Form of a serious post!

Shape of an online petition!

Should any other Wonder Mu's be so kind as to link to one or the other of those I'd be terribly grateful. It's about the perceived silence of the conservative muslim community and one way to possibly correct what's causing that perception.

Posted by: Jim at 08:27 PM | Comments (13) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

I think those of you that know me know that I love my music. And nothing is funner than to share your tunage with others (so they can point, laugh and comment on what a freak you are, but I digress).

In another :: coughcough :: blog :: coughcough :: I would provide a weekly (monthly?) song for download. Well, since I'm now a member of a larger bunch of loverly bloggers, I don't want to do anything that might get me canned. . .or caned. . .so I have to ask:

What about this Radio.Blog? Is this kosher? Can we install it?

I want to be a right and proper Mu.Nu Citizen, yanno.

:: who is suddenly embarrassed and will now sit down and shaddup ::

Posted by: Miss Apropos at 08:38 AM | Comments (18) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

ExpressionEngine is a new high-end blogging package from the folk who wrote pMachine. It looks like it does most of the things I'm planning for Minx.

I'm going to download the beta and give it a whirl. It's commercial software, but it's priced per-installation rather than per-blog, so one copy would do for all of Mu.Nu.

If it looks good to me I'll ask a couple of you guys to give it a try as well.

Meanwhile, I'm doing some performance tests on MT to see if I can work out why it is so darn slow. 'Cause that's really the only problem I have with it. Some tests I ran last night, importing all of Ambient Irony on my home mail server (a little Celeron box) showed absurd levels of I/O activity. That might be MT, or it mught be related to using Berkeley DB as the storage system. I'm going to try it again this weekend with PostgreSQL.

Apart from that, I have... Seven? Eight? Nine? Ten? More blogs to set up, and I need to dig out my Blog-city -> MT file converter that I wrote long ago.

Next week won't be too busy, and after that I'm off work for ten days, so some concentrated MuNuing is coming up!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:22 AM | Comments (19) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

1 Dearest, sweetest Pixy Misa--if you dig out the blog-city converter, may I please ask you to bring my old files over, too? Pleeeease?

Posted by: Jennifer @ at April 02, 2004 02:13 AM

2 Yes.

Posted by: Pixy Misa @ at April 02, 2004 02:17 AM

3 Pixy...by any chance are any of those blogs you have left to set up Paul from Light and Dark?
He definitely wants to come over. He said he's emailed ya, but I've got his if ya want it...home phone number, too, for that matter.
I so don't wanna see him lost in the rush...lol.

Hugs and thanks again!

Posted by: Stevie @ at April 02, 2004 07:51 AM

4 Oh yeah...and which one of these excellent new blogs is Margi?
I seem to have lost her...(which is what put me in the mind of not losing Paul, too....lol)

Oh MARGI, Darlin'!!!
Where is you?!?

Posted by: Stevie @ at April 02, 2004 07:53 AM

5 Yep, Paul's been in touch and I'll be getting him set up soon.

Margi? Margi who? No Margis here.

(I'll let you guess. )

Posted by: Pixy Misa @ at April 02, 2004 08:17 AM

6 Re: Paul....EXCELLENT!!!!
Re: Whom?...siiigh. (lol)
I'll find 'er.
Eventually.
(lmao)

I'm lookin', Lovely Lady...I'm-a lookin'....

Posted by: Stevie @ at April 02, 2004 09:12 AM

7 Well, Expression Engine isn't the answer. I think it's designed more for corporate sites.

It's nice and fast at updating, but relatively slow at actually delivering pages. Which isn't good. You can turn on caching to speed things up, but the cache doesn't update automatically when you post a new entry, which is just plain dumb.

Back to Minx...

Posted by: Pixy Misa @ at April 04, 2004 03:36 PM

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For all the new MuNuvians, and the old ones too, don't forget to backup your templates before you start editing them.

Here is what I do to protect myself from myself:

Open your Main Index file, select all, copy. On your List Template page, at the very bottom, is a section called Template Modules. Click Create new template module. Paste the Main Index information into the proper place. Name your file something like... OriginalMainIndex! Do the same thing with your Stylesheet.

Now, when you totally destroy your templates, you can just go back in and copy from the Template Modules into your Master Template.

