuNu sites, but I can login and post. Whenever I try to get a MuNu site I get a "Cannot find server / DNS error" message. Anybody else getting this?
I know everyone thinks I'm this weird freaky guy, but I ran across this cool thingy that EVERYONE needs to install on their system (except maybe the Mozilla Monsters as it is for IE based browsers).
I was browsing through Electric Venom and guest blogger Kevin recommended this spelling checker. I linked over to the site, downloaded, installed, and tested it. It works friggin great. I'll have to add friggin to my custom dictionary among my other more... shall we say... colorful language.
It is freeware for non-commercial use and has some neat options. Easy to use, you just do your regular data entering in the Entry Body box and either hit the new button on your toolbar or access it via the Tools menu. The button is ugly, but what the hell, the program works.
I just ran it through this post and it caught everything! Works like a champ!
It's been quiet for a while, but now that my computers are merely smouldering instead of being actively en flambe, it's time to welcome some more Munuvians to the roster: Chris of Semi-Intelligent Thoughts and Linda of Civilization Calls. They're still settling in, but that shouldn't stop anyone from giving them a warm Munuvian welcome!
Also, some of you are still waiting for your blogspot archives to be loaded. Mr Bartender, Tom, and... Simon? I'll check that I still have your files and they'll be ready for loading in the next couple of days. Remember, though, that you have to push the button (due to the way MT works) so leave a comment here so I can co-ordinate who gets to push the button when. We can't have Tom loading Helen's archives again, can we?
MuNu is now pushing out about a gigabyte a day. And that's without me hijacking the server to download anime. So traffic has roughly doubled since the last time I checked on it... Whenever that was.
Our current server has a bandwidth allocation of 100GB per month, so we're still well within bounds. However, I'm planning to get a new server with another provider, which for only $9 extra per month will give us a terabyte to play with. (Yay!)
Also, it won't be on a network blacklisted by the anti-Spam people, so we'll be able to use it for email.
Mr. H has provided me with the following (rather optimistic) timetable for the Blogging Software With No Name:
How can you contribute? Suggest a name! And Mu-Vable Type has already been considered and rejected.
Early January "Dog Food" Release Ambient Irony moves to BSWNN. Chaos ensues. End January Experimental Release A (probably very buggy) version that will be open for Munuvians to play with. End February Alpha Release A version with all the initial features at least mapped out, if not necessarily fully implemented or debugged. End March Beta Release A release with all the initial features implemented, but not necessarily fully debugged. AprilVersion 1.0 Never run version 1.0 of anything!
It's likely that for the first week or two of January, Ambient Irony will be having problems with sending and receiving pings. Don't worry about it.
...is our very own Blather Review!
Congrats, man!
The Bartender at Madfish Willie's would like to wish every Munuvian a Merpy Chriskwanzukkah!
May the season find you and your loved ones healthy, wealthy, and wise!
Here's a little gift for Victor!
Munuvia Base here. Simon has landed.
Contact has been established. A date has been set. Will Pixy emerge upright and coherent? The world waits...
I'm thinking about switching from an individual archive to a weekly one and I was wondering if I could just change the check box in the config place and then rebuild. Is there anything else I have to do?
Thanks
Has anyone else noticed that the rpc.weblogs.com is getting a little... snotty, one might say, with its rejection of pingage?
"Ping 'http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2' failed: Ping error: Thanks for the ping, however we can only accept one ping every half-hour. It's cool that you're updating so often, however, if I may be so bold as to offer some advice -- take a break, you'll enjoy life more."
Don't make me stop this blog and come back there, you.
Attitude indeed. Pffftt.
...but the Bartender hasn't posted since Sunday. I hope he hasn't pulled a Collins on us!
Pixy, I think you need to collect everybody's addresses and phone numbers for, um--administrative purposes...
UPDATE: It seems that the owner of a rival bar had kidnapped our Barkeep and was attempting to pry the recipe for the House Special out of him with a combination of tequila shooters and Wayne Newton ballads when Harvey and Blackfive burst in to rescue him! (The beer kegs ran dry--they had to do something!)
The disturbance in the blogosphere has subsided; your regular drinking may now resume....
1. How do you fix the background picture so that it doesn't scroll (like on Consent of the Governed)?
2. How is everyone getting those nifty little boxes around quotes and such?
Need to catch up on my reading, instead of just skimming...
The buy illustrious leader Pixy a beer (or two) fund is taking off. A very big thanks to the following contributors:
Susie
Victor
Mr. Green
UPDATED with even more sponsors:
Rocket Jones
Mookie
Rob
Tuning Spork (it's to come, but I trust him)
It is not too late to join in the fun. I'm leaving Hong Kong on Friday afternoon for Sydney. After that it will be too late. For those of you who can't work out what Friday afternoon in Hong Kong is, just assume it's midnight Thursday as a deadline.
