My father, Chuck Mullenweg, passed one week ago today. After over a month in ICU he had just been transferred to long-term acute care in a different hospital and we were looking forward to a tough but steady road to being back home when he took an unexpected and sudden turn. I’ve started and stopped writing this dozens of times since then and words continue to fail me.
Windows Live Writer works so much better than Scribefire. I used Scribefire a few times. It just didn’t seem to work that great. I recommend Windows Live Writer or if you have a problem with windows. Try using WordPress “Press this” feature. It’s a little button that you can drag to your toolbar on your browser.
All you have to highlight the text that you want to quote and blog about, click on press this and voilà! you are blogging. It is rather nice.
Updated to add: I mean, I can understand people’s passion and really digging the software; and some people make their living with it and all. But making threats and that sort of thing is just lame. It is only software people, not your life.
When I first heard about this SOPA/PIPA bill, I really did not think much of it; in fact, my attitude was, “If you’re not doing anything illegal, you have zero to worry about!” Well, it seems that I was wrong about that.
You are an agent of change. Has anyone ever told you that? Well, I just did, and I meant it.
Normally we stay away from from politics here at the official WordPress project — having users from all over the globe that span the political spectrum is evidence that we are doing our job and democratizing publishing, and we don’t want to alienate any of our users no matter how much some of us may disagree with some of them personally. Today, I’m breaking our no-politics rule, because there’s something going on in U.S. politics right now that we need to make sure you know about and understand, because it affects us all.
Using WordPress to blog, to publish, to communicate things online that once upon a time would have been relegated to an unread private journal (or simply remained unspoken, uncreated, unshared) makes you a part of one of the biggest changes in modern history: the democratization of publishing and the independent web. Every time you click Publish, you are a part of that change, whether you are posting canny political insight or a cat that makes you LOL. How would you feel if the web stopped being so free and independent? I’m concerned freaked right the heck out about the bills that threaten to do this, and as a participant in one of the biggest changes in modern history, you should be, too.
You may have heard people talking/blogging/twittering about SOPA — the Stop Online Piracy Act. The recent SOPA-related boycott of GoDaddy was all over the news, with many people expressing their outrage over the possibilities of SOPA, but when I ask people about SOPA and its sister bill in the Senate, PIPA (Protect IP Act), many don’t really know what the bills propose, or what we stand to lose. If you are not freaked out by SOPA/PIPA, please: for the next four minutes, instead of checking Facebook statuses, seeing who mentioned you on Twitter, or watching the latest episode of Sherlock*, watch this video (by Fight for the Future).
Jane’s right, WordPress does steer clear of the politics, (Bare Naked Islam notwithstanding.) and when they’re publishing something like this here; it is important.
I guess the White House website is running Drupal (ugh!) and Chris Wilson over at Slate does not think that it is such a swell idea.
Chris Writes:
Drupal knows best. It’s not that Drupal thinks you’re evil. It just thinks you’re ignorant. In a basic setup, the software is suspicious of everything you try to do. Should you, say, go completely rogue and try to add some Javascript in the body of a page—a 14-year-old technology that controls interactive components like buttons—the platform will have none of it. The message: “That’s dangerous stuff, and you probably don’t know what you’re doing.” Better to outlaw something altogether, Drupal figures, than simply ask you if you really want to use it. If Drupal ran the Food and Drug Administration, it would ban high-fructose corn syrup. This is just the sort of straitjacketed paternalism that half the country is convinced the Democrats are hell-bent on imposing on us all.
Drupal is impenetrable. Even the software’s defenders admit that it is hostile to newcomers—or at least indifferent to their plight, as a University of Baltimore study found. The apologists will tell you that, once you scale the learning curve, it gets much easier. This is probably true, but a lot of ordinary, code-fearing people who just want a simple Web site are getting left behind. If Drupal were an employee of the federal government, it would be the person who answers the phone at Immigration and Customs Enforcement who is unable to help you and unable to tell you who can. If you suspect government is the problem, not the solution, this sort of bureaucratic sprawl is your worst enemy.
Drupal hates change. Want to modernize Drupal by upgrading to a newer version? Ask theseguys how that worked out for them. If Drupal were a piece of legislation, it would be the farm bill: desperately in need of an overhaul but unlikely ever to get one because entrenched interests keep the forces of reform at bay.
Drupal is disorganized. Instead of displaying your pages in folders that you can browse, like you do on your personal computer, Drupal provides a nightmarish content list. To find what you’re looking for, you have to search for it. And unlike most content management systems, Drupal doesn’t have a convenient way to prevent two people from accidentally editing the same page at the same time. This is exactly the kind of rudderless confusion that small-government types have always said defines the federal government.
Drupal is righteous. The open-source movement has done wonderful things for the Web. But at its core, it remains a religion. If you went to DrupalCon in Paris last month, then you would have almost certainly come across proselytizers of one the movement’s fundamental tenets: Drupal doesn’t break Web sites. People with Drupal break Web sites. Most problems with Drupal stem from people who “don’t get it” or aren’t using it correctly. This is probably true, but it’s not much consolation when you spend 45 minutes trying to upload a photo. Drupal’s defenders are eerily reminiscent of those movement Democrats who were constantly knocking at your front door in the summer of 2008. Granted, they did get Obama elected, but it’s a miracle they didn’t cost him the election in the process.
Allow me to share with you all my little experience. Back before I wrote here on Political Byline. I used to be a “Left of Center” blogger. One day I got this wild hair up my butt about running a news site on Drupal; with my WordPress Blog in a sub-directory. How did it work out? To be blunt:
EPIC FAIL!