When you are satisfied with your changes, don't forget to backup the new template.

That's what I do anyway... Hope that helps out some.

Posted by: Madfish Willie at 08:42 PM | Comments (21) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

1 Ah, that works so much better than my way of goin' back to MT.org and startin' all over with the default templates, huh?

Posted by: notGeorge @ at April 02, 2004 01:21 AM

2 Do I need to rebuild? (and thanks - keep those tips and letters coming in.)

Posted by: Debbye @ at April 02, 2004 05:01 PM

3 It's a text file which I will be editing. First thing I do when I open it is to save it as a new file so the old one remains. I first learned to do that on 360k 5-1/4" floppies. Of course I'm so old i doors open for ladies.

Posted by: triticale @ at April 02, 2004 09:29 PM

4 Damn, son... you must be fartin' dust!

Posted by: Madfish Willie @ at April 03, 2004 04:44 AM

5 On the subject of backups:

All your posts, comments and templates are backed up all the way to Australia twice a day. And the backups are archived, so even if you don't realise you've lost something until a week later, we can still get it back.

All your other files, images and such, are backed up to a separate hard disk on the server daily.

So if the server goes (literally) up in smoke, your posts are safe but you'll need to reload your images. Anything short of that and everything is safe.

Also, the main disk drive is mirrored, so a simple drive failure won't even slow us down.

Posted by: Pixy Misa @ at April 03, 2004 05:26 AM

6 YOU ARE THE KING!!!

Posted by: Madfish Willie @ at April 03, 2004 05:29 AM

7 Nah, I'm just paranoid.

Running the databases for a phone company will do that to you.

Posted by: Pixy Misa @ at April 03, 2004 05:43 AM

8 I wish I had seen this post prior to tinkering! Ah, well, live and learn.

Posted by: RP @ at July 12, 2004 08:35 PM

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I go away for a week, and we have a much larger family.

