New York Times on classroom weblogs

Jeffrey Salingo of the New York Times writes about weblogs in the classroom in today’s issue. For teachers, blogs are attractive because they require little effort to maintain, unlike more elaborate classroom Web sites, which were once heralded as a boon for teaching. Helped by templates found at sites like tblog.com and movabletype.org, teachers can build a blog or start a new topic in an existing blog by simply typing text into a box and clicking a button. Parents are also able to follow along and they can see what is happening in their child’s classroom, and encourage the child…

MTIfNonZero: Undocumented Movable Type template tag

Movable Type 3.0 introduced the MTIfNonZero template tag. If you would like to take action in your template only if a tag has a non-zero entry, use MTIfNonZero for valid XHTML. Example: <MTIfNonZero tag=”MTEntryCommentCount”> <ol> <MTComments> <li><MTCommentAuthorIdentity> wrote something.</li> </MTComments> </ol> </MTIfNonZero> MTIfNonZero tag is currently not listed in the Movable Type template tag documentation but should be and it works….

Six Apart Professional Network press release

Six Apart on Monday issued a press release about the upcoming Six Apart Professional Network. Over 1,000 people have pre-registered to join the network. Anil Dash’s title changed from vice president of business development to vice president of the Six Apart Professional Network. Although the network was announced it will supposedly not be live until Movable Type 3.1 launches….

MT-Blacklist v2.0e released

Jay Allen released MT-Blacklist 2.0e today. The new version is compatible with Movable Type 3.0x releases but not compatible with 3.1 beta. As the developer of the #1 Movable Type plugin I am curious how the licensing and donation system is working for Jay. Jay asks for $100 per author for commercial use of the plugin and $5 per author for educational and non-profit use. For a 5 author installation with each author using MT Blacklist Six Apart would receive a licensing fee of $200 and Jay would receive a licensing fee of $500. As the perl hacker/source code reader…

Movable Type 3.1 pings Technorati

Movable Type 3.1 adds Technorati to a list of selectable pings. Currently Movable Type weblogs can ping weblogs.com and blo.gs if the option is selected in their configuration space. My configuration screen does not currently show the Technorati ping option, but the hooks are in the code and database. [Update 8/17: The Technorati checkbox appears in the configuration space starting with version 3.1b2]…

Whatever happened to the Six Apart Professional Network?

When Movable Type 3.0 was released on May 15 a professional network was planned and better communication with developers promised. The Plug In to Movable Type 3.0 Developer’s Contest came and went and to developers not attending the BlogOn awards ceremony it seems the network remains silent. The contest page has not even been updated with the list of winners. Two months later and Six Apart may have succeeded at getting developers out of the woodwork. Designers, consultants, IT/IS managers, and enthusiasts are still untapped areas of the idealized network. Movable Type 3.1 highlights the ability of independent developers through…

Salon on Six Apart

Farhad Manjoo wrote an article about the history Six Apart for Salon. I never realized that the events of September 11, 2001 made Mena think that blogging was a bit trivial. I feel the opposite is true. When a major event happens people are looking for an outlet. Craig’s List was full of postings from people coping with what just happened. My relatives in Ireland wanted to know how we were reacting and what changed. Everyone was watching and listening for the latest news. If the entire point of creating a blog is to talk about yourself, or to get…

Atom Publishing Protocol and Movable Type

Ben Hammersley published the first draft of a chapter from his upcoming book, “Hacking Movable Type,” dealing with the Atom Publishing Protocol and Movable Type. I never noticed my Atom authentication token in Movable Type until I read Ben’s chapter. It provides an interesting overview of the Atom Publishing Protocol implemented in Perl….

Microsoft to launch weblog service in Japan

Microsoft will launch a trial weblog service in Japan on August 10 followed by an official launch later this year. The service will be powered by T.O.S Co., Ltd and Microsoft aims to have one million users in its first year. My guess is the weblog service will be an extension of the ASP-based home page software T.O.S already has: Maho no I-land….