wordpress vs. mt (movable type)

good overview of wordpress vs. movable type (mt):
http://mashable.com/2007/08/15/movable-type-wordpress/

Web2.0 and your library blog (tools)

I finally started loading some of my presentations at slideshare. Hopefully, I will add audio at some point.
This presentation was for GLA 2007 and focused on web tools for blogs.
Sorry, the links work within slideshare, but the movie does not. ;-(

————–
Brief introduction to Web2.0, mashups, RSS, youtube, flickr del.icio.us, and how those tools can be incorporated into a library’s website or blog. Also includes brief overview of mashups, widgets, and RSS feeds.

| View | Upload your own

Posting to multiple blogs using Live Writer (How to)

Live Writer is a desktop application from Microsoft that allows the user to easily post to Microsoft Live Spaces, Blogger, wordpress, and other blog software (either hosted or on your own server). The WYSIWYG tool is amazingly easy to setup and use and posting to multiple blogs is a snap.

Learn more about Livewriter here (and download it, too!)

So, here’s my quick how-to:

On the menu>Under Weblog>Add a weblog

A wizard pops up:

Choose “Another Web Service”
(in other words, blogger, wordpress, etc. aren’t listed in the default)
Click Next.

Type in the URL of your blog and password and login.

Click Next.

Now, LiveWriter will attempt to connect with your blog:

If it is unsuccessful, then you may need to change some settings, such as choosing the type of blog account or changing settings based upon your specific blog settings.
Make any changes needed and click Next.

Once LiveWriter is successful, the message Weblog successfully configured pops up, along with a spot to change the name of the blog, and edit other settings.

On the right sidebar menu, is a list of the blogs configured, a list of tools (insert table, etc.). To crosspost to a blog, Under weblog, choose the “new” blog, and then click publish (far left top menu).
(Sorry the image is so small, blogger shrunk it)

How to add a comments list in blogger

So, one little nifty (?) blogger trick is to include a quick way to see comments without logging in. Of course, this means everyone can see them, too.

I had to search around a bit to find the feed for the comments, so I thought I’d post it a hopefully easy place:

All comments:
http://yourblog.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default

Per post comments:
http://yourblog.blogspot.com/feeds/IDOFPOST/default

Okay, so let’s do the ‘all comments’.

Login into your blogger account.

Go to the Dashboard.
Settings>Template

Choose Add Page Element.
Choose Feed.

Add your feed url. Click continue.

Now configure it and click Save Changes. Then Save your template.

How to add a latest comments list in blogger

 I’ll try to do this for wordpress.com, too, as part of my experiment here is to see which one I like better (blogger vs. wordpress)

———-

So, one little nifty (?) blogger trick is to include a quick way to see comments without logging in. Of course, this means everyone can see them, too.

I had to search around a bit to find the feed for the comments, so I thought I’d post it a hopefully easy place:

All comments:
http://yourblog.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default

Per post comments:

http://yourblog.blogspot.com/feeds/IDOFPOST/default

Okay, so let’s do the ‘all comments’.
Login into your blogger account.
Go to the Dashboard.

Settings >Template

Choose Add Page Element

Choose Feed.

Save Changes

Then Save your template.

Migrating/exporting from ee

 

I promised the friendly folks over at textpattern that I would write something about exporting entries from expression engine.
This link in the ee wiki MOSTLY covers it. I say mostly, because you’ll need to make some modifications which are not listed but that I am including. Additionally, you will need to be careful to do all of the steps in order, so I’m just going to go step by step. Also, if you have used subcategories, I haven’t found a way to capture that hierarchical structure. So, depending on what kind of software you are importing these into, you may need to tweak your categories. In textpattern for example, all of the categories go to multiple unfiled categories. It’s easy enough to then just update them in textpattern. This will export everything in Movable Type (MT) format.
Figure out your blog’s name before you start. In expression engine>CP Home › Admin › Weblog Administration › Weblog Management
Edit Preferences>Short Name
The short name is the actual name of your blog. Make a note of it, as you will need it later.
STEP 1: Create an export template group
Login to the control panel.
Click on templates.
Click on “Create new template group” button.
NOTE: You must start with a new template group.
Name your template group:
Template Group Name

