Movable Type 4.2 was released recently. This blog has been powered by the awesome Movable Type since 2003. [Side note: 2002 was the year of Blogger, and before that I did the site by hand.] Whenever a big new edition of Movable Type is released, I like to update my mostly custom templates with some of the latest technology and features. I spent a few hours this previous weekend doing that, and while I changed a lot, in another sense, not much has changed. I did enable TypePad Antispam, but reCAPTCHA still protects this site. I still don’t allow logins for comments. I try to keep the commenting as simple as possible, and I’ve been very happy with reCAPTCA.

Many of the significant changes surrounding Movable Type’s new version were in the back-end. Rebuild times, for example, have been drastically improved. The main blog here, which I build completely in static HTML pages, had taken 15 or more minutes to rebuild. That number is down to about 4 minutes. That’s a huge improvement in performance.

Some of the noticeable changes to people reading this blog would be the implementation of several microformats, such as hCard and the abbr design pattern. I was already using several microformats such a rel-tag, rel-license and XFN, and these new ones will add additional machine-readable data to the site.

An additional improvement in the new MT is the reduction in the number of templates. I’ve reduced my template modules from 15 down to 7 with the same amount of functionality. The atomic templates Six Apart had gone with in MT 4.0, allowed a lot of flexibility, but in the case of most blogs, that amount of flexibility simply was not needed and ended up being somewhat confusing. At any rate, the new template structure makes a lot of sense, and having all the templates on one page to view is also a nice bonus.

Overall, Movable Type 4.2 is an excellent product. It’s freely available and most people will see that it more than accommodates their needs for blogging or content management.

Lawrence Lessig, a Creative Commons founder and Stanford law professor, analyzes McCain’s disastrous technology policy. Lessig has posted his traditional Keynote/PowerPoint – that is, slides with audio. Very interesting.

If you’re looking to hear from the horse’s mouth:

John McCain on Technology:
http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/cbcd3a48-4b0e-4864-8be1-d04561c132ea.htm

Barack Obama on Technology:
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/technology/

Okay, you can probably just look at those links without even clicking on them to get a sense of where each candidate is coming from. If you read just one, I can highly recommend Obama’s technology statement. It’s inspiring!

And without further ado, here is Lessig’s take on McCain’s view of technology.

Six Apart released a major new version of Movable Type this week. Movable Type has powered this blog since February of 2003, and it’s still the best blogging tool out there. Most of the changes in this new version were under the hood, so it’ll take some time for all that new technology to filter down into the blog. We’ll definitely be adding some of the social networking features that MT 4.2 offers.

It’s been over six months since I first wrote about reCAPTCHA. In that time, it has pretty much completely stopped comment spam. It’s been very effective. Once in a while a spammer leaves a comment by hand, but having one a month instead of 100 or 1,000 a day to deal with is a drastic improvement. reCAPTCHA works, and it also does useful work at the same time. The one thing it doesn’t do is manage trackback spam. Trackbacks have been turned off for a while on Manufactured Environments, simply because too much junk was getting past the spam filters.

One of the new announcements for MT 4.2 was the release of a freely available anti-spam system similar to Akismet called TypePad AntiSpam. reCAPTCHA has been so effective with comments, that it will probably continue to protect this blog. But I would like to turn trackbacks back on, and perhaps this new anti-spam measure will be effective enough to try that.

The other new thing I’ve been trying out on the blog is a service called Chitika, which is a full service advertising network. I received an invite in my email, and it seems to be something that will add some value for certain users of this site. I’m trying the Chitika Premium service, which can work alongside Google AdSense. So I’ve left my AdSense ads as they are. The Chitika unit only shows when a U.S. user shows up at this blog from a search engine. The unit contains two tabs. The first lists ads for the person’s search terms, and it even lists the search terms in the header. The second tab is a search tab. So instead of showing ads based on the content of my page, as Google AdSense does, Chitika shows ads based on the search terms that a person used at a search engine to arrive at my site.

