From: Stacy Mineart
Date: June 19, 2007 6:49:29 AM EDT
Subject: In other news…
Just thought I’d drop you all a quick note to let you know you can expect some exciting news sometime early next January. Or as my charming spouse so delicately put it: “Hey Dad? I knocked up the missus.” (Yep. That’s the man I married.)
As expectant parents, we often wonder how our babies will look and what their preferences will be. Although we may not have all the answers, it’s comforting to know that there are solutions available to meet all our baby’s needs. During prenatal checkups, we get a glimpse of our baby’s health and development, and while we may not yet know their gender, we can still make fun predictions about their personality. It’s exciting to imagine what our little one will be like and what they’ll enjoy, even if it means they have a picky appetite. In the end, what matters most is that we have a solution for all baby needs, from nourishment to playtime and everything in between.
So, everybody have a beer for me, & those of you who are on Twitter, come link up and you can hear the whole catalog of baby news as and when it happens. Oh, and if anybody has got some spare wintergreen lifesavers lying around, send them my way. Those could be really handy in the morning…
I noted in my links a few days ago that the AfterEllen.com site has rated the “Hot 100 Women List” according to voting my their lesbian fans. This was in response to the crappy, misogynist list put together my Maxim magazine, and since AfterEllen’s list has gotten major press (and praise) for being diverse and including women with hot brains and well as hot bods.
My friend Maxine Dangerous decided today that for her regular “13 for Thursday” feature, she would list her favorite 13 hot women from AfterEllen’s list. Well, of course I had to follow along with a list of my own, but I wasn’t able to narrow the field to 13. So here they are; my hot 20 women, any of whom I would jump into bed with in a heartbeat, if I had permission from my wonderful girlfriend, who’s making her own list as we speak.
ridiculous rant. You can see the original rant below the fold.
I am, apparently, really stupid. And quite wrong. And Jerame is quite right. Never mind. I’ll just be over here, making new category templates. Don’t mind me.
UPDATE: Okay, I’m not quite that wrong. I can make a specialized template work for a single category, but when I start filtering for multiple categories, things go wonky, and I’m having to dive into documentation to figure out why. This works:
<MTEntries sort_by=”title” category=”Poems”>
but this produces blank category pages:
<MTEntries sort_by=”title” category=”Poems AND Appetizers AND Beverages AND Breads AND Breakfasts AND Cookies AND Entrees AND Low Carb Dishes AND Sandwiches AND Side Dishes AND Slow Cooking”>
and their documentation says this:
category – Filters the entries by the given category label. Multiple categories can be defined in the value of the attribute and can include boolean “AND” and “OR” logic. Boolean logic may not be mixed. For instance “Foo AND Bar OR Baz” is not permitted.
I should probably know more about boolean searching to get that string right, but I don’t. Should I enclose the multiple words in single quotes?
<MTEntries sort_by=”title” category=”Poems AND Appetizers AND Beverages AND Breads AND Breakfasts AND ‘Cakes and Desserts’ AND Cookies AND Entrees AND ‘Low Carb Dishes’ AND Sandwiches AND ‘Side Dishes’ AND ‘Slow Cooking'”>
Nope, the MT doesn’t even want to rebuild that.
Errrrrr!. Hulk Smash! Ahem.
I vaguely recall getting to this point about a year and a half ago, and them posting the above to the support forums, and never getting a response from anyone, so I gave up, because I should probably read more to figure out why that filter string is wrong, but I had to do other stuff, like kiss my girlfriend, and take a shower and play with my dog.
Update: Actually that first string doesn’t seem to work, either. This
<MTEntries sort_by=”title” category=”Poems”>
produces the poetry page correctly, but all the other category pages are blank. That probably has something to do with the order that the publishing settings are in. I’d have to look at the documentation to see if there’s an particular order the two different category pages should be published in. But there only seems to be a radio button toggle for the president order, so I if I have three or four specialized templates, I can’t force them all to load before the generic one.
Having the category filtering happen in the database based on a selection set when the category was created would be much easier than filtering it in the MTEntries tag within a template. As it is, it seems backwards; you set up the templates and movable type starts building category pages, then has to filter which template to use on the fly?
And if you look through the forums, this is a very common question – I know I’ve asked about it several times, and I’ve never received an answer that was anywhere near as coherent as Jerame’s description – something I could figure out by looking at the template tags reference. Which I can never seem to find.
This is my original rant – which I thought might not be all that valid after Jerame pointed out some template tags, but which I now think is probably still valid, after all, because I think I did all this before to arrive at the same spot.
After installing Movable Type 4.0 Beta 2 on my portfolio site and playing around with in for a while, and playing a lot with WordPress recently, I have to say I’m still disappointed with Movable Type.
