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.

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.

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!

Done it! MT 4.2, as committed, did not impose any chores on me. Complete as well as perfect automated process made me stay away from detailed installation. Now, MovableType 4.2 is with me only after a whole day endeavor to migrate my own styles and templates (inevitably and intrinsically manual labor by blog owner)

Attractive publishing perforamce is a great plus. Wrist watch read more than three minutes upon the last build on MT 4.1 right before the migration. MT 4.2, on the other hand, gives out around one minute or so in seconds from publishing result window.

(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 :)

MovableType의 Action Streams과 유사하게 동작하도록 설계된 서비스이다. Social networking과 블로그를 포함한 사용자 서비스 사이에서 양방향 통신을 가능하게 해준다. 일단 현재 사용중인 블로그와 facebook을 연결했고 facebook 상에서 글을 올리고 있다. 결과가 어떻게 나올지... 자세한 사항은 여기 참조.

(요기서부터 수동으로 수정/추가한 부분)

아래 그림 처럼 facebook 상에서 글을 입력하면 자신의 블로그에 글이 올려집니다. 아직은 facebook에서 MT로 글 올리기만 가능한 상태이고, Action Streams는 지원하지 않는 것으로 보입니다.

A blog renovation completed just ago. Purchase of professional pack, thought of as one of idiot action by blogging gurus, boosted it accordingly. A combination of the adaptation to MT4.1, brand new features from professional pack, and cutting edge plug-ins available only from MT4.1 made me confused to set up a blog sphere keeping the entry link consistency with new features at my hand. However, the fact that I paid for commercial software for the first time in my life gave me more inspiration to maximize its functionality. Big changes include,

• Application of Universal Web Templates from professional pack to incorporate non-blog web pages which used to exist in form of external links from blog
• Installation of Action Streams plug-in to trace events from elsewhere

How about a new face of kokeb.net?

One saying that I encountered several days ago from a certain blog smashed an agony of mind full of stress accumulated since my birth. There are so many maxims as well as proverbs to lesson a person what to do or how to behave in doing so. On the other hand, what I found was how to think! A saying in Tibet,

"If a problem can be solved, there is no use worrying about it. If it can't be solved, worrying will do no good."

That's logically simply. Whenever I repeat the couple of sentences in Korean, I can calm down. However, I am still reluctant to think like that way with the fear that something may fail or go wrong. Don't feed stress any more! It's hard to burn out stress :)

Recollecting what I had done as a Korea Overseas Volunteer (KOV) in Ethiopia, I still wonder what the true volunteerism is. I redefined my volunteerism into "technical cooperation" in the article from KOV category of this blog because spiritual understanding in grass root level was missing. Specifically speaking, I was always busy in preparation of network with cutting edge technology, training materials, reports to the Ministry and KOICA regional office, and any other tangible matters only. At the end of stay in Ethiopia, only thing that I could do was just to keep unforgettable memory with Ethiopian around my residence. If I revisit Ethiopia as a volunteer, I will be able to behave in different way by devoting myself to understanding existing Ethiopian cultures as they are now. However, will my revisit happen? Of course, not! Whenever I read articles from "One Love Theater/Blog", I can imagine what and how the volunteers there are doing in Awassa with the spirits that I should have shared with colleagues from the Ministry of Education in Ethiopia. Look up article from this link!

Cutting edge technology, blog system, now assists Awassa Children's Project! Called One Love Theater Blog shows what are going on in Awassa Youth Campus (AYC). I here put trackback on the first article of that blog to spread HIV/AIDS awareness with the help of blogging mechanism.

Even though I did know already what the wikipedia is and how it work, I never utilized it as a reference link to explain terms and keywords intermingled in articles on my blog. Instead, I had spent so much amount of time to explain them with my broken English. :) Here are the reference terms that I added for better understanding inside this blog.More references will be available on the fly over this blog

Ethiopian_calendar, Matiz, Amharic, Klaus_Kleinfeld, Kibaale, Corydoras, Lake_Langano, Pleco, Awamori, Awassa

It passed nearly two months since my visit to Okinawa. Nothing except serveral scratchings on travel planning and accommodation there (Nago International House) was shown up this blog thereafter, though. Impressions upon my arrival in Okinawa include "peace", "calm", and "zephyr". The peace and calm can go together in terms of life style of Okinawa residents. The zephyr was what I experienced for the first time in my life; the real tropical wind flow touching me on the face all through my stay there. Visitation places were the mixture of historical, cultural, and entertainment basis with the help of ex-JOCV residing there (born in, also). Fortunately, I could escape from forest rainfall chasing me on the verge of rainy season. I will make sure that site photos with comment be ready on this blog soon.

I have several hours to go to Okinawa island for my refreshment. Right now, luggage packing completed. Information from Okinawa Convention & Visitors Bureau was great help for visit planning. A certain ex-JOCV member gave me a big hand, too. More message drops are supposed to be shown in this blog upon my return on 7th of May.

여행의 반은 준비하는데 있다고 했던가? 방금 짐을 다 꾸렸다. 아~~ 드뎌 오키나와 간다~~~ 체험기를 기대하시라~~

Calligraphy version of Chinese character of is as bolow. Today night, I had written it down on Chinese drawing paper, and then, acquired digital version from scanner. It will be put on wherever authentication or signature is needed inside this blog. <혁> 자를 붓글씨로 써서 위와 같이 이미지로 만들었다. 홈피 안에서 내 싸인 대신 사용하려고 한다.