At the moment (including my own modest contribution) we have enough to get Pixy moderately plastered and fed. I need more $$$ if we want him to spill all the beans.
Thanks to those who've already donated and thanks in advance for donations to come.
And ummm, Pixy, can you please send me your phone number or some such method of communication. I understand you don't want all your female fans getting hold of it so I promise to keep it confidential.
UPDATE: we're up to mild headache territory at the moment. Don't forget Pixy is an Australian, so genetically it takes more alcohol to reach hangover status. Thanks again to all donations so far.
Howdy-is there any one place where I can find all the pics that I have uploaded? See, I no longer have said pc where I once loaded them all from, and I need to find a pic that I once had. Any advice?
Consent of the Governed is up at http://consent.mu.nu
The Bartender has done an awesome job with the design. I made a request and he filled it! I had a beef and he grilled it! That boy-y-y is onto something!
Have a visit and update your blogroll!
If you do a cross-blog search, as you can here on Munuviana, Movable Type will pick up the style-sheet of the first blog that has a matching post - rather than using the style-sheet of Munuviana itself.
Try, for example, searching on smilies or gm1 or chez cheese, for example.
Let's say, for the sake of the discussion, that someone was thinking of writing a new blogging system. This is of course purely hypothetical, and does not suggest in any way that this person is already knee-deep in code.
What features would you like to see in such a thing?
The hypothetical feature list that this hypothetical person has handed me includes the following:
Essentials
Easy and complete import from and export to Movable Type
Templates similar to, but both more flexible and simpler than, MT*
Comments - with filtering
Trackbacks - with filtering
Extended entries
Configurable archives - daily, weekly, monthly; category; author; combination e.g. category by month
Built in support for blogrolls
Macro expansions - expand shorthand codes into something more complicated, e.g. : ) into <img src=/smilies/icon_smile.gif>
Easy manual and automatic backups
Easy file uploads
Multiple templates - try out new formats without effecting your main page
Multiple authors per blog
Multiple blogs per author
Email notification
Speed - must be effectively instantaneous for all common tasks
Open source - must be free for all people to use, share and customise
And a nice simple customisable web interface
Nice to Have
Polls
Chat thingy (like tagboard)
Private messages (reader to blogger)
Blog groups - blogs in a group can share files, blogrolls, posts and so on
Users - regular readers can set up an account, get notifications and, um, stuff
Forum - extended features for comments to extend it towards web-forum functionality. All such features would be configurable.
Dictionaries - similar to macros, but you could set up multiple dictionaries for different purposes. A simple database inside your blog.
Plugins and filters - allow other people to extend the blogging system
XML/RDF feeds - I've never used this, but some people swear by it.
File manager - mange the files you've uploaded
Photo manager - keep your photos in check, with automatic resizing and thumbnailing
Mirroring - automatically copies your blog to another server every time it is updated
* The main thing the hypothetical person plans to do here is to have nested templates. So, your main page would have something like:
<MIEntries days=7> -- This selects all entries for the last 7 days, and processes each one in turn using the following lines
<MIIfFirstOfDay> blah blah </MIIfFirstOfDay> -- This does special formatting for the first post of each day, such as date headers and borders
<MIEntry template=Standard> -- Insert the entry here, using the Standard entry template
<MIIfLastOfDay> blah blah </MILastOfDay> -- Closes borders and stuff like that
</MIEntries>
You can plug in a sub-template just about anywhere, and it will be pulled in automatically when a page is generated.
I will be making the annual pilgrimage to MuNu world HQ in Sydney, Australia. Home of Pixy, our fearless and benevolent leader. It's fair to say none of us would be here without him and his constant help.
Should Pixy be willing/able I will be buying him a beer/dinner/new car on behalf of all Munuvians. Pixy, are you around from December 20th to January 3rd? You can email me seperately with contact details if you are to arrange it.
For everyone else, I hearby dedicate any donations sent via my Paypal for the next couple of weeks solely to the purpose of getting Pixy pissed treating Pixy in the way he should. If you donate I'll send special seperate photos of the auspicious occasion. I am open to any other ideas or ways we can show our adoration short of intimate acts.
For some reason, LeeAnn rebuilds about ten times faster than Susie. So you should all do what she does.
Whatever that may be.
I think the single biggest culprit is category archives. They are just grindingly slow.
Okay, the first try timed out as expected. Susie, it takes forever (over a minute) to rebuild PP after a pingage.
So, I save again...
It rebuilds PP again... (Which I think is what it's supposed to do.)
Okay, done. I check PP...
And no pong!
I think we may have a winner!
I've also installed the comment de-duplifier, which works in the same way. Have fun, peeps!
P.S. You're right, Susie. Delete the ping from the "Pings to send" box, and it gets sent anyway.
I've also (finally!) enabled MT-Blacklist. Any future spam should be countered by the response:
Your comment could not be submitted, probably because you suck.Now I'll just do a quick test...
Comment Submission ErrorFeel free to yay.
