Category: Library Monk News

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Upgraded to WordPress 2.0

Well, I upgraded to WordPress 2.0. Other than some admin bells and whistles (the new visual rich editor can be helpful and annoying at the same time, thankfully you can turn it off) there is no major reason to upgrade. I’ll wait until WordPress 2.1 before I upgrade anything else.

While I was updating I also installed the latest version of Spam Karma (2.1 beta). I’m waiting until it’s out of beta to upgrade other places.

Hate the WordPress 1.5/2.0 Dashboard? Replace it with this hack from Angsuman. Loads much faster than the stock Dashboard since it doesn’t wait on useless RSS feeds to load.

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RSS readers and a change in thought

I like RSS. It theoretically lets me absorb a lot more information than I would just browsing blogs. Trouble is I could never really make myself use RSS. I’ve used Feed Demon, the RSS support built into Thunderbird and Firefox and the Sage extension for Firefox.

I don’t know why I’ve never tried web based RSS readers. I guess I thought of RSS as the same type of thing as Usenet newsgroups for some reason. Which is a bit odd I know. Anyway with Usenet you needed client software so you should with RSS right?

The introduction of Google Reader made me take other look at web based RSS readers. Unfortunately, Google Reader needs a lot more work. The interface looks nice, but is difficult to use. One opinion of Google Reader said that Bloglines was much better. Several people that visit this site get here via Bloglines but I hadn’t really looked at it that closely.

Upon closer inspection I have ditched Feed Demon and imported all my RSS feeds into Bloglines. It does everything I need it to do and doesn’t require anything but a web browser, although I did install the handy Bloglines Notifier to let me know when feeds have been updated.

To make it easier to Bloglines users to subscribe to this site, I’ve added a Bloglines button under Syndication Feeds in the left hand column. If you use Firefox, the Feed Your Reader extension supports Bloglines. With this extension you can make clicking the RSS button in Firefox add the feed to Bloglines instead of adding it to Firefox.

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The new blog design

Well, it’s been about a week since I switched the blog to WordPress and changed the design. I really like WordPress. It’s easier to understand and customize than Movable Type, since I understand PHP, and I really like the plugin system. And I really like that WordPress is totally dynamic. Sure you can have a dynamic Movable Type setup now, but dynamic MT feels like an afterthought. I don’t miss the constant MT site rebuilds at all.

I think I’ve stopped fiddling with the design for a while, I’ve got the blog pretty much how I want it. I just added some buttons to the Other section of the sidebar, Get Firefox, Valid XHTML and CSS etc. Because what’s a blog without all those 80×15 buttons? I even found a button maker where you can make your own.

In other news I still feel like a wet noodle, but I’m not as sleepy since I’m drinking caffeine today.

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Updated the design

I updated the site design, I had had enough of the bland MT 3 defaults. This design is again based off one of Neil Turner’s designs, this time Bluefade II. Still tweaking a bit, but it’s mostly there.

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New look to the site (not permanent)

As part of upgrading to MT 3.0 D, I took all the templates back to the default. The result is a pretty bland looking site. All I did to the default templates was modify the stylesheet a bit. Not sure sure how long I’ll keep the site like this… maybe until MT 3.0 final is out.

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Updated to Moveable Type 3.0 D

Well I updated the blog to MT 3.0 D I had thought about switching to WordPress and I still might at some point, like the next time the MT license changes. But I got a beta tester discount and had previously donated to MT, so my upgrade cost was quite small.

But for those thinking about ditching Movable type, you can compare blog/CMS software here or here. And if you want a compelling reason to switch, Mark Pilgrim has one.

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Upgraded to MT 3.0

Library Monk has been upgraded to Moveable Type 3.0. The upgrade went smoothly, although I didn’t upgrade the templates. So I’m not taking advantage of any new features, visible to the public, but the new management interface is amazing.

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