The name must be a single word with no spaces

(underscores and dashes are allowed)
Type in Export
Duplicate an Existing Template Group?
Choose> Do Not Duplicate a Group
Make the index template in this group your site’s home page?
Whatever you do, DO NOT CHECK THIS box. This will override your template design for your blog.
Click Submit.
Okay, step 1 is finished. We’ve created a template group, but we now need to create the templates. NOTE: Do not skip any steps.
STEP 2: Create the export template for comments
At this point, you should be back at your list of templates. In the left column, under the header, Template Management, you should see a list that includes all of your template groups.
Under Choose Group>Click on Export
In the column to the right of Choose Group, you should see a list. Click on New Template.
Now we will create templates for the comments and the entries. NOTE: Do not skip any steps.

Template Name

The name must be a single word with no spaces

(underscores and dashes are allowed)
Type in Comments
Choose Template type> Webpage

Default Template Data

None - create an empty template

Click Submit.
We are back at the list.
Click on Preferences (in the column to the right of Choose Group, under the Export header)
The ONLY things to change here are
Allow PHP? Y
PHP Parsing? Input
Note: This must be set for this to work!
Click Update.
We are now back to the list of templates.
Okay, now we have to add the code to make this work.
Under Template Name / Edit
To the left of Comments>Click on>View
Copy & paste the code below into the blank area. Note change “yourblog” to the shortname of your blog. Your blog’s name is not what appears in the title bar of the html page. It is what you have listed in Admin › Weblog Administration › Weblog Management > Edit Preferences>Short Name
The short name is the name of your blog.
QSTR = ‘{embed:the_entry_id}’
?>
{exp:comment:entries weblog=”yourblog” sort=”asc”}COMMENT:
AUTHOR: {name}
URL: {url}
DATE: {comment_date format=”%m/%d/%Y %h:%i:%s %A”}
{comment}
—–
{/exp:comment:entries}
Click Update and Finished.
STEP 3: Create the export template for index
At this point, you should be back at your list of templates. In the left column, under the header, Template Management, you should see a list that includes all of your template groups.
Under Choose Group>Click on Export
In the column to the right of Choose Group, you should see a list. Click on New Template.
Now we will create templates for the comments and the entries. NOTE: Do not skip any steps.

Template Name

The name must be a single word with no spaces

(underscores and dashes are allowed)
Type in Index
Choose Template type> Webpage

Default Template Data

None - create an empty template

Click Submit.
We are now back to the list of templates.
Okay, now we have to add the code to make this work.
Under Template Name / Edit
To the left of Index>Click on>View
Copy & paste the code below into the blank area. Note change “yourblog” to the shortname of your blog. Your blog’s name is not what appears in the title bar of the html page. It is what you have listed in Admin › Weblog Administration › Weblog Management > Edit Preferences>Short Name
The short name is the name of your blog.
Also note: If you have used the summary instead of the body then you will need to capture that info, too. I am including the summary because at some point, my blog posts switched to being in the summary. I probably did this out of laziness.
Note: This only includes the first 999 blog posts. If you have more blogposts, try changing the number in limit to encompass all posts. If your export file truncates (doesn’t include all posts) then you may need to do this in two batches.
{exp:weblog:entries weblog=”yourblog” limit=”999″ rdf=”off”}
AUTHOR: {author}
TITLE: {title}
STATUS: Publish
ALLOW COMMENTS: 2
CONVERT BREAKS: br
{categories}CATEGORY: {category_name}
{/categories}
DATE: {entry_date format=’%m/%d/%Y %h:%i:%s %A’}
—–
BODY:
{body}
—–
EXTENDED BODY:
{extended}
—–
SUMMARY:
{summary}
—–
{embed=”export2/comments” the_entry_id=”{entry_id}”}
——–
{/exp:weblog:entries}
Click Update and Finished.
STEP 4: Test the export!
We are now back to the list of templates. Check to make sure that you are right area.
Under Choose Group> Export
Next to index there are 2 Views listed. To the left is view template (it is under the header: Template Name / Edit. This is not the View you want. Under the header, View, which is to the right of the Template name Index, is a second View. Click on this view
If everything worked well (give it a second or two) , you should see a large kind of garbled looking file with your posts- this means the export is working. We will format it and save it in a minute. If you are having problems at this point, delete your templates and start over.
IF you are still having problems, drop me a line and I’ll see if I can help you.
Now, to format and save it.
Go to View/ View source in Internet Explorer or Firefox (control + u). Save as index.txt
PROBLEMSOLVING:
Templates not working at all: Check your blog name. In expression engine>CP Home › Admin › Weblog Administration › Weblog Management
Edit Preferences>Short Name
The short name is the name of your blog.
Missing info:
Take a look at your formatted export file. If you are missing your posts or comments, now is the time to fix it. You will need to work on the export code to correct these.
Carriage returns/page breaks
If the code doesn’t work, delete the extra spaces and then just do carriage returns.
Diacritics and special characters like & ‘ etc.
You may or may not need to correct these before you migrate into your new system. I opened the text file and corrected them all before I imported my entries into textpattern.
best of luck. Remember this export file is in MT (Movable Type) format. When you import it into a new software, if there is no import for MT then you may need to do some additional work.

