May 2004 Archives

This is my contribution to the informal survey started by Six Apart about the ways people are using Movable Type in the real world. It is rare enough to see a company listen to its users so quickly and be wiling to make changes where other companies would just have ignored the outcry and told everyone to just live with it.

So... how are we using MT ?

Not as frequently or as extensively as I would like I am afraid.

We are using 2 blogs with 2 authors (my brother and myself). Each blog is made up of a main blog and a secondary one to keep track of lists of links.

I also customized a couple of templates in the source code itself to replace the default editor by an HTML embedded editor (FCKedit). This is not working a 100% (still getting odd �timeout� messages from MT from time to time on long entries) but it is enough to get the job done.

I would not mind paying for a personal license as long as it covered more than 1 author (I can see that being a recurring theme on blogs shared by multiple members of the same family) and allowed tinkering with the source code.

I really hope this survey will result in changes to the terms of licenses.

Like many others, I was looking forward with excitement to see what the new version of Movable Type had to offer. Since the announcement was made a few days ago of a new version, Movable Type 3.0,  and a new licensing scheme, �disappointment� and �confusion� are more applicable to the situation.

In the middle of the outcry (amplified by a recent feature in Slashdot), some popular blogs are trying to keep a cool view of what is happening. Check out Brad Choates answer to the debacle..

For those who have not heard yet (and who still care), Six Apart announced their free version of MT3 will be restricted to 1 author and 3 blogs. To their credit, they have answered to the outcry following the announcement with a detailed clarification about MT3 pricing change  where they announced a revision of the license already (5 blogs instead of 3).

I came late to using a blog for my website, and although I am not posting frequently enough to justify calling this site a real blog, I can easily understand how people who are already paying for their internet access and their hosting are upset to find out they have to pay for an upgrade to something that was free when they first got it.

The answer may look simple - keep the existing version or move to another blog system altogether. The first solution means keep using a software that will become more and more obsolete each day. The other solution means accepting  to go through setting up yet again and migrating past data into a new system.

I will probably keep this version (still free) until the dust settles, and switch to a personal license when I have a chance.

I�m afraid I won�t have much to show on these pages for a while.

Too much work during the week, too many issues to keep track of and not much time in the evening to do anything else than chat around a cup of coffee and blow some steam off in the tropical battlefield of Far Cry. This is the longest �low� phase I had to go through for a long time.

Usually, creativity cycles go up and down every other month. High phases are spent cranking one image after the other, until I run out of steam. Low phases are usually the occasion to catch up on video games I set aside for rainy days, and work on the website if I have time. I have enough games to keep on like this for a while, although I can already feel the itch of creating new 3D scenes.

Maybe it is the influence of spending some time every night on keeping an eye on the Vue forum at Renderosity... although things have been running smoothly over there for a while. Hopefully, being a moderator won�t turn out to be such a distraction I can�t find the time to work on more images.

In the meantime, working on the EERIE alumni website has been an interesting experience. First exposure to PHP and MS SQL, blended together with a touch of Cold Fusion. The development of that site is going smoothly so far. I may even go on reviving some of my old pages soon. The next site in line will be the Cthulhu gallery.

Working on the EERIE website showed me how disconnected from my friends in France I have become. It is a great occasion to reconnect however. I didn�t realise how much I missed that until I started catching up with what everybody has been doing for the past few years. I feel like I just came out of a long period of blur once again. Seeing what everybody I used to know have become makes me appreciate even more what I have now. Things are not so bad after all.

@-EERIE, the website of alumni from the School for Research and Study in Electronic and Computer Science of Nimes, is finally officially open for business.

I don’t expect a flood of visits however. The goal of the site is to provide a place on the web to meet, reconnect and celebrate what our school used to be for the 10 years of its existence. There is still a site called EERIE in Nimes, but the academic and research program has changed since the takeover from another nearby school called EMA.

The website is currently made of two pieces - a PHP forum based on PHPBB, and a database of alumni based on Cold Fusion. Both sides have their own database for now. Future improvements will be about merging the two databases and turning the two pieces into a single site.