Blogging News & Articles

Back in December 2007, Six Apart announced that the Movable Type (MT) blogging system was going open source. The move was greeted with enthusiasm, but the momentum never really seemed to build from that point. Now a group of ex-Six Apart staff and other MT enthusiasts have taken matters -- and the code -- into their own hands. Say hello to Open Melody. Let's have a look.

Following just days after the release of the optional Movable Type v4.26 release, Six Apart has announced another update to the blogging and social media platform. Apparently a few bugs and some performance related database schema changes slipped through the 4.26 cracks.

Key changes in version 4.261 include:

• The Schema Version is now updated to 4.00071, which was omitted in 4.26. This change will only affect users who have already upgraded to Movable Type 4.26, not those on 4.25 and below. The schema change adds indexes to several tables.
• A typo in a 4.26 commit where a user clicks the Cancel button on the Display Options flyout did not necessarily cancel the user's actions; the 4.261 fix corrects this behavior.
• Fixed the Schwartz (MT's job queuing system) error exposed as a result of a previous 4.26 commit: 'Can't call method "registry" on an undefined value at lib/MT/Component.pm line 558 during global destruction'.

Reminder: What You Got in v4.26

In case you missed our previous coverage, here's what came with the MT 4.26 update. Remember, this release was labeled as optional by Six Apart, but we'd say that it's a must have for anyone who's flexing the platform's muscle in a meaningful way.

Bug Fixes

Aside from resolving some bugs that got through the 4.25 QA process (or were deemed too insignificant), this release was all about improving existing features — no templates or plug-ins are affected. Breath sigh of relief now.

Probably one of the biggest crowd pleasers is a fix to how lists of articles were filtered by category name. Users can now parse categories within a mt:Entries tag that include whitespace or logical operators. This bug was actually introduced in version 4.25 and made a lot of people unhappy. So for much of the user base, this is a welcome update.

Here are a few more of the bug fixes (view them all here):

• Fixes to Backup and Restore
• Fixes to a bug where the comment response did not return users to the entry
• The method for parsing the categories within an mt:Entries tag has been fixed
• Security fix for mt-wizard.cgi (this is a non-critical security fix)

Performance Enhancements

Movable Type 4.26 is a recommended update for Enterprise 4.x customers is related to the performance fixes. Specifically, there are fixes to the database indices to improve query speed which should improve search significantly and improved reliability and performance of MT's open source job queuing system, TheSchwartz.

Other low-level changes that are said to improve performance include fixes to metadata saving and unnecessary reloading of the configuration while running MT under FastCGI.

Downloading the Update

You can download Movable Type 4.261 now, but as usual, make backups before applying any changes and read the release notes to make sure this is a fix you or your clients really need.

When Palm’s Pre phone was finally unveiled at January’s Consumer Electronic Association’s (CEA) bash earlier this year, everyone knew it was going to create a stir.

With it, Palm introduced some very cool hardware and a new operating system that looks like it will be Palm's platform for mobile devices for the foreseeable future: webOS.

Now, with the phone on general release, Alex King of Crowd Favorite, a prodigious developer of WordPress (news, site) plug-ins, has released a new edition of his WordPress Mobile Edition plug-in that will allow Pre users with WordPress blogs to update and edit the blogs using Pre.

Apart from the added support for the webOS operating system -- a Linux-based platform which leverages web standards for development – there are also a couple of other updates.

For one, it fixes a CSS bug that was referencing a non-existent image. For another it includes a new version of Carrington Mobile, the content management system theme framework for WordPress. This also includes updated README files and version 2.3 of the core Carrington framework.

If you have a Pre and a WordPress blog you can download the plug-in from Alex King’s WordPress plug-ins page.

There's a new version of the Movable Type (news, site) publishing system out. This latest release from Six Apart fixes issues, offers performance improvements and ties up one small security hole. There are no new features, no big wow -- but there was a bit of applause for a much sought after bug fix.

While perhaps wearing their very best “if you can’t beat them, join them” face, Six Apart (news, site) recently announced a handful of new services for WordPress users.

The shocking news was made public at this year’s WordCamp Mid-Atlantic—WordPress’ annual conference for the platform’s biggest fans—where, strangely enough, Six Apart co-founder Anil Dash delivered the keynote address.

If all of this sounds a little strange to you, you’re not alone. The ability to dip hands into two of the biggest cookie jars at once has got a number of bloggers scratching their heads. Six Apart defends their decision from a considerate angle: “we love making the Web better and more connected, and we want to help all publishers succeed, regardless of what tools they use. We believe in the power of blogging, and that's why we've got a whole bunch of powerful services available for WordPress users,” their site states.

Does this mean major competition for WordPress? Probably not. Despite Six Apart's efforts, WordPress has remained the blogging platform of choice for quite some time; however, the offerings will do their part in broadening the Six Apart audience, which certainly doesn't hurt. The new tools include TypePad AntiSpam, Six Apart Media, TypePad Connect and Blogs.com, and more information on them can be found here.

Back in 2004 -- yes, eons ago in Web time -- we lamented over not having a blogging client awesome enough to make us do away with our browsers for daily publishing work. Although there were a few promising candidates, ultimately none of them yielded a good enough score on our terms.

Since then we’ve been keeping tabs on developments in the desktop web content authoring and management tool business, and things have certainly come a long way.

