NevOn 2.0 Experimental

I really would love to get stuck into trying out Movable Type for myself if I could get it to run.

No progress since I successfully installed it a few days ago on a local Windows PC running as a server. As far as I can tell, what's preventing me running MT isn't MT, it's MySQL.

Running the mt-check.cgi script produces a successful result - it tells me that MT is properly installed and set up and ready to go.

When I run the mt-load.cgi script, though, it stops very early in its execution with this error message:

Bad ObjectDriver config: Connection error: Access denied for user 'mt_user'@'localhost' (using password: YES)

The only difference from the error I first had is that, this time, the error includes a complete user name as I have uninstalled and reinstalled MySQL a couple of times.

I posted a comment about the error in the Movable Type Community Forum. Received a helpful response that was useful in initial troubleshooting, plus a link to a thread on the MySQL bugs section which indicates that there is a bug in the version of MySQL (4.1.13) that I have installed. Based on the final comment in the thread, I downloaded and installed the v5 beta.

That didn't work, unfortunately. I'm reasonably sure there must have been a step I missed somewhere before installing the beta as it resulted in major system instability (100% CPU use, sluggish performance, lack of responsiveness in the MySQL Administrator). So I uninstalled every MySQL instance, restarted the PC a couple of times during that process and re-installed 4.1.13 again.

Still this error when mt-load.cgi runs.

I'm actually stumped now. I need to retrace all steps again to make sure that there's not something I missed somwehere or did incorrectly at any stage in the overall installation, including checking into IIS. Trouble is, that's a left-brain approach whereas I'm definitely a right-brain kind of person ;)

So back to square one with no imminent solution. There has to be one - I just haven't found it yet.

[EDIT 31/7/05] Ok, reading the comprehensive MySQL Reference Manual, section 5.6.8 Causes of Access Denied Errors, has this explanation:

If you specify a hostname when trying to connect, but get an error message where the hostname is not shown or is an IP number, it means that the MySQL server got an error when trying to resolve the IP number of the client host to a name:

shell> mysqladmin -u root -pxxxx -h some-hostname ver
Access denied for user 'root'@'' (using password: YES)

This indicates a DNS problem. To fix it, execute mysqladmin flush-hosts to reset the internal DNS hostname cache.

I did the flush-hosts command and got this error:

Access denied for user 'ODBC'@' localhost' (using password: NO)

A bit more investigating needed. Getting closer, I think.

Posted by Neville at 04:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I've had some helpful suggestions for the next step in the evolution of my blogs (do I stay with TypePad, upgrading to the Pro service level, or switch to a hosted server solution and run my own blogs).

In combining those suggestions with ones I've already had, plus my own thinking, things are leaning towards the hosted server solution. And I would very likely use Movable Type for my blogs; more on that in a minute.

So I've been looking around to see what's out there.

My first choice would be GoDaddy. My experience with them - I've bought domains there - is very good and their offerings for hosted space are also good. The only negative at the moment is that they don't seem too clued in about using their hosting service for running blogs, judging by the responses from their support team to my emails asking about Movable Type support.

I'm also looking at Bluehost and Midphase, two hosting services that seem to have rave reviews by users. Both offer very attractive deals. I used the recommendations from the Hosting Comparison site which has some great reviews of the various offerings out there.

I did look at PowWeb, but was a bit put off by lots of negative comments from users in their own support forum.

So, decisions to be made soon.

Meanwhile, I'm trying out Movable Type version 3.17 which I have as part of my membership in the Six Apart Professional Network.

I'm trying MT out on a local computer, set up as a server so it will run. I followed Six Apart's excellent step-by-step instructions for installing it on a Windows PC.

Still a bit of learning to do, though - while the MT install went perfectly, the MT-check script which ran on my first use this morning produced this error:

Bad ObjectDriver config: Connection error: Access denied for user ''@'localhost' (using password: YES)

Need to figure out what I did wrong in the configuration, which I suspect is more to do with the MySQL setup and access rights to the database than with MT.

