Month: May 2004

(Alternate title: dance with who brung ya)

The announcement from SixApart explains (in a convoluted way) that the good old days of free versions for small sites are over and it’s payware from here on in.

I am continually amazed at how poorly SixApart communicates with its users, its fans. They profess to be all about enabling communication but do such a terrible job at it. I only ever hear about developments in their software by reading other sites and following the news: they never contact their users/supporters directly (yes, I donated, back in the day), whether it’s to announce new versions or bug fixes, to solicit feedback on pricing or spam prevention strategies, whatever. The announcement of 3.0 is case in point, as was TypeKey, MT 2.6661, etc.

Time will tell if TypePad and TypeKey generate enough revenue to offset the loss of MT revenue and user goodwill (companies have a spot on their balance sheet for that: a satisfied or even enthusiastic customer base is considered an asset, as anyone at Apple can tell you). Releasing a new version that removes features (unlimited users and unlimited weblogs in single instance) seems like a really bad idea. Either the folks at 6A are nuts or they ran out of features to make 3.0 compelling, so they removed some from 2.x.

<update> There’s a lot of related commentary here as well. Apparently, Drupal is another option and someone is working on a migration HOWTO right now.
Continue reading “the folks at WordPress must be delighted”

cloudy, chance of sun breaks: pointing iTunes “now playing” links to either Amazon or iTunes:

I suspect an automated process could be implemented with a Perl script.

My goal would be to have ecto (where I craft these scintillating posts) drop in the correct Amazon link when I tell it to post what I’m listening to.

So this snippet that links to a Google search on the artist’s name:
now playing: Svefn G Englar from the album Agaetis Byrjun by Sigur Ros

becomes this which also takes you to the product page on Amazon.com:
now playing: Svefn G Englar from the album Agaetis Byrjun by Sigur Ros

As it happens, there’s a perl module ready-made for the task: Net::Amazon – Query amazon.com via SOAP:

Net::Amazon is a Perl module providing an object-oriented interface to amazon.com’s SOAP and XML/HTTP interfaces. This way it’s possible to create applications using Amazon’s vast amount of data via a functional interface, without having to worry about the underlying communication mechanism.

But I don’t see any sample code that suggests I can pass a CD name and/or artist’s name and get back the exact ASIN so I can fix my iTunes database.

More investigation is required. I’m sure someone has done this already or something close to it.

I’m not a reader of National Review, but this post led me thither:

William F. Buckley Jr. on Abu Ghraib & Donald Rumsfeld on National Review Online:

Lieutenant William Calley, whose infantry company killed the civilians in My Lai, pleaded the fever of the war, but he was convicted to life in prison.

Convicted to life? Whatever: as noted below, it’s not the same as being sentenced to life in prison.

William Calley – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Calley was seen by some as a scapegoat for the Army’s failure to instill morale and discipline in its troops. Nevertheless, despite having ordered his troops to commit a massacre, he ultimately received a light sentence. He was initially sentenced to life in prison, but President Richard Nixon ordered him released from prison. Calley served 3 1/2 years of house arrest in his quarters at Fort Benning, Georgia and was then released in 1974 by a federal judge. He is now in the insurance business.

If the {Vietnamese|Iraqis|whomever} place no value on human life, how are we doing? Calley’s sentence worked out to 6.7 days of house arrest for every civilian killed on his orders. It seems we don’t put all high a value on it.