If anyone was on the site today between 2:30 and 8:00 PM EST, you were likely greeted with a few hundred random comments whose authors linked to some pretty repulsive sites. Movable Type made the cleanup an excrutiating process:
# Find the latest comments listed in the blog editing menu
# Click them to find out where they were left
# Click on the parent blog entry
# Tag any other offending comments for deletion
# Close comments for that entry
# Save, rebuild, wash, rinse, repeat
There were over 200 comments for which I needed to repeat this scenario. Thankfully, some SQL came in handy. Closing comments for the whole site was as easy as UPDATE mt_entry SET entry_allow_comments = "2";. But, still–that was half an hour of my life wasted deleting comments (and now another half hour wasted writing about it).
Ironic that this should occur so close to Jeffrey Zeldman’s recent affirmation of basic human goodness. That, and my consideration of setting up comments for the links.
WordPress already has features that help comment administration–including moderator approval–which I’d like to implement after switching (an event that is no longer an if). In the meantime, comments will only be open on the five-or-so most recent entries.
Lookout Email Search. Like Google for your Outlook files, this is one of the most useful Outlook plugins I’ve ever downloaded.
Mozilla Thunderbird. Thunderbird is fast becoming the best email client and news (RSS, NNTP, Atom, etc.) reader for every operating system you want to run.
Mozilla Firefox. Firefox empowers you to accomplish your online activities faster, more safely and efficiently than any other browser, period.
Darin recently suggested that I include some comments on the links section of this site, so people can discuss the often thought-provoking links that I find. Rather than go off-topic on another thread, I thought it would be best to reply here, and open the discussion to anyone who wanted to chime in.
I’ve kicked around putting comments under the links, but it would mean contending with a couple of issues.
# I haven’t seen a design that makes good, clear sense out of sidebar comments yet. That doesn’t mean I couldn’t pioneer one, but I haven’t put a lot of thought into it. 
# I’d also want it to be simple to maintain. Comment spammers will blast anything they can get their ‘bots on, so I want to be sure that policing an additional comments section doesn’t become more trouble than it’s worth.
The good thing is that these links are driven by a Movable Type blog, which means that the engine is there–I would just need to figure out how to keep the design and maintenance simple.
I’d be interested in hearing thoughts on how this might be possible, especially from anyone else who has encountered this problem and how they solved it.
NetOffice. Open-source, web-based project management software
iTunes. The best music player for the PC or Mac, hands down.
Picasa. It’s like iPhoto for Windows.
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iPod Agent. Sync Microsoft Outlook with your iPod. For free.
Feedback sent to Apple regarding iTunes 4.5. Yes, I’m a total dweeb.
Congratulations and great job on iTunes 4.5! I dig the arrows in the library and the party shuffle features–fantastic work.
This is just a short request for some further improvements in the application. Using iTunes is simple and easy, and it’s already become a part of my daily routine to fire up the application during work or while surfing the web at home. However, a surprising amount of the features in iTunes require use of a mouse, which can be disruptive to my workflow. Here are a couple of suggestions.
Right now, there are no shortcut keys to rating songs on the fly. I was wondering if it would be possible to add some. I’m pretty obsessive about rating my songs–songs that I rate poorly (2 stars or lower) are periodically deleted from my playlist to make room for songs I want to hear, so the vast majority of songs are rated. Having shortcut keys will help me when I import a new CD.
Ideally, I’d be able to rate a song that I’m currently playing by hitting, say, Ctrl+n, where n is a number from 1 to 5. Thus, when I’m listening to a song I don’t like, I can Alt+Tab to iTunes, Ctrl+2 to rate it and left-arrow to the next song in the playlist. Cool, no?
Also, I’ve noticed that there’s no quick way to get to the Search box. This is funny, because–since iTunes works so much like a web browser–I halfway expect to hit Alt+D (or some similar keystroke) to quickly search for a song. Could you add this feature, too?
All in all–you do great work and make music that much more fun to experience. Thanks.
Ken
PS Please, please, please add Windows 98 support (or, at least send me an email with a good reason why you won’t)!
