Fluid Flow

Dave Winer’s latest creation is a tool called FlickrFan. FlickrFan is fairly simple in concept. It takes photos from a Flickr RSS feed and downloads them to a folder on your computer. You can then set up your screensaver to used these photos.

The concept is similar to my dynamicImages tool for Radio Userland and Frontier. The only real difference is that dynamicImages checked to see if an image had changed, while FlickrFan checks to see if a RSS feed has changed. Obviously, it is much easier to get lots of images using feeds. The other main difference is that dynamicImages was designed to change the desktop background, and FlickrFan appears to be designed to create a screensaver.

For some unknown reason, you can only set up the desktop image to show a photos from a single folder, while the screensaver will grab images from nested folders. Today on Scripting News was a post pointing to a HowTo that would sets your desktop to use the screensaver.

This almost works for me. But I have a problem in that I want to see the whole image and not zoom it to fill the screen. As a result, there can be wide margins around the image. In the Mac’s screensaver, the color of the margins is black. This isn’t a problem for the screensaver, because you are not trying to look at anything else. But it is a problem with the desktop, because it can generate ugly and difficult to use desktops (imagine a completely black desktop).

So, I wrote a hack that will copy all of the photos in the feeds folders and copy them into a single folder that can be used by the Mac’s desktop. It was simple to write and run because the OPML Editor that is the engine for FlickrFan is really just open source version of Frontier (and I have been using Frontier for over 10 years now).

After I get that hack running, I will tackle getting the Frontier ServerMonitor tool running with the OPML Editor.

Ok, all my Manila based websites are down. The problem is that they run under my user space on OS X. And for some reason, I keep getting logged out. Fluid Flow still works because it is running under root.

I haven’t had this much hassle with my server since last November, when we were inundated with comment spam.

Please bear with me, we will get to the bottom of this soon.

This morning my co-location provider clicked the switch to change my the IP addresses on my server. That started a two hour battle with my server as I tried to remember every instance that I needed to update the IP addresses on the server and on various domain name records.

I think that I have caught them all. Both web servers are now running and accessible from the web. I believe that mail service is working through the server as well.

I want to personally thank Paul Hurley of Simpli.biz (my co-location host) for helping me make the change and troubleshoot problems with me. I have worked with a lot of interent service provides over the last 12 years, and Simpli.biz is simply the best. Thank you.

A decade of Scripting News: ”

On this day, ten years ago, a weblog named Scripting News appeared for the first time at this address. Today, it is the longest continuing running weblog on the Internet.

(Via Scripting News.)

Congratulations Dave. Scripting News, your software, and you have inspired a generation of webloggers.

Some moron has decided that Fluid Flow would be a good place for
comment spam. The turd doesn’t realize that I am the only one who reads
Fluid Flow or sees the comments. And no thank you I don’t want Viagra
cheap. Though it might help in sharpening flint tools

As a result, I am turning off comments for a while.

I suppose that it was bound to happen, but I got my first bit of comment spam on Fluid Flow today. One spam comment out of nearly 1000 posts is pretty good. I think I owe this to the complete lack of popularity of Fluid Flow.

Dear Readers, you are doing a good job of keeping me anonymous. Thank you!!

I blocked the sender and deleted the post, but I hope this doesn’t become a routine.

On the bright side of the spam story, email spam has dropped dramatically. I am down to about 15 spam messages per day in my inbox. Last year I was getting over 200. The amount of spam getting caught on my servers filters is also down. Bouncing all but three email addresses to my domain has been a big help.

Last Saturday, I went to BloggerCon III at Stanford. It was an interesting conference with a format that could promote a discussion of a wide range of topics. In reality, however, most of the sessions that I attended quickly focused in on one or two topics with opposing camps arguing points of view. To that end, it wasn’t very enlightening.

That is not to say I didn’t enjoy it. But I guess that I was hoping for more.

I sat in on the Academia, Journalism, Mobile Blogging, and Making Money sessions.

I had an epiphany in the Mobile Blogging session when someone asked about using a cell phone to create audio-blogs. I realized that I have all of the tools to do this now. PhoneValet supports caller ID, answers my phone, and records messages to disk. Radio Userland ftps files dropped into particular folders to my server and handles my blog posts. To get a mobile audio-blog working, I would need an AppleScript that checks incoming calls, if they are from my cell phone, it would then move the audio file to my audio-blog folder, where Radio would ftp the file to my server. The script then needs to create a post in Radio and provide an enclosure link to the new audio-blog.

I am going to play with this when I get a chance.

Just for fun, 830 days since I quit smoking. [Scripting News]

and I could have sworn that Dave went AWOL just last summer.

This morning I was greeted with a couple of incredible endorsements.

Bill Coppinger, a new client from Victoria, Australia posted this message on the Frontier Server forum after I helped on the Central Ranges Local Learning and Employment Network site. This was followed by a message from Dan Mitchell, who I worked with to implement the De Anza Faculty websites project.

In both cases, I am pleased by the endorsements. But what pleases me most, is that I was able to help out on challenging projects.

Thanks Again!

Userland is getting into the Frontier/Manila hosting business

Priced at $1099 complete (even less for qualifying academic institutions), no other content management system combines the capabilities, usability, and value of UserLand Manila. For those users who don’t require their own in-house system, UserLand now offers Hosted Manila enabling low-cost, high-impact hosted websites with all the power and functionality of Manila starting as low as $299 per year. In addition, for those organizations desiring help getting started with a new Manila system, our Professional Services Group is ready to assist with project scoping, installation, customization and training…

Interesting. So, finally Userland is getting into the hosting business (again). After cutting down on all their free hosting services (editthispage, manilasite,…) over the last few years, Userland is now trying to set up a new income source through hosting its Frontier/Manila package. [Sebastian Fiedler]

Interesting news, ES Designs now has a hosting competitor that is charging premium rates. At Userland’s prices, they must be focusing on users who don’t think the can get an enterprise weblog solution for under $1100. For the rest of us, ES Designs and other Manila hosting services provide hosting at rates that are far more affordable for small business, non-profit and educational groups. Check us out.
Thanks to editHere.com for developing and maintaining this list