I joined mu.nu about-what? -nearly four years ago now? I joined when there were about twenty munuvians, all of which were calm, low-key folk (and most of them have already left-it's what happens in blogland.) We now have somewhere around 200, 300 people on this domain, and some of the antics make me cringe.
Munuviana is still growing, and I think that's cool. The thing is, we're all kind of a community, if you'll excuse the naff expression. Unlike blogspot, which any old joe can join, mu.nu is an invitation and the entrance to a group of folk with technical knowledge, all of whom bow down to Pixy, who runs and manages this domain for us.
But I was sent a link to something that I think is really tearing the threads now-I'm all for free speech and all, but one of the major points about blogging is it's anonymous. Most of us blog anonymously and would like to keep it that way. The biggest threat to our blogging isn't trolls, trackback nightmares, etc, it's being revealed. The real identity coming out is a door closer to most of our sites. Threats of revealing names is, I think, something that shouldn't be tolerated here. So imagine my shock when the link I was sent shows someone not only being outed, but being outed in a way that could get the party in question killed.
This is ok how?
We sit behind a screen in our homes and write, and have we changed so much that we don't even accept responsibility for our actions anymore?
I'm sorry, this chap who wants to out someone is wrong. His behavior (to me) violates that unwritten blogging rule, Thou Shalt Not Out Another Person, which is followed with Thou Shalt Not Be Responsible For the Death of Another Person.
Where are we going on mu.nu? What's next? Will we be ok-as a blogging community-with backing this kind of action? Because when I signed up to mu.nu it was to be a part of a good platform, it wasn't to get banned in Korea (or wherever that was that we got in trouble) and to cost the life of another person. Why is this person's actions ok (and don't quote me that free speech stuff, I'm talking about mu.nu as a community with principles.)?
Yikes, GM's Corner has exceeded his bandwidth... can this be rectified Pixy? Do I need to send you a check equal to or exceeding the Lower Slobbovian National Debt?
I got your request for an email about my Cpanel password the other day.
Wrote ya like you asked and still haven't heard back with the password.
(Which is why I'm doing this this way instead of by email... *wink*)
I figured if it worked for Stevie, it might work for me too!! ** Wink -Wink **
GM
Has some neferious person been messing with the blacklist again? My commenters cant leave a comment if it contains the letters "per" which makes it very difficult since my last name is R-o-P-E-R, can someone get it fixed??
To the person that did it.... Bad Doggie, No Treat!!!!
I got your request for an email about my Cpanel password the other day.
Wrote ya like you asked and still haven't heard back with the password.
(Which is why I'm doing this this way instead of by email... *wink*)
Did ya send it and I missed it?
Hey Pixie (or anyone else for that matter). Commenters at my site have been getting this message: ""An error occurred: Fruitcake error: Unknown MySQL server host 'mica' (1) ""
Now, it seems my cpanel needs a poke or two.
It doesn't seem to want to accept the username and password you sent me a while back.
Can you please send them to me again?
Or your stick, maybe?
I can actually think of several other things/people who might could use a poke or a whack...
*giggle*
Thank you (again)...
SoftLayer was having problems with their main customer router, and had to reboot it.
I now know that my remote monitoring system does indeed work.
And that the alarm will wake me up if I happen to be, y'know, fast asleep or something...
SQUAWK! SQUAWK! SQUAWK! SQUAWK!!!
The Busy Busy Pixy Speech
My fellow Munuvians...
It's 2007! Yay!
"Why is this so exciting?", I hear you ask.
Well, let me begin with a quick recap of the last few months:
In October, we moved to our new servers, Akane and Nabiki, at our new hosting company, SoftLayer. I went on holiday, and came down with a cold and a horrible throat infection that laid me low for three weeks.
In November, the company I worked for was sold, and my job went away.
In December, I got another server, Ranma, located at LayeredTech, for off-site backups and experimenting. I also got a new job:
In January, I started working full-time on a commercial sister-site to mu.nu.
I've mentioned this before, but every time I said anything, something else came up to derail my plans. This time I've eliminated everything else, by conveniently not having anything else to do. And also having financial backing, which helps.
So here's the deal:
You get to keep your mu.nu site, just as it is, for as long as you want. Nothing changes there unless you want it to.
The blogging system I'm developing - it's called Minx - will be made available to mu.nu as well as to the new site. Eventually I hope to move everyone to it, as it is much much nicer than the version of Movable Type that we are stuck with, and indeed, much nicer than even the latest version of Movable Type.
In February, we will be launching a beta test of the new site. We'll be adding two more servers at SoftLayer - Ukyo and Shampoo - and signing up a whole bunch of beta testers.
The way we will do this is by handing out 1000 free "Express" accounts (normally $50 per year) through mu.nu. Every mu.nu blogger will get a number of invites to hand out however you want. The accounts are free for as long as people care to use them.
