Rebuilding Movable Type blog completed just now. One simple stupidity (too stupid to mention), not myriad mistakes made this blog out of cyberspace last quarter. All the entries that I posted and maintained over the past ten plus years totally disappeared due to irrevocable backup copies.

Physical failure can be constant risk in server operation and maintenance. Backup as well as recovery plan is a basic and perfect measure in most of cases. However, the backup must be done properly. This is the lesson that I learnt.

More than five years, Movable Type Professional Pack (Professional Blog Template) kept the position of main theme for kokeb.net with flexibility over multiple column design for PC-based web browsers. The advent of mobile and portable devices triggered the transition to convert existing HTMLs to mobile aware ones. The completion of those small projects made me chuckle with happiness that I attained higher degree or depth in Movable Type manipulation. On the other hands, I should have spent most of time to wrestle with my poor taste in design, templates, and codes instead of putting high quality blog posts.

Recently, I completed migration with the template, called Rainier. It will switch styles dynamically based on types of devices or browsers accessing the blog; No need to keep two types of HTMLs for PC-based or mobile browsers as I did before. All DNS and web server configurations fixed accordingly, such as m.kokeb.net, kokeb.net/m, kokeb.mobi, and so on, not to make search robots grumble.

The last screen shot with professional pack is as follows.

Regardless of criticism or pros/cons dispute toward Movable Type, it has stayed long in my hosting space since the year 2005. Today, MT 5.2.2 got populated.

Once I came to control this platform at my fingertip, upgrade process was one of consistent and easy procedure without any burden because of not only comfort in its use but also no dramatic change in core components I had been using. This was the case with today's upgrade; just code upgrade.

Then, I realized that mobile template (called, Rainier) started to ship with Movable Type AT LAST! From now on, anybody (including me) can generate Movable Type blog compatible with mobile devices.(Movable Type 5.2.2 has been released!) I did not convert my blog with new template today but will do some day. Let's enjoy.

Transition to Movable Type 5.0x was a little burdensome to do this and that. Today's transition was just on the fly. What I have done was melting Movable Type tar ball under cgi directory. Then, initial logon triggered upgrade process resulting in successful migration gracefully. That's all!

This is the first post published from Movable Type 5.12 to see if it works.

No recent care on my blog platform, Movable Type 5.02 as of today, kept me away from proper update in the platform itself and relevant gadgets. I realized that Action Streams 2.3 released a month ago by locating this page.

Action Streams 2.3 is now on operation in place of Action Streams 2.1 (interim release).

Keeping user's own data consistently requires painful process always, for example, in front of software update and/or hosting relocation. This is (was) also the case with Movable Type to some extent. Shortly speaking, this blog post rendered from Movable Type 5 platform in success. Let me share my experience how I managed to migrate from version 4 to brand new 5 with all articles as well as custom templates.

First of all, here are my configurations that you may want to know about.

• Old configuration
• Movable Type 4.3x
• ActionStream 2.1
• Cumulus 1.2
• New configuration
• Movable 5.01
• ActionStream 2.1 (MAKE SURE to get it from here or refer to forum Q&A)
• Cumulus 1.2 (the same as from old configuration)

In brief, I tried these steps

1. Back up entries (menu "Export Entries" from old installation)
2. Create new database for Movable Type 5 (kept Movable Type 4 database untouched)
3. Install fresh Movable Type 5 (kept Movable Type 4 installation untouched) with plugins
4. Import entries (menu "Import Entries") at new installation
5. Copy custom template from Movable Type 4 to 5 MANUALLY (copy & paste; labor intensive but sure bet)
6. Copy configuration of plugin(s) as needed (the same as above)

Above procedure is just one out of numerous ways you may think of. My goal was to populate old articles with Movable Type 5 by fresh installation. Automated upgrade from Movable Type 4, you may choose if you don't want to be bothered about complexity of migration over fresh installation.

