It’s the season of giving! No it’s not, but I’m feeling generous. No, I’m not, but Flickr just awarded me a couple of free Flickr Pro accounts to give away. Want one?

24 comments:

what are some of the perks of the pro account? I wouldnt mind one.
Allen – 08 May 2005 – 09:56

yes please i’d love one!
Kid A – 08 May 2005 – 09:56

I would love one. I’ll even drum a special song for you.
Stephen – 08 May 2005 – 09:56

Want one ? would kill for one is more accurate :)
Ozh (link) – 08 May 2005 – 09:57

It’s strange – all I hear about WordPress are complaints. It’s made me decide to steer well clear.

As for the linklog, well – flattery will get me everywhere, I know – but your linklog was one of only three that I actively browsed and clicked on the links. Maybe it was because the subject matter more often appealed to me . . . I don’t know. All I do know is that in general I loathe linklogs with a passion, but I liked yours. And I really like this super-cool minimal design too.

And honestly, all that flattering build-up was genuine, and not just a way of subtly moving into begging for a Flickr Pro account. Really, it wasn’t. I promise. :-)
Vaughan – 08 May 2005 – 09:57

If you ask on the support forums I’m sure you would find plenty of people willing to help you out. For example you can run a one-liner to clean up draft overloads caused by bad imports.
Matt (link) – 08 May 2005 – 09:58

a pro account would rock! and id have to say the same, all i ever hear about WordPress is complaints…why the move to that rather than just using/sticking to MT?
Kavi – 08 May 2005 – 09:58

textpattern
proph3t – 08 May 2005 – 09:58

Kavi, as explained in a previous post – my site has become too big for MT on the servers I am running it on. My other sites run fine on it, but for some reason, this blog never has. Perl is just too slow for it. PHP does a better job. But I don’t know enough about PHP, (=nothing!), to make WordPress work for me. I´m having problems getting plug ins to work for me, etc, just because I don´t know enough about PHP syntax, or maybe they don´t work anyway. Sorry Matt, potentially a great product, but at this point in time, it´s not what I need. I don´t even know what you mean when you say ‘run a one-liner`. This is exactly what I mean about WordPress. I´m sure it´s great for a developer, but I don´t happen to have that kind of skill set. I have been to the support forums, that´s the first place I go. Other people with the same problem never got a response from anyone.

proph3t… textpattern, what? Dropping one word in a comment box is really helpful. Not. Textpattern – I´ve played with it, but it´s not my thing.
Caroline – 08 May 2005 – 09:58

Not sure if you/ve looked at drupal recently but it might be something to consider. You have the choice of digging into the PHP all the way, or using the php template engine which you can edit instead. It’s really quite flexible, with a bunch of modules and themes ready made that you can tweak.
Herb – 08 May 2005 – 09:59

I’ve just started using Flickr for sharing classroom photos (I teach 4th grade) and really like it. A Pro account would be really cool if there are any to spare. :-)
Christopher (link) – 08 May 2005 – 09:59

Oh, and it is my birthday in 9 hours and 40 minutes…
Christopher – 08 May 2005 – 09:59

Use Expression Engine. It’s built on PHP and it’s incredibly easy to use and set up, no ‘one-liners’ or anything. The only hack I used was to change the way it does URLs, which you can copy’n’paste off the forums (which are excellent btw). I never got on with WordPress, it just seemed to be a load of effort to get set up and then a load of effort to get it going.

Sorry for sounding like an advert, I’m a bit of an evangelist about it these days…
Aegir – 08 May 2005 – 10:00

Thanks for all the advice on what other software to use, you damn zealots, you! Rest assured I am aware of them and have toyed with most of them before.

I should have investigated WordPress a bit more before implementing it, but Dreamhost offered a one click install that was too tempting to resist and I needed the change too much to wait.

All the Flickr Pro accounts are given out. Thanks for enquiring!
Caroline – 08 May 2005 – 10:00

http://www.technorati.com/tags/textpatte.. may be of interest…
Robert Brook – 08 May 2005 – 10:00

You could always go “old school” and do it all by hand. :-)
Rachel – 08 May 2005 – 10:00

Guys, guys, none of you has made the only correct comment on this post…

“Why don’t you just roll your own?”

