w.bloggar

As I watch Kelly compose her blogs, going back and forth to a Web Monkey color reference chart, so that she can color her text, I decided I needed to introduce her to a blogging tool. We have Kung-Log on the Mac side, but she does most of her blogging and e-mail at the Compaq.

The first tool listed on MovableType.org’s external resources list is w.bloggar. So I picked out that one.

Windows Time Service

I used this article, Keeping Time with Win2K, to get Yoda and Gandalf (Win2K servers) synching with the Navy’s time servers, tick and tock.

I issued the command to use both Navy servers 4 ntp.org serveres (note space between them):

net time /setsntp:”tick.usno.navy.mil tock.usno.navy.mil”

net time /setsntp:”0.us.pool.ntp.org 1.us.pool.ntp.org 2.us.pool.ntp.org 3.us.pool.ntp.org”

I set the Windows Time service to automatic (which this article does not mention) so that it will launch on reboot.

To test, set the clock behind (not forward because there is a slow down scheme you won’t notice), stop the service to test with net stop w32time, and use the the w32tm -once command mentioned in the article. After testing, start back up again using net start w32time.

This command can confirm the settings: net time /querysntp

I then set my own W2K laptop to use gandalf and yoda (so all are not hitting up the Navy) using:

net time /setsntp:”gandalf.netcentrix.net yoda.netcentrix.net”

Apple sure makes this a lot easier.

RSS Feed

Once you start visiting more than a few blogs regularly, you’ll want an RSS Feed Reader.

I’m experimenting with Feedreader on the Windows side. It is like a newsgroups reader for blogs that publish an RSS feed via XML. I get a ding-dong and little pop-up notice every time something new is posted on one of the sites I’m monitoring. Because SlashDot.org gets 10 or so postings per day, I’m getting a lot of ding-dongs.

Taking Ownership

I had a folder that would not let me (the administrator!) throw it away locally because it was owned by someone else. I think this was because it was created remotely on Jupiter or BlueMac. I could not change the permissions locally and was stumped until I found this article that said I would have to “take ownership”, then change permissions, then toss it. Worked.

Now playing: Excuse Me by Peter Gabriel from “Peter Gabriel 1 (Car)”

iTunes Remembers … (and tells Finder.)

Ted put together a collection of great tunes and gave it to us for Christmas. He called it “Merry Christmas from Ted.” In iTunes, you cannot see the track names because no CD has track names, and iTunes cannot identify this CD when talking to CDDB over the internet. (It is a unique CD.)

So you have to play Track 1, Track 2, etc. While playing them, I tried changing the track names and was surprised I could. So I editted the track names, artists, and album title. I then ejected the CD to see if iTunes would remember. It did. iTunes apparently is talking to the Finder, because the CD is now titled and all the track names are listed. Zoom in below to see the effect.

Another pleasant surprise from Apple. That’s why the Mac is so much fun… it keeps surprising you by doing what you would want, but not necessarily expect.

Merry Christmas from Ted

Now playing: Long Tall Texan by Lyle Lovett w Randy Newman from the album “Merry Christmas from Ted”

Kung-Log Upload Test

(Now listening to… Martha from the album “Closing Time” by Tom Waits)

Testing upload after MIME-BASE64 intall:

Test two with thumbnail option:

By he way, here’s the XML-RPC CGI URL needed by Kung-Log http://mac.fiveforks.com/mt/mt-xmlrpc.cgi.

MIME-BASE64

(Now listening to… Grapefruit Moon from the album “Closing Time” by Tom Waits)

Kung-Log wants MIME-BASE64 to be installed to support file uploads. Not knowing if I have it or not, I found these install steps and preformed them as root one at a time. Everything worked.

# MIME::Base64

curl -O http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/MIME/MIME-Base64-2.12.tar.gz

tar zxvf MIME-Base64-2.12.tar.gz

cd MIME-Base64-2.12

perl Makefile.PL

make

make test

sudo make install

Continue reading

Banner vs. Description Styles

I had a problem trying to get the “building” link to display correctly in the description. The banner has is an “id” style and the description is a “class”. The style for the link kept being picked up from the banner and not the description style in the stylesheet. (Too big!)

buildinglink1.gif

I had to eliminate the “span” from all templates replacing it with its own “div”, changing this:

<div id=”banner”>

<h1><a href=”<$MTBlogURL$>” accesskey=”1″><$MTBlogName$></a></h1>

<span class=”description”><$MTBlogDescription$></span>

</div>

to this:

<div id=”banner”>

<a href=”<$MTBlogURL$>” accesskey=”1″><$MTBlogName$></a>

</div>

<div class=”description”><$MTBlogDescription$></div>

By removing the span tag, the link I created in the description (building) would adopt the correct style. Otherwise, it kept picking up the banner style. I don’t understand the difference between “id=” and “class=”…. something to study.