I (also you, probably) encountered two hurdles in the middle of migration. One was incompatibility of ActionStream 2.1. Resolution was already here (just download version 5 aware port!). The other was how to import entries because the dashboard did not show me any clue how to do. Now, let's dive into details and workaround which I escaped from stalemate with.

Upon the first sign-in after the installation process, one special blog (new term called "Website" from Movable Type 5) will be available. It is a kind of an aggregator or integral point of its dependent blogs. That's why no "Import Entries" menu can be seen from it.



Just leave this Website untouched for a while. Re-configure the "website" if needed in the future. Then, create a blog under that "website". You will be asked about template set, directory locations, and so forth by the same way you would be on previous installations. Once a new blog is created under the "website", it will bring you all facilities familiar with us. We can see a menu, "Import Entries"



Due to this "website" scheme and the procedure I tried above, your blog ID will be "2" instead of "1" taken by the "website." In most cases on previous Movable Type distributions, the first blog should take blog ID "1", however. This situation will make archive cache corrupt on search engines without any doubt. Configure mod_rewrite (.htaccess) or something like that if corruption matters to you seriously. I did not touch anything because search engines would refresh their cache in the long run. :-)



Except two issues above (action stream compatibility and entry import), everything will be favorable for experienced users in Movable Type installation. I hope this helps. One good news is that new Movable Type now supports "Export theme" facilitating custom templates archive and making it available as a part of blog theme pool in automated manner. No more copy & paste!!

Social network platform, Movable Type Motion, released recently. In effect, Movable Type version 4.25 includes the Motion as a key feature as well as legacy blogging modules and templates like Classic Blog, Action Stream, Professional Website, Community Blog, and Community Forum distributed independently under respective license terms. My blog still runs as personal web pages on Professional Website template that I can not find any reason to transit to the Motion. (Refer to this link how the Motion works)

Upgrade to 4.25 was at my fingertips because there was no special change on Professional Website templates. Several enhanced features shared across modules presented me convenience. Of them, I would like to mark high scores on a couple of functions below.

1. Action Streams: Blog post became part of Action Stream enumeration. I don't need to roll out article RSS separately. This will provide me with simplified site design by consolidating scattered atom links into single one. (I will renovate blog layout soon)

2. Versatile Authentication Methods: Fight against spams would put barriers in front of comment entry pad. A blog would demand Movable Type specific or inconvenient sign-in methods. That inconvenience kept potential visitors willing to drop a comment away from intensive communication with blog authors. Now, whatever your account is, Movable Type will accept yours with ease.

To see is to believe. Install and enjoy!

Relatively high subscription fee (over 200 USD for GETTING HITS plan as of March 2008; look at my account panel below) from my pocket paid for stable run of Movable Type (MT) over the last year. I strongly recommend this service to whoever wants to be absorbed in article posting not in chores from UNIX administration. Flavor of an MT will stay with you always without any pain in maintenance.

Repetitive installations at the beginning of MT blogging deprived me of much time. I am a UNIX geek, though. Getting accustomed to MT administration in details was one of challenges at that time. Limitation of hosting services in Korea was another burden. Upon the decision to move from Korea, I had to pick NEXCESS.NET out of hosting services listed here not to waste time any more.

It turned out to be safe bet. Everything was ready for MT and me at the initial log on. MySQL database creation, MT source code unpacking, and "/blog/2009/02/mt-config.html" modification were all that I did. There was no need to move here and there to ask staffs to adjust account environment to MT; perl module installation, required binary installation, .htaccess modification, and so on. I never suspected server incompatibility with MT. Then, it was always true when I encountered problems in MT administration. Extremely speaking, most of my support requests staying at this service were non-MT issues. This MT friendly web space made me spend more time on blog contents and their interconnectivity to other services.

As a hosting service in general standpoint, it delivered high quality user support. In most cases, the first reply from the customer center notified me of task completion. Instead of re-asking an issue (you might experience this context at other places), they tried their best to figure out solutions from my single line question. Support staffs did not simply drop guideline URLs but did do something themselves for customers. Furthermore, I never waited for the first human response more than ten minutes then could get final results within half an hour. I could always issue a ticket with newly appeared problems only. Once resolved, never reappeared.

