A couple of data points

A couple of data points that I found interesting:

• Blogger:
  
  
  • Used since: November 1999
    
  • Total $ paid: $65
    
  • Average length of time between tech support queries and response: infinite (no response to multiple questions).
  
  
• Movable Type:
  
  
  • Used since: Not live yet
    
  • Total $ paid: $0 (so far; and definitely subject to change)
    
  • Average length of time between tech support queries and response: 1 hour (based on two separate questions).

I'm impressed. Or in other words, yes, there does appear to be a way to display the last seven posting days--thanks, Mena!

Well, now that I've done

Well, now that I've done more research (with Christine's help--thanks!), we may not be moving to Movable Type. It doesn't appear to support one of our must-have requirements, which is the ability to show all the posts from last 7 days that we blogged (not the last 7 calendar days, but the last 7 days that we actually posted something). Bummer.

Anyone know of a way to get MT to do this that doesn't involve learning another programming language? Or of any other blogging system that supports this that I can run on my own server?

And if it's really true that Perl can't do this, pity Randal Schwartz. He and I will be on the Mac Mania Geek Cruise later this month, and I'll have a thing or two to say to him if that's the case.

Verisign sucks. If you have

Verisign sucks. If you have any domains registered with Verisign and/or Network Solutions, switch already, 'cause it's only a matter if time until they screw you over, too. If you need a new domain registrar, we've been very happy with PairNIC.

Extreme Copyright is a good

Extreme Copyright is a good article by Matt Deatherage about the madness of the Hollywood studios and the music business vis a vis the way they have perverted copyright into the right for them to make eternal profits, and how they want to make you into a criminal if you don't use media exactly as they want you to use it.

Privacy? What privacy? Court Orders

Privacy? What privacy? Court Orders SonicBlue to Track Customer TV Viewing. One of the things that we like about our ReplayTV (made by SonicBlue) is that our viewing habits aren't tracked. When a company that prides itself on giving customers that kind of freedom is told that by the courts that it has to intrude, it's simply ridiculous.

Jeffrey Zeldman ran into the

Jeffrey Zeldman ran into the same problem that I did a few months ago: SpamCop is evil. All is takes is one novice, or one forgetful person, or one person with a grudge, and your email is shot to hell.

There's two different problems here:

• SpamCop doesn't clearly state all the repercussions that can happen when email is submitted as spam. Instead, they give the user a pat on the back, and allow idiots to think that it's an acceptable way to unsubscribe from lists ('cause who keeps those list subscription info emails, anyway?).
• ISPs who believe that SpamCop's blacklists actually mean something, and therefore it's okay to reject any email coming from IP addresses in SpamCop's database.

If you're reported to SpamCop, your IP address is immediately added to their database. There's nothing you can do to get it taken off immediately; a week is the fastest that they can do it. And in that time, any ISP that uses their database is bouncing all email you send to any of their customers.

I've had the fun job numerous times (twice just this week, in fact) of telling a subscriber to my mailing lists that sorry, but their ISP isn't allowing them to receive emails I send. To do that, I have to use a different account entirely ('cause they can't receive email from me), and in every case, the person I've sent it to had no idea that their ISP was doing this. So far, I've had a pretty good success rate at getting people to change ISPs. Now, if we could just get everyone else to stop using SpamCop.

The current issue of TIME

The current issue of TIME Magazine has a cover story on The Secrets of Autism. Nothing particularly new on either Autism or Asperger's Syndrome, but it's good that it's getting media attention from magazines other than Wired.

Today's updated score on yesterday's

Today's updated score on yesterday's blogging controversy:

• Shelley: +1, because based on her discussion group, it sounds as if it is the case that Radio is not completely free of Userland.
  
• Dave: -2, because Shelley got it right.
  
• Doc: -3, for (1) using an anonymous source, (2) getting it wrong, and (3) not correcting his mistake.
  
• Brent: +2, for admitting that the Userland ping both exists and is a bug.
  
• Al: +lots, just 'cause he deserves it.

BTW, thanks for the private emails y'all sent to me about being objective about this--really, I'm trying! If I was being subjective, I'd give Shelley another point just for being a geeky woman--there aren't enough of us, and we need all the support we can get.

A little meta-blogging here, just

A little meta-blogging here, just to keep up with who's dissing whom:

• Shelley of Burningbird thought that Radio needed a Userland connection to work, and said that that was a good reason to switch to another blog tool such as Movable Type.
  
• Dave objected, not without reason, because Shelley got it wrong. Brent has since corrected her, and since she said that she'd apologize publicly if she got it wrong, I'll assume that that's the end of that part of it.
  
• Doc Searls then got himself involved with a lovely unsubstantiated attack, saying that "I am told that Movable Type is not decentralized. I can't tell from their site (and I don't have the time to research it right now)." Dunno who told him that, but they don't know their ass from their elbow. And the slightest reading of their Web site would have told him that.
  
• Al from View From The Heart summed it up best, imo, when he wrote to Dave that "The problem is that some of the value-added portion of Radio- the stuff that differentiates Radio and makes it more that just a weblogging tool- is centralized... And what you said is real and true, it is easy to decentralize the storage of your content. But understand that to the technoneophyte losing your services significantly cripples your product."

Scores so far:

• Shelley: -1, until she actually apologizes.
  
• Dave: -1, because better documentation would have kept this from ever being an issue.
  
• Doc: -2, for neither attributing his attack nor having any backup for it.
  
• Al: +lots, for putting it all into perspective

One of the music mailing

One of the music mailing lists I'm on is going through a "10 artists that I really hate" discussion. Jennifer Lopez is a big winner on many people's lists, with some of these comments:

"Somewhere behind all that production is a really crappy voice"
"Refreshingly talent-free, giving her more storage space for the monumental ego"
"Every generation deserves its own Paula Abdul"

Burn.