innerdimension.net

Upgraded to WordPress 2.5

I just upgraded the site to WordPress 2.5.  If you visit the site and have any issues, please let me know.

Thanks!

Now on MT 4.0 Final

Well the site is now on the production MT 4.0 codebase, which was released today. I haven’t had the time to dig into why the sidebar templates get all clobbered when I try to strip out the junk and add in a widget set, but hopefully I’ll get to it soon.

Movable Tweak: Movable Type 3 vs. Movable Type 4: A Modular Site Approach

Jesse Gardner recently posted a great article on his Movable Tweak site documenting the fundamental design changes between MT3 Templates and MT4 Teamplates. If you haven’t looked at the templates, basically all of the current templates have been modularized so common components are read from the same file, where previously you had to go to every template you wanted to change by hand. You can read the article here.

MT4 RC1 and Default Styles - What a Mess

So I just upgraded from MT4 Beta 6 to RC1 today, and also went through every template to update it to the new MT4 code (something I didn’t do during Beta 6). Everything works as intended. I then try one of the new standard styles available through the UI. It loads okay, but it removes the widget list I created. The problem is, the styles should enumerate / create a widget set to use for the style, and instead it seems to be hard-coded to the style itself. Nice, now I have to scrape through module code to take their stuff out and put back the widget selection code that should have been there in the first place. Ugh.

Brian - Now on Pownce

Well I’m now on yet another Social Netoworking app called Pownce. Kind of like Twitter, kind of like IM, but different. You can also share events and files (up to 10MB). If you’re on, add me.

Movable Type Upgrade to 3.35 and Extras

After receiving a flurry of trackback spam (some from the same source as often as 3x every 5 minutes), I upgraded the site from Movable Type 3.31 to 3.35, as well as tweaked SpamLookup as well as added Akismet functionality, and so far (6 hours), all of the trackback spam has been caught. Hopefully the new layers of spam filtering are a long term success.

Update to MovableType 3.31

I just upgraded the MovableType software to 3.31. It adds some new features and scalability, tags, etc. If for some reason anything looks broken, let me know!

Finished!!! (I think)

Well now that all of the entries are imported, the styles added, and the extras in place, I think the migration to MovableType 3.2 is complete. I’m using a totally different database method to work around the whole DBI module issue with my hosting provider, and I think this will be AOK. Let me know what you think about the new look!

Progress

As you can see my second and somewhat more convoluted attempt to upgrade to 3.2 is underway. I have the site functional, however the template additions I made have not been brought over yet. I plan on tackling this soon, and everything should be back to normal.

Well that was nasty.

As you can see the upgrade to 3.2 failed horribly. I was eager to install the new version in all its glory, so I followed the upgrade instructions, converted my mt.cfg to the new mt-config.cgi format, uploaded all of the new files nice and neat, and then ran mt-check to see if everything checked out. I get an error that the wonderful perl module DBI is not installed. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem except that DBI is now needed for MovableType to interface with SQL databases in 3.2. As this site is on a shared server, I call CIHost in hopes that the powers that be can either install DBI (not likely) or move me to a server that does. I try and the only possible resolution they have is that they would gladly move my account to a dedicated server so I can install DBI for . So I try and go to the mt admin page anyway in hopes that it would work. It doesn’t, and crashes with a TON of errors blabbing about not being able to use DBI. Now here’s the kicker: When SixApart released the new version, they removed all links to the old version from their website, and since I didn’t have a copy of the old version on my local machine I was between a rock and a hardplace. I tried the forums to see if I could convert the database to BerkleyDB which would work without the infamous DBI module with no response. So I scoured google and found a few souls who still had the code for 3.17 on their site, and downloaded it. I renamed my mt folder and then installed a fresh full copy of 3.17 on, then copied over my mt.cfg and password file, and we’re back and running. WAY too much time over a silly module, but those are the breaks. I might try and export my entries and import them in a BerkleyDB implementation as a side exercise but this has left me a little drained. Time to start thinking about a new hosting provider at the end of this term (April). Any recommendations for mt-friendly hosts will be appreciated.