2 Bit Hacker

Okay, so I’ve got my game collection, and I’ve got my DVD collection, the only thing left that I have a collection of is books. Anyone know a decent site for tracking a book collection? One that accepts ISBN numbers and does lookups would be nice. Cover scans are a plus.

Geek Stuff

Okay, so after a bit of trial and error with yesterday’s crossposing plugin, I’ve redesigned it’s interface to MT so that it no longer relies on a ping to trigger the LJ updates, but instead uses a template tag. This results in more reliable operation, better error reporting, and easier configuration, so all around I’m happier with it.

To use this new lj-crosspost plugin, just drop the lj-crosspost.pl file into your MT plugins directory, then add a <$MTLJCrosspost user="lj-user" pass="pwhash" $> tag to your archive template. Now, whenever you post a new article, it’ll get posted to LJ as well, and if you edit an existing article, the LJ counterpart will also be updated.

I’ve also written a couple of script that go along with the plugin. The first, pwhash.pl, it just a simple helper script to do the MD5 hash of your LJ password. The second is sync.pl, which downloads all your existing LJ entries and attempts to match them the existing MT entries. This will help prevent double-posting when you first rebuild after inserting the tag into your template. It’s not 100% foolproof, but it worked pretty well for me. It matches on subject line, and prompts you if it finds multiple matches. Not sure how well it does with no subject line though. I should add date matching to it, but I’m lazy.

If you want to try it out, grab the plugin here.

Geek Stuff

Well, I’ve finally throw together a new MovableType to LiveJournal crossposting script. This post is actually my first real test of it. I used to have MT write out a temp file that a ping-triggered Perl script would read and post to LJ using the old flat interface. The new script is still triggered by a ping from MT, but now it uses the MT plugin interface to directly access the entry data and post it to LJ using their newer XML-RPC interface. It also now stores the LJ item id in MT’s PluginData so that it can update existing entries when they are edited.

I’ve tarred up the source and stuck it online, I’ll fix up a decent looking page for it at some point.

Geek Stuff

So, I made it back from Texas is one piece. Matt and Lauren’s wedding went off without a hitch, well one hitch anyway, but that was the idea. Spent a couple of days hanging out with Matt and the other groomsmen, Chris, Jason, and Nagel. It was fun. One of the bridesmaids (Sarah, I think) even managed to get me to dance once during the reception, despite the tuxedo shoes causing my feed to attempt to seperate from the rest of my body. All in all it was a very good time.

Dave didn’t show up for some reason though, not sure what’s up with that. I’ll probably have to interrogate him tomorrow. Also, I have no pictures of the trip, since I left both cameras at home. There should be plenty available once Matt’s back around. His boss was the photographer, and was taking tons of pictures. I plan to get an updated picture of myself out of it for the website, since my senior high school photo is getting a little old.

It’s actually kindof depressing to be back in cold, wet New Hampshire. After hanging out with Matt and the guys for four days, it feels so quite and alone here. I gave Andrea a call, and she actually answered, which suprised me, then I realized I didn’t really have anything to say anyway. I think I’ll go drown my sorrows in a giant cup of ice tea now, and save all my depressing whining for some other post.

Random Junk