Welcome new munuvians. BTW, I am upgrading to Panther later today, so wish me luck.

~~~~~
I'm what Willis was talking 'bout

Posted by: Tom Jefferson at 02:41 PM | Comments (13) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

1 You ain't seen nothin' yet!

Posted by: Pixy Misa @ at April 03, 2004 04:23 AM

2 I have. I saw nothin' a long time ago.

Posted by: triticale @ at April 04, 2004 01:34 AM

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Here here, Pixy. I couldn't agree more. As I am responsible for bringing the trolls to Jen, I feel awful about it. The problem, of course, with supporting any side in any political debate is that there are always weirdos and trolls and irrational people who refuse to have a civilized discussion about something.

I should have predicted what my actions would have done, but I did not. And for that I am terribly sorry. I do not typically read the comments at political sites for the sole reason that they are typically filled with vitriolic words.
As anyone knows, we've always had a special brand of kindredship here at Munuvia and that has always made it a special joy blogging here. Some of the attacks made on Jen were needless and, well, just full of hate that, as you point out Pixy, is not conducive to any proper discourse.

At any rate, I apologize for my role in bringing this sort of thing into our home here. I sincerely hope that it was not what caused this. Jen has been one of my favorite bloggers from a while back - heck, she's the one who brought me here. She is a good friend now and her truly positive and humorous outlook on life will be missed. I understand that personal life must take precendent over blogging and blogging is least fun when it is stressful, but our little (but growing) community here will truly be less without JenLars. Indeed, the entire blogging community is less because of it.

Posted by: Daniel at 01:23 PM | Comments (23) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

1 So sweet. Guilt made me confess.

Posted by: Jennifer @ at April 01, 2004 03:46 PM

2 No, you can't take responsibility for the idiots. There'd be no end to it.

Posted by: Pixy Misa @ at April 01, 2004 03:50 PM

3 Jen has been very naughty and needs to be spanked.

Posted by: Pixy Misa @ at April 01, 2004 03:52 PM

4 Mmm... Spanking!!1!

Posted by: Madfish Willie @ at April 01, 2004 04:36 PM

5 For the record, it was more Pixy's write-up that was the catalyst for writing this... for the record.

Posted by: Daniel @ at April 01, 2004 04:42 PM

6 Dan, you suck.

Oh wait, she's back! Never mind. What'd I tell you? Ya get all touchy-feely. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Pretty evil, Jen.

Posted by: Ted @ at April 01, 2004 06:50 PM

7 SPANK!!1!

Posted by: Madfish Willie @ at April 01, 2004 07:35 PM

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When I said

As long as you can distinguish between fact and opinion and paranoid raving, we really don't care where - if anywhere - you lie in Zebriski's Seven-Dimension Polispaceâ„¢

I'm not a partisan to any particular political grouping, and certainly not to either of the major American political parties, given that I'm (a) a centrist and (b) Australian.

What I do believe in, though, is basing arguments on fact and building them through logic. Because, well, because that works.

Which is not to say that when someone ticks you off, you can't rant a little. Not to say that everyone has to be 100% rational every minute of the day. Not to say that you have to know everything about the subject before you can hold an opinion.

Jennifer is one of the smartest, most level-headed (and craziest) members of our particularly smart, level-headed, and crazy group. The trolls that attacked her recently for not finding amusement in a not-particularly-funny joke were way, way off base.

But launching an attack on the entire political right because of the behaviour those trolls isn't exactly helpful either. (To make it clear, it was not Jen who did this.)

I've never censured, much less censored, any Munuvian for anything they've said (though sometimes I have politely disagreed, and where possible pointed out references to relevant material). And I never want to. I just want people to remember what Daniel Patrick Moynihan said:

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts.

I'll have to dig up that article on the difference between Type C and Type M arguments again.

Maybe I'm just too touchy these days. Maybe I need some chocolate. Yes, that seems likely.

Hmm.

To make it clear, it's not an existing Munuvian who elicited this response. But of of the people suggested so far, those I thought might not fit in were those who had difficulty with this rule. Except one who was just grouchy.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:27 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

MuNuby Help - Part III is an annotated image showing which div ID and div Class in the Stylesheet control which elements of the Main Index template.

The first image is the main site showing the banner, all or parts of two posts, and a partial sidebar or links column.

The second image shows and annotates the calendar. Also annotated is the output of MT specific tags for monthly archives, category archives, and the site search funtion.

The third image shows and annotates the .syndicate and .powered div classes.

The fourth image shows and annotates a comment pop-up window.

The fifth image show and annotates a trackback pop-up window.

Posted by: Madfish Willie at 01:38 AM | Comments (14) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Okay, so it's not quite your birthday yet but if I post this tomorrow half of the folks will think it's an April Fools joke. Besides, it's only 7 hours early in England.

Welcome to decade number 3!

