The Technical Stuff…
If you run a blog and use Movable Type, you know that Six Apart has released a new version of the blogging software. I upgraded from 3.17 to 3.2 last night. I’m a fairly technical guy, so I don’t usually have any difficulties with this kind of stuff. Well, here’s a word of warning. Even though the Moveable Type website says that upgrading from previous versions is a no brainer, and easier than ever, your mileage may very. It seems like the bigger blog you have, the more likely you will have trouble. Oh, and another thing — if you have been sloppy about putting files on your server, and some are in places that are different from the original MT install, then of course, that will cause problems.
Be sure to give your .cgi files the proper permissions too.
Once all your files are in the right place and MT knows everything it needs to, the upgrade is easy.
The new version does appear to have more features, and there are new plugins that deal with SPAM and stuff, which is cool. MT has needed this for some time.
I’m still a fan of Movable Type, so I’m not jumping ship to WordPress or (back to) Blogger.
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Summer…
August in Washington State is a great time of year. This is when Summer shows itself. Now that the month is almost over though, I can feel a bit of Fall coming on. This week it’s suppose to get cloudy again, and a bit rainy…the kids are gearing up to go back to school, and this household will be back on a routine once more. Phew.
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Lawn Care Life Lessons…
Mowing the lawn. I’m not a big fan of this job, even though I’ve done it all my life (starting when I was about 10 or 11 years old). I’ve got my 12 year old boy doing it for us now, and his talent is about as good as mine was at his age. Crooked lines, uneven grass patches, completely missed spots. So today I got back out there and did it myself. I was proving a point to him, illustrating that if you mow slowly, and if you allow the mower to pull itself along (instead of giving it help by pushing as well), you’ll do a good job. Only once did he say, “Well, you’ve been mowing lawns for a long time and I haven’t so of course you’re better at it.” After I was done, he could see the difference patience makes.
Someday he’ll teach his kid how to mow too.
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I Got The Music In Me…
I’ve got four or five different MP3 software packages on my machine. Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, Musicmatch Jukebox, iTunes, etc. I’ve never been able to settle on using just one. I’ll work with Windows Media Player for awhile, index all my MP3 files, try to clean up the music library a bit, but then something just doesn’t go right, or sound right, and I open up another application and do the whole thing over again. Well today, I finally decided to use iTunes as my default player. There are two things that I like most about it. The first is, the sound. The built in equalizer just has better tone than any of the other players, especially Real Player. To use a decent EQ you have to subscribe to their service. Otherwise, you just get a cheesy three slide EQ.
iTunes does a great job at naming my files (once they’re imported into the library). I just haven’t done a great job with standard naming conventions, so my files have upper case, and lower case, and partial names, at such. Well, iTunes somehow knows what it’s doing here, and displays the titles, bands, and album names better than the other players. It doesn’t get them all right, but most of them are. Today, when I imported everything in, I only had to adjust a few files. Very cool.
iTunes also deals with duplicate files, and that’s a big help because I have a bad habit of storing MP3 files in various folders, and I do forget if I’ve copied some of the same ones in both directories. iTunes shows me the dupes and helps me get them outta there. That’s ultra cool.
So, for now, iTunes has me organized and sounding good.
Until the next “cool” MP3 player comes out.
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Playing “Catch”
When your 6 year old boy asks you to play catch with him, do it. By the time he’s 12, he won’t be asking anymore.