Ben Tshin

For some reason it feels really good to be mentioned in Timothy Appnel’s blog entry: MT was never open source so far. My blog has been validated by readers other than my own friends and family. Other people care to actually read it and then leave long comments too!

Anyway, for those wondering: Timothy Appnel writes a manual for Movable Type (a blogging tool like Blogspot, WordPress, TypePad), so he’s just defending his turf. And for good reason: I didn’t really do my homework about SixApart and the Movable Type open source vs. “closed source” debate. Then again, even with 2 years experience in the software industry, I still don’t know much about the difference between GPL and other licensing schemes. But I’m glad he does.

Kudos to everyone who slogged through his comment. If anything you learnt something: “MT was never open source so far”. But kudos to Timothy Appnel who actually read my last blog entry complaining about Movable Type.

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.

This is my first post. But really, it’s been a few years since my last blog: the brain drain.

This blog is about me.

I have decided not to name my blog. No fancy names that change every two months; nothing catchy that describes my life in five words.

I hope to be unrefined. There is a tendency of mine when writing essays, emails, blog posts, cards — pretty much anything — to want my words to be concise and with a minimum of words. Elegant writing. But that is a standard too lofty for my achievement. Ironically, the title of my last blog meant precisely the opposite. Besides I’ve always preferred unrefined rock sugar to the bleached snow white sugar.

So this is it.