Critical drawback of relatively high expense at low hosting resources (bandwidth, disk, database space) may keep you from this service. However, MT readiness and good quality of service will pay you. Nightmare of wrestling with UNIX? Joy of blogging? It's up to your decision.

Six Apart announced beta release of Movable Type (MT) Motion recently. One of key features from Motion is microblogging like Twitter, Pownce (merged to Six Apart already), and me2day (Twitter-like service in Korea; merged to NHN, one of major portals in Korea). One function of microblogging is a sort of mobile originated (MO) services handling data flows from mobile phone on users' palm to server side of Movable Type blog as Twitter and me2day do as of present. I am not sure, however, whether Six Apart will provide MT folks with world wide or regional MO-like service embedded in future release candidate or final release. Therefore, last weekend's endeavor was to mimic Twitter mobile support on MT. Then, I succeeded as you can see screen shot below.

Feasibility study checking out MO service providers in Koreas turned out to be illegible in my budget standpoint. They support http and/or socket interface to store messages fired from handset, then, to make those messages available in service side; MT blog in my case. Simple and easy to implement! However, more than hundred USD per month only with several hundred times of message relay :-(

Instead, turning my eyes onto other references with additional hours led me to some practical as well as free-of-charge approach (in Korean, though) using MSN protocol to hijack messages. MSN in Korea runs business, called phone buddy, in message handling from "messenger tab."

• sending messages to mobile phone(s) with flat and the same rate as mobile carrier's
• checking phone messages directed to MSN account linked with a certain mobile phone number (my phone number in this case) free of charge :-)

The key idea is to snatch messenger notification when new message arrives, then, to post that snatched message to MT blog!

In the long run, I could post simple lines from my mobile phone onto MT blog by relaying a message headed for MSN account and pushing it to MT with the help of an XML-RPC script shown in this post. Screen shot above may look like ordinary blog posts generated from dash board or direct input upon member logon on MT Motion. However, phone keypad originated those lines.

Slight modification onto MSN Module 2.1.2 Revision 102 was a starting point. After understanding how the MSN module worked, I could identify where to put my hack code to dispatch a message to a Movable Type blog. As shown below, IPG notification is always followed by a message in form of XML fired from mobile phone. I just put at most around a hundred lines parsing XML, testing data robustness, and finally sending the message to a blog using an XML-RPC script. That's all and complete.

Now, let me talk about drawbacks and improvement opportunities on this implementation.

• Restriction: I was supposed to run this script set on web hosting side. However, hosting server did not allow these scripts to run on server side. All required ports were blocked by firewall. Additionally, most hosting services did not permit back ground process (in case of UNIX variants) running in the manner of infinitive loop. Therefore, I had to operate on my desktop computer. Not a 24 hours a day service now :-)
• Limitation: Phone buddy service supports only text message, not multimedia stream
• Improvement: This implementation maintained code structure suggested for really time processing. Further investigation on MSN protocol specification revealed Offline Messaging. That is, incoming messages will be stacked if I am off lined. When I log on MSN again, messages stacked can be drawn. This mechanism seems to require additional authentication process. However, this can make scripts run by crontab.

In sum, I have to find MSN ready hosting service (not possible in effect) or run my own (not reasonable) with simple solution above at this moment. Next move for realization will include 1. Coupling proxy connection to bypass firewall 2. Pulling out offline messages from MSN

Movable Type (MT) exposes interfaces to communicate with external services in exchange of actions and/or data with XML-RPC facility. Blog posts saying XML-RPC in Flickr and Windows Live Writer made me experience how it works remotely and independently from MT dash board.

Last weekend's experiment to implement my own script to contact MT XML-RPC server resulted in success with the help of this post as well as with an anatomy of XMLRPCServer.pm in MT distribution. The experiment was to post an article from my desktop computer triggered by Perl script that I prepared. Frontier-RPC Perl module facilitated the script preparation by simple API.