Also getting some great knowledge from Learning Movable Type, a truly excellent resource by Elise Bauer.

Stay tuned...

Posted by Neville at 02:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Tomorrow, 24 July, marks the one-year anniversary of when I first started my primary blog on TypePad. I actually started blogging in December 2002, with a BlogSpot blog, but it wasn't until a year ago that I really got into gear, so to speak, and became a regular blogger.

In January, I made a major design change to the main blog and started this blog, where you're reading this post. The design on the main blog has been in its current form since then.

When Six Apart upgraded the TypePad service earlier this month and included a raft of new design templates and themes, that got me thinking again about the look-and-feel of both of my blogs and is it to time to change. So with this blog, I applied one of the new designs (the Powell Street 2-column left template) which is what you see today.

I didn't apply any of the new designs to my primary blog. The main reason is that the blog currently uses a customized version of a standard 3-column template which I've changed quite a bit. So applying one of the new design templates would mean that I'd need to spend quite a bit of time in customizing that, and doing it on the live blog.

While I'm quite willing to spend time on customizing, the idea caused me to think more about getting direct access to the template HTML code and creating something a bit more unique from the design and layout points of view.

My service level on TypePad is TypePad Plus. To get direct access to the template code, I'd need to upgrade to TypePad Pro (here's the comparison chart of all three TypePad service levels). So I've been thinking about that quite seriously. My paid TypePad subscription still has another year to run so I'd just need to pay the difference in cost between Plus and Pro (about $60 for the year).

But is getting access to the HTML code a good enough reason to upgrade? That would be the prime reason for doing it. Yes, I'd also be able to have an unlimited number of blogs plus add multiple authors, but I don't have much need for that right now.

So is upgrading to Pro what I need to do? If I did, I'd look closely at editing CSS not HTML. For that I'll need a CSS editor (the one I've been thinking about is Top Style, created by Nick Bradbury who is also the creator of the FeedDemon RSS aggregator for Windows). I'm very comfortable with the idea of CSS editing (heck, I wrote my first HTML pages way back in 1993) so coding a site doesn't give me major concerns (well, apart from the time commitment to do it).

This all raises a bigger question for me, though.

If I am going to make such a move, should I really be considering a self-hosted solution? That is, either installing my own server or subscribing to a server hosting service and using a tool like Movable Type (I have a copy as I'm a member of the Six Apart Pro network) or WordPress?

I don't think self-hosting is a viable option for me so a hosted server solution is what I'd be considering.

There's another consideration, too. Visitor traffic to my main blog is steadily increasing to the extent that I'm now consistently exceeding my monthly bandwidth allowance with TypePad. For instance, looking just now I see that actual bandwidth usage so far this month is over 7 gigabytes (the allowance is 5) with the projected usage by month's end at 9.6 gigs. This percentage of excess usage (nearly double the allowance) has been going on for the past five months. So I might be hearing from TypePad about upgrading anyway ;)

I'm getting different suggestions from friends with no clear majority recommendations. If you have any suggestions as I continue to think this through, I'd greatly appreciate hearing them.

Posted by Neville at 12:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (2)

Some months ago, I bought a Packard Bell AudioDream MP3 player/recorder, plus external powered microphone, for recording conversations to use in my podcast.

I said at the time that this little gadget was great, just what I needed. Unfortunately, the reality turned out quite different.

I have no complaints with the AudioDream from a recording quality point of view - it is terrific. But what a performance to actually make a recording! It really is very small and very light, and I kept dropping it. Mainly, though, setting it up to do a recording was just a major pain. Plugging in the microphone, cables everywhere, tiny buttons on the gadget... it just wasn't worth the headaches.

So last week on a trip to London, I bought an iRiver IFP-790 in the duty-free shop at Schiphol airport. On half price offer so how could I resist ;) Main reason, though, was that this was the brand I wanted to get in the first place but could not find an iRiver anywhere at the time.

