[None of what follows is made up.  None of it is even exaggerated for effect.

I do hope that you’ll take note of this and, if you feel so inclined, reproduce this elsewhere.  I’d be thrilled if this spread memetically around this here internet, à la Yours Is a Very Bad Hotel.]

Sometime in September 2002: I purchase a Sony DAV C770 DreamSystem, a home theater system with a 5-disc DVD changer and full surround sound.  I bring it home and install it quite easily.  Upon playing my first DVD, I discover that the subtitle default is “on”—in English—and that I have to manually turn subtitles off every time I play a new disc (and frequently when I play a new episode on a television series DVD).  Even having turned subtitles off, I still get entertaining French translations of any text that appears on-screen (such as “Bibliothèque” every time Buffy walks into the library).  I’m lightly annoyed, but I let it slide.

15 February 2004: the DVD player starts behaving wonkily, freezing for several seconds at a time.  Performance rapidly degrades despite using a Sony-branded lens cleaner.  I call Sony’s customer service line, where an agent confirms that the DAV C770 needs repair.  He searches, but is unable to come up with a nearby authorized service center.  As it turns out, however, Sony’s own service center is in northern San Diego, and as I’m headed to San Diego that very weekend, I arrange to drop the unit off there for repair.  The flat fee I will be charged for the repair will include the cost of shipping the unit back to me once it’s fixed.

So far, so good.

Read the rest of this entry »

Well, the site renovations seem pretty much in hand—things are basically working (though you should let me know if you find something that isn’t), and the redirects and 404s are doing their respective jobs.

So, given that, like George, I’ve got a big list of stuff to do this summer, it’s back to work for me.

One such project, which I imagine will take some time, is the start-up of the new online scholarly imprint I’ve been talking about here for a while now.  And the two initial tasks in that start-up, I think, are naming an editorial board, and naming the thing itself.

I’ve decided that, while MediaCommons and MediaTexts have much to recommend them, neither quite does what I’m hoping for; each is, in a weird way, too specific.  As I’m hoping that the new thing will evolve into something as-yet unimaginable, I don’t want to saddle it with a name that seems to rein in its future, circumscribing its range.

I’ve spent some time over the last few weeks contemplating names, and particularly software names, trying to figure out why I like the ones I like, and why the others leave me cold.  After a fair bit of thought, I’ve determined that my favorite such name remains Eudora, which has both an admirable simplicity and a impressive depth of reference, and which has in some mysterious way passed into the computing vernacular, seeming as obvious a choice as “Mail.” (No offense, Steve.) That’s the kind of name I want—something evocative and non-literal but simple.  (And something for which the domain is available.)

It may be that I’m too concerned with this naming thing.  A creative writing prof of mine once argued in class that a title was unimportant, nothing more than a handle with which one could pick up a text and carry it around.  I disagreed then, and I disagree now; as Pynchon has it in Gravity’s Rainbow, “names by themselves may have no magic, but the act of naming, the physical utterance, obeys the pattern.” I can’t help but feel that the name is key, that the act of naming can determine the thing’s future.

So what are your favorite names—of software packages, of websites, of organizations?  And why?  What principles at work in those names might I learn from here?

Whew again.  Stage 2 of the migration is now complete.  You’re looking at the new (and, one hopes, improved) Planned Obsolescence.  Here’s what’s happened since the last update:

• Installed ExpressionEngine in new subdomain on new server.
• Futzed around with ExpressionEngine, trying to figure out how it works.
• Built new site in new subdomain.
• Imported old entries into new site.
• Tinkered with CSS.
• Went through all old entries (!) re-coding broken internal links.
• Tinkered more with CSS.
• Built new graphic, above.
• Fixed CSS where new graphic broke it.
• Ported the whole kit-n-kaboodle over to main domain.
• Created redirect for old “po” subdirectory.

And here we are!

Do note that my primary URL has changed:  since my previous hosting provider wouldn’t allow true subdomains (such as subdomain.plannedobsolescence.net), I had set Planned Obsolescence up in a subdirectory, anticipating the possibility of further site additions.  Now that my good friends at DreamHost have granted me way more subdomains than I’ll ever use, I’m able to put this page right up top, where it oughta be.  Please update your links and blogrolls accordingly.

Any comments or thoughts would be appreciated—and particularly any notes about broken spots.  I know that things are a little wonky in IE5/Mac, but frankly, if you’re on a Mac and still using IE, well…

I have not yet recovered from the most recent episode (“Long Term Parking”). I’m astonished by the extent to which Chase et al have radically deromanticized the family (as well as the “family”) this season.

I’ve only gotten a chance to listen to this a couple of times, but I adore it already.

In process.

[UPDATE, 7.1.04:  I finally did finish this a couple of weeks back, and thoroughly loved it.  It’s got all the things I love in a novel:  a deeply personal story, a substantive intersection with a larger cultural and social history, and fantastic sentences.]

