Jeroen Sangers

Today version 2.66 of Movable Type has been released, which addresses amongs others some of the comment spam issues.

I installed the update, and wrote a test comment to see how it works, but the entry did not show up anymore. Mozilla told me that there was a XML parsing error, and since I am serving my pages as application/xhtml+xml, Moz did not parse the page at all. I quickly changed my server settings so that my pages are served as text/html, and looked into the code.

The problem is that MT is now using a proxy script to link to the sites mentioned in comments, so spammers do not receive any ‘Google Karma’ by posting comments. The problem lies in the use of & in the URL, while they should have used &. For example, a link to this site appears as:

http://jeroensangers.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-cmts.cgi?__mode=red&u=http%3A%2F%2Fjeroensangers.com%2F"

while they should have used:

http://jeroensangers.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-cmts.cgi?__mode=red&u=http%3A%2F%2Fjeroensangers.com%2F"

I did a quick search in the new files, and found the error in the file lib/MT/Template/Context.pm at line 1189. Just add 4 characters, and MT produces valid HTML again.

[Update 2004.01.16]: Six Apart published MT version 2.661 to fix this problem.

Using the service from Mfop2 I am now able to post my messages from any place I want.

All I have to do is send an e-mail (including images if I want) with some special fields to Mfop2, and it will automagically appear on my site!

Now that I have my GPRS connection activated on my cellphone, this means that I can even do this from my phone.

After 7 years of intensive use, time has come to say goodbye to my old PC. It simply has too much technical problems: I assume problems with the power supply, the memory and the CPU! As a result, my screen freezes frequently, usually when I am using Microsoft software.

So last Saturday I took the step and ordered a new PC. Just like the one I have now it is a low-budget (€500) white label box, which I hope will also last the same number of years. The box I ordered has the following specifications:

• Intel Celeron 2,4 MHz
• 512Mb RAM
• 80Gb Hard disk
• DVD player
• DVD/CD-RW writer

As everybody knows, WAP is not the mobile killer protocol, nor will it ever be. However, it has its uses. I use it for example to consult my bank account when I’m on the road.

For Telefonica,- the Spanish phone monopolist, WAP also has its uses, since they offer Emoción; WAP-based services of which some bring in some money for every minute it is used.

The thing I never understood is that they sell packages with modern phones like my T200 with badly configured WAP access. If it doesn’t work directly, many people won’t try it again!

The case is that the phone comes preconfigured with WAP over GPRS, but to use GPRS you’ll have to buy a separate contract or pre-paid card, which nobody does. But Telefonica finally got smart. Saturday, when I was taking a beer on a sunny terrace I suddenly noticed a new icon on my phone’s screen; I had GPRS access!!!

Of course I immediately changed my WAP configuration and tried it out. I surfed around in WAP space a little, until I came to my own WML feed, which failed miserably. One more point on my todo list…

A small experiment to start the year 😉

I installed SnagIt on my computer, which I configured to upload each 30 minutes a screendump of my desktop. Now everybody can see what I am doing during the day. As soon as I have a more powerful computer at home, I will do the same from there.

Happy 2004!!!!

I am absolutely sure that this year is going to be a fabulous year. And with a new year come resolutions. Now I think that this is something crazy, because you can make your resolutions any day you want, and don’t have to wait for new year. The past period I made some resolutions in my mind and already started working on some, but nevertheless I will post them today:

• learn to speak Spanish;
• say “ja”;
• call old friends;
• finish work in the house;
• be less afraid of risks;
• think about the future;
• spend more time in the nature;
• learn to program in python.

A while ago I mentioned Big Medium as a possible CMS for the Fimcap site. Today I finally had some time to lurk on the Support forum to find answers to some of my questions. Already after reading only a few messages I found out that Big Medium is not what I was looking for. 🙁

• The user interface of the produced site has some hard-coded English texts; so internationalisation (I18L) is out of the question;
• Big Medium only supports two document levels: the category and the subcategory. Only with an ugly hack it is possible to go deeper. This is also by design, and won't be solved in the near future;
• The text editing area is too much a ‘guestbook’ styled page and not enough a text processor. For use by people without any HTML knowledge it is absolutely necessary that the interface has the buttons to change the text properties (bold, italics, headers,…);
• There currently is no search feature; so I'll have to implement a separate search script. It is a big pity that you can't search directly in the BM database;
• To edit a document you'll have to go to the management interface and look up the document. I would prefer to have an ‘Edit’ button right on the page if my machine contains the BM cookie with the appropriate rights;
• Another thing I miss is the plug-in flexibility of Movable Type. Since BM does not support plug-ins, I'll have to wait for a new release to have extra functionality.

Most of the point mentioned above are on the roadmap, but in general I miss the flexibility of systems like MT.

Christmas is already finished, but I still would like to wish everybody a very merry Christmas and a prosperous new year.

Even though we live far away from my family, we were able to spend Christmas with both families. On Christmas Eve we had a wonderful traditional Catalan family supper over here, and the day after we jumped in the airplane to celebrate a Dutch Christmas (I am not going to compare the two ways of celebrating; they do not differ that much and I like them both).

Anyway, as usual my time in Holland was way too short. I would have liked to spend more time with my family and friends and maybe visited some nice places together, but that will have to wait for my next visit. We have planned to go again with Easter, but maybe I will book another flight earlier.

• • Big Medium I still have to try how to make templates, but this looks like the most usable CMS for club sites;
  • Plone Watch out! Steep learning curve;
  • CMS Directory Overview of Free Systems;
  • Coranto The new NewsPro;
  • Drupal Community plumbing;
  • Open Source CMS Try it before you install;
  • mezzoblue, Wanted: CMS Guess I'm not the only one searching for this;
  • eZ Publish They mention the use of their product as webshop, corporate website, news site, intranet, extranet, forum, picture gallery, personal site and weblog;
  • Mamboserver People say the next release will be able to create valid XHTML.

[Update 2004.01.12]: Added some more links

I have a problem. Now that we are halfway in December, I would like to have some christmas decoration in our house.

But I found out that my taste is completely different from the taste of the people her. The trend seems to be many colours and a lot of blinking lights. In other sitiations I don’t mind Blinkenlights but I prefer that the lights in my christmas tree, which of course is not plastic, do not blink and have one one colour: white. I also don’t want any decoration that plays music.

I guess I’ll just have to wait until I am in Holland again and do my shoppings for next year over there. Until that moment, our house will only have a little bit of Christmas decoration.