Posted by: Jim at 12:00 AM | Comments (20) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Today's installment of MuNuby Help will cover your Main Index Template and your Stylesheet.

As before, Jr Rocket Scientist feedback is welcome.

First, a short primer. For this primer, I will assume everyone has a basic understanding of HTML tags and structures.

The Main Index template controls your blog content: banner, blog description, post titles, post content, by-line information, sidebar links & images, site counters and credits, etc. Some of the elements are contained in the MT database and are pulled into the page via MT specific tags (begininng with the letters MT and $MT). Some elements are hand coded: URL links, boilerplate text, banner images, sidebar images, site counters, etc. The Main Index template controls the placement of each of these element inside the main page.

The Stylesheet controls the presentation of your content: column widths and placement; background colors and images; border & line sizes, styles and color; margins and paddings; font families, colors, sizes, weights, transformations, etc.

In your Stylehseet, there are two classifications of elements:

Elements that you can use only one time in an HTML page, div ID, which are indentified by a # sign followed by the class label - #body
and
Elements that you can use several times in an HTML page, div Class, which are indentified by a . sign followed by the class label - .blogbody

Both elements are followed by an open brace , list of attributes each followed by a semicolon separator ; and closed by a close brace . The attributes enclosed between the open and close braces are what controls the presentation of your content.

Please note that capitalization of div ID and div Class names IS important!

Next, I'll show you which classes of the Stylesheet control which element(s) in the Main Template.

Posted by: Madfish Willie at 04:18 PM | Comments (21) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Below are some examples that should assist our new members with their transition to the MT blogging software.

As you Junior Rocket Scientists review this, give me some feedback on what you would change to make it a better primier for our new members. Thanks.

Tonight is Part I, covering where the tempaltes are located, how to access them and which templates modify which parts of your MT blogging platform.

Tomorrow will be Part II, covering the Main Index and Stylesheet. I will outline for you which parts of the stylesheet modify which parts of the Main Index.

Thursday will be Part III, covering the Comment Templates and the Trackback Templates.

Posted by: Madfish Willie at 02:51 AM | Comments (16) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

I've* worked out how to fix the Recent Posts thing so that

(a) it sorts the posts in proper order, taking timezones into account
(b) it excludes anything dated in the future, and
(c) it updates automatically, without needing Munuviana to refresh

* Finally

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:49 PM | Comments (16) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Bill Cimino is desperately seeking 327 comments today, so, in the interest of charity to the content-impaired, please drop by and help him out.

Posted by: Susie at 05:15 PM | Comments (17) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Welcome to all the new MuNuvians!!

Here are some sites that have some predesigned templates and stylesheets designed for Moveable Type. They are all text files that you cut and paste into your existing templates and stylesheet.

MT Default Styles
Click on one of the selections to go to a dialogue box with the code. There is a link to a screenshot sample of that code to preview.

Web Jones: Bright Ideas for the Web.
Several high-quality selections available to download.

Strange Banana
Computer generated code. Some interesting stuff here. Each design is completely computer generated and will give your site a unique look.

Firdamatic: Design Tool for the Unispred Blogger
This site will create a 2 or 3 column template for you after you fill out some forms with your information.

Elegant Webscapes
Lisa from Just A Girl In The World provides some very nice free stylesheets. She also provides some design services at reasonable rates.

BlogStyles
Here are some 2 & 3 column designs to choose from. Very inexpensive and lots of choices.

Here are some most excellent reference sites.

Lusciuos Links: Weblog Prgrams, Tips, Tricks
Here is a good resource for Movable Type information and support.

CSS Zen Garden: The Beauty of CSS Design
Samples of what you cna accomplish using css. Fantastic designs and lots of them!

W3 Schools
Tutorials for everything! HTML, XHTML, CSS, Color Codes

If you happen to need any additional assistance, drop me an e-mail or contact me via MS Messenger username:MadfishWillie@hotmail.com. I'll be more than happy to do what I can to help you out.

I figure this is the least I could do to pay forward the help everyone gave me when I first came over (I was really stupid back then / only kinda stupid now) and show my appreciation to Pixy for hosting my site(s).

Posted by: Madfish Willie at 05:09 PM | Comments (17) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

1 Cool! Thanks for that MW!

Posted by: Pixy Misa @ at March 30, 2004 05:33 PM

2 Cookie-cutter templates are great, but I recommend taking the Bartender (a.k.a. Madfish Willie) up on his offer and helping you design the site of your dreams (just look at Consent of the Governed!).

We've got plenty of eager banner designers on hand as well (a href="http://jenlars.mu.nu">Jennifer and Mookie come to mind..!). Just don't overload them!!!

Posted by: Tuning Spork @ at March 31, 2004 02:37 AM

3 Dang!!!!!
