Ben Tshin

My sister is back home and we got talking about techy-geeky things and blogs.

We took a look at something on her site and she complained about how tacky or boring it looked. I think it was still using the original design style from Movable Type. So being familiar with WordPress and blogs in general I know that it’s relatively easy to change styles since it’s all in the CSS. So we find the thing to choose designs and off we go. But for some reason MT messed everything up with the sidebars.

I am my sister’s tech saviour. I provide hardware (i.e.: Canon PowerShot A560, Western Digital Passport 120GB, et al.), software (Windows & Office) and most importantly movies and TV shows (i.e.: Ugly Betty, Prison Break). So now I am my sister’s blog saviour.

I’ve used MT on my previous blog, and my brother currently [nominally] uses it as well. The gripe is the user interface (or user experience) for MT3.33 is clunky, static and just plain yuck. WP2.3 just seems light years ahead. I feel like a geek to say it, but WP is just better web.

But that’s not the big issue. The main issue is open source software. SixApart, a for-profit company) is the primary developer of MT. So they took the originally open source MT2.x and made it “closed source” for MT3.x. Lots of Movable Type developers fled and created WordPress.

Now look: MT4.x is once again being released as open source (Movable Type Open Source). And now SixApart is playing catch up. Too bad. Movable Type was a pioneer, but WordPress is the new king of the playground. Just don’t mention Google and Blogspot/Blogger.

So my mini-task for this week: migrate my sister’s blogs from MT and Blogspot to WordPress. I pray for clear skies and strong tailwinds.

It’s my champagne birthday. Or it was. It’s over now anyway. So if you forgot, I’m not talking to you… until next year!

Strange thing is that everyone is using Facebook these days to remind themselves of birthdays. So there was a debate about whether to show or hide birthdays. It’s shown by default. But then I thought: “I hate it (or is word too strong??) when people only remember your birthday because some social networking tool (i.e.: Facebook, MySpace, Friendster) reminds them. If they were real friends, they’d remember!” So I hid it. For all of two days. Although Facebook is as superficial as it is, it’s always good feeling when people wish you a happy birthday. Would I rather have random people wishing me a happy birthday or random people wishing me a crappy birthday? The answer is obviously “HAPPY BIRTHDAY”.

Going back to remembering birthdays: I always forget. The only way I used to remember was because Outlook would flash a reminder at 11:45pm the night before. But now I stopped using Outlook simply because gMail and Google are so awesome! So no reminders. I could import all my Outlook birthdays into gCalendar, but it’s too much work since Google doesn’t handle Outlook .pst databases. That’s right. I might be unemployed, but somethings are still too much work.

I didn’t feel bad when Jeff forgot. We had lunch with Rebecca (who I guess also forgot), played squash (I can’t believe I lost that third game), hung around his place. And in the usual Wong manner, he asked if I was staying for dinner. “Nope, I’ve got dinner in Richmond Hill.” “Oh, what for?” “My birthday…” “OH? Right, it’s the 26th today.”

So here are the four ways to forget your friend’s birthday:

1. You get the day/month wrong: “Your birthday is today? I thought it’s the 28th!” (Or “I thought it’s October!” This doesn’t apply if you get both day and month wrong. Then that’s blatantly wrong.)
2. You get it mixed up with someone else: “Your birthday is today? Wait, then who’s October 26th?” (This is worse than #1 because that means two birthdays were missed.)
3. You know their correct birth date, but you don’t know today’s date: “Wait, is today the 26th?”
4. You never knew in the first place:
   • You never bothered to find out.
   • You don’t know the person THAT well. (Here’s where Facebook helps too much.)

So next time you forget, find out which way forgot. If it’s #1, #2 or #3, you probably looked stupid on your friend’s “happy day”. But don’t worry: Hopefully someone else already wished a “happy birthday” so chances are they won’t get cranky on you.

Jeff forgot through #3. Unfortunately I forgot his in September because of #2 and #3. Now that’s just inexcusable. So I take back my isolationist threat: you’re all forgiven. But only for this year.