tech: July 2007 Archives

I'm actually blogging about something I worked on! Over the last month or so, I joined a very small team of developers working on an exciting new product circaVie.

What is it you ask? CircaVie is an exciting new way to recored a series of events. It allows you to attach photos and videos associated with these events creating a visual that allows for easy navigation through time.

There are so many things you could add to a timeline on circaVie. One of my very talented colleagues has a collection of all the portraiture work he has done. You could document a vacation, a baby's first year, your entire life, the possibilities are endless.

My first timeline is naturally about my dogs and is displayed below. (That's another cool thing about it. We provide the code so you can easily embed your time line on your blog, MySpace page, or other online profile.)

Check out the link to the slide show in Maine Vacation (August 2006) and the video in TAG's fall trial (October 2005).

CircaVie uses the same signon mechanisms as Ficlets where you can either sign-in with your AOL/AIM screenname or you can sign-in with Open ID. I joined the project late in development but helped with the implementations of comments and a few UI clean-up items. This was a fun little project to be a part of and I had the opportunity to dip my toes in the Ruby on Rails pond. Of course, this is a beta product and any and all feedback is welcome and encouraged.

So what are you waiting for? Go create your timeline today!

I'm changing blogging platforms again. I'm now running the beta version of Movable Type 4.

I found a lot of good documentation online for installing Movable Type on Dreamhost. In particular, I used:

• David Yin's Install MovableType 4 on Dreamhost blog entry.
• Installing Movable Type on Dreamhost from supriyadisw.net

Since I've now installed the beta for Movable Type 4 twice, I've used both these posts and was able to install the software effortlessly.

The next part was trying to get all of my old blog entries moved from the old WordPress Blog to the new Movable Type Instance. This was a bit trickier. There are ton of articles on how to go from Movable Type to WordPress, but not so many going the other direction.

I found an entry on Code Monkey Ramblings on Moving from WordPress to Movable Type part I which worked flawlessly. Fortunately I didn't need the recovery instructions.

To expand on how to get the old entries into the new MT4 installation, here is what I did:

1. I followed the Code Monkey Ramblings instructions down through putting the save file into the import directory.
2. I selected Tools from the footer navigation in the movable type control panel.
3. I then clicked on the Import link from the left column.
4. Under importing from, I selected Another System (Movable Type Format).
5. I left all other options alone and clicked Import Entries.
6. The importer worked it's magic and everything was imported sucessfully.

The one issue I ran into was that the archives were not working properly (the pages did not exist when clicked on). I solved that by republishing all the entries even though the system said they had been published. Under Manage -> Entries You can publish entries 20 at a time.

The entire process took me maybe an hour.

You may have heard Digg founder Kevin Rose has a new thing called Pownce. It's another "micro-blogging" service like Twitter or Jaiku.

First impressions, I still like Twitter better. Yes, I can be somewhat resistant to change, but despite Twitter's issues, I still prefer it. Of course everyone is trying out Pownce and none of these things are much fun without your friends.

I can see how Pownce will appeal to more of the masses. It is a little less geeky and a bit more polished. It's got some neat features -- like choosing whether messages are sent just to your friends or the public; being able to group your friends; and sending links, files and events.

Pownce doesn't have a mobile component. This is one of the things that sold me on twitter -- the ability to update or receive updates on a mobile device away from the computer. With twitter the updates come to me, I don't have to remember to go check a website. At this time, there are no feeds from Pownce. I'm sure it won't be long before Pownce mash-ups start appearing.

For now, I'll continue updating Twitter and playing on Pownce. If you feel like checking out any of these services, I can be found as kgiff on all three.