Now this is the gadget for easy mobile voice recording, without question. While this particular iRiver model doesn't have the flash memory storage capacity of the Packard Bell - 256Mb versus 1Gb - it's ample for what I need. It doesn't have a rechargable li-ion battery like the AudioDream - it takes a single AA battery which seems to last forever.

Using it is simplicity itself - you just turn it on and start speaking, that's it. It's built-in microphone is amazing for the quality of recording you can do. You can also connect an external microphone if you wish. I'm especially impressed with the options you can choose for setting up your MP3 recording - selecting bit rate, sample rate, automatic gain control, etc (see the full specifications). And unlike the AudioDream, the iRiver records directly in real-time MP3 format which is what you want for podcasts. It can also record in OGG Vorbis and WMA.

It has other superb features, too, like a built-in FM radio. I'm just using it for voice recording at the moment. One other thing - it supports ID3 tags, crucial for podcasts. It comes with software for Windows that makes it so easy to transfer recordings to your PC. And its firmware is upgradeable.

Now I can fully understand why nearly every other podcaster I know has an iRiver.

Posted by Neville at 06:23 PM | Permalink

I'm currently trying out the first public beta of the forthcoming version 1.6 of FeedDemon, the RSS aggregator for Windows.

This is the first development following NewsGator's acquisition of Bradsoft, the company who makes FeedDemon.

As a first beta, it's not bad. It does suffer from some obvious glitches, the most noticeable of which to me is how the program doesn't display individual news feeds in the correct sequence no matter what setting you define. That looks to me to be the same as happened with betas for version 1.5 earlier this year. Not a major issue I don't think, just a bit irritating, and hopefully will be addressed in the next beta.

There's also some issues with feed synchronization with NewsGator Online, although I'm still trying to figure out NewsGator Online. But that is a great feature, the ability to sync your FeedDemon feeds with a web-based service so you can get at your info from any PC with a net connection.

As I encounter odd things or have questions, I'm posting my thoughts, etc, in the new NewsGator FeedDemon beta forum.

One other thing I'm playing with is NewsGator's feature to display headlines in your blog from one or more of the RSS feeds you subscribe to. In TypePad, you do this by creating a typelist. So I've done one which captures the ten most recent posts from Headlines from PR Weblogs and displays excerpts. Pretty cool. You can see it in the right column on my main blog.

More thoughts later as I continue.

Posted by Neville at 05:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Does Skype have a serious competitor? According to the Gizmo Project, it does:

What distinguishes Gizmo Project from the other services out there, and why is Gizmo Project a better choice?

Skype: Like Gizmo Project, Skype has excellent sound quality, and is able to connect calls even in difficult home networks. Unfortunately, its technology is completely proprietary and you cannot contact their members without installing skype on your own computer.

That doesn't sound like a compelling differentiator to me. I've been using Skype for almost a year now and I have yet to find any other VoIP service that comes close to it in terms of overall tech reliability and scale of its user network.

But you have to start somewhere and competition is good. From a user point of view, Gizmo has many similarities to Skype: a peer-to-peer system, free calls to other Gizmo users, ability to buy credit to call normal phones, get a phone number so you can receive calls, get voicemail, etc. See the full story at Gizmo.

So I'll take Gizmo for a spin and see how it is. I will keep Skype as a) I'm happy with it overall, and b) I have a lot invested in it now (two SkypeIn numbers, for instance). Any alternative would have to be so compelling from many different points of view - wholly-reliable service and price being just two - that switching would be a no brainer.

Posted by Neville at 01:10 PM | Permalink

Last week, I received an invitation to try out Odeo, a podcasting service currently in beta, launched earlier this year.

What is Odeo? From the FAQ:

Odeo consists of three major parts: A catalog of audio content, of all types, which is constantly being added to. The Odeo Syncr, which let’s you download anything in the catalog (and, optionally, put it on your MP3 player). And creation tools, including the Odeo Studio, which let you publish your own audio content, which will then show up in the catalog. (The creation tools aren’t ready for public use yet, though.)

If you want to know more about the company and who's behind it, see How Odeo happened.

