Recently in Administrative Category

In case you hadn't noticed, my blog — and the rest of my website — is undergoing a major facelift right now.

There are still some changes to go, and not everything is going to be re-skinned and imported into a content management system; the old Linux and Perl side of my site is, regrettably, moribund (hasn't really been updated since 2004, and isn't going to be updated now).

If you think something isn't working, leave a comment on this post. (Remember, though, that not everything is changing all at once. What I really want to know about is broken links and scrambled graphics, rather than pages that are still in the old look'n'feel.)

Oh, and a round of applause for Feòrag, who's been working on this redesign for about four months now ...

Blogging's going to be scarce until after mid-December, because I'm about to move house. The removals firm are turning up on Wednesday to start on things, and I should be installed in the new place and with internet access restored by Friday next week. It's a big move, by my standards, because we've been in this flat for eleven years and two months: stuff accumulates, to the tune of roughly 5000 books. And while we're not moving very far — about half a kilometre across town and three floors up — when you get down to it, the only difference between moving half a kilometre and half a thousand kilometres is the fuel in the truck's tank.

Of course, this is the modern age, and I will not be totally offline: I have a smartphone with 3G broadband, email, and a decent web browser, so even while we're without a cable connection I'll be in touch via email. But I hope you'll appreciate I have higher priorities than writing long blog entries ...

Why is Charlie not posting on his blog this week?

... Succumbing to the inevitable post long-haul flight chest infection.

... A massive blitz on the house-work (in preparation for a possible change of address).

... Working busily on a novel, trying to make up for lost time spent in mind-expanding travel.

... Nothing insightful to say that's fit to be let out in public.

... All of the above.

(Whichever of these reasons you ticked, pat yourself on the back and give yourself one point. Points may be redeemed at the cashier's desk for one (1) incremental unit of self-esteem. Normal service will be resumed when I'm feeling better/when I've sold the house/when I've finished the book/when I have something to say.)

Trying to get the CSS and spam filtering setup sorted out here, folks. If you can see this entry, though, it means the new blogging software is mostly alive and kicking.

Click this link for the old blog.

For the past few years I've been running the blog on Rael Dornfest's blosxom. Blosxom is a lightweight efficient blogging engine written in perl. However ...

Blosxom is a good piece of software — lightweight, efficient, and flexible. But I must be getting old or something; maybe I'm just going stale at this programming shtick. It's implemented in such a way that I can't get my head around what it uses in place of comments and trackbacks. Plus, writing entries in hand-carved HTML is a pain. I'm sick and tired of QuickTopic, don't want to pay them $100/year just to get rid of ads and gain the ability to ban readers, and had a Movable Type license kicking around (for Feorag's Prattle).

So this is my first attempt at setting up my blog to run on Movable Type. I'm not going to port the old entries over — there are four year's worth, for starters! — but will preserve them in a static HTML tree once I cut over to using MT instead. Meanwhile, I hope to add a whole bunch of additional features (and start posting more regularly).