Using MovableType? 55
piecewise asks: "Everyone seems to be using a Webblog these days and I'm interested in getting my company into it in a big way. We have three web servers and use Akamai to keep the website cached and happy. How many Slashdot readers are webloggers? Have you used MovableType, on a large scale? Are there any security issues? Security's very important. Is there a solution to the 'cache problem'? In other words, as people input messages, might the data running across the net become out-of-sync? Thanks for any thoughts/experiences."
Just use slashdot (Score:1, Funny)
Okay, I'll bite (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Okay, I'll bite (Score:2)
Re:Okay, I'll bite (Score:2)
That must mean you're among the 1% who haven't heard of Google. It's only the very first site returned [google.com] and all.
Moveable type (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Moveable type (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Moveable type (Score:2)
Re:Moveable type (Score:2)
Re:Moveable type (Score:2)
Re:Moveable type (Score:2)
No fair! It had a Movable Type in it (hence, on-topic, sorta), plus how many
You're just pissed because he got the gag in before you did...
MT (Score:2)
I'm looking forward to new features in MT Pro. I'm hoping they'll have a registration system and polls included, but we'll just have to wait and see.
Re:MT (Score:1)
Don't worry, it's just Dave Winer throwing a hissy fit. The 'funky' parts of the MovableType feeds are just a few extra tags from the Dublin Core specification, which Dave doesn't want sullying his RSS spec. He's the only one who seems to have problems with the additions (I haven't heard of an aggregator that breaks on MT feeds, for example).
Re:MT (Score:2)
Re:MT (Score:2)
Re:MT (Score:1)
As far as the 'funky RSS'... I've not done almost anything at all with that.
nems
Re:MT (Score:2)
That's what I did, as there's no way in hell I'm going to try to FIX that crap they call CSS in their default templates. I made a very nice XHTML/CSS template and tried putting in the MT tags, but the problem is, it still doesn't work. I'll get it figured out eventually, but I'm taking a break from it for awhile.
How many Slashdot readers are webloggers? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:How many Slashdot readers are webloggers? (Score:2)
What are the requirements? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do your servers meet the requirements of the weblog s/w? Do you need it to integrate with your existing AAA security services? Do you have perl expertise on staff or is there more familiarty with PHP? What type of usage pattern is expected? Is this for Intranet or Internet use (the post suggests Internet...scary business letting employees post a weblog to the Net).
There are lots of weblog s/w choices. Providing more input will help folks provide an assessment for you.
Re:What are the requirements? (Score:2)
A general-purpose open source CMS, such as WebGUI [plainblack.com] - check out the demo [plainblack.com], it's nice - can be used as a weblog, but you can also provide the ability for certain people to create new pages, drop widgets on these pages (calendars, discussion forums, versioned document repositories, tables from databases, etc). Depending on what your needs are, you may find a weblog
What do you mean? Getting big into this? (Score:1)
Re:What do you mean? Getting big into this? (Score:2)
Re:What do you mean? Getting big into this? (Score:2, Informative)
I currently run MT on OpenBSD with PostgreSQL, setup was painless and the performance is great.
If Akamai decently handles changes in static HTML you should have no problems.
For a buisness setting Zope with Plone might be a better idea, It's workflow controls would probably be a necessity.
Re:What do you mean? Getting big into this? (Score:1)
In the MT Features [movabletype.org] page they say that PostgreSQL and Oracle support is in the works and in the install documentation [movabletype.org] they give directions for installing with PostgreSQL (DBD::Pg), it looks like they are still working on Oracle support.
Since they appear to be using the perl database abstraction libraries adding support for another database should just be a matter of translating the database schema used at install time to whatever database you want to use, installing it, and telli
Look at the requirements again (Score:5, Interesting)
(Implementing a weblog in Domino is pretty trivial. I've done it for myself.)
As it is, it sounds like you've found a Golden Hammer--you already know you want to use it as the solution, you just need to work out how to get it to fulfil those pesky requirements...
((Disclaimer: I work for IBM.))
Simple Domino (Score:2)
Re:Look at the requirements again (Score:2)
I don't know about you, but the word "domino" brings to mind things that fall down, and cause other things to fall with them - the "domino effect".
As far as product names go, that choice has always mystified me. There's a bus company in the UK called "Impact" and that's always made me laugh a bit as well given the fact that road accidents involving busses are quite common.
When I was in Japan, I was asked if I wanted a cup o
Re:Look at the requirements again (Score:2)
As with everything, it depends (Score:5, Insightful)
From a geek standpoint, one of the best weblogging programs that I've used is blosxom [raelity.org]. It's by Rael Dornfest, who edited the Google Hacks [amazon.com] book, among others. I use it for my web sites, and it's a very simple, powerful, and flexible tool. Depending on how you need to use it, this may be a good way to go.
I have not used Moveable Type, so I can't comment on that. But I've had good experiences with blosxom.
=Brian
I have no probs recommending it (Score:5, Interesting)
The advantage to MT is that it can store the info in one of 3 different databases (including a local file if you don't have SQL of some sort) and the only time the Perl application is accessed is when you're either adding a new entry to the blog or when someone is posting a comment. Everything is generated as HTML so when a user views the page, they're not calling any scripts. Keeps overheads down and allows for bigger sites on smaller servers.
