What editor do people use for their MuNu logs? For my old Blogger blog, I was using w.bloggar, though for some reason I can't get it to work with MuNu. What do other people recommend?
And by the way, Angry in the Great White North is officially an active MuNu blog as of today.
Having your blog generate PHP rather than HTML opens the door to all sorts of cool stuff, particularly if I make a mistake during the regular PHP upgrades and take down your site.
Ahem.
Apart from that PHP allows you to easily have multiple styles, include files from other places (like blogrolls), and as in todays example, compress your pages so they download faster.
Upgrading to PHP isn't hard, and here's how to do it.
Step 1:Got that? Good! You're half way there!Under Weblog Config, in the Preferences page, you will find an entry that says File extension for archive files
If this says html, change it to php. If it says php already, then you don't need to change it at all! Make sure you use lower case.
Click Save.
Step 2:Yay! You're now running PHP!Go to the Templates screen, and select your Main Index template. Check the Output File. If it says index.html, change it to index.php.
Click save.
I've tried to remember to do this when setting new Munus, but sometimes it gets skipped over. So my apple-logies in that case, but at least it's easy to fix.
We've served up over 500GB of yummy blog and forum goodness so far this month! (Plus another 100GB of anime video clips). That brings us up to and indeed past our previous peak in October/November.
This is great news, but as we continue our plot to take over the world expansion program, we will eventually run out of bandwidth. What a sad day that will be. :(
"How can I help?", I hear you cry.
This is how.
First, make sure that your blog is set up to generate PHP files. If not, check out the handy guide at... Where did the handy guide go? Who took the handy guide?
Anyway, assuming you are set up to generate PHP files, put this code at the top of your templates:
<?php ob_start("ob_gzhandler"); ?>And viola, your web pages will get magically shrunked.* This will make your pages load faster too.
This doesn't reduce things like images, but it can still make quite a dent in bandwidth, with minimal effort and with the benefit of faster response for your readers. So don't delay, <?php ob_start("ob_gzhandler"); ?> today!
* That's the technical term. For the non-technical, your web browser indicates in its request headers whether or not it supports Gzip-compressed pages; all current browsers do. This piece of PHP code checks that setting, and if possible, compresses your web pages before sending them out.
Some of you might remember, back about 15 months ago, when we were on the old old server, it used to take something like 30 seconds to leave a comment. That was before we moved to the new old server, and before we moved from Berkeley DB (boo hiss!) to MySQL (yay!)
Back then, I started work on a blogging program I called Minx. Minx was written in Python and used a database called Metakit, and it was really really fast, at least until you started getting a lot of posts and comments, whereupon it ate all your memory and died.
So much for Minx 0.1, which bit the dust around January 2004.
Minx 0.2 re-arranged the database a bit, and came along in April 2004. However, by that time we were on the new server and things were relatively speedy again, so there was much less urgency to Minx (and I had a lot of work to do with the migration, and a swarm of new MuNus who joined us around that time). And as it turned out, Minx 0.2 also, once you got past a certain point, ate all your memory and died.
Minx 0.3 came along in December, just before my brain got eaten by hackers and spammers, something that lasted through January and February. March I basically went to bed and played Final Fantasy X and Rumble Roses.* This month I dug out Minx and started playing with it. Minx 0.3 was the best yet, but after a certain point, it ate all your memory and died.
The problem in all three cases was the Metakit database, which is extremely fast and flexible, but has a nasty habit - if you push it too far - of eating all your memory and dying.
And so, a couple of weeks ago, I came up with this startling insight: Minx might work better if I didn't store all the data in Metakit.**
And so Minx 0.4 was born. And it's even faster and better than before, and it still works when you throw - What was it? Right. - when you throw 4000 blogs with a total of 4 million posts (and 20 million comments) at it. At that point, my home machine was starting to struggle a little, but certainly hadn't eaten its memory and died. Minx 0.4 uses Berkeley DB (boo - I mean yay!) only it uses it completely differently to Movable Type, so that it actually works.
Soon - maybe even very soon - the Minx Dev Blog and Ambient Irony will be making the Great Leap Sideways and switching to Minx. You'll know it's happened when trackbacks suddenly stop working. Well, unless they come back five minutes later, in which case it's just Fluffy the anti-spam watchdog at work.
Oh yes, there was a point to all this. Munuvians, if you're interested in the future of your blogging platform™, hop on over to the Minx Dev Blog and take a look around. If that makes your brain hurt, wait for the test release, coming soon to a server near you.