A code excerpt here will give you an insight how you can call MT XML-RPC methods prepared and exposed for you. Update for this code will available at the same link whenever available. Hope it helps.

지금의 무버블타입 플랫폼으로 일 년여 정도를 버텨 왔는데, 조만간 새로운 플랫폼이 나온다고 한다. 이름은 Motion. 이전 업그레이드와는 다른 획기적인 기능들이 추가되었다. 블로그의 용도와 사용법에 대해 발상의 전환이 필요한 시기가 도래하였다. 업그레이드를 전제했을 때 글 이전과 사용법 적응에 애로가 있어 보인다. 아놔~~

베타 버전을 받아 설치해 보았다. 체험 결과와 무버블타입 공식 홈피에서 얘기하는 주요 특징/장점을 종합해 한글로 정리하면 아래와 같다. 대세는 통합 블로깅~~~

Rich Microblogging: 쉽게 말해 twitter 같은 서비스를 모션 플랫폼에서 직접적으로 지원하겠다고 한다. 최근에 pownce를 합병한 것과 관계있어 보인다. 글을 올리려면 로그인 후에 글을 작성하고 출판하는 (publish) 과정을 거쳐야 했다. Microblogging 기능을 사용하면, twitter와 같이 로그인하자마자 글을 적으면 바로 출판이 된다. 음성, 동영상, 사진, URL 등의 멀티미디어 기능 지원한다.

Action Streams: 이전부터 있었던 기능이다. Action 수집이 가능한 사이트가 늘어나고, 수집 가능한 정보의 종류도 많아졌다. 자신의 블로그에 올린 글에 대한 stream도 지원한다.

Sign in with any web account: 특정 사이트에 가서 뭣 좀 하려고 하면, 회원 가입하라고 난리다. 무버블타입 블로그에도 <일부> 해당하는 사항이었다. 이제는 웬만한 유명 사이트의 아이디를 가지고 무버블타입 블로그에 로그인(인증)할 수 있다. 야후, 구글, 페이스북 등 이름만 들으면 알 만한 거의 모든 사이트의 아이디를 지원할 예정이다. 코멘트 하나 남기려고 가입할 필요, 이제는 없다!

Powerful Profiles: 사용자 프로파일 상의 모든 정보와, 변동사항을 통합해 보여준다. 쉽게 말해, 사용자 정보를 클릭하면 해당 사용자의 followers/following, 블로그 정보, action stream 등을 통합해 보여준다.

오바마 홈피가 무버블 타입으로 (Movable Type) 구축되었다며 Six Apart 홈피가 대대적인 광고를 해대고 있다. 상업용 플랫폼으로서는 세력을 넓혀 가고 있는 것 같은데, 개인 설치형 블로그로서는 힘을 다 한듯. 난 무버블 타입에 완전 적응 되어서 계속 쓸 예정임. 떱. 여기 클릭!

A certain article may get more attention in case of photo attachment on it. One of strategies to accomplish the goal on a blog environment would be parallel placement of respective two tags having the same tag name; one will direct you to blog article tagged by it, the other will lead you to photo archive tagged by it, too. The former is defaulted behavior of Movable Type; the latter is also basic facility, however, separately provided by Flickr service. Today, I could generate a glue containing flickr tags matched with blog tags. Finally, I could attach the interface at the foot of every blog posts as shown from this article with the help of Movable Type template feature. Layout may change without any notification later on, though :-) No matched photo tags are marked by strikes.

An API to Flickr brought "Movable Type"-like photo tag clouds to this web site. Shown in the entrance and a screen shot below (I may change the entrance some day; that's why), tags linked with hyperlinks (Flickr photo show in my case) are listed in the order of popularity (instances) also represented by font sizes. To host this "Flickr tag clouds," I prepared REST wrapper script in perl as an atomic function. Then, hundred lines of additional codes made it possible for me to collect as much information from Flickr server. The "Flickr tag clouds" updates tag information dynamically in accordance with changes from the server with the help of cron job scheduler. More technical details MAY appear soon.

