After some SQL database wrassling, an initial install, unexplained 505 errors and subsequent re-install, I got Movable Type running on the new domain last night. All my templates are moved over, I’ve got the sideblog running (courtesy of MultiBlog by David Rayners), and it looks like the minor bugs are worked out. I still have to design and build the category and archive sections, hook up my empty Flickr account, and do some minor tweaking around the edges, but it’s looking good.
The next step after all that is to update the old logsite and add links from here to there, and add MT-Blacklist so that I don’t get comment spammed.
Overall, the install went easily and well. My only complaint was with my hosting provider’s SQL setup and the MT install directions, which didn’t really go into detail about exactly how to point to the database. I wasn’t even sure I’d created one until I manually re-installed the executable files this morning.
Excellent T-shirt design.
RTFM! (via boingboing)
I met my buddy Jason at an Irish bar down the street for lunch and some beers this afternoon. Jason and I used to work for the same company in the early, silly days of the Internet, building sites together like the Jewish Times and the Columbia Village Centers. (You laugh, but they are both six years old now, designed for 256 colors and Pentium 100’s, and they still work.) Among other things, he’s an English expatriate, an old drinking buddy, a business partner, and a good friend. He’s between jobs right now, enjoying his free time, and awaiting the birth of his first baby. I couldn’t be happier for him. We talked about old times, shared friends, and our future plans, and made a promise not to fall out of touch again. It was great to see him, and I’m looking forward to a foosball rematch sometime soon.
Penn busted his orange ass out of the hole this afternoon and beat the shit out of Geneva, which pretty much ends the struggle to integrate him. We’re going to put him up for adoption next week. If anybody in the Baltimore area is interested in an otherwise normal, four-year-old orange tabby, who doesn’t own any other cats, we have a fellow who’d like to meet you. Honestly, he’s a happy, well-adjusted cat when he’s not around other cats, he’s loving, and he’s had all his shots. Help me find him a home.
The domain name search has been an exercise in frustration. I used to think that I’d be able to come up with something in five minutes, but when I actually put my mind to it, it stumped me. A word or a phrase or a nickname that isn’t too embarrassing, perhaps. (I didn’t really have anything other than my last name, which worked fine usually, but isn’t what I want for this site.) Hopefully nobody else has taken it yet. Do a domain name search for it…. Chances are, it’s already gone. Adding a level of complexity, tailoring the name around what the site is about- art, poetry, quantum physics… chances are somebody’s got it. Or worse, somebody’s squatting on it and willing to sell it for an inflated price. This stuff gets harder and harder.
Now, I’m also a snob because I don’t want a .biz or .us or .info extension, so I realize I’m being picky. I tried phrases that reflected the house, and things inside it, e.g. the toilet in the basement, which always makes me laugh, has a yellow seatcover with a smiley face painted on the top: Pottyface.org. I tried silly words I use all the time: all permeutations of craptacular and craptastic are taken. (Most of the other phrases I use are PG-13 and R-rated, unfortunately.)
Then I started thinking of common phrases and dissecting them: one came to mind immediately, which was [open mouth] insertfoot.org. Another was [this house/truck/tool is] donebusted.org. Song titles that might lend a name were consulted: idiotking.org is available. I haven’t decided on anything yet, but I’m going to make a decision in the next 24 hours so I can get this thing off the ground.
Bling. This past weekend, I noticed a new realty sign on the corner down the street on my way to work. Always curious, Jen and I did a search and found that the four-square around the corner (same floorplan, same square footage) is on the market for the astronomical sum of $550K. Good LORD. We’d better spiff up our house before the neighborhood upscales us out of existence.
No, I’m still here. Today was Meeting Day, when both the project team I’m working with and the entire art staff at work met at two separate times for long periods of talking. Then I had to pump out a sketch of an impossibly convoluted UI screen for a meeting tomorrow morning before leaving tonight.