Adobe caught our attention anew just recently. Their release of Creative Suite 4, including Contribute v5.0 sparked hope that we might find a wonderful desktop tool in which to while away our days. Let's take a closer look.

Calling all WordPress fanboys and fangirls! The team behind the infamous publishing platform needs your help. Aiming for another release as popular as WordPress 2.7, the brains behind the operation recently made a call for moderators and participants to join the testing program. The chosen few will tinker with different features and functions, and the reported findings will be taken into account for the improved usability of future versions.

Moderators: WordPress is looking specifically for moderators who have professional experience conducting usability tests (design agencies, software companies, usability consulting firms, etc.).

Participants: The regular Joe. In some cases WordPress will target specific behavior, like users who upload large video files. In others, they’ll be looking for users with widgets in their sidebar, users with more than one author on their blog, etc.

If you’re interested, check out the post here. WordPress is accepting moderators immediately, and is in the process of getting the registration survey ready for participants.

When we published our review of Telligent's Graffiti Web Content Management System we were made a little uncomfortable when we caught wind from the community that more than a few people considered the product to be dead.

Following this up, we double checked with Telligent (news, site) CEO Rob Howard that this wasn't the case. And now Telligent has officially confirmed it on their own website -- the product will live on.

Previous to this update, the Graffiti Web CMS blog had not been updated since February, when Graffiti 1.2 was released. So there has been a bit of radio silence.

Houston, We Have Contact

Silence is golden, but not always. The community wanted some answers.

Now we see some activity in the form of a general update plus some details on future plans for the Graffiti CMS. We're happy to re-confirm here that Graffiti does indeed have a future.

The post states that Telligent was not prepared for the response it received to Graffiti -- especially since it was created to be a sort of "test bed" for ideas and concepts. That being said, the plan is to go forward with version 2.0, just not in the time frame originally stated.

Telligent goes on to say that they also weren't prepared for the effort to get the next version off the ground. The cutbacks in staff -- many of whom were on the Graffiti team -- did not help.

Graffiti Web CMS is not Telligent's primary offering, Community Server and Community Server Evolution are first and foremost with their Harvest Reporting Server safely in tow.

That's the story for now. If momentum continues to build around Graffiti, perhaps this will change. But the only current promise is that we will see v2.0 of Graffiti sometime this summer.

Editor's Note: About Graffiti (June 23, 2009)

Waiting for this one, weren't you? We asked Howard what was happening with Graffiti, their web content management system. We expected to see a new version or some kind of news coming out this month related to it's future development.

We now find we must wait a little while longer. Howard said that complete focus has been on the community and analytic solutions and not Graffiti. They have started some dialog as to what its future looks like (so he is indicating that it has a future, that's good), but he wouldn't go into details, saying it's too early to spill the beans of those conversations.

As the team ramps down from releases of Telligent Enterprise, Community and Analytics, focus will shift to Graffiti. Our only thoughts here are this: if web content management is your primary focus, Telligent does not appear to be your answer, because it is not theirs.

If Community solutions that engage enterprise integration and tight social and web analytics is your focus, then take a closer look.

When you look at the open source content management systems out there today, you'll find a ton written in PHP, some written in Perl and Java, and a small collection written in Python.

There is also another small OS CMS market -- those written in Ruby on Rails (RoR).

 Anyone who’s anyone knows the Internet is practically vibrating with the buzz over cloud computing, how best to structure it and what it means for the future of the Web. Much like the recent microblogging trend and what it means in terms of ROI and customer service, companies are trading in their souls for a piece of the action.

One of the latest vendors to jump on the bandwagon is Six Apart (news, site). Their recent partnership with Etelos Inc. enables their Movable Type blogging platform to be available in a “cloud-hosted” environment.

Telligent's primary offering is Community Server (news, site), a social media and community solution. But it's not the only thing they have going. They also offer a web content management system called Graffiti CMS.

Graffiti CMS is a simple web content management system -- the CMS in its name actually stands for "content made simple". Some consider it a blogging platform, but it contains features and functionality that you don't normally see in such as platform. And anyways, the lines between blogging platforms and web content management systems are rapidly blurring, n'est pas?

Our interest piqued, we took a look at Graffiti and here's what we found.

There's never a time to sit still and enjoy the fruits of our labour. So it is for you, me and Clover Content (news,site). Officially launched at the beginning of December last year, new functionality has recently been added to the web content management system in the form of a fully enabled blog.

IBM (news, site) has taken another step into the future with the launch of its North American Enterprise Content Management Systems Community.

Although only in its infancy, blog authors and community creators Ian Story and Ranjun Chauhan describe it as a community that will serve as a collaboration point for all users of the IBM ECM suite of products.

There's something about a magazine, with its slick layouts and eye-popping images that can be a real pleasure to read. Even an electronic version of a magazine retains the feel, even if it's not as easy to carry to the john.

Ever dream of publishing your own? Thanks to a site that's currently in beta, you can give it a try without a budget, a business plan, or even arranging a printer. Sign on to the OpenZine beta and experience the blog-platform-that-is-a-magazine-platform.

Movable Type users have had access to plug-ins for building contact forms for some time now. Until recently however, MT users had to create hacks in an entry/comment based system for the handling of requests and inquiries. There was nothing addressing a workflow for easy contact management. Until now.