I spent the better part of yesterday evening upgrading to Movable Type 3.2, and like every other MT upgrade I've done over the past 3 years, this one can best be described as "craptacular". I don't know why Six Apart can't seem to do a better job of automating the process. I guess I'm getting what I paid for (nothing). I probably should switch to a different blogging interface at some point, but since I'm on a server running a dead OS and don't have shell permissions to access the system, the thought fills me with even more trepidation than continuing to use MT.

At least they're bundling some plugins with this new release to deal with comment and trackback spam, although I'm disappointed that TypeKey is still the only authentication service being offered. Why not switch to a simple verification system based on alphanumeric characters embedded in images, like the one Blogger uses, instead of forcing commenters to register with a centralized service? Overkill. If anyone knows of an MT plugin that provides a Blogger-like comment verification process, please drop me an e-mail or leave a comment.

Anyway, after straightening out some problems with the file upload and resolving a mysterious conversion of special characters with umlauts into dingbats, I've finally got the site and the user interface to the point where they're at least as functional as they were before I began this whole process. Hopefully, none of you will encounter any problems, but if you do, let me know. I have comment throttling enabled, so if you leave a comment and don't see it appear on the site right away, don't panic, just wait 20 seconds or so.

I'll be making some further changes to the site today. I hope to add an Atom feed and convert my archives from date-based to category-based so you can more easily browse through my old posts.

UPGRADEDATE: looks like the Atom feed isn't going to happen until I can find a way to compile the XML::Atom perl module on my home system, and since I've got about 500 more entries to categorize, I won't be changing the archives for a couple of days, at least. Oh well, it'll all happen eventually.

Posted by MrBaliHai at 9:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

There's a brief interview with Ralf Zeigermann (AKA The Cartoonist) over at Bloggasm, in which he describes how he got started blogging and how it's affected his career as a freelance artist. He also mentions, quite rightly, that everyone in the world should be reading Eye of the Goof. Apparently, the post-hypnotic suggestion I planted in his brain back in the Summer of 2004 worked like a charm.

Thanks, Ralf!

Posted by MrBaliHai at 6:14 PM | Permalink