Foresight, foursite and foursight are unavailable in the usual extensions. Foursquared.org is available; fourscore is out. Jen and I have been thinking of names for the whole morning and we can’t come up with anything really catchy. We’re trying to play off the ‘fourth’ in my full name (I’m the fourth Bill Dugan, yes) but that gets pretty limiting. I’m trying to keep it relatively neutral but still connected in some way to who I am. As much as I like Blogdahlia (thanks XLC) I’m trying to keep ‘blog’ out of it—I dislike the word—and I’m trying to make it as concise as possible. (www.thelongesturlnamevercreatedbyman.com is kind of a drag to type in.) Austinscarlett.com is already taken. whatsthefrequency.org is available.
Love Is. When your wife bakes you a fresh turkey pot pie and a chocolate cake in the same evening. I was so stuffed I couldn’t move last night.
This morning I awoke to the sound of the doorbell click-clacking and a knock on the door. I was laying in bed ignoring the snooze alarm and trying to decide if the beep-beep-beep sound outside was a road crew hot-patching the hole across the road (it wasn’t) and later, if the hollow tapping sound was our door, when I suddenly realized we had an appointment with a cabinet installer, who was supposed to take measurements of our kitchen so that we can find out just how much blood we have to sell to finance a remodel. He seemed ok when I greeted him in my pajamas and bedhead, and clucked when he saw the room. The good news is that we’ll probably be able to fit a dishwasher in there, and running a gas line for a range should be easy. The bad news is that it’s still small, the stove stays where it is, and there’s not a whole lot we can do with the fridge.
In the meantime, I’ve been lax about writing here so that I can put the finishing touches on the local version of a new weblog. I have a sideblog installed (a sort of secondary blog of interesting links, in this case) and the templates completed; I’m still working out the archive sections and the search result page. Unfortunately, I’ve been neglecting to settle on a name for the damned thing, which is kind of important in buying a domain. Suggestions? Really, I’m kind of stumped here.
foursquare and brokedown are all unavailable with the extensions I want (.com, .net or .org). Fivecentsplease has been ruled out. Waitingroom is unavailable. (I’m thinking of a doctor/house theme here, have you noticed?) PerpetualRenovations is available but a little long—maybe there’s a shorter cousin…? ThisOldGrouse is available.
It Is Decided. Our firstborn son will be named Octavio.
Corrollary: It took us about an hour to remember the third Bee Gee’s name (Jen finally got it). Can you get all three? No cheating…
I’ve got a lot of the templates set up in my local copy of Movable Type, and now that I’ve been immersed in it for a week, it’s making a lot more sense. I guess it didn’t help me at first using a year-old book geared for the previous version, but between that and the internet I’ve figured out quite a bit of this on my own. Stay tuned…
In other geek news, I reformatted a spare drive, loaded OS9, put RAM, a battery, and the hard drive back in the busted iMac, plugged it in, and…watched as the screen went dim, the power shut off, and a wisp of ozone-laced smoke wafted out of the grillework. Looks like the flyback transformer finally barfed, rendering it useless. Not that I need it anyway, but I’m always up for a challenge.
There’s not much else to tell—between work and freelance, I haven’t had much time to sit still. Jen, however, cooked me a roast chicken in her dutch oven last night and got me to stay on the couch for almost the whole duration of CSI.
Progress is being made on the design front; I have a working, usable index page template in Movable Type running on my Powerbook’s webserver (where my test install of MT resides) and it’s been slowly coming together. I’m tweaking the fonts and coloring, and I’ve moved some stuff around. Next up is enabling and configuring the comment section (popup vs. inline?) and then wrassling with the Archive section. Finally, I’ll install some sideblogs for other content (the music and links sections). I’m excited.
Can somebody else out there with IE6 or 5 check my home page and tell me if the image shows up at all? Thanks! (My install of IE here at work is hopelessly buggy.)
This weekend looks like it’s going to be very barfy around here, so we may keep close to home and get things done around the house. I’d like to finish the painting job and put the baseboards back permanently, and actually get to work on the wiring in the back bedroom. I also got in touch with a friend’s wife who designs kitchens, in the hopes that we can get our disaster cleaned up before we’re in the family way. Note: the other night I pulled up about five square inches of the linoleum to expose a thin layer of plywood and green pre-war linoleum underneath. Under the green is pretty pine flooring, ready for sanding. No word yet on its condition….
Progress. Let me know what you think of this here sketch for a new weblog. Anything broken? Out of alignment? on fire?