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Wikis as Websites

One of the latest trends in open-source development, is for the projects website to be created with MediaWiki.

This article on Acts of Volition lists a couple others, as well as one of my current favorite pieces of software, Banshee, a music management and player for GNOME. (I’ve been meaning to blog about Banshee for well over a month).

I still have to put a long term plan together on integrating silwenae .com/.net/.org, and MediaWiki might address it. I don’t need all of the power of a Drupal, WordPress is already running my blog, Jinzora will power my music, and Flickr does my photos. I just need something sticky enough to link it all together.

I went and installed MediaWiki on the Apatheia.org website to see if the guild had any interest in using it as a tool. I’ve long thought it might help facilitate guildmembers signing up for a raid, managing rosters, etc, as the guildmembers themselves could update it, and you’re not reliant on one webmaster or officer to step up.

I integrated this hack to use logins from the guild forums into the Wiki, which was quite helpful. And my lack of knowledge around PHP & CSS started to show as I spend two hours last night, just playing with the header image. There aren’t a lot of good tutorials on creating a skin – especially one with a Novell-type flavor that utilizes a Wiki as a normal website. I came across this one, but it was pretty darn high level, and didn’t even go into the PHP elements.

I’m going to tinker with it, especially the navigation pieces and see what happens. I’m also curious from a social networking experiment to see if any guildmembers latch on to it.

Random Football Thoughts

This week’s random football thoughts:

  1. The Chargers’ powder blue unis are the best in football
  2. Unless you are the San Diego Chargers, you should not wear alternate jerseys
  3. Dom Capers is sooo fired
  4. I really, really like Carson Palmer
  5. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune’s headline this morning was right on: Kick. Win. Repeat.
  6. I really do think the Colts will go undefeated.
  7. Even with Vick having 2 games in a row with a passing rating over 95, I still think he’s overrated
  8. Why are you not reading the best football article anywhere? Go read the Tuesday Morning Quarterback

MAME stuff

Speaking of building a MAME cabinet before, came across this at Digg.com today: Emucation.Com, download roms. They claim to be legal, but I’m not sure how (yet), unless they’re truly abandonware.

Linked off of their emulator page, is Advance Projects, which includes AdvancedMAME (an emulator), AdvanceMenu (a menu program for collating all your ROMs), and AdvanceCD, a LiveCD that only takes up 20 megs, so you can fill the rest of the CD with your ROMs, stick it in any PC, power it on and it’s a full blown MAME box.

Definitely adding that to my bookmarks for when I’m ready to build my cabinet.

The link of the day is Postsecret.

Extremely popular at Technorati, I had never heard of it, and it’s pretty interesting. What is it, you ask? From the site itself:

PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail-in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard.

And they put up the pictures of said postcards.

Projects to do after Basement is completed

Already looking past the present, things to do once the basement is done, and I consider building a HTPC part of doing the basement.

  1. Make a podcast
  2. Build a MAME cabinet
  3. Drywall the garage so Kelly has a work area
  4. Technorati Tags integration on this here blog
  5. Get Fuse running to manage all my computers / websites
  6. Hack my Buffalo TeraStation to use SSH so I can use the afore-mentioned Fuse
  7. Catalog (online!) my cd, movie and book collections
  8. Fix my server (silwenae.net) (Probably should do this sooner…)
  9. Get paulcutler.org /.com / and .net integrated somehow
  10. Inventory all my stuff (and send updated list to insurance company)

I’m sure I’ve left a bunch of stuff off this list – I always have more ideas than motivation. And this doesn’t include adding the 3rd kid to the family, enjoying my new home theater setup and whatever else pops up.

Flock Review

Newsforge has a pretty good review of Flock up.

I’ve downloaded the Linux client, and while stable, I haven’t really used enough of it to comment yet. It brings together a number of tools I use while browsing, including Flickr and blogging. Delicious bookmarks are definitely something I want to get into a lot more, especially since I share so many computers.

If you’re into Web 2.0 / social networking / insert buzzword here, and want to see read a review of a browser for Web 2.0, hit the link above.

XM on DirecTV

The long-promised XM channels have finally shown up on DirecTV. Over 50 different channels covering all types of music. (How many does XM offer on their paid subscription? – Ok, I checked, over 150).

Stations include the Squizz, Fred & Ethel, so I’m definitely set. Then you have your standards, like 80’s, pop, rock, a few R&B stations.

What’s nice, is similar to DirecTV’s last music service, Music Choice, is each song pops up with some text on the TV screen showing you artist, song, album, year, etc.

With no extra cost to me as a DirecTV subscriber, I can’t complain, and I’ll use ’em from time to time.

  • in Humor
  • 1 min read

Latest Meme

Latest Meme – What color should your blog be?

Figures:


Your Blog Should Be Purple


You’re an expressive, offbeat blogger who tends to write about anything and everything.
You tend to set blogging trends, and you’re the most likely to write your own meme or survey.
You are a bit distant though. Your blog is all about you – not what anyone else has to say.