* I'm not a sexist pig, I just play one on TV. Um, literally. At least it's better than Dead or Alive: Extreme Beach Volleyball.
** There's slightly more to it than that. It involved a full understanding of Metakits on-disk and in-memory data structures, and realising that there was no work-around for the problems I was encountering. No matter how I split up the data, as long as I stored it all in Metakit, it would eat up all my memory and die.
[Also posted at Ambient Irony]
Well, today is my birthday and I'm officially eligible to join AARP, though not necessarily saying I am planning on doing so. Feel free to drop by Read My Lips and leave a comment.
Fellow munuvians, here is a fix I implemented over at the Jawa. IT WORKS!!
For most mu.nu sites, for some reason, the cookies won't really work. So that your readers must fill in their information every time they want to comment. Gordon at Cranky Neocon took a gander at my site a few months back and fixed it.
Getting the cookies working is VITAL to readership growth. If you want to retain readers then make it easy for them to come back again and again to leave comments. Pretty soon you will have a real community of readers. And they tell their friends, and so on, and so on.
Anyway, here it is
UPDATE: This is as good as I could get it. Just e-mail me if you have problems removing the little smiley faces.
<em>In the section called <head> replace the existing <script></script> block with this code.</em>
<em><script type="text/javascript">
//<!--
var HOST = ''; //<$MTBlogHost$>';
// Copyright (c) 1996-1997 Athenia Associates.
// http://www.webreference.com/js/
// License is granted if and only if this entire
// copyright notice is included. By Tomer Shiran.
function setCookie (name, value, expires, path, domain, secure)
{
var curCookie = name + "=" +
escape(value) + ((expires) ? "; expires=" +
expires.toGMTString() : "") +
((path) ? "; path=" + path : "") +
((domain) ? "; domain=" + domain : "") +
((secure) ? "; secure" : "");
document.cookie = curCookie;
}
function getCookie (name) {
var prefix = name + '=';
var c = document.cookie;
var nullstring = '';
var cookieStartIndex = c.indexOf(prefix);
if (cookieStartIndex == -1)
return nullstring;
var cookieEndIndex = c.indexOf(";",
cookieStartIndex + prefix.length);
if (cookieEndIndex == -1)
cookieEndIndex = c.length;
return unescape(c.substring(cookieStartIndex + prefix.length, cookieEndIndex));
}
function deleteCookie (name, path, domain) {
if (getCookie(name))
document.cookie = name + "=" +
((path) ? "; path=" + path : "") +
((domain) ? "; domain=" + domain : "") +
"; expires=Thu, 01-Jan-70 00:00:01 GMT";
}
function fixDate (date) {
var base = new Date(0);
var skew = base.getTime();
if (skew > 0)
date.setTime(date.getTime() - skew);
}
function rememberMe (f) {
var now = new Date();
fixDate(now);
now.setTime(now.getTime() + 365 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000);
setCookie('mpjauth', f.author.value, now, '', HOST, '');
setCookie('mpjmail', f.email.value, now, '', HOST, '');
setCookie('mpjhome', f.url.value, now, '', HOST, '');
}
function forgetMe (f) {
deleteCookie('mpjmail', '', HOST);
deleteCookie('mpjhome', '', HOST);
deleteCookie('mpjauth', '', HOST);
f.email.value = '';
f.author.value = '';
f.url.value = '';
}
//-->
</script>
At the bottom of the page put this code over the old code:
<script type="text/javascript">
//<!--
document.getElementById('email').value = getCookie("mpjmail");
document.getElementById('author').value = getCookie("mpjauth");
document.getElementById('url').value = getCookie("mpjhome");
if (getCookie("mpjauth")) {
document.getElementById('bakecookie').checked = true;
} else {
document.getElementById('forget').checked = true;
}
//-->
</script><html> </em>
Well, since Leila never found the time/energy/motivation to get Winter Songs going, her big brother, bbrother, is taking the reigns.
He's a friend of mine and I do believe that he will have many interesting and amusing and/or poignant things to say. Please drop by and give him a yay!
The nice people at Alexa* have updated the entry for Munu, which used to classify all the mu.nu sites under ambientirony.com, which was kind of wrong.
Unfortunately, in doing so, they zorched our stats. However, the old stats are still there under ambientirony.com, which remains unzorched.
Old:
New:
What this means is that out of every million people on the internet, about 130 are visiting Munu sites on any given day. That doesn't sound like a lot, until you realise that there are something like a billion people on the net.
Comparisons:
Verrry interesting.
* An Amazon slave-colony company.