Caching I found an issue. The HTML is static. So I quite often had to manually tell Squid to refresh the site if it was getting updated lots and I wanted to see those updates.
Multiple authors per blog is useful. Its pretty decent as far as permission system goes. I dislike the fact that a user can make certain changes (such as altering where on the file system their blog gets created) but this can be turned off simply enough with only minor loss of functionality to the end user themself. Then again, what they don't know they could've had, they won't miss.
Security isn't so bad. You can use HTTP authentication to stop the users getting in to the directory with the Perl app and then their username/passwd to access the prog itself. This gets complicated if you want to permit comments. However, Security concerns are few and far between. 2.64 takes care of all known bugs and when bugs are announced, a patch is pretty quickly released.
Remember, the average Joe doesn't need to even get near the Perl application if you disable comments. All they get is straight HTML.
People complain about the CSS and so on. I haven't had a problem with this myself. I found it pretty simple to modify the entire look and feel. The template structure is pretty straight forward and expandable. Adding something like a WAP
Hunt around, there are a heap of plugins for it. Including plugins that allow you to use WikiWord formatting and more.
While it was of use to me, it suited my purposes very well. Its very quick and scalable. I had about 30 blogs plus a news page running from the single install on a P200. Because the Joe is getting HTML and not running the Perl scripts to generate it every view, it doesn't need a major box.
Oh Yeah.... (Score:2)
When more and more friends started wanting blogs and then more of their friends started wanting blogs, I wanted something that I could use for a whole lot more than just personal blogs. I also wanted to have the option to put subscription fees on it (when things started getting expensive to host) and that was a live and ongoing project.
So now I use the LiveJournal code. Its Perl (will run on nearly every platform from IIS to Apache to iPlanet to....) and SQL backed. Its scalable (like you
A security issue to watch for (Score:4, Informative)
Re:A security issue to watch for (Score:1)
I don't like any sort of content management system that requires me to change the underlying file permissions of my web server, especially since my blogs are on hosting providers with 80 other users sites.
Would it be too slow for these template preferences to be hashed into databases and then cached as session variables?
Having to change file system perms is like having
Re:A security issue to watch for (Score:2)
If you've got suexec working you don't need to meddle with file permissions, otherwise it is indeed necessary to do so.
Re:A security issue to watch for (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's the output of
on the HTML directory of one of my blogs. T
Re:A security issue to watch for (Score:1)
Re:A security issue to watch for (Score:2)
The Apache installation that comes with Debian, BY DEFAULT runs any script in ~jsmith/public_html/cgi-bin as user jsmith. Whether this is suexec or cgiwrap I don't know - like so much of Debian, it Just Works (TM).
So back when I was using Movable Type, I created a user named mt and put all the cgi in mt's cgi-bin. Only the mt user needed write permissions here. Then I added the line "Alias /
This meant that all t
Greymatter (Score:1)
Re:Greymatter (Score:1)
Noncommercial. The licensor permits others to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work. In return, licensees may not use the work for commercial purposes -- unless they get the licensor's permission.
I don't think Greymatter is Open Source (Score:2)
Their website makes this claim, but I do not believe it is true. They apparently changed the license for the software from something else to a Creative Commons license. The Open Source Initiative does not list the CC licenses on their approved license list (hence, Greymatter is not "open source") and CC licenses are not intended for software [creativecommons.org].
Until Greymatter chooses a Free Software license [gnu.org], I recommend steering clear of Greymatter. The Free Software movement st
Large scale example (Score:3, Informative)
How about a wiki instead? (Score:4, Informative)
Are you sure MT is what you really want? I'll bet a wiki would be a better choice; we just installed one here at work and we're going crazy-go-nuts with it. We've installed PhpWiki [sourceforge.net], but Twiki [twiki.org] looks useful, too.
The "home" of wiki is at http://c2.com/cgi/wiki [c2.com], and the main book on the subject of wikis, The Wiki Way, has a companion website with downloadable code at http://wiki.org/ [wiki.org].
Briefly, a wiki is a website that allows one to create and edit web pages without having to mess with accounts and permissions--just type in one's text into an edit box, click "submit", and it's up and running. We use it as a knowledge base, and I'm going to use it to record billable events and notes.
"The simplest possible database that could possibly work"--Ward Cunningham
Re:How about a wiki instead? (Score:1)
My blog (Score:1)
Writing your own blog isn't super-difficult if you have experience with PHP and MySQL. I found it to be a really fun project. Highly recommend going
As a systems administrator at a hosting company. (Score:2)
It should be fine, however, if you rebuild the site locally and then rsync it to the server.. this would require a bit more effort.
If you're running it on your own co-located or dedicated server then you shouldn't need to worry.
Choose (or make) Free Software instead. (Score:1, Offtopic)
Movable Type is non-free software and I suggest you avoid it entirely. Both of Movable Type's licenses (their personal non-commercial license [movabletype.org] and their commercial license [movabletype.org] prohibit distributing the software without written consent. There is also language that tries to restrict what you can do with the software (even though U.S. copyright law doesn't allow placing terms on merely executing the software) and claims agreement to its terms under a click-through agreement (which are not valid everywhere) or by
Research the alternatives (Score:1)