Your comment submission failed for the following reasons:Your comment could not be submitted, probably because you suck.
Please correct the error in the form below, then press Post to post your comment.
I will now run the Despamming Thingy™...
...
...
That's a little time-consuming, y'know...
...
...
With this many blogs...
...
...
And this many comments...
Okay, I've processed the last 2500 comments now.
If you want to configure MT Blacklist for your own blog, just go to the mu.nu MT Blacklist configurating page. The only really interesting bit is customising the message returned to spammers. Be creative!
Hmm. That's slightly odd. Let's try it on a different post...
Ah, yes. That's better!
Mr Bartender, you owe me a beer! :) Guess I'll need to set up BBBP (Blog to Blog Beer Protocol) on the server.
To explain: I've installed the Anti-Ponging Hack, so no MuNu blogs should suffer from pongs any more. It's still possible, of course, to pong someone else's blog; the only way to fix that is to increase the ping timeout from 30 seconds to something even longer. Or get them to install the Anti-Pong Hack too.
Someone please ban 62.213.67.122 who despite the creative comments is leaving spam URLS with different names but the same email addy of krokodilgena1@yahoo.com
Please check the DNS entries for www.snoozebuttondreams.com. The problem my blog is having is that this domain is not getting resolved. Since that's my $mtbloghost$ location this is very, very, very bad.
I've done a bit of butchery changing $mtbloghost$ to a static snoozebuttondreams.mu.nu and the index page at least is functional. Pure comment pages are working since those are served off of blog.mu.nu.
But my site, my beautiful site, is hosed until the DNS issue is fixed.
I've been playing around with PHP and skinning of a blog and I wanted to share what I had. Go Here to check it out. The 4 skins that I have are preliminary (there's an InstaRipoff) but the skinning is pretty neat, I think.
I had noticed that the remember info worked on individual archive pages but not on comment only pages. Pylorns pointed me to this forum post and I now understand why. The comment listing template sets the HOST as the individual blog domain (snoozebuttondreams.com, etc) and the cookie is set that way. Pages like individual archives that are served from that domain name work fine. The comment only pages are served from blog.mu.nu and no cookie has been set for that domain.
Our current setup will work fine if there is a way to set multiple HOSTs in the comment listing template. Set a cookie for blog.mu.nu as well as ($MTBlogHost$).
Any ideas?
The DNS server for MuNu - not the MuNu server itself, but another server elsewhere that just handles DNS - came under attack today and had to be pulled off the net. We are now back (and better than ever).
If anyone is still experiencing odd problems, please let me know.
Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday Mr Green...
Happy Birthday to you!
Just tooling around yesterday and decided I needed formatting buttons in my comments. The ones where you highlight the text and click the button to format the text in the comments. First I did a search and tried some of the stuff I found, but I didn't like it very much. So, I decided to break out the Big Hammer. To make a long story shorter, go check it out on my comments and let me know if you want to install them. I'll send you some instructions and a sample of my my comment templates to see the final product.
Also, I would like to request an installation of the Trickle hack (or whatever it is called) so we can post date our entries to post at a later date. Thank you in advance, Mr Pixy!
That is all.
Several Munuvians are up for Kevin's Weblog Awards. Head over and show your support for LeeAnn, Victor, Tom, Kang A Roo, Don, Helen, Ted, Tuning Spork, and Simon!
Careful, though--some of your blog-siblings are going head-to-head in the same categories....
UPDATE: I'm nominated in the Large Mammals!!! Whoo Hoo!! Go vote for me--pretty please? With Sugar and Cream?
Being Awards season, I need to call on all my fellow Munuvians for some help. I've got a post with more, but there's a site here with the Asia Weblog Awards 2003. I highly recommend a visit, check out the nominees and then vote for me in the Best HK Blog and Best Newcomer 2003.
You can only vote once in each category. I figure if I get Munuviana's votes, that's at least 25-ish and my ego is saved for a year. Help your Munuvian colony in China to grow and take over...
UPDATE: I should also ask you not to be shy about encouraging your readers to help the ol' vote along. Thanks y'all.
Those of you who have not been keeping up to date with your geography should stop whatever you are doing and go here now.
Go here.
You can make something like this:
A request was put in that I allow readers to caption my pictures. OK, if that is what you want, I can just sit still and keep my mouth shut. Go ahead and caption today's picture.
It's a Carnival of the Vanities style meme dealing with gems of the past instead of current/recent content. Head on over to Snooze Button Dreams for the particulars.
I'd greatly appreciate some Munuvian promotion. If y'all could link to that post on your sites and/or submit entries for the first Bestofme Symphony it would really help to get it off of the ground.
Thanks!
Now you've all had your fill of turkey and cranberry sauce...
Does anyone know if MT allows for delayed postings? For example, I write a post but only Publish it tomorrow at 9am? Anyone? It would be handy for those times I know I'm going away.
