AvantBlog

Mena over at Six Apart (makers of Moveable Type, the system that powers this blog) asks ‘How are you using the tool?’. Well Mena, I’m glad you asked.

Currently, I’ve got three blogs defined in MT: w00t (my main blog), quickies (which collects quick links, and outputs as part of w00t’s layout), and a photolog (which I don’t use anymore, but will probably resurrect sometime soon as a Desktop pictures collection blog, but for now, it’s really not an active blog and is out of the picture).

I’ve got 10 authors on my MT install, of which perhaps 5 or 6 of them are active, though all 10 of them might want to post sometime (they just haven’t posted in a while). All authors have posting privs on w00t and quickies (and if I ever get around to doing the Desktop pics blog, they’ll all have privs to post there, too).

Now, one thing I’m not clear about in the new MT licensing scheme is part of how a blog is defined:

“Weblog” means a single Web site viewable at a single URL (Uniform Resource Locator), consisting of one or more weblogs as generated by the Software via the “Create New Weblog” function of the Software. To be clear, sub-weblogs that make up weblog sites shouldn’t be counted toward your weblog total.

What confuses me here is the ‘viewable at a single URL’ language. See, I’ve got http://avantbard.com/blog/ which shows the main w00t layout, and that layout consists of w00t posts, and some recent Quickies posts, all on the same URL. However, if you want to, you can view just the Quickies blog at http://avantbard.com/quickies/. So, does that mean I’ve got 2 blogs, because each is viewable on a seperate URL?

Random thought: It recently occured to me that AOL could easily, and is probably, recording every Instant Message that is sent through its network. There’s nothing specific about this in the AIM Terms of Service, except a small bit:

AOL is not required to pre-screen Content available on the AIM Products, including the content of any messaging that occurs on or through the AIM service, although AOL reserves the right to do so in its sole discretion. AOL is not liable for Content that is provided by others. AOL reserves the right to remove Content that, in its sole judgment, does not meet its standards or does not comply with these Terms of Service, but AOL is not responsible for any failure or delay in removing such material.

I wonder if recording the data would be some kind of violation of privacy, the same way it would be to tap someone’s phone line. But I’m no lawyer, and it’s past my bedtime…

I got my DSL kit from Verizon in the mail yesterday and spent a good deal of time setting up our new network in the apartment. You might be wondering why I spent a good deal of time doing something that should have taken, oh, maybe a half an hour tops. Here’s why:

Verizon’s account setup process is slow. Very slow. I get a screen, it asks for the account username I want, so I put it in. I click submit. I wait for about five minutes while their server processes my request. Then I get a new screen asking for some info. I submit, and wait, and wait. You get the picture.

Once the account setup was completed, the rest was a snap. I’m sitting here on my couch surfin’ around, thanks to my wifi router. The funny thing is that wifi in this apartment is rediculous; my 20 foot ethernet cable could keep me connected anywhere I wanted to sit in this place. But … wires are so icky =-)

The transfer speeds seem good so far. I can pull about 160k/sec from Los Angeles. Haven’t tried uploads yet. Anyway, just wanted to share the good news.