textpattern, wordpress, & redesign

I’m re-doing one of my domains with textpattern or wordpress. I considered drupal, but to be honest, I want something with a little stronger 3rd party support. There are several features & functionalities missing in drupal which I need. For a site from scratch or one with content generated from within drupal, all is well. For those working with 3rd party apps already, well, it may or may not work (or even be available).

Drupal templating is also notoriously tough to work with, although with the new css zen template, it is easier to give it a look which is not straight out of the box. Drupal sites are generally u-g-l-y, but very functional!

Anyhow, I decided to try something new. I need:

• a blog - one with categories, subcategories, tagging, css templating, rss, upload images + the ability to import a rather large MT export file
• image gallery - preferably one that can import from coppermine or gallery with category support, metadata, rss, crossposting of images (assign images to more than 1 category)
• easy support for 3rd party scripting from flickr, youtube, blogger, other rss, etc.
• a way to generate 5 or 6 mostly static pages
• ability to template and design with css; slightly different templates for various sections
• valid coding would be nice, but I know there are sometimes compromises

On this domain, I have been using expression engine (ee) for years for a blog software. However, I am now ready to dump ee, due to its cost and licensing restrictions. Actually, I started out with greymatter (opensource) then migrated to MT (movable type) and then migrated to ee. So, some of my data has already been through 3 migrations.

I know wordpress can do this. Textpattern seems to be an option too. So, an interesting experiment.

Blogs you should read

On one library list, there is an ongoing discussion about library related or librarian blogs that librarians should be reading. I’m sure everyone has their favorites. I read a lot of nonlibrary tech blogs that I find interesting and I participate in a couple of lists that do not have blogs. Anyhow here is my library related reading list:

Catalogablog, http://catalogablog.blogspot.com/

I know — cataloging is dead (ha! really!?), so what could anyone have to write about? How about LC decisions, nexgen catalogs, metadata, creative commons metadata and more. Cataloging dead, eh? I don’t think so and reading this blog gives a good overview of all of the various pieces of it. ..and if you need even more cataloging news, http://www.catalogingfutures.com/.

tech essence, http://techessence.info/ which covers technologies in libraries.

ACRLBlog, covers issues in academic libraries from web2.0 to privacy and everything in between.

Designing Better Libraries, http://dbl.lishost.org/blog/ focused on design and user experience.

Stephen’s Lighthouse, http://stephenslighthouse.sirsidynix.com/ from Sirsi’s Vice president of innovation.

Tame the web, http://tametheweb.com/

..and to see the Top 25 librarian bloggers which includes such blogs as librarian.net, the shifted librarian, librarian in black, etc. http://oedb.org/library/features/top-25-librarian-bloggers-by-the-numbers

Tech blogs: Lifehacks (gotta have them!) and techmeme. For all kinds of news, metafilter.

testing windows live writer

Okay, this is a test to see how posting from windows live writer.

Let’s see if it works.

Link to all blogger posts

So, I was trying to figure out how to create a link to all of my blogger posts. This one will work for now:
http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/search?max-results=1000