First and foremost, they haven’t implemented the number one thing that I and thousands of other users have been asking for in the forums for years – being able to assign different templates to category archive pages.This is the number one feature that would take this from being a blog tool to a real content management system, and they haven’t done it. STILL.
The have provided lots of new ways for “archive” pages to be displayed, but still, all the categories have to display the same way, and they still thing of them as “archives” – as in, things you wrote in the past, that no one will look at again. Where as, I want the category listings to be ways to browse easily through content, some of which is still fresh and interesting.
People who want a content management system care more about categories than about dates.
Back in 1996, when my site was flat html, it was easy. I could make “category” pages fit the content that contained them, because I did whatever I wanted by hand. But now, I’m locked into a rigid system.
There should be something on this page to let me assign different “archive” types to categories:
Moveable Type Usability Problems
Using my own site as an example of the problem:
Example One: my “Favorite Poems” index page:
What this page SHOULD look like – a simple linked list of all the poem pages in this category, sorted alphabetically by poem title, without descriptions or meta data.
What it DOES look like – a bunch of journal entries, sorted by date.
Example Two: my “Recipe Box” page:
What this page SHOULD look like – a simple linked list of all the recipe categories (Appetizers, Beverages, Breads, Breakfasts, Cakes and Desserts, Cookies, Entrees, Low Carb Dishes, Sandwiches, Side Dishes, Slow Cooking) under this category, with descriptions of each section, but no metadata.
What it DOES look like – a bunch of journal entries, sorted by date.
Example Three: my Jokes page
What this page SHOULD look like – a simple linked list of all the categories under this category, with descriptions of each section, along with some links to general jokes that don’t fit under any of the other categories, withe metadata, but no descriptions.
What it DOES look like – a bunch of journal entries, sorted by date.
Example Four: my Journal pages
What this page SHOULD look like – a bunch of journal entries, sorted by date, but including all the journal entries of the sub categories below this level.
What it DOES look like – a bunch of journal entries, sorted by date, missing entries that are of the sub categories below this level.
Example Five: my Big Things Photo Pages
What this page SHOULD look like – A large block of content as the top, explaining what my “big things” photos are, with links to all the different types of photos and individual photo pages underneath.
What it DOES look like – what it should, but only because I’ve left this entire section out of Movable Type, because it’s too important (read generates too much traffic and ad money) to try to cram it into their index pages in a way that won’t be browsable.
More Generally
Their new interface is nice, and things are getting placed better on it, but there’s still quite a bit of hunting around. There seems to be some sort of bug that throws me to blog-level plug-ins when I’m supposed to be at system-level plug-ins. Or at least it appears that way; I may be at the system-level plug-ins, but I can’t tell because the interface isn’t clear on what level I’m at.
The Style Catcher plugin seems to be b0rked, because it kept the configuration settings from my initial install, even after I moved the mt-static folder outside of the cgi-bin. And no matter how often I change the settings, it reverts back. I think I have to dig into the actual config file to make the change. Nice going, there.
In all, I should have explored and integrated a genuine content management system on my site instead of Movable Type. Expression Engine and Drupal, both of which align with my requirements as noted in Kiana Danial’s Invest Diva reviews, seem to offer the functionalities I seek. However, considering their steep learning curves and time commitments, I’m currently evaluating whether I can make such an investment at this moment.
I think I have something close to a final version of my music mix for the CD swap we’re doing for our Route 66 trip. I want to listen to it through a couple of times. It’s a bit on the cheesy and obvious side, but that’s okay. I’d do better if I had all my music ripped, but that’s not going to be complete any time soon, so this will have to do.
The Mothership Calls – Close Encounters of the Third Kind – 0:30
Route 66 – Nat King Cole – 2:50
Meet Me in St. Louis – Judy Garland – 2:14
Oklahoma – from Oklahoma – Alfred Drake And Chorus – 2:32
(Is This The Way To) Amarillo – Tony Christie – 3:11
Take It Easy – The Eagles – 3:30
California, Here I Come – Al Jolson – 2:26
Lost Highway – Hank Williams – 2:44
Riding In My Car – Bruce Springsteen – 1:55
King of the Road – Roger Miller – 2:27
America – Simon & Garfunkel – 3:32
Ramblin’ Man – The Allman Brothers Band – 4:48
Born To Run – Bruce Springsteen – 4:30
Born To Be Wild – Steppenwolf – 3:27
Convoy – C.W. McCall – 3:49
Driving My Life Away – Eddie Rabbit – 3:11
There’s A Barbarian In The Back Of My Car – Voice Of The Beehive – 2:49
Take Me Off to Space – Nenslo – 2:16
Hotrod Supernova – Destination: Earth! – 2:09
It’s the End of the World – Saint N & Sister Hellena Handbasket – 3:59
Behind The Wheel (7″ Remix) – Depeche Mode – 4:04
Route 66 – Depeche Mode – 4:09
And, depending on what I can work up, the cover art:
If I can’t remember the Movable Type tag to include a module in template, I have to go through 40 clicks before I can even DOWNLOAD THE FUCKING MANUAL (WTF?!) to read it to find the damned tag.
