作譜

This blog slowly started to focus on tech matters, and so I’ve decided to archive this site and launch a new blog called Bit-Wise Dilettante. It’s about as frequently updated as this one.

Here a feed, there a feed, everywhere a feed, feed.

Pretty much every social networking and blog site provide syndication feeds for users, and my own sites have their own feeds. I just assume if you know me, you’re probably subscribed to them. But I shouldn’t be so presumptuous. So for the convenience of the three people who read this site, here are all the feeds you should probably know to keep up with what I do:

• Gregbueno.com: http://www.gregbueno.com/index.xml This feed actually encompasses all the blogs I maintain with my Movable Type install. If you can’t get enough of me, this feed should turn that around right quick.
• 昨譜: http://www.gregbueno.com/mt/sakufu_index.xml
• 名作記 http://www.gregbueno.com/mt/meisakuki_index.xml
• Eponymous 4 News http://www.gregbueno.com/mt/eponymous4_index.xml
• Eponymous 4 News on MySpace http://blog.myspace.com/blog/rss.cfm?friendID=25792983
• Musicwhore.org http://www.musicwhore.org/index.xml
• Filmwhore.org http://www.filmwhore.org/index.xml
• TVwhore.org http://www.tvwhore.org/index.xml
• Last.fm journal http://ws.audioscrobbler.com/1.0/user/NemesisVex/journals.rss
• Vox http://nemesisvex.vox.com/library/posts/atom.xml This is a half-assed attempt to get back to online journal writing.

I’m not sure how I ever became both lazy and particular.

For a guy who loves efficiency, I really do make things difficult for myself. Rather than let Movable Type handle all the details of publishing my sites, I instead code my interface to the database backend. When Musicwhore.org was more of a monstrosity, I could justify the extended code.

These days, I’m just set in my ways. I don’t want a bunch of static files sitting on my web space. I should know better — serving up static files is much more merciful on the processor than forcing it query a database and build content on the fly.

So in trying to make things simpler, I’ve made them more complex.

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Yeah, that’s a comment form down at the bottom of the page there.

Comments have been supported on this site since the beginning, but I hid the interface behind my custom-built account system to prevent spambots from detecting my Movable Type installation.

Well, I upgraded to Movable Type 3.33 and enabled chip’s force preview plug-in. I will brave the spammers now. If you have an account already, you can still log in and pre-populate the fields with your info. I love providing options.

All comments are moderated, by the way.

I keep meaning to write these blog entries, but my blog-writing time (i.e. in the office) is being curtailed by actual, you know, work.

So here’s a note to myself to write:

• A "Looking ahead" entry (for Musicwhore.org) Written.
• A declaration of surrender to software developers who set background colors but do not set foreground colors (for this site) Written.
• A list of (presumably) straight actors who I would like to see play gay at some point (for TVWhore.org) Written.
• A review of 16/50 by Supercar and/or Long Island Shores by Mindy Smith (for Musicwhore.org) Written and written.
• A hint to friends who read this site to consider gift cards from Guitar Center when writing my name down on their holiday lists (for this site).

This entry will self-destruct once all these other entries have been written.

… because I’ve been posting to it a lot since the start of the fall season.

Like the new design? It’s actually a variation on a previous design.

Before I went with the design with all the non-scrolling elements, this site and its companions had a simple, centered text column with vertical navigation and the masthead on the right side. It had far more color than the black background of the last design.

Well, I’ve gone back to that design with some variations. The masthead and navigation now follows a more "Western" approach, and I’m using the technologically cool Tahoma typeface than Trebuchet MS.

I wanted to abandon using images for text, so if you see question marks in the masthead, it just means you don’t have Japanese fonts installed. This site still looks weird in IE6, but you know what? I don’t care. I’m tired of IE’s non-compliance with web standards, and I’m not going to hack for that browser any more.

I’ve been wanting to redesign for a while now, but I didn’t get inspired till I browsed around Open Web Design. I’m not slick enough to go for a full Web 2.0 treatment.

*sniff, sniff* … *ha-choo!*

Yup. It’s pretty musty here. It’s probably high time to dust this corner of the Internets off.

But how? That’s a good question.

I’ve sort of held a bit of pride for not having to install MT-Blacklist since employing Movable Type back in 2003.

I tried to be clever — I wrapped MT’s comment script around my own account interface, which requires human approval. If bots tried to scan my pages for a comments script, they weren’t going to have an easy time finding it.

Trackbacks, though, were a different matter.

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So here’s a conundrum …

I recently redesigned Musicwhore.org to allow music-related blog posts, which means a lot of the content I’ve put here in the past will probably end up there in the future.

Which means this site is going to be lacking content. And given the month between this update and the last update, this particular lot in saibaasupeesu is going to be a bit barren.

What to do?

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