The pesky Russian hackers that had been sniffing around my blog, found their opening and they got it. To be very blunt; they farking hacked my crap to hell and back. A years worth of blogging, GONE in an instant. Nothing like a SQL Database injection hack to bring things in to perspective. I just about cried; and it was two days before Christmas no less.
Anyhow, after that; I said, no more Drupal and WordPress.
In fairness to the Drupal people, I did have some lousy hosting and I am not referring to the guy that was giving to me for free; it was the fault of the company that this guy buying from. (Hosting Scene) In techie terms; their MODSECURITY was much out of date. I know, OUCH! What I said, when it happened. I was not a happy camper. 😡
I am much pleased to report that I am, “Over the Moon” as they say with my current hosting provider. Which is EWF Media; who gets his reselling hosting from a neat company named Site 5. Site 5 basically does co-location with The Planet hosting; which is about the best darned hosting company on, well, The Planet! I highly recommend them, they are the best. If you are looking for excellent reseller hosting, go with EWF Media, he is so affordable. If you are looking to get a reseller account, go with Site 5, they are the best. (Now, watch my server go down after talking these guys up… HA!)
Anyhow, if the White House sees this, go with WordPress, you will be glad you did. It is truly, the bomb diggity.
Update: After I posted this last night and came back this morning, I realized that I forgot to mention why WordPress itself is so wonderful… So, without further ado; I present that reason. First here are some video as to why WordPress is so wonderful:
I was afraid something like this was going to start.
Due to the stupid behavior of Van Jones and his subsequent resignation. The liberal MSM is now gearing up for a return attack against Glenn Beck; and they are employing the services of the Liberal Blogosphere to do so.
To his much deserved Credit, Ed Morrissey predicted that this would happen:
What exactly does that mean? In the next Republican administration, we can expect a great deal of scrutiny for Presidential advisers. For one thing, it means that no one who ever expressed public support for Birthers to get the benefit of the doubt. The two conspiracy theories are different, but they both are entirely speculative and imagine dark conspiracies at the highest orbits of power, and neither have any actual direct evidence for support. Anyone who signed a Birther petition can expect to get bypassed for political appointments in a Republican White House with a halfway-decent vetting team, strictly on the basis of politics, in the wake of Jones’ resignation.
The media and the leftward parts of the New Media will get to work in the meantime on advisers and staffers of Republicans in Congress, and in the New Media itself. They will use the Van Jones Standard to launch attacks on high-profile conservatives, looking for everything from John Birch Society membership to militias and Birtherism as well. They have done this all along, but the Left and the media will find much more enthusiasm for these efforts in order to trade Van Jones’ scalp for one or more on the Right.
Ed has never been wrong before; and it appears that it is already starting against Glenn Beck. RedState’s Erick Erickson has discovered an Plea Entry over at DailyKos from none other than the DNC’s chief spokesperson himself; Keith Olbermann, asking for any and all dirt on Glenn Beck and his producers and anyone else over at Fox News.
I don’t know why I’ve got this phrasing in my head, but: Find everything you can about Glenn Beck, Stu Burguiere, and Roger Ailes.
No, even now, I refuse to go all caps.
No, sending me links to the last two Countdowns with my own de-constructions of his biblical vision quality Communist/Fascist/Socialist/Zimbalist art at Rockefeller Center (where, curiously, he works, Comrade) doesn’t count. Nor does sending me links to specious inappropriate point-underscoring prove-you’re-innocent made-up rumors.
Despite the worn-out snark above, I am in earnest here.
Tuesday we will expand this to the television audience and have a dedicated email address to accept leads, tips, contacts, on Beck, his radio producer Burguiere, and the chief of his tv enablers, Ailes (even though Ailes’ power was desperately undercut when he failed to pull off his phony “truce” push).
This becomes necessary after this in order to prove various cliches about goose and gander, and to remind everybody to walk softly and carry a big popsicle, and most particularly to save this nation from the Oligarhy of The Stupid.
I keep wondering if somewhere somebody named Ollie Garhey thinks he’s in charge now. Or, even more entertainingly and societally satisfying, if somebody named Ali Garhi does.
Despite the worn-out snark above, I am in earnest here.
You almost hear the desperation in that posting above. The Liberals took a massive pounding and they are in earnest trying to find a way to volley a return fire at Glenn Beck. If you believe that they are going to stop with Glenn Beck; you are kidding yourselves. My suggestion to ALL Conservative Bloggers is this. Girt your loins, prepare for attacks on your blogs, by Socalists. If you are running WordPress Blogs, update to the latest version of WordPress. Because right now, there is a worm spreading aroundthat is taking out older versions of WordPress. I would expect that these socialist minions are more than willing to try DOS attacks on blogs. Especially high profile Blogs. If you do not have a good relations with your host. Now would be a good time to start one or find a host that is blogger friendly.
It is not my intention to scare anyone or anything of that nature. But it would be prudent of all of us; that if we continue to challenge this Administration; we must be prepared for the fallout and for any sort blow-back that might result from the resignation of Obama Administration officials. Remember we are doing the Lord’s work. This is our God-Given Country, and we must stand up for the principles that this Country was founded upon; which are God-Breathed. While I do not view all Democrats as my enemy per-say; I view socialists and Socialism, especially of the Saul Alinsky strand, to be an Enemy of America; right up there with Al-Qaeda. We must be strong, we must be wise and above all, we must be ready.