Okay, the latest update to the server software was pretty much trouble free - except for Fantastico, which got blowed up real good. The normal fix for that is not fixing this time around. I'm still poking at the smoking remains, and I'll let you know when it's back in one piece.
Both my comments and trackbacking aren't working. I thought maybe this was an across the board mu.nu thing, but Ace tells me his are working fine. What gives? Need help quick as I have what I think is an important new post up and dozens of people trying to send TBs to it.
(BTW- new post is an interview, yes REAL JOURNALISM, with the wife of a hostage in Iraq)
UPDATE:
Mental note: when using MT do not accidentally ban ALL IPs. Apparently when I tried to delete a ban earlier today I inadvertantly pressed enter with a blank IP field. Thus, all trackbacks and comments were banned. Sorry for the inconvenience.
I give up.
I've tried Expression Engine. I've tried Wordpress. I've tried Nucleus and Mambo and Drupal and Postnuke. I've installed blogging packages in phpBB. I've looked at Textpattern and Slash and b2Evolution and a dozen other things that I've happily forgotten. I've messed around with Perl and Pike and PHP and Ruby, with MySQL and SQLite and Postregresql and Firebird.
And I hate them all. (Where's that evil smiley when I need it?)
They all work, it's just that none of them work the way I want. No one package supports all the features we need, and the different packages don't inter-operate well enough to be used together. Plus they're ugly and their mothers dress them funny. (Most of them are written in PHP and use SQL databases. It's a hideous combination for all its popularity.)
Meanwhile, I've resolved all the problems that stopped development of Minx this time last year. I've partly solved the issues with the Metakit database, and there is an all new but fully compatible database under active development.
As far as I can see, and I've really looked, no-one has or is developing the software we need to run mu.nu. So I'm back to writing it myself. Minxing once more...
Does anyone know that code to insert on a template where you can click on it and it just generates a new email message? I think it'll help against the Spamster.
I want that on mine but am a technophobe.
I am sure the great and powerful and wise Pixy Misa is already on top of this but just in case it somehow escaped his attention, I thought I'd better mention it. After all he is only human (we think) and it is my duty to do what little I can to help.
Anyway, I found this at a site called Synthstuff. It's a handy little thing called Spamlookup. It's a MT plugin that helps block spam. It apparently does a good job.
Just updated PHP on the server. This requires doing a complete rebuild of the web server, adn that ha a nasty habit of resetting everyone's access permissions.
If you run into any problems, like not being able to rebuild your blog, give me a yell and I'll get it fixed right away.
Anyone know how to get rid of trackback luncheon meat and how to stop it from happening?
It was inevitable, really. I liked my blogroll in MuNuvian citizenship order...but now it's in alphabetical order and I can't find SHIT!
Nothing really important; just venting. Guess it's time for me to start marching to the beat of the same drummer.
Fixed! Yay Pixy!
I've added an entry for the munu home page to the automatic blogroll thingy. Just so you know, it shows up as "MuNu Central".
Now I'm going to watch and see how that affects its Ecosystem rank. :)
A while back, I floated the idea of a weekly or fortnightly or somethingly Carnival of the Munuvians, highlighting the best munu has to offer. A number of people sent entries to me, and I sort of sat on them...
Well, I still think it's a good idea, so I'm going to give it another go, only this time with extra anchovies! I've set up a new blog: Carnival of the Munuvians. (I realise that it doesn't look very festive, but that will change.) And I'm setting up software to feed posts from the Carnival blog straight onto the front page of mu.nu. You can see the software at work with Automated Ambience, which is a mirror of my blog as a phpBB forum.
What I'm looking for is a team of editors to manage the Carnival. There will be two types of entries: Features, which feature a single outstanding post and can be entered at any time, and the Carnival itself, which will appear on a semi-regular schedule.
All you will need to do is enter posts in the blog; all the copying and stuff will happen automagically. Let me know if you're interested!
The master template post for the Mu.Nu pulldown menu has been updated to update itself automatically. As our quest for world domination accelerates I gave up on trying to keep up with manual updates.
The post - located down on the right under Useful Thingies has all of the instructions you need to set up the list. Do this after you have followed Pixy Misa's PHP instructions.
Many people have asked in the past about how to format they type in the menu, and my standard response is “I have no idea.” This does nothing to change that!!! I offer it as is and hope some you can get some value from it. If you ever figure out how to format the type - let us all know!
And Welcome to all of the Newcomers. It's great to have you here.
Hi all. A little while back I set up a new, automatically maintained blogroll system for Munu, but I never really explained how it works.