Whew.  Stage 1 of the migration is at last complete (interrupted over the weekend by a trip to Vegas, about which more later).  For the interested, here’s how it went:

• Copied all relevant files as-was from the old host to the new.
• Switched the hosting information with my domain registrar.
• Waited.
• In the meantime, converted the BerkeleyDB I’d been using to MySQL (which I’d been meaning to do for some time, and which was easier than I’d expected).
• Did a MySQL export.
• Went to Vegas.  Ate and drank way too much.  Came home.
• Imported the MySQL dump into the new database.
• Logged into MT, changed the configuration info, and rebuilt.

All seems well—comments once again functional, etc.  Stage 2 begins tomorrow.

Am in mid-migration.  Desperately need a copy of mt.cfg in order to reconfigure mt for new hosting environment.

This would happen this week, after 6A removes MT 2.661 from their site…

Any help would be much appreciated.

[UPDATE, 5.20.04, 10.43 am:  Never mind.  I found it.  This move is making me a bit nutty, I think.  Here’s the current sitch:  site is partially migrated; I’ve changed the DNS hosting info with my registrar.  All good.  But said change has half-propagated—http://www.plannedobsolescence.net/po is still resolving to the old host, while http://plannedobsolescence.net/po resolves to the new one.  The new subdomains I’ve created resolve to the new host.  My mailserver is not to be found at all.  Is this normal?]

Thanks to all who have responded to my various technological pleas over the last few days.  My hosting provider’s waning is producing massive unreliability—my site’s been down more than it’s been up over the last week—and so I’ve done the poking around among the providers you recommended, and have settled on DreamHost (thanks, Andrew; I’ve attempted to be sure that you get credit for the referral).  They’re having a sale right now on their “Code Monster” package, which provides 1600 MB 2560 MB disk space, 40 GB 65 GB monthly bandwidth, hosting for up to 15 full domains and unlimited subdomains, and 75 shell accounts, for only $19.95 a month (which is half the usual price, and which price will remain in effect as long as I keep the plan).  This is far more than I really need, but I have some plans in the offing that may necessitate expansion, so better too much than not enough.  And the price is certainly right, and the ratings at webhostingratings.com are as well.

So, on tap, as soon as I finish my @$#*! grading, which I should have finished days ago, is a site migration and redesign.¹ I’m going to do some experimenting with Textpattern and WordPress as well, to decide whether I want to stick it out with MT or head in another direction.

In short: expect major wonkiness hereabouts, until the changes get sorted out.

[UPDATE 5.29.04:  I love these guys!  I’ve been with them for two weeks, and already they’ve upgraded disk space and bandwidth on my plan (in fact, on all plans) by 60%!  Plus, they’ve instituted a 20% discount for a 2-year prepayment, bringing the cost of this plan down to $15.95/month.  I’m adding a link way down in the left sidebar; if you’re in need of a hosting service, and you open an account with them, I get lovely referral discounts...]

¹Incidentally, anybody have any advice on the migration part?  Any lessons I can learn from your migration experiences?

So everybody’s talking about the Movable Type upgrade/fiasco (see also here, and here, and here, among too many other sources to link.

The problems with Six Apart’s announcement of its new release and pricing structure are, as you can see, much discussed elsewhere; my main objection to the changes has less to do with their “sudden” decision to charge for MT (I’d already voluntarily donated, as it seemed to me a product worth paying for) than with the limitations being placed on the number of weblogs and authors each license allows.  Yes, today’s update clarifies the reason:

Why are there limits on the number of weblogs and authors I can have on one Movable Type installation?

One of the biggest criticisms we’ve heard thus far regards the limitation on the number of weblogs allowed at each tier of the new licensing structure. Our best explanation for the tiering is that we feel a personal user who sets up weblogs for 50 of his friends should pay more for a license than one who uses only one weblog for himself.

And yes, as Liz points out in her entry, Anil has assured her that there will be an educational licensing structure that will be reasonable, making my multi-author, multi-blog class projects possibly still feasible.

But it strikes me as an odd precedent nonetheless, as if Microsoft were suddenly to start limiting the number of documents one could produce in Word on a given license.

I do understand the difference—that Word is individually (or institutionally) licensed, and that it is installed on individual users’ machines, while MT is installed on multiply accessible servers, and thus, as Mena points out, users and blogs become the most easily determined metric for pricing.

Yes, it would be complicated, but why not seek a way to focus the license around the user rather than the use?  Once I, for instance, purchased my individual license, I could create as many blogs as I’d like with it, and could be added as an author to other existing blogs (and could likewise add other licensed authors to my blogs).  I’m no programmer, of course, and this would probably be a nightmare to manage, but it would provide a more reasonable system of licensing.  Once I’ve purchased the software, I want to be able to do whatever I want with it, subject to its own technological limitations.

However Six Apart chooses to resolve this issue, I find myself at a crossroads.  I’m about to have to migrate the site anyhow, so it’s a perfect moment for a software switch and a redesign.  I’m checking out Textpattern now, and will decide shortly.