By the way, I’ve installed a threaded comment plugin for the site, as it was driving me crazy to not be able to reply to people. It was written by someone who does not speak English as their first language, so you may notice some grammatical oddities in the e-mails you get, if you opt to get e-mails with replies. I’ll get around to fixing the e-mails eventually; it’s a low priority task. 
LJ has somehow managed to lose the past 2 months worth of entries. I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that this had something to do with my crossposter, but still…it’s bothersome. I could re-crosspost them all, but then there’s going to be a bunch of duplicates on LJ.
I’m also bugged by LJ forcing ads on non-LJ people, and my paid account has expired. Plus, LJ’s age-blocking stuff annoys the heck out of people. So, here goes…
I’m no longer going to be publishing this blog via LJ. After this post, my LJ account will become just something I use for commenting on other people’s LJs and for posting in communities (what few I still participate in over there). I’ll still be reading my LJ f-list, of course…I just won’t be posting to my LJ. If you still want to read this blog via your LJ F-list, you can add it as a feed by adding this URL as a “syndicated feed” via LJ (or just add it to Google reader or any feed reader that you like to use). Alternatively, you can visit the blog in its home at tsukata.org.
LJ has a massive history for me. I just don’t see any reason to keep publishing to it and thus increasing its potential traffic/revenue, even in what minute way my blog increases traffic and revenue.
(and even getting this entry to post over to LJ is proving to be a trial…)
For anyone who hasn’t found it through other means, if you upgrade to Wordpress 2.6 and you use a custom permalink structure (aka “pretty permalinks”) as I do, there’s a bug. To be specific, if your permalink structure includes a reference to your index.php file, they will no longer work. The workaround is to edit/create your .htaccess to use mod_rewrite and remove index.php from the link, as described here.
I’m not a big fan of using mod_rewrite, but it’s the only workaround to maintain pretty permalinks with WP 2.6. The WP gods are aware of the problem and are determining a proper fix for the next release, but given the workaround, it’s been deemed non-critical.
My blog has the capability to password-protect certain posts. I’m going to be using this feature to mimic the f-lock capability on LJ. Namely, I’m going to create one master password for trusted readers. All you have to do is get the password once and tuck it away somewhere handy.
Having password protection means I could post information about upcoming travel plans (normally, I only post vague information or post info after the trip is done, to prevent the possibility of a burglar using the blog to know when we’ll be home). I can also post certain sensitive things that can’t be shared with the world but could be shared with friends and family.
It’s totally an opt-in if you want the password. Just drop me an e-mail, and presuming you’re in the trusted reader category, I’ll e-mail it to you. You do need to send me e-mail (not just comment) because then I can just reply to send you the password. Otherwise, I need to dig up your e-mail address, verify that it’s valid, etc.
An example of a password protected post, with some semi-juicy content, will follow this one.
I just finished upgrading Wordpress on my site. As always, if anything seems wonky, let me know.
GAYFD mail seems to be up and running. If you have problems, please let me know so that I can trace them. Thanks!
I just edited my MX records to switch to GAFYD. Don’t be shocked if things bounce during the transition. You can use tsukata at gmail dot com as a backup if it seems like the normal addresses aren’t working.
It seems like I go through this thought process every month or so on my own, so I figured I’d open it up to the all-knowing f-list. Right now, my primary e-mail is via my domain (tk at tk dot org). This has advantages and disadvantages. The main disadvantage is that when I give out my e-mail address, I have to decide whether the recipient is someone that I am not upset about handing my website out to…and y’all know what I post here, so perhaps you can understand the concern. This, of course, is only a concern when I’m giving my e-mail to someone who also knows my real-life name and who might potentially be the kind of ass who would want to do harm to a person with my proclivities. Thus, 99 percent of the time, it’s not a concern at all. (I do know that my domain/real-life connection is discoverable, but you have to be trying to find it with some tenacity. For example, there are ways to search the wayback machine and link up my real-life name with this domain, but they’re not entirely obvious. Otherwise, if you know that connection, you’re likely someone with equivalent proclivities and/or a liberal mindset such that I don’t imagine you care. And, of course, I operate on the theory of security by volume…that is, to get to the good stuff, you’ve gotta be willing to sift through a massive amount of less interesting stuff.)
Because my work has required me to become a part of several social networking sites (e.g., Facebook) and because I’m looking for other work, I’ve also established a GMail address that is in no way linked to this site (versus my other one, which is tk at gmail dot com). Because that address gets frequent e-mail, I’ve been using GMail more often than I have previously. It’s made me really come to like GMail.
My domain e-mail has also been known to have problems, and when it does have problems, it is not always immediately apparent. I’ll be sending mail having no idea that the recipient isn’t getting it and vice versa. At one point, any e-mail sent from the webmail was not getting to people, but e-mail sent from T-bird was. Weeks went by before I found out and thus pinged my hosting company as to WTF was going on. GMail is far more reliable.
However, I also have some pride in owning my own domain, and in the 99% case, I’m usually happy to be publicizing my domain via handing out my e-mail. It has on more than one occasion served me well that someone I gave my e-mail to then navigated to the domain. I nagged a husband that way.
I see my options as threefold:
1) Start transitioning friends and family to the (tk @) Gmail address. Set up T-bird to IMAP with the GMail address. Use tk dot org e-mail only for mass e-mails and the like (e.g., when I sign up for e-mails from commercial sites, order confirmations). This removes the problem of directly exposing people to my domain. It’s not like I’d
2) Switch tk dot org over to using Google Apps For Your Domain (GAFYD) for e-mail only. Then, I get the power of G on my tk dot org addresses, mostly…but GAFYD is often behind standard GMail in terms of features. I’m not even confident it has IMAP. It also doesn’t fix the 1% problem.
3) Leave everything as is.
So far, every time I’ve had this discussion, I’ve settled on option 3, as much from inertia as anything. Any thoughts from y’all?
I set up a new gallery using ZenPhoto. It has to be one of the easiest setups that I’ve done, and maintenance is a snap, too. It’s exactly what it promises: a basic gallery with the stuff you need and without the crap you don’t.
Check out the all new Gallery of the Org*.