The blogroll is maintained by a blog called Blogroll. For each new Munu I create a post that simply lists the name and domain name of their blog. View a series of extremely intricate templates (some as much as three lines long!) it then magically creates various styles of blogroll for people to use.
To use these blogrolls, you must first set up your blog to be creating php. This isn't hard, and here is how you do it:
Go into the Weblog Config page for your blog, and click on Preferences at the top.Once you've done this, you can use the PHP include command to include blogrolls (and indeed just about anything). Like this:Scroll down to the Archiving section, and for the entry labeled File extension for archive files, put in php.
Now go into Templates, and select your Main Index template. The file will be set to index.html; change it to index.php.
Now rebuild your blog, and you're done!
There are a few different styles available for the blogroll:
<?php include "http://blogroll.mu.nu/mli.i"; ?>
mu.i is a simple listing of the Munu blogs sorted by the date they joinedWe can easily create any number of alternate styles. The combinatorial explosion holds no fears for us! Just let me know what you'd like, and if it's not too completely impossible, I'll get it set up.
nu.i is the same listing in alphbetical order
mli.i is an HTML list, in date order. Depending on your stylesheet, this might put little dots next to each entry, as seen at Ellis Island
nli.i is the same HTML list in alphabetical order
pulldown.i is a listing of entries for the pulldown box style of blogroll. You can see a pulldown box blogroll at Hold the Mayo, but Stephen doesn't seem to be using the automatic list yet.
Hmm. I just had a thought. With a bit of tweakering, I should be able to get it to maintain the old Javascript blogrolls too. Hang on a tick... Done. The mu.js and nu.js Javascript files should now get updated automagically too.
Sometimes I like to use my long commute as an excuse to get silly!
P C D T Y T S U R A J O H N N Y O M
H I A N I C M R U E S N E P R O N A
Y R V P A M O R K I R S T E N L I C
S E E L E H C I M I E R U E H S L K
G I B S D R T O T O A L E X I A K L
E K O S K A A A L A U R A M L R N I
E O X E M I S C N L G S O N Y A I N
K O E R Y H T I H R I N E L K H R E
C M N T R O K E M E L N E I A E F R
O A H S W T E I S Y L A S S F N O W
R D O I O P Y T N X X A T I L L A A
E F R M L T E D N G L I N D A R Y L
L I N E E V N E E U Q N P N E R O E
G S U S I E S B L U E A N G E L R M
A H I E L L I B E J U I I K K O O U
L W M E A V E Y H L K T C A T W D R
S I T H T E R E S A D I E C N A O G
J L A C E T T E X O R A I R N N N I
A L O C I L B U P E R V S I R A A R
T I T R I C A L E Y R R E H C Y O L
T E A I C C I D U O B L R Y A N O J
Not everyone is in it, sorry. But, there are 76 Munuvians hiding in the puzzle. (There are also a few non-Munu names sprinkled about. Have fun!
Another slew of new neighbors, and not a crotchety old man or 3AM loud music partier in the bunch. Well, maybe one or two of the partiers but at least they listen to decent music.
Go say hi to:
Kitty Says
Pole Dancing In the Dark
American Warmonger
Beekeeper
Grumbles
Alex In Wonderland
Weasel Manor
(Well, go say hi to Ethne at Pole Dancing, Eric at Grumbles and Alex in Wonderland. The other's haven't parked the U-Haul yet.)
I just happened to be watching the processes running on the server when we got hit by a trackback spam flood. Ten seconds later, Fluffy the Spam Watchdog woke up and killed it. Works as designed.
Yay!
The Blacklist was overfull again. I managed to wipe several hundred entries by forbidding character codes like "& 110;" and eliminating all of the lines that had used those. Spammers are using these more and more frequently to circumvent alphabet filters and the Blacklist was loaded with them.
I know the big deal is now trackbacks, but this would help those that don't want to have their comments closed. What if we inserted something like email services do, where if you want to leave a comment you have to type the word that you see in a little random jpg, and it would just be a short series of random letters or a random word.
I know a while back we found a MT way to turn off comments after a certain number of days.
Is there a similar way to turnoff trackbacks after "X" days? Trackback spam is killing me.
We've got a load of new neighbors. Everybody go say hi to:
Rhymes With Right
Possumblog
Something for the Weekend
Seven Inches of Sense
Stolen Beauty
View from the Pew
A Swift Kick and A Bandaid
Professor Chaos
Cal Tech Girl's World
Some are already cranking out content, some not quite yet.
Hey, who's doing the updates for the Munu blogrolls?
