Weblogging
It's finally happened: I switched weblogging systems.
Earlier this year, between jobs, I spent quite a bit of time working on some upgrades to OpenWeblog. These upgrades allowed me to do all sorts of nice things (like work better with existing weblogging tools) that I couldn't do with the older version of the software. I had even implemented a really nice FTP backend to the weblog entry repository, so that you could post to the weblog using FTP tools. I was growing a full-blown CMS.
But I chickened out on actually putting it into production. I lied to myself -- told myself that my words were too valuble, too precious to be off the Internet when any breakage happened (as if I had kept my site up 24/7/365). I'm beginning to think that I my subconcious was shouting what I would conciously say to other people about their pet projects: "Hasn't this already been done?"
So, when my boss asked me what we could offer our clients in the way of weblogs, I began looking around at the available tools. I considered indulging my hubris and using the OpenWeblog codebase to build up something. But, I knew that there would be plenty of bugs to shake out and I had other more "mission-critical" tasks at work (read that as: Using my largly un-tested code would mean lots of wasted time and blogs aren't gonna make us any money. Not directly, at least.)
And I wanted to let people comment on stuff I write here. Sure, you could email me, but somehow people are more likely to write an comment on a weblog than to write an email.
In the back of my mind, I had been thinking about using the LiveJournal code base: it is written for mod_perl, hosts multiple weblogs, allows comments, encourages community journals, and supports Atom as well as its own fairly mature protocol. LJ gets a lot of flack because it is associated with whining teenagers, but several of my friends and people I know have used it (uber-hacker jwz and an Orthodox bishop, to name but two). The request from my boss just pushed me to finally make a decision.
So, I've changed the server at http://www.openweblog.com/. It is now a LiveJournal Server. Accounts are free (for now). If you set up a domain and point it at openweblog.com's IP, you can even have your journal/blog show up there.
That's what we've done with Alexis' weblog. Her id is dvfmama and we've registered dvfmama.com to point there. I'll let her explain what "DVFMama" means.
Earlier this year, between jobs, I spent quite a bit of time working on some upgrades to OpenWeblog. These upgrades allowed me to do all sorts of nice things (like work better with existing weblogging tools) that I couldn't do with the older version of the software. I had even implemented a really nice FTP backend to the weblog entry repository, so that you could post to the weblog using FTP tools. I was growing a full-blown CMS.
But I chickened out on actually putting it into production. I lied to myself -- told myself that my words were too valuble, too precious to be off the Internet when any breakage happened (as if I had kept my site up 24/7/365). I'm beginning to think that I my subconcious was shouting what I would conciously say to other people about their pet projects: "Hasn't this already been done?"
So, when my boss asked me what we could offer our clients in the way of weblogs, I began looking around at the available tools. I considered indulging my hubris and using the OpenWeblog codebase to build up something. But, I knew that there would be plenty of bugs to shake out and I had other more "mission-critical" tasks at work (read that as: Using my largly un-tested code would mean lots of wasted time and blogs aren't gonna make us any money. Not directly, at least.)
And I wanted to let people comment on stuff I write here. Sure, you could email me, but somehow people are more likely to write an comment on a weblog than to write an email.
In the back of my mind, I had been thinking about using the LiveJournal code base: it is written for mod_perl, hosts multiple weblogs, allows comments, encourages community journals, and supports Atom as well as its own fairly mature protocol. LJ gets a lot of flack because it is associated with whining teenagers, but several of my friends and people I know have used it (uber-hacker jwz and an Orthodox bishop, to name but two). The request from my boss just pushed me to finally make a decision.
So, I've changed the server at http://www.openweblog.com/. It is now a LiveJournal Server. Accounts are free (for now). If you set up a domain and point it at openweblog.com's IP, you can even have your journal/blog show up there.
That's what we've done with Alexis' weblog. Her id is dvfmama and we've registered dvfmama.com to point there. I'll let her explain what "DVFMama" means.