Also in February we'll have a mu.nu beta test of Minx for you to play with. You don't need to keep an invite for yourself, because you'll get all the same stuff (and more) here at mu.nu.
In March, 4-6 weeks after the beta starts, we'll be going to a limited commercial release. We'll be adding another server for the new site, Kodachi, and I'll also be adding a third server to run mu.nu, Kasumi.* These will most likely be running on Intel's new quad-core Xeons, which are very very fast.
From April onwards we will be expanding our commercial offering, adding more features and more servers. I'll also be expanding mu.nu, since by then we'll be past all our software problems and clear to grow.
In June I hope to replace Nabiki with a quad-core server, and in September to do the same with Akane. Depending on growth, I may be adding one or two more servers just for mu.nu.
By the end of the year I hope to have everyone moved off Movable Type and happily Minxing away. I'll be making the move as easy as I can; you'll be able to play around with Minx in a test environment, and then when you're ready, transfer all your posts from Movable Type to Minx in a few seconds. You will need to change your templates - Minx templates are completely different to Movable Type ones - but I'll be around to help out with that.
We will also be moving off CPanel, to Plesk. Plesk is a similar user-friendly control panel, but (I think) is nicer, better organised, and uses less resources on the server. It also has some useful features for managing large numbers of servers - and I fully intend to have a large number of servers by the end of this year. :)
You can play with a demo of Plesk here.
For existing users, the move to Plesk will probably come at the same time you move to Minx; though you will be able to run Minx under CPanel at least until I replace Akane around September.
So, what are the differences between mu.nu and the new site?
Well, mu.nu has a cool name. The new site has a cool name too, but I can't tell you what it is. I'm hoping I'll be able to tell you what it is by the time we actually launch...
mu.nu is free for users. It's my hobby, and I pay for it. Since I'll be using it as a sort of springboard to launch the commercial site, and the commercial site is what is paying my rent now, the work I put into it does benefit me financially, even if indirectly. So you can stop nagging me about that tip jar. ;)
With the new site, on the other hand, your account is either ad-supported or paid. The ads are unobtrusive and the pricing is as cheap as I can make it, but it's not free. It also has a system which lets other users support your site with donations; I don't know how that will work out, but it could be interesting.
Both the new site and mu.nu will have lots more things than blogs available to you. Forums, for one. Private messaging. Podcasts. Lots of stuff. And you can set it up any way you like. But disk space and bandwidth will be limited on the new site (depending on what package you choose), and essentially unlimited on mu.nu (depending on whether I can afford to feed you all...)
Of course, anyone will be able to sign up for the new site - once the beta test is over, anyway. mu.nu will remain invitation-only.
mu.nu will also have some power features that I won't be able to deliver on the commercial site: The Plesk control panel, unlimited email accounts, PHP, FTP access for uploading files, and probably more.
So all in all it looks like 2007 will be a very exciting year, and certainly much more fun that 2006. Don't go anywhere, folks, this is where it's all happening!
* Anime fans might be seeing a pattern here...
I get this:
Writing to '/home/stevie/www/archives/212036.php.new' failed: Opening local file '/home/stevie/www/archives/212036.php.new' failed: Permission denied
when trying to post.
What's up with that?
Something need to be drug off and shot?
Have the shit beaten out of it, maybe?
If so, send it on over to me.
I've got a Pusser club (read: axe handle) itchin' to go to work.
Just point us in the correct direction.
Help, please.
Thank you.
Hello Mununvians!!! It's been a while since I posted here. I'm posting to announce a new blog on Mu.Nu. It's not just any blog, either. It has a theme...hot & spicy food. So, if you like hot sauce, salsa, thai food, etc., please check us out. We hope we might get some new regulars around there.
It's actually not a NEW blog, per se. My husband and I have been running this site for a few years but have just moved over to Mu.Nu. We're so pleased that Pixy gave us the opportunity. (Thanks, Pixy!)
Hope to see you there!
I've been trying to revise a couple of posts this morning, but when I save they stall during the rebuild process, before they send out the relevant pings. The screen simply goes blank. What's the problem? How do I solve it? And is it system-wide, or just me?
Okay, I know that I might not be 'on top' of everything in the MuNu Universe but I have to do something or else loose my mind.
What bothers poor Mikey? It's the highjacking of my blog e-mail account.
I find dozens upon dozens of notification messages from all over the globe that tell me that the message from [insert bogus name here]@madmikey.mu.nu cannot be delivered.
As I understand it - somewhere along the line in the last year some sort of 'bug' or 'virus' got into the MuNu server and created a back door into my e-mail and started spamming the planet. I figured the one way to stop it would be to delete the current blog e-mail 'system' and create a new one.
The question is: how do I do that? Or is this something that Pixy must do?
If it's the former, tell me what to do.
If it's the latter, Pixy please kill the current system and I'll start a new one up.....or would that not help either?
I'm hoping that there's a 'simplistic' answer to this problem - I love having e-mail from my blog and want it back!