Tom A. has kindly offered to help me fix some stuff in WordPress so I can continue using it until I get my Pivot templates written.
Caroline – 08 May 2005 – 10:01

Totally agree that WordPress requires some ‘under hood’ knowledge.

And I was gonna suggest your write your own but you had already said ” I´m sure it´s great for a developer, but I don´t happen to have that kind of skill set” so I kinda presumed you wouldn’t be able to.

I’ve never used MT, but coming from Blogger to WordPress was pretty good, but I totally understand your frustrations. I think if Tom gets you through the initial pain you MIGHT grow to like WP.

Anyway, I’ve got a Flickr Pro.. ohh never mind.. ;-)
Gordon – 08 May 2005 – 10:01

Yup, pretty much unskilled labourer here when it comes to programming. In a previous job I volunteered to learn ASP. I read chapter one of a big ASP book and thought ‘ok, I get that’. I read chapter two and thought ‘yeah, that’s easy.’. Then I read chapter three, found the language had changed to gobbledegook and I put the book down, never to pick it up again. I had the same experience in high school with maths.
Caroline – 08 May 2005 – 10:01

The power of WordPress lays in its framework, which is easily hackable and extenable is the form of plugins. However, it is also it weakness when it comes to those who know little or nothing about coding.

If you want to invest a little time and explore the WordPress Codex you may find the answers to many questions.

Good luck
Sean (link) – 08 May 2005 – 10:01

I know some things are still tough and I wouldn’t expect anyone to know all the ins and outs WordPress, but we have tons of people waiting in the wings on the forums to help you out with whatever ails you. Software is software, but what makes WordPress right for many people is the community around it. There are hundreds of plugins including ones expressly made for making it easy to do Asides (like on my site), link blogs, Flickr and Delicious integration, whatever. I’m a fan of your sites so I wouldn’t mind even helping, but going on what’s in your post I wouldn’t know what to suggest.
Matt – 08 May 2005 – 10:02

I explained some of my problems in more detail at plasticbag.org today and Tom A.’s comment there also defines quite well why WordPress isn’t the right tool for me. For someone who has gone from hand coding to Blogger to Greymatter to Movable Type over the last 5 to 10 years, the switch to WordPress feels like a step back in ease of use. I don’t care or want to care about what’s powering my site, I want to run the site the easiest way for me — at the moment, using WordPress is not the easiest way. It may be in future, who knows.

Is everyone else making a bigger deal out of this than I am myself, or what? Usually I’m just talking to myself on this page – suddenly it’s like grand central station.
Caroline – 08 May 2005 – 10:02

“U2log.com – one of the first and best single-subject magazine-style weblogs. I’m not a great fan of U2, but it’s still an impressive site – and more importantly was created way before Gawker media and the current fad for commercial webloggery. I wonder if it makes any money…”

Finally, someone recognises U2log.com. I always feel it’s been ignored by web pundits — probably because they find its subject matter distasteful. I think I entered the site into the Webbies twice without being short listed while the much younger and more derivative Whedonesque got in without problems.

Do we make any money? No, we don’t. We don’t make any ‘big’ money. We make pocket money. Enough for me to buy my many editors a Christmas gift. Enough to pay for bandwidth over-usuage. We’re probably in the Top 5 U2 fansites, but nowhere near the largest. We get 5000 to 7000 (front)page hits per day and just had our busiest day last week at 23000 page hits.

We started this site as a joke, just some old IRC friends mucking about. Our style reflected this. We were irreverent, with a Brit/Aussie type humour – unlike any other U2 sites. Always taking the mickey out of the band. These days we’re rather professional, with press accreditation and access to big events, old skool reporting and what have you, but we’re still doing it because we’re obsessive about documenting the band and still in love with the music.

…mother goose-ing two seemingly unrelated interviews done for two of my sites. Although the interviews are unrelated, the people interviewed have known each other since the late 70s and it is likely that subject matter will overlap. The people interviewing do not know each other, and could both be seen as ‘amateur’ journalists. Both are involved with sites of mine, but have not had an active role for a long time. One interviewer has avoided questions about the other’s subject. The other interviewer hasn’t. One of the people interviewed is a musician. And the other… turns out to be a musican too. One of the people interviewed is a journalist himself. The other one… isn’t.

I feel like a spy master running agents in the field.

A spy master who has a ‘cover’ job on the side that sadly takes up most of her time. Running spies is so much more fun.