Joe’s Apt.

Although I was well aware of Movable Type (and blogging in general) from the very start, I was a late arrival to the party. Sure, I tried it out at AT&T a few times, and even at home on the ol’ PowerBook, but it didn’t go farther than that. So my MT license just … languished.

Fast forward to fall 2004. After about eight months of bringing AT&T kicking and screaming into the wide world of web standards, I was finally ready for a place to hang my virtual hat. One Dreamhost account later, I moved into Joe’s Apt., which is not to be confused with the movie “Joe’s Apt.” dot com: “Welcome to Joe’s Apt. dot net! It’s DOT COM!” No, that’s right out.

My first entry, posted in late August, amounted to me testing the proverbial microphone: <thud thud> “Is this on?” Months later, that Grandaddy lyric proved spot-on in more ways than one.

Much to my surprise, my second entry ended up being about my then-preschooler son, Lex. Not what I intended but there it was, out in the open. Since then, I’ve focused mostly on technical subjects (which was my original intent) but I keep managing to find other topics like music, Dr. Seuss and of course the one about how I almost wrote myself out of the script. Ow.

By my estimation I’m still getting warmed up. Even so, what a trip so far. I get to flex my creative writing muscles, share thoughts and ideas, make new friends, exercise critical thinking and idea pitching out in the open, without a net … and then I learn a thing or ten along the way. Not a bad deal at all.

There’s One More Thing

Now, in the interest of giving something back to the Movable Type community at large, I’ve wanted to try my hand at writing a useful Movable Type Plugin. But what kind of plugin exactly?

Almost a year to the day after I started using MT in earnest, I was reading a post by Mike Davidson about Movable Type 3.2 … and there was the answer to my question: Improve MT Search.

Using the book “Hacking Movable Type” as a rosetta stone, I quickly got to work (literally) hacking something together. That same day I showed it to Mike, who not only dug it but encouraged me to keep working on it. Several weeks and revisions later, it has evolved into a full-text search plugin called Seeker. (Ah-ha!) So much for Mike’s wish for “a simple PHP function.”

Where’s the plugin, you ask? While I can assure you it is most certainly not vaporware, it also isn’t prime-time ware just yet. Seeker is presently Pre-Alpha software. However, it has just been released to members of Six Apart’s ProNet for review. I figure other plugin developers are sure to have a few choice things to say about this, and I want to give them ample opportunity to do so. (Remember, I’m out to learn a thing or ten, not a thing or two.)

Although I am not releasing it into the wild just yet (probably when it reaches Alpha I gather), I will also accept serious inquiries from tire-kickers outside of ProNet. At this point, anyone asking to try it out should be comfy with the plugins and outs of Movable Type. If this sounds like fun to you (and it can be), contact me with your creds and I’ll be glad to set you up with a copy.

Heads up though: I’ll be away at a music festival this weekend, playing drums and performing in a one-act play, of all things. (Usually it’s one or the other but never at once!) Perhaps I can whip up some quick charts and get the band to cover Seether! Ahh, who am I kidding … we’ll be performing Beatles A-Z (or at least Octopus’ Garden through Sun King for this go-round.) Over and out …