Alan Bradburne

Cross posted at phlog

Hi folks,

I just wanted to give you a quick update as to where I am with regards to the phlog transfer, fixing the current site and developing the new one.

All of the domain transfer stuff is in process and the domain will be back in my paws at the end of next week. At that point, the site will be running off my server and the whole exchange back from 20six will be complete. Right now, we are still running off their servers, but I have access to the server and have a complete backup on my server ready to switch as soon as the transfer is complete.

In the meantime, since I have access to the current server, I have been doing some housekeeping. First thing you'll (hopefully!) notice is that there's less spam around. There is still a fair bit hanging around, but I've been tracking it down and getting rid of as much as possible. I have remove approx 1.2 million spam comments so far... I've also deactivated a number of spam blogs. However, these are a little harder to track down automatically, but we'll get rid of them all eventually. This has had the pleasant affect of speeding up the site a whole lot, so things should feel a little snappier.

For some reason, 20six's mail server seems to be not accepting uploads to phlog via mail at the moment - I currently don't know why. I'm looking into it. Worst case scenario : it'll be up again as soon as it's switched to my server next week.

Also, I've added CAPTCHA things to the sign-up procedure (hopefully stopping some of the spam blogs from being created) and to the guest-comment page. If you have guest-comments turned off, you obviously won't see this - but if you allow guest comments (or want to turn them back on) there's an 'enter the scrambled text in this image' thing. I'm not a big fan of captchas, but if it will stop the auto spam comments and allow genuine guest comments, I'm willing to put up with it for now. Eventually (new phlog!), there will be an option to moderate comments before they are posted (thanks for the suggestion, Ann!). Ultimately, I would love to use Akismet since it is amazingly awesome at killing spam, but it's big-bucks :( That would take a whole lot of adsense clicks to pay for that!

Regarding new phlog - coding is progressing whenever I have a few spare minutes (ha!). The first draft of my book should be out of the door at end of next week(ish), so I will have more time to devote to phlog development. I've got some sketches for new designs here, which I will post in the near future to give you folks something to get excited about!

Anyway, Just wanted to keep you folks in the loop. Stuff is happening :)

Best, Alan

I'm a bit behind, I know, but I'm just catching up with blogs and stuff from December...

Was reading Zed Shaw's blog (the brains behind Mongrel, the awesome app server for Ruby. It's good. He's damn smart). Specifically his rant about the crazy 'simplicity is overrated' posts by Donald Norman and Joel Spolsky. Zed doesn't mince his words, but I have to agree with the majority of his comments. However, he is particularly harsh about Joel's bug tracking app, FogBugz. Now, I remember playing with a trial of FogBugz a while back and wasn't blown away - it just wasn't for me. But that's besides the point...

The (amusing) point is, I diligently read Joel's article to get his side of the story and, yes, he really is slamming simplicity. More features = good, less = bad. So then I click on the FogBugz link to take another look - maybe I just didn't 'get it' before, and what's the first thing I see on the page? A quote from Ben Trott of Six Apart: "What makes FogBugz better than other bug and issue tracking systems is its simplicity."

LOL. Sure, you might be able to read Joel's rant and work it into something that fits the quote, but the fact that they have a big fat quote in the prime position of their product home page stating that the product is great because it is simple is just too funny.

I think Zed was a bit harsh on Donald and Joel, both of which I respect and have written some seriously good articles, but this was just too funny not to share :)

I really want the PS3 to succeed. Well, kind of. It's fun to do a bit of Sony-bashing occasionally, but my PS2 has given me so much fun over the years, and I love my PSP to bits.

But the PS3... It only it was cheaper. You know, something that I could afford. Something that any of my friends could afford. 500 quid ($950!) for the console and a game and a SCART cable is just bloody stupid.

And it seems like most folks here are of the same opinion. Three weeks 'till the UK launch and there's NO excitement at all. All shops are still taking pre-orders and seem to be trying hard to get anyone to order it. I passed HMV earlier and there was a guy stood with a table with lots of photos of games and magazine articles (but NO demo machine - in fact, I have not seen ONE demo machine ANYWHERE!). He was approaching people in the shop asking them if they would like to order a PS3. Didn't seem to be many takers... One guy expressed an interest, but didn't like the sound of the £100 deposit, but the sales guy said that'd he'd happily take a 50 quid deposit instead. Damn - is it really that hard to get people to buy one? I guess so...

How pitiful will it be if there are unsold stocks of a new console on launch day? Sigh. I really want it to do well, but Sony don't seem to be doing themselves many favours...