Blog Master G

Based on this DreamHost announcement, I relaunched my contact form so that rather than depending on DreamHost’s form-mail cgi as I previously did, any submission via my contact form now writes to a table in my database and automatically generates an email notification to me with each new post. It’s really cool. And quite simple. It’s also a good way to prevent my actual email address from being viewed in the page’s source code (and snagged by spammers). Here’s a related post by me in the discussion forum:

Important change to DreamHost form-mail script!

Give it a shot. Drop me a line if you’re reading this!

This also marks the first official post in my new site features category. I will at some point go back and re-categorize other posts that should also be in this category.

This seems like a really cool add-on to Movable Type:

MTshell (a command line frontend to MovableType)

I just may have to install this. I use the shell for everything else (email, database management, etc.), so why not blog there, too?

Since it’s damn near impossible to find online the simplest way to scan a Unix directory of files, search for one text pattern, and replace with another, I am now archiving the simplest method I could find (which I’ve tested and have proven that it works beautifully). Simply cd to the directory where your files live, modify (or leave) the *.php to match the file type you are modifying, then run the following at the command line:

for fl in *.php; do
mv $fl $fl.old
sed ‘s/FINDSTRING/REPLACESTRING/g’ $fl.old > $fl
#rm -f $fl.old
done

Uncomment rm -f $fl.old if you don’t want to bother keeping a copy of the old files. Simple, eh? It’s all about sed, baby.

Linux: Replace a string in several text files

Tonight was a night for quality television at my place, including one of the funniest South Park episodes I’ve ever seen (I don’t watch the show nearly as much as I should):

Episode 407 – Cherokee Hair Tampons

The episode includes this instant classic of a line spoken by Chief Running Pinto, one of the Mexicans whom the South Park townspeople believe to be a Native American:

Yeah. And these here are Cherokee hair tampons. They’re, like, tampons made with all-natural hair from the Cherokee people.

Followed by this line:

Let the mysterious ways of our people show you a new way of tampons!

The next real-live commercial was absolutely hilarious: teenage girl asking her mother what to do when the flow is too heavy to be controlled by regular tampons. The mother’s answer: Cherokee hair tampons, of course, which, we then learn, can later be used as a great fetch toy for the family dog.

Last night Jen and I hit Naan ‘n Curry on Irving with Shannon, Jeff, and some other folks, then later met up with Enoch and company at the Blackthorn Tavern to get down with the Ho’Down Quartet. It was the first I’d been to the tavern and the first I’d seen the band (which was missing one piece of the quartet, so was really only a trio last night). I had a good time. It’s so cool living within half a mile of at least half a dozen different bars. Party on, dude.

In his latest dimwitted comments, Bush said:

First of all, you know, size of protests — it’s like deciding, `Well, I’m going to decide policy based upon a focus group.’ The role of a leader is to decide policy based upon, in this case, the security of the people.

Translation: I don’t give a shit what the American people think. In 2000, the people spoke: They said Al Gore. In 2003, the people say “No war.” I say screw you. I’m the boss of you and Saddam tried to kill my daddy. So now I want to kill him. Democracy my ass. Charge!

See also:

NPR: Analysis: President Bush Discounts Impact Of Anti-War Protest Marches Around The World

If you haven’t already seen it, check out the new photos section of gabeanderson.com. I added this latest content area to my site on Monday. It is, by no means, complete, as I will continue to add historical and future photo archives to it. But it’s a good start. Enjoy!

gabeanderson.com: photos

I knew I wasn’t the only one thinking, “Is MT next?” following the Google purchase of Blogger. Sure enough, MT developer Mena Trott had this to say:

Six Log: Google, Pyra and Weblogs

I wonder if she wants her software to be acquired by Google or if that would even make sense for either company.

A good NY Times editorial questioning whether the Bush administration will finally listen to the people:

A New Power in the Streets

It also mentions the plagiarized security report. This was news to me. I find it absolutely absurd, ridiculous, and all the while hilarious that pieces of such an important document (United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441) that could propel us into World War III were stolen from a poorly-written master’s thesis.

And who says our country isn’t run by Stupid White Men?

Google‘s announcement over the weekend to acquire Blogger is big and exciting news in the world of blogging. I think it’s a good thing and will look forward to what’s to come. Perhaps the next step is an MT acquisition — or deeper integration? I’m sure that MT’s user base is smaller than Blogger’s simply because it’s more complex to install and use, but that also equals more advanced users (generally, anyway). Plus, MT is so much better and solid than Blogger.

Regardless, it’s very cool news. Here’s one commentary about the purchase:

SearchDay – Puzzling Out Google’s Blogger Acquisition – 18 February 2003

And the Google Weblog has a good collection of links about it:

Google + Blogger = ? (Google Weblog)