Beginning April 19, 2005, I put more than hundred posts so far. The first and last (I wonder, though) blog platform, Movable Type always stayed with me since then.

The quality of blog contents or contents itself must be a source of spirit in daily blogging. On other hands, supporting techniques will polish the spirit effectively if they provide appropriate tools rendering whatever bloggers want to visualize on the Web. The Movable Type, called publishing platform, converts merely textual contents to prospective shining gems with its underlying techniques as well as with bidirectional data flow across most resources on the Web.

All blog platforms including Movable Type would conform to web standards in their respective resulting contents. Differences against one another comes from the ways how they control user contents from input to output, facilities they provide for users doing so, and design scheme users work on. Templates, widgets, and styles are what Movable Type can show regarding those differences.

1. Templates are logical frameworks where user entries enter directly and indirectly. There is no need to care about physical structure. Putting what one wants to put is enough! Template contents may be frequently used codes/strings, just logical layout (for example, article title will be followed by contents, then comments, blah, blah), and whatever commonly used excerpts.

2. Widgets are building blocks helping users place contents (including entry) here and there over a blog plane. User can group contents from various sources of user defined templates, existing Movable Type templates, and direct input. User can construct widgets independent from those sources. Once widgets are ready for use, users can drag and drop to place them wherever preferred. That is, only mouse movements are required.

3. Styles are facilities to generate browser ready outcome from user entry incorporated with templates and widgets. HTML/CSS aware definition will make your entry look more beautiful and understandable from the Web. Style modification may need patience to test outcomes with trial and error repetition, a sort of intensive manual labor. However, concentration on style design is the only time consuming and hard work because templates and widgets will relieve bloggers of chores.

More technical details with examples will soon appear showing how those three will enhance flexible blog publishing. Of course, there are many more features available apart from above mentioned

Over the last three years, I aimed at putting as many articles on this blog, then improving quality of articles as information hive. Good accessibility to this blog to pick a certain post was beyond my scope. One day, I recognized that even I can not easily access my old archives only with several clicks.

The core problem was that blog links shown from a browser could not cover all paths to a specific post. Search function may take the place. However, one should enter a search term. This way is not feasible in case of visitor's first look-up or peeking purpose. For example, I had no way to pick an article without search function because pre-defined templates just showed several recent entries; defaulted behavior. Changing attributes to show more or all entries made blog plane occupied by too long list.

Forging all available measures using templates, widgets, and styles, I could generate archive page as shown below. The key function from the archive page is monthly category dropdown lists.

Dividing a plane into four columns was the first step applying my own design.

Then, I created category monthly dropdown list template by modifying existing dropdown code as below. (pick code from here)

Forming a category monthly widget showing all four category monthly dropdown lists was the final step as below. (pick code from here)

That's all!

(Tested on Movable Type 4.1 with professional pack)

Whenever a change of column layout was in need, I directly modified side bar template with three or two columns layout unchanged. Furthermore, widths for respective columns were out of my control. While tracking templates and style sheet, I came up with a clue how to customize column layout then poured a couple of hours to make my blog seen as it is now aiming at expanding the number of columns of entrance page from three to four (or more ideally). Followings are what I did to achieve the goal. Correct me please if there is something wrong. Any comment or suggestion for improvement will be appreciated, too. (I am not a MT guru)

1. Adding new style sheet for override

A screen capture below shows you how I overrode existing style by adding my own at the bottom of main style sheet. After that, I created the customized style sheet, named mystyle.css, from Blog templates (index templates) section of MT administration menu. You may modify or put my copy (mystyle.txt) into your preferred location.

2. Defining columns layout and scheme on that new style sheet

Adding delta-inner and epsilon-inner (experimental and future expansion purpose only) will be enough because existing MT style sheets have sections of alpha-inner, beta-inner, and gamma-inner. Inspection said that the summed length of each columns were 940px in maximum for proper tabulation. You may put your own width as long as the entire length does not exceed that size. Putting a certain name for this column structure is everything to do. For this blog, I named it with myhome. Look up excerpts (mystyle.txt) commented by "MY HOME" and around.