So, I've taken my first real look at Odeo today. When I first logged in and created an account, one thought I had was re what else is already out there in terms of finding podcasts and how would Odeo differentiate itself. There are loads of directories. Indeed, you're almost spoiled for choice at the moment of where to find increasing numbers of podcasts. Then there's Apple's iTunes Podcast Directory which looks like it will contain thousands of podcasts.

As the FAQ says, it's a catalog, a directory, with MP3 files organized by tags or categories. Unlike other directories, though, you have a much easier way to choose the content you want to subscribe to as you can get concise descriptions of each show plus the option to preview them (listen) before you download.

This reduced-size screenshot might give you an idea of that:

To download podcasts, you use the Odeo Syncr, a desktop applications based on iPodder. Once you subscribe to some shows on the Odeo website, you set them up to be retrieved by the synchronizer app, which then behaves just like iPodder, ie, it fetches your shows. Is this real podcasting, ie, making use of RSS as the delivery mechanism? No, but does that matter to the average user?

For Immediate Release is listed in the business directory (that's the bi-weekly show I co-present - plug!) so if you use Odeo and want to subscribe, here's the link.

Odeo is an interesting concept. I can see some great possibilities as a paid-for service, giving it some exclusivity. Right now, though, I can't see what a differentiator could be if it's just another open-access podcast directory (once it's out of private beta), no matter how sexy-looking it all is. The Odeo Studio creation tool looks like the big thing, but that's not available yet and I haven't seen what it looks like nor what it can do.

I'll be trying it out a little more over the next couple of weeks, so more commentary to come.

Posted by Neville at 10:03 PM | Permalink

This weekend, Six Apart is doing major upgrading of the TypePad hosted blog service to roll out a wide range of new features (see the post today on my main blog for some details).

One of those features is a raft of new templates. So I'm experimenting a bit with that. I've just changed the look of this blog, using the new Powell Street theme.

I like it. Do you?

It's just a two-column layout (I had three columns before) which is one of the new pre-defined themes choices under Cool Themes. I haven't included all the various different typelists I have, including a very lengthy blogroll (that's still on my main blog). I've used all the template defaults and not, as I did before, adjusted things like column widths, colours, etc.

Changing layouts on the fly on this blog is easy, much more so than making such changes on my main blog which uses a heavily-customized template. Plus I don't want to make experimental changes there - that's why I have this blog ;)

There might be more changes as I play around with this, so don't get too used to any theme at the moment.

Technorati tag: typepad

Posted by Neville at 06:30 PM | Permalink

Since last September, I've been using ecto for Windows as the tool for creating content for my blogs. Ecto is an offline editing and publishing application - you create all your blog posts offline, on your PC, and then publish them to your blog at your convenience. It supports a wide range of blogging platforms including TypePad, the one I use. It was originally developed for the Mac platform.

During all of this year, I've been using version 1.0.8.4 in spite of a number of upgrades that the developers have released. The big one was 1.5/1.6 back in March which fixed bugs, added some new functionality and changed the look and feel of the application. I didn't like those versions, mostly from the look and feel point of view (and mainly to do with all the separate windows everywhere), so I've stuck with 1.0.8.4.

Today, I'm writing this post with the latest version 1.7.1, released early last month. It's a bugfix update from version 1.7 released at the end of May which introduced a significant number of improvements.

It could be that I will permanently leave 1.0.8.4 behind as, on my first looks, version 1.7.1 is very good indeed. I very much like the appearance and the way in which I can interact with the app. The only thing right now that didn't seem to work from install was when I created my profile to log in to my TypePad account - on retrieving posts from my blogs, it displays all the titles but not the actual post content. Yet 1.0.8.4 does do that.

I also use BlogJet, switching between the two now and again. BlogJet is wholly WYSIWYG but I prefer ecto's partial code view with a preview window that you use to see how your post will look when posted.

I think many people would prefer BlogJet for its simplicity and ease of use. Ecto, though, is my preferred application.

Let's see how it goes with 1.7.1.

Posted by Neville at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)