Complaint Hub

I did a test import of Complaint Hub into Drupal on my laptop.  It worked nearly flawlessly.  It’s going to be a little tough to keep up the permalinks so that any links to the current site redirect to the new site.  I want to move everything back to complainthub.com (You’ll notice the URL here is blog.complainthub.com), which makes it harder.  And then there are still the posts from my old From Harvard Street blog that are all forwarding from harvardstreet.complainthub.com to blog.complainthub.com.  I suppose I could probably just fix that to go directly to complainthub.com.

The import module for Drupal also does not import multiple Wordpress categories for a single post.  It only imports multiple tags.  Unfortunately for me, I use categories almost exclusively.  There is a way to convert categories to tags, but there’s a big disclaimer about backing up your database first.  I guess I could just do that.

Otherwise, it was pretty awesome.  I still need a nice new theme, but otherwise you may be seeing the changes sooner rather than later.

I’m thinking about migrating the site from WordPress to Drupal. For many of you, that sentence may make absolutely no sense. If you don’t keep reading, I won’t blame you. If you do stop reading, you should make it up to me by going and buying John Scalzi’s special edition book that he’s auctioning off for charity. Get him to inscribe it to me, with some really inscrutable saying. Bid quickly, as it’s already over $2000.

Anyway, if you’re still reading, I got a little infatuated with Drupal while doing some work for a project that never panned out. It doesn’t do blogging as well as WordPress (At least not right out of the box), but it does a lot of other stuff much better. And I think it would be perfect for a project I’ve been thinking about.

Some of you may know that I’m MUCH better at thinking about projects than actually doing them, and I have a bunch of stuff still in the thinking stage. I have a money-making venture with a friend. I have an online economics course to take with another friend. I have the science fiction novel I’ve been plotting out. I have an 8K in March and a 10K in April. I have my real job. I also have a wife, and a family, and some friends, all of whom require and deserve some of my time.

In any event, the project could be really cool, and a nice side effect is that I’d probably bring back the complaint submission page that people have been missing. And I’ll update the theme of the site - at least one friend insists that his eyes bleed when he reads it.

So that’s in the future.  I don’t know how long it will take to happen, but be prepared.  If you subscribe via RSS, the feed might change, although hopefully FeedBurner will take care of that transparently (To you, at least).  But I’ll keep you posted.

Hi thetejon,
Yay! Barack Obama has marked you as a contact too.
Here’s a link to Barack Obama’s profile :
http://www.flickr.com/people/barackobamadotcom/
And photos here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/barackobamadotcom/
See ya!

Awesome.

Techdirt: Yahoo Now Thinks AOL Will Be A Savior?

Then, late Sunday a new rumor arose: Yahoo! might try to keep Microsoft away by merging with AOL. That seems sort of like trying to keep a wild animal from eating you by covering yourself with feces. It might make awful sense for about a second, but it’s just a bad, bad idea. First, it’s unlikely to work — and, second, it’s just pathetic.

I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so much at an article on Techdirt.  Comparing a merger with AOL to covering yourself in feces?  Do they have a new intern writing articles?  Wow.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a great analogy, and really funny, but totally not what I expect from Techdirt.

I don’t really care what happens to Yahoo.  My only request is that they make sure that someone with a soul gets control of Flickr.  That is the only part of Yahoo that I care at all about.  When Yahoo bought them, I was afraid that Flickr would be ruined, but Yahoo has pretty much left the site alone.  There is a really good community there (Slightly obsessed with half-naked women, but isn’t that why most people pick up a camera anyway?), and it’s one of the only things online where I actually pay for the “pro” version.

Anyway, I hope Yahoo finds a buyer and everything works out.  I doubt they’ll ever catch Google, but they can at least keep nipping at Google’s heels, keep them from getting soft (And putting out a product like Windows Vista).

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency - finally with RSS! While they offer a title-only feed, which I’m not sure I’ve ever even seen, at least they’re making progress.

I guess they want you to come to the site and see the ads for their various books and subscriptions and such, but it still seems very odd not to at least offer a teaser in addition to the title.

Complaint Hub » Blog Archive » Miro needs your help to not suck

I really do hope the Miro project succeeds and gives us another model for distributing quality video content. But I’m not giving them money when they beg. Provide me with a service that I want, that works the way it should, and I’ll pay for it. But try to get me to donate money to a bloated piece of software that I’m not entirely sure fulfills the needs of anyone, and I’m just not interested.

Just to show that I’m not holding a grudge, I just installed Miro 1.0 on my laptop.  I’m going to wait until I at least hit 1,667 words for the day before I play with it, but I’m going to try it out.  I’ll post my thoughts when I get a chance to see how it works.

