Misc. Ramblings

Soon after my problems with LANDesk, I decided to upgrade to MovableType 3.2 (yes, I know, just hit me on the head now and save me the trouble later). MT is the content management system that I use to run this part of my website. I used to just hand code everything but, over the years, I got tired of creating the links each week so I looked for something that would do that for me. At the time, and this was several years ago, MT looked like the best way to go even though it was akin to using a sledge hammer to swat a flea. But the worst part is that I still end up coding, although it's more CSS related then HTML. But I digress.

So I downloaded, configured, and installed the latest version and immediately got a 500 error when I tried to run it. Sigh.

A 500 error is a general error that can be caused by multiple things. Since I got rid of Windows at home, I was using Linux-based utilities to download, unpack, edit, and then upload the files to my host server. Somewhere along the line, I must of done something wrong. So I checked the configuration file but, as far as I could see, all looked well. My next guess was that I somehow uploaded the files in binary rather than ASCII format. Now, you Windows folks out there are probably wondering about what I'm talking about. First, let me say I'm not a Linux/Unix expert, but from what I understand, Linux/Unix does not use file name extensions to determine whether a file is a binary executable application or an ASCII text file. Hence, among other things, when you transfer a file, you have to tell your FTP program which it is. If you don't, or if you get it wrong, your application won't run. So I uploaded everything again, making sure to use binary for the binary files, in this case the binaries are image files, and ASCII for everything else. But I still got the 500 error. Sigh.

At this point, I deleted everything in the MT directory, downloaded the tar file again, unpacked, configured, and uploaded everything again. This time it worked.

But that wasn't the end of things. Having triumphed, hubris took over and I decided to upgrade the templates that create the look and feel of this part of my site. Big mistake.

I chose to use a plugin that is supposed to automagically change the templates and CSS for me. But it didn't work. It copied the base CSS file into the wrong directly so the right column of this page ended up at the bottom. Once I figured that out, and moved the file to where it was supposed to be, most of the page looked fine. Unfortunately, while the main index page is okay, some of the archive pages have text that extend outside of the column. After scanning the MT support forums, I find that some of the CSS files have bugs. This does not instill trust in my heart knowing that they released an application with obvious bugs like this.

If that wasn't bad enough, even though this is only a point update, MT decided to change the User Interface. Although others are generally okay with this, I'm not. At least some of the changes, like removing the link to viewing the site, really don't make sense to me.

Perhaps after I cool down I may see the logic to the changes but I right now, I'm thinking of going back to how I used to do things. I realize that this reduces my visibility because I would not be pinging the aggregaters (sp?) nor would I have an RSS/XML feed. But I have to wonder if it's worth the trouble to continue to work with MT. We'll see.