The Jennifer link is THIS. Yeeeeeaaaaaaaauuuuhhhhhhh!!!!!!!
(Sorry, I was channelling Howard Dean for a moment there...)

Posted by: Tuning Spork @ at March 31, 2004 02:42 AM

4 Just thinking out loud here... [watch that smoke] maybe we can put a link in the sidebar to the posts that give technical information or links to technical information. I was thinking maybe this post, the one with the MuNu scripts, the MuNuby Help series, etc. That way it would be easier to locate for the new members and anyone can point them in the right direction. What do ya think, daddio?

Posted by: Madfish Willie @ at March 31, 2004 03:24 AM

5 Category archives, maybe?

Posted by: Pixy Misa @ at March 31, 2004 04:48 AM

6 Would it be better to do category archives or to always have them posted and visible?

Posted by: Madfish Willie @ at March 31, 2004 02:53 PM

7 In this case, I think your solution might work better. I'll do that.

Posted by: Pixy Misa @ at March 31, 2004 04:56 PM

8 Seems to me that we've actually discussed this before... that ol' idea about creating a newbie's guide to blogging...
A tech-help sidebar for new Munuvians is a great idea!!!

Posted by: Tuning Spork @ at April 01, 2004 04:08 AM

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I always swore that I would never subject myself to being a new kid again, but I MUST say, this is quite enjoyable! Thank you for the cake! And the invitation! I am still trying to figure out how to change my default template (yes, I am a little slow) - the configuration is quite different than the templates at the hosting site that I was so kindly rescued from!

Many thanks!

Posted by: Alex at 07:14 AM | Comments (16) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

. . .to say thank you for making my Mu Nu debut very special.

What a loverly bunch of cocoanuts you all are!

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!!

Love,
"Emma"

Posted by: Miss Apropos at 01:29 AM | Comments (17) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

1 Aw, shucks. Twarn't nuthin', Miss Emma.

Posted by: Jim @ at March 30, 2004 03:12 AM

2 Welcome to Munuvia, home to some of the rockingest rollingest people around.

Posted by: Debbye @ at March 30, 2004 04:41 PM

3 Nah, we're just nuts. The cocoa is complimentary.

Posted by: Tuning Spork @ at March 31, 2004 02:51 AM

4 Emma... I know what you did last summer!!1!

Posted by: Madfish Willie @ at March 31, 2004 06:18 PM

5 That's right... [cue horror music] I'm the freaky fisherman dude in the overcoat and galoshes... [/horror music]

Posted by: Madfish Willie @ at March 31, 2004 06:20 PM

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Hi kids.

There's a little party going on in the MuNu forums, and you're all invited.

If you can't see it, it's because you're not registered for the forums. You need to register first, and then join the Munuvian Underground user group. Then I need to set you up as moderators, and then you can join in the fun.

I know that sounds complicated, but it really... Er, well, it is a bit complicated.

Anyway, Susie, Mookie, CD, Madfish Willie, Simon, Daniel, Stephen and Jim are already signed up, so stop by and say hello to the other Munuvians.

P.S. There's tea and crumpets.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:08 PM | Comments (110) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

For those interested I've found another referrer script to keep a listing on your site of who's visited your page. It's similar to the Stephen Downes one but this one has some variations you can choose. I loaded it today and it seems quick and so far accurate. Although it seems to be missing my Instalance...mostly because I've not had one.

Here's the link.

Posted by: Simon at 01:23 PM | Comments (91) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Hi fellow Munuviana residents!... (that is so strange for me to say... I'll work on getting used to it through repetition)
Thanks for letting me move into such distinguished company... Those of you that have read my little corner of the blogosphere in the past know I'm rather sporadic in my posts... Unfortunately, the next month will be no different as its my busy time of year at work... So sometime in May, I am going to sit down and read how to actually use and configure my shiny new digs... Until then, come by if you like, as I'm managing to squeak out a post here and there... (just be prepared for a bland appearance for now)

Posted by: Backstage at 07:23 PM | Comments (105) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

How do I get my blog clock to adjust for the Daylight Savings Time we just had last night?

Posted by: Sarah at 11:08 AM | Comments (100) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

1 Hmm.

In Weblog Config you can adjust your timezone to allow for this. Although the server knows about Daylight Savings, MT doesn't.

Posted by: Pixy Misa @ at March 28, 2004 11:18 AM

2 Did you guys change time again? That means I have to change MY MT time zone, too, even though we didn't change our clocks....

Posted by: Susie @ at March 28, 2004 05:40 PM

3 The server is on GMT, so you shouldn't need to change, Susie.

...

I think. I dunno. Bedtime for Pixy.

Posted by: Pixy Misa @ at March 28, 2004 06:04 PM

4 Y'see, it knows about daylight savings, but it handles it separately for each user. Except MT all runs under one user, and MT itself doesn't know about daylight savings.

Sort of.

Bed. Yes.

Posted by: Pixy Misa @ at March 28, 2004 06:05 PM

5 I thought DST wasn't until April 4th? Did I oversleep THAT late?

Posted by: LeeAnn @ at March 28, 2004 11:31 PM

6 Oho, nevermind, found info on it.... you tricky non-Americans and your summertime rules.

Posted by: LeeAnn @ at March 28, 2004 11:34 PM

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