So if the display criteria is not met, the ad unit does not appear. So in that sense it is rather unobtrusive. My regular readers won’t be bothered by any additional advertising, while transient travelers, will have a targeted ad. I experimented a bit with the different sizes until I found one that fit best with the layout of my pages. It’s a non-standard ad size, but I’m happy with it – it’s a short, wide block that is visible without being too intrusive.

With the level of traffic, it seems to be earning about what I expected. So far this month it has pulled in about $10 or $11 so far. That’s in addition to the $40 or so I earn a month from AdSense. Not enough to quit my day job, but it definitely pays for the web hosting bill. I’ll need to see Chitika in action for a few months to see how much it cuts into AdSense revenue and whether it makes up for that. My sense so far is that it does end up earning more than with just AdSense alone.

One of my favorite record labels, Alternative Tentacles, announced a contest today. They want people to write about their most prized piece of vinyl in their collection. You needn’t worry if you don’t have a large vinyl collection:

Even if you only own three records, we would consider that a collection so enter away!

There will be two winners of a handful of colorful vinyl records issued by A.T. The rules say that you’re supposed to write the story of your favorite vinyl in a short paragraph. I couldn’t write the story in a short paragraph, but the story is worth it. So without further ado, here is my entry into Alternative Tentacles’ Vinyl Love Contest:

It was 1991. I was the new music director at the very old, very tiny KWLC 1240 AM, that is, the Luther College radio station in Decorah, Iowa. I set about getting our little slice of radio heaven onto the mailing lists of my favorite record labels. I called Alternative Tentacles. I called 4AD, plus a few others.

One of the first records A.T. sent was something called “I.A.B.F.” from a French band I had never heard before, Les Thugs. I still remember listening to it for the first time. It was one of those jaw-dropping “I’m in love!” kind of moments. I highlighted my favorite tracks for the DJs, and put it into rotation.

A.T. albums got a lot of play during my year and a half as music director. Our reach was minuscule, but I loved A.T. even more for believing in our station enough to send us your latest.

Unfortunately, that Les Thugs record didn’t make it into my personal collection. I always felt it my duty to pass along the best music to our DJs and keep the good stuff in our library, instead of hoarding it for myself, as much as I wanted to.

Many years later, while perusing eMusic.com, I came across “I.A.B.F.” The tracks were all still burned into my memory, and it was great to hear one of my all-time favorite albums again. But who can be satisfied with just MP3s? I quickly found a vinyl copy of the album on eBay, and I’ve been enjoying it ever since.

So while my personal copy of “I.A.B.F.” by Les Thugs is by no means the oldest slab of vinyl in my collection, and I don’t even know who owned it before me, it’s by far my favorite gem in my collection because it’s a great, great album, but also because it reminds me of a time in my life that was filled with the most amazing sounds.

Sincerely,
Daniel Stout

Summers are a great time to relax, enjoy the good weather, and take on projects that we didn’t find time for during the busier parts of the year. One project that I’ve been working on this summer is to gradually unwire myself from my plugged-in life. Now we’re into August, and looking back over the past couple of months, this experiment in unwired living has been a success.

Part of unwiring – but not the only part – has been to spend less time online. This is a difficult one. As a web developer, I necessarily spend a lot of time online. So that time when I have my web developer hat on, I have less control over, but my personal time I do have control of. So that means using the Internet less for personal reasons.

The other parts of unwiring are a combination of using less technology and lifestyle simplification. A big one for me was that I took out an ad in the newspaper and sold my television. I didn’t watch much TV to begin with, but getting rid of it has been a great step. It refocused the orientation of my living room on music and entertaining. I’m also fully back into the wonderful world of two-channel audio, with the key part of that being my turntable.

No more TV & less internet means a couple of things for me. One is that less time sitting on a couch or in a chair is more time spent walking and enjoying nature. Also, I have been doing a lot more reading this summer. I’m an avid reader to begin with, and I’ve never liked how being online and watching television cut into my reading time. So more time for being active and for reading is a positive side effect of these changes I’ve made.

I’ve made other changes – such as getting rid of gadgets and things that I don’t really need. I live a pretty simple lifestyle, but I’m most intellectually focused and at my best on the ascetic end of the spectrum.

It is better to be without, in my view, than to have too much.