Stupid Comcast. They fixed part of our cable and internet problems. They’re claiming we have a weak signal. But our HD channels are coming in just fine. But we don’t get Comedy Central and the stations that rerun Law and Order: SVU all day, which makes the wife a little salty. And our internet doesn’t work at all. Which means I can’t post the pictures of our progress this weekend to Flickr. So, let me just say that our hallway/art gallery is looking fantastic. And it only took four drill bits and countless trips to Home Depot. We melted a titanium drill bit. I don’t know the chemical properties physical properties (Thanks, non-blogging-scientist-brother-in-law) of titanium, but you get the impression that it’s pretty tough, right? And you figure that melting it would be hard? Turns out it’s not as hard as you might think.

But it’s all finished now. The wife was putting a final coat of paint on this morning, and we’ll hang pictures tonight. Comcast is due back between 5-8PM to give it one more shot, so maybe I’ll even be able to upload pictures. If I do, you’ll get a sneak preview of the color we’re going to paint our bedroom next time we get a weekend with a little free time. I really like the color.

Is this a DC thing?  Every time I hear someone on a Metro loudspeaker mention the Judiciary Square Metro stop, they pronounce it “joo-DISH-oo-wary”.

I don’t often take the Red Line out that way, so I don’t hear it very often.  But today something was going on there, and they made an announcement at Pentagon City while I was waiting for my train.

I’m home early, by the way, because Satan’s Cable Company, Comcast, is supposed to come out again to fix our tv and internet.  I was told the other day that they had to do some work outside, and no one needed to be home.  Apparently that was a lie.

I really hate Comcast.  The service is bad.  I hear they’re much better in Maryland, but in DC the service is not good.  The guy who came to look at our connections the other day was very pleasant, but he couldn’t fix the problem.

Anyway, if there was any real competition in the cable and internet market here, I would switch.  But there currently isn’t.  A neighbor is trying out the DirecTV and Verizon DSL route.  I’m going to have to see how he likes it.  I’ve had bad experiences with satellite tv, and I’m sure Verizon is going to complain if I ask for DSL without a Verizon phone line (Although I think they have to provide it).

So, I’m at home, using my wireless internet card from work.  It’s AT&T, and it works occasionally.  Actually, the card says Cingular on it, but Cingular doesn’t exist anymore.

And now I’m just rambling, which usually means I should just stop and hit “Publish”.  So I think I’ll do that.

Obama pledges Net neutrality laws if elected president | Webware : Cool Web apps for everyone via Boing Boing

Net neutrality, of course, is the idea that broadband operators shouldn’t be allowed to block or degrade Internet content and services–or charge content providers an extra fee for speedier delivery or more favorable placement.

Actually, net neutrality is a problem that would just go away if we had real broadband competition in the United States. Techdirt repeats this ad nauseum. Broadband operator should be able to offer different levels of service for different prices. In fact, they do now. No one seems to think that Verizon offering a cheap DSL connection, then a more expensive fiber optic connection, is a horrific affront to the fundamentals of the internet. And broadband operators should be able to prioritize content.

If people really had choices in the broadband market, this would cease to be an issue. Provider A could degrade whatever they wanted, and Provider B would step in and take all their customers. Look what’s happened in Japan, when they forced sharing of infrastructure. OMG, fast cheap internet! And competition! Without net neutrality laws!

I won’t blame Obama for this - I imagine he has good intentions, but isn’t getting the whole story. The rest of the Democrats are right in line with him on this, too, so it’s not just his mistake. It’s just funny how people want to promote the freedom of the internet by adding regulation to it.  And, frankly, I think the Republicans are mostly against it as a knee-jerk “no regulation is good regulation” sort of thing.  I doubt they actually took any more time to understand the issue than the Democrats did.

AT&T Legal Policy Via Boing Boing, Gizmodo, and others.

So, AT&T has decided that they can terminate your service if your conduct ” tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries.” I’m not exactly sure what “tends to damage” means, but it sounds ominous.

That being said, I do not use AT&T as a web host or ISP. If you have any grievances against AT&T, or its parents, affiliates, and subsidiaries, feel free to contact me. I will happily provide a soapbox for you to stand on and voice your complaints.

You can do it here, or, if you have something particularly poignant, well-written, and not slanderous or libelous, I would probably be willing to allow a guest post to the main site. Email Jon at complaint hub dot com.  I will be your voice, because AT&T has no power over me, and I believe in every human being’s right to complain.