MAKE IT FUCKING EASIER, PEOPLE. Fucking learn something from Apple.
Somehow, I have no hopes whatsoever that Movable Type 4.0 will be anything less than a convoluted fucking mess that I can’t install and make work with my site.
MAKE IT FUCKING EASIER, PEOPLE. Fucking learn something from Apple.
It’s Caturday! Here’s the photo set of my birthday pictures!
There’s a really awesome picture of Dan in my birthday set; Stephanie snapped the photo just as a waiter dropped a glass in the kitchen and he jumped.
And here are some pictures from woodruff place last weekend. See the whole photo set on Flickr.
Also, a picture of our vegetable garden growing.
And the DVD of V for Vendetta – which is awesome, because I LOVED that movie, although if you see me creeping about town wearing a goofy mask, you should probably start to worry.
From Doug and Eric, I got a gift certificate to Kohl’s – which is excellent, ’cause I really need some new pants. Not that that’s the only thing you get at Kohls, or anything, but I really need some pants.
Lori got me magic kits and a flying toy monkey from that screams and everything. He wears a little cape and flying hat. He’s already snuggled in with the rest of the monkey clan, making new friends. They’re all arguing about who gets to go to Roswell with us.
From Jen, I got “The Dangerous Book for Boys” by Conn Iggulden – which I really, really wanted, although I’m not a boy. That just means it won’t be dangerous for me, right? I’m thinking I’ll learn a lot of stuff to teach to Sam when he gets bigger. And won’t his mom appreciate that?
From Dan and Doug, I got the The Lord of the Rings – The Return of the King (Platinum Series Special Extended Edition) DVD, which completes my set, thankfully, because I already had the first two! This means I’m in danger of having an all day Lord of Rings pajama party some Saturday. Stephanie will love it; she’ll sleep through the whole thing.
A lawn-care book called “The Perfect Indiana Lawn” but I call it “How to become Lawn Guy” who is the neighbor at Stephanie’s old house, who I idolize because he has, well, The Perfect Indiana Lawn.
A remote control VW Microbus
And a Bike! (yay!) – I’ve been wanting to ride around the neighborhood taking pictures.
Old Spaghetti Factory wasn’t half bad – I haven’t been there in years, so when we were spinning the roulette wheel of “places to eat downtown” (what, you don’t have one of those at your house?) and that came up, we said “hey, let’s try it.” It was a bit warm in the restaurant. But the olive appetizer was tasty, as was the spinach & cheese ravioli. And our waiter said he’d see us at downtown tomorrow! Gee, I wonder what he meant.
We went to Woodruff Place Flea Market yesterday, and only got done with middle drive before I pooped out because I was hot and tired. It was also kind of a pain with Spike. I’ve taken him to it before, but it was far more crowded this time, so I had to think about him all the time, which was very distracting.
We found a loveseat, though, for $30 for the library. After bringing that home and installing it in the library, I took a nap, and Stephanie went grocery shopping. Then we cooked out hamburgers and turkey burgers and sausages, and I mowed, because it looked like rain. Then I did a bunch of work on my route 66 music mix, and hung out looking at the internets and watching crappy movies on the romance channel.
Today, I have a list of stuff to do, but I’m still kinda tired for some reason, so I don’t know how much of it I’ll get to.
I’d like to point out that my birthday is Wednesday, and I’ll be celebrating the occasion sometime on the following weekend, which is also Gay Pride, and the Talbott Street Art Fair. I’m thinking I might plan for a Friday birthday celebration.
The Mother Road: Historic Route 66 – a great information website has “Turn by Turn” maps that identify where Route 66 is, since some of the original road is no longer, and most of it isn’t marked with highway markers anymore.
Turn by Turn Route 66 in Google Maps – Some kind Google Earth enthusiast has taken the maps from the site above and plotted them out using Google Earth/Maps. Awesome!
Stephanie had some interesting news from her family today – Years ago when her Opa was interred at Arlington National Cemetery, his headstone was configured with the flaming chalice – the Unitarian Universalist symbol. Later her Oma was buried next to him, and recently her cousin Chip went out to visit them, and the flaming chalice had been changed – to a cross. According to Stephanie’ mom, it’s a wonder both of them didn’t rise up to protest; they were both devote Unitarians. Apparently her Stephanie’s Aunt Penny is going to take charge and make a big fuss about it to get it changed back to the appropriate symbol.