3. Changing sidebar by slight modification

Modifying sidebar template can be inevitable; it will be preferable minimizing the change and/or making it independent from system wide template/style change. This is link is for sidebar template. I've just added "else" conditions to put my own control below it. Look up excerpts commented by "below added by hyok"(sidebar.txt) or around. One thing kept in mind is that a division "delta" MUST be newly and entirely added as suggested.

4. Applying new layout

As shown below, I changed "page_layout" value into "layout-myhome" made from above in main index template section. That's all.

You may need to revisit step two and three to approach an optimal point in column width and widget placement.

Endeavor to control columns layout in this blog made it possible for me to transit from three columns environment then to land in flexible (four or more columns) publishing platform. Old one shown below accommodated so big sized picture at the portal that there was no enough room to populate and rearrange additional widgets.

The renovated home page now has four columns to try its best to give you core and summarized information available from this blog. You can confirm that additional style sheet and layout code in HTML work well on both of Windows and UNIX box with FireFox as shown below while there may be redundancy in code pieces :)

무버블타입(이하 MT)을 이용해 설치형 블로그 운영시 호스팅 업체 선정과 관련한 경험을 정리해 보겠습니다. 제가 업그레이드를 자주 해서 서버가 새 버전의 기능을 따라가지 못한 점도 있겠지만, 호스팅 업체의 사정을 감안해도 너무 하다는 생각이 든 경우가 자주 있었습니다. 기술적으로나 서버 관리차원에서 사소한 문제에 대해 (일부는 중요하기는 합니다만) 세심한 지원이 아쉬웠습니다.

현재 최신 버전인 4.1과 UNIX 환경을 기준으로 설명합니다. 이전 버전에서 업그레이드 예정인 경우에도 일부 참고가 될 것입니다. 또한 MT 또는 유명 플러그인의 부가 기능 모두를 활용할 경우를 가정하겠습니다. 단순히 글을 올리고 관리하는 주요 기능만을 사용하는 경우에는 적용되지 않을 수 있습니다.

• perl 모듈 지원: 객관적으로 기준을 정하기는 모호하지만, 대형 업체의 ê³ ê°€ 호스팅일 경우 안정성과 보안상의 이유로 모듈 추가 설치를 거부하는 경우가 있었습니다. 사용 중 계약을 해지하고 업체를 변경할 수 밖에 없었습니다. 오히려 저가 호스팅의 경우 모듈 추가나 변경을 잘 해주는 편이었습니다. 그러나 추가/변경 요청이 잦아지자, ê²°êµ­ 대형 업체와 같은 논리로 모듈 설치를 거부하였습니다. 최소한 Image::Magick이 (스팸 방지에 필수적인 모듈) 설치되어 있는지, 또는 추가 설치 가능한지 사전에 확인해야 합니다. ActionStreams를 사용 하려면 XML::Parser이 설치되어 있는지도 확인 하셔야 합니다.
• Cron: 운영에 별 지장은 없지만, 있으면 편리합니다. 서버 부하 가중을 우려해 대부분의 ì—…ì²´ê°€ 제공하지 않습니다. 참고로만 확인하시면 됩니다.
• Sendmail/smtp: 호스트 내에서 메일 발송이 가능한지 여부입니다. 보통은 웹메일을 제공하면서 stmp 서버를 별도로 운영하기 때문에 MTê°€ 설치된 호스트 내에서는 sendmail/smtp 실행 권한이 없는 경우가 대부분 입니다. 이것도 참고로만 확인하시면 됩니다.
• 기타: 상기 사항이 MT를 설치하게 될 호스트 내에 준비 되어 있는지 확인하셔야 합니다. ì—…ì²´ 차원에서 MT를 지원한다고 하는 경우에도, 운이 없으면 자신의 MTê°€ 설치될 호스트에는 준비가 안 되어 있는 황당한 경우도 있습니다.

호스팅 업체 선정에 도움이 되었으면 합니다.