Meta: Improved interface a bit.

For the Movable Type version of this blog, I just made a few minor changes that should make looking at and making new comments and searching a bit easier. Main thing is that comment links no longer open a new (and too small) window and instead use the main window, which I at least much prefer. Margins should be a bit better too, text not going way to the edge of the browser window. Should have messed with this long ago but so it goes.

Test Entry

My main blog is soon to migrate to a new server so this is a test of posting there and to see if LJ Crossposting from there works.

MT Comments Reenabled

Comments in the MovableType version are now reenabled with TypeKey registration - if you don't have this and you got to a page that allows commenting, there should be a link to sign in and create a TypeKey account which is of course free. Yes, I know this is a pain but the previous situation was untenable. At least once you have a TypeKey it will remember your name (and optional URL).

Also, even before I disabled things, the comment system here had some troubles. I think those are now fixed so with the TypeKey, it should work fine. Please let me know if you experience troubles.

Comments Disabled

I've disabled comments on Movable Type version of this blog entirely for the moment due to the massive amount of comment spam received. I have MT-Blacklist installed and it works to avoid the spam being posted quite well but it or something is taking up an unaccepatable amount of resources on the machine running this blog which is my work's machine and this had to be stopped. I will hopefully be able to reenable them, probably with registration though, soon. For now, however, the entire blog is mirrored at http://www.livejournal.com/users/aarondf/ and although it doesn't look nearly as nice there, all the posts are there and their comment system seems to totally avoid comment spam invisibly to users.

Test Entry

Upgraded MT to 3.1 and also MT-Blacklist today and cause all sorts of hassles in upgrade hell but mostly now sorted out.

I did this to try to deal with all the comment spam I have been getting which I just couldn't take any longer. LJ doesn't seem to suffer from this at all, at least for me so far.

RSS/Atom Feeds

I'm trying to improve/fix my RSS and Atom feeds. Hopefully links will now show up properly and things will be full posts rather than excerpts which I at least hate.

Playing with MT/CSS

Although I write a lot of web pages, I for the most part try to keep them quite simple, supporting ancient browsers. This is going to be my first site where I don't worry at all about old browsers.

Freed from this restriction, I get to play with CSS and am learning by doing MT's way of doing things. So far so good.

Oh, one other general comment. I expect this blog to have less links in the entries than most. I have a LOT of links on my main pages and lots of stuff is easy to look up (for example; games and movies via the 'Resources' links in the sidebar) so I will only make things be links if I am referring to a specific site or piece of content. If you want to look them up, you'll have to find games and movies and such yourselves.

Welcome to Musings of the Hearth

Welcome to Musings of the Hearth.

Well, I've been on the web for a long time but am certainly late on the blog scene but figured I'd give it a shot. Some introductory stuff here on what you might expect (although who knows what will really happen).

I expect my main focus will be on Games, Movies, Television, the Web, activities I'm involved in and whatever I feel like ranting about at a given moment.

The name: Well, every blog seems to have to have its own strange name. This one is a play on other 'of the heart' names but the main element is that my web site is called The Last Homely House, modeled after the house of Elrond in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Well, one of the rooms in that House is the Hall of Fire and that is where most writing and thinking goes on. The hearth is of course the centerpiece of that room.

Anyway, enjoy and Happy April Fools Day!

Aaron