Updates galore

I’ve updated a bunch of stuff in the last 48 hours. Namely:

• MovableType
• Ecto
• iTunes
• QuickTime

MovableType being the focus of this post. But some other webnews will be discussed I guess (like that new iPod) hehehe.

MovableType 3.2

MovableType is now up to version 3.2. They might as well have pegged it at version 4 since there were so many noticeable enhancements.

First is the back-end stuff; they made the upgrade process very user friendly at this point… all you had to literally do was dump the folders then login. As soon as you login, and it detects that you already had a previous installation, it will simply show a page with a button telling you to proceed with the upgrade process… which then leads to a page that shows the process with the judicious use of the popular XMLHttpRequest ¹ Also considered as the “AJAX” framework (depends on what perspective you choose really), and just so it’s easy for everyone, I’ll probably use the term throughout the post when I refer to such components. implementation.

The interface, particularly the “sensibility” of the administration panel, makes much more sense now. Lots of tabs to group functions together. As a web-person, I appreciated the fact that they put very much thought into the interface this time around making everything much more intuitive than it used to be. A huge improvement on the little things were done as well (graphics, etc.) which improved the overall fell of the system. AJAX was also interspersed here and there, but not that much. I personally thought they could’ve afforded to put more AJAX-esque functionality, but I will not question their decision, I trust the developers of this excellent software.

Ever since 3.1 came out with MT-Blacklist built-in, spam in my blog (not to be confused with my guestbook hehehe) has practically been non-existent for the most part. MT3.2 now comes with the [SpamLookup][sl] plugin suite by Brad Choate.

Every serious user of MT knows Brad from his contribution to the plugin arena, as well as extending the MT backend with his perl hacks… right up to the point where SixApart ² Makers of MovableType hired him. Ever since he joined the team, MT has only gotten better. And with 3.2 out, I’m more than convinced that he had something to do with a bunch of the better enhancements in this release (wether trivial or major).

Anyways, Jay Allen, MT-Blacklist’s developer apparently works at SixApart too, and heads the Spam department, from what I gathered from his site. He and Brad have been working on improving MT‘s spam handling stuff. In a nutshell, here’s what he has to say about the new Plugin:

Many times, MT-Blacklist has been characterized as the “Swiss Army knife of weblog spam defenses” for Movable Type by a lot of different people, and rightly so.

But if that’s true, [SpamLookup][sl], a new plugin by Brad Choate, is the whole damn Swiss Army.

Plugin handling has further been improved. Everything just looks so damn good in this release!

Basically, everything was refined to an impressive extent. I practically feel sorry for all those who switched to WordPress, but then not all of them are willing go beyond customizing the look of their templates, so I guess in their case, the simpler the better still holds true. But for those who are still on MT, and are thinking of switching… try 3.2 first before considering that switch, you won’t be sorry.

I’m still testing everything (making sure that my all my plugins still work on this new release), so far so good. I did however make one booboo – I accidentally overwritten my search-result page’s template. Right now, I put a basic template up for it so it still gels with my site’s overall look, but it’s far from what I’ve initially configured it to be…

Apple Stuff

iPOD Nano

Well that special September 7 event was the debut of the iPod Nano, a flash based full featured iPod (less the space) in an incredibly thin and sexy shell.

NOW THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!!!

This just vindicates my belief that the shuffle is crap. PERIOD, FUCK YOU. Hehehe Their whole “random” angle was utter bullcrap… bullcrap that worked nonetheless, it was an ingenious marketing strategy and I will never deny the fact that it was a “success” from that perspective… but still! ³ It made me lose some respect for humanity in general as they were actually convinced by that JUST BECAUSE APPLE said it. Humanity has indeed been reduced to brainless consumerism..

I dare say that today, anyone that still defends the shitstick as an excellent product (on it’s own) probably owns one and is just saying that to make themselves feel better. ⁴ Fine, the flash-based thing could hold ground for a reason to get the shuffle, whatever makes you sleep at night :)

The only reasoning I will accept is if people can’t afford it, or admit that they are an Apple fanatic. I’d rather hear someone say “I’d like a real iPod, but I can’t afford it,” or “I collect Apple products,” as a reason for getting a shuffle… rather than some lame-assed psycho-babble saying that it was a wonderful product. Just own up to any (or both) of those sorry-assed situations and call a spade a spade for christ sake!

Simple answer blockheads will always deny: it was an APPLE product so you simply had to have it no matter how horrible it is. Come on, don’t be shy 🙂 I mean I want a Mac Mini myself purely for aesthetic reasons… but you’ll never hear me say that it’s better than a PC I can get for the same budget. Mind you, I want a Mac mini, but even so, I will be first to admit that it’s a weak machine – so I’ll be damned to even dare compare it to a [decent] PC desktop performance-wise.

The iPod Nano however… pure elegance! The only drawback it has is that it’s has the capacity of a mini. As much as I love to own one, my songs simply won’t fit on it (They don’t even fit my 60GB). But since I think the trend is going flash based storage nowadays, it’s only a matter of time when even my 60GB will be replaced by a much thinner, flash-based iPod. Good times!

iTunes 5

iTunes also got an overhaul. I really don’t care about the general “look” of the interface, so I won’t comment on that. All I can say is that the change in scenery is a refreshing one (not necessarily good or bad).

What I do love is the Playlist Folders! Finally a way to organize you playlists. Unfortunately it is only on the desktop level. Perhaps in a future iPod software update, they include support for the folders on the iPods themselves… after all it will still be accessed by the navigation system the same way.

One bug I noticed on the previous version is that even if you put your iPod into manual mode (meaning you manage your library manually) the podcasts still seem to do stuff automatically. So if you’re out of town, and you left your library hard disk at home (assuming you use external storage), and put your iPod to manual just so it won’t sync unnecessarily (and so you can still access your songs via iTunes) – your podcasts aren’t safe! They will be erased. I just hope they corrected this bug in v5.0

I still wish they put a facility to convert audio files to podcasts… at least assign a field, tag or something that could make it happen. I have a bunch of old podcasts that can’t be included in the podcast section simply because they are registered as “songs.” Also they still haven’t implemented a way to tag MP3s as audiobooks so you can use bookmarking on them. ⁵ Podcasts IN GENERAL are bookmarkable in iTunes (wether they’re MP3s or AACs), so it makes sense to assume that you CAN bookmark MP3s without having to transcode them to AAC and apply some hacks.