Xpostulate v0.2

I've made a ton of improvements and added various features to Xpostulate since posting here in reference thereto.

I've programmed in xml-rpc posting, and added Wordpress, Inksome, and Scribbld, so it now posts to LiveJournal, InsaneJournal, Dreamwidth, DeadJournal, Iziblog, and the above mentioned 3.

I've also customized the script running on my own machine, to post to my custom wordpress installation on baldwinsoftware.com/blog, which means I'll be able to write than in for users rather easily (not posting to MY blog, but to their own wordpress installations, of course).

I've also fixed the identi.ca denting and twitter tweeting to use Tcl's own HTTP library, rather than calling cURL. This facilitates installation and use on Windows, mostly, but also, it's good that now Xpostulate is completely, 100% tcl/tk, without calling outside resources to perform any of its functions.

Today I built install wizards for both Linux and Windows. This was probably hardly necessary for most Linux users, since the installer hardly does much different from the install.sh script (well, except the install.sh installs to /usr/local/bin, and, thus, must be run as root, while the installer can be run as users, installing to the user's /home). The Windows installer, however, will significantly simplify installation for Windows users.

Now, I still have to figure out the google api for posting to blogger, so I can post to this blogspto/blogger blog.
I'm also considering adding a feature for updating facebook status, as well...maybe sometime later this week.

I'm rather impressed with myself, I must say, being an old, creEpy guy with no computer classes or formal technology training. For me, Xpostulate is immensely useful, and, when I think that I programmed it, and that others are using it, too, well, I feel pretty smug and content with myself.

Sometimes I'm so awesome, I can't stand myself...

:P

./tony

a thousand fireflies, lighting up the cat5 wires (or, my scattered and befuddled web presence becomes yet more obfuscated and confusing...)

I've been busy for this past week, slaving over the translation of some academic papers from Brazil.

Nonetheless, I have been frequently distracted by hackery and geekery, as is not uncommon in my doings.As such, I did want to share with you a couple of links.

First, I have decided to start posting my poetry online.I'm not going to make this a poetry blog...no way...and, I've even decided that a blog is decidedly NOT the best way to publish my poetry.

Instead, I have made a wiki for this purpose. I can add poetry at my leisure, and they will not appear chronologically, as they would in a blog, but, rather, will have each their own page.

Also, being a wiki, it is easier for me to separate the poetry into sections by language (since I write poetry in 3 or 4 languages, anymore).

The wiki is also simple and easy to maintain.

Oh, yes, you can find it here: tony baldwin | poetry.

That was fun.

The idea came as I began introducing my kid to the world of wiki-ing, in an attempt to being to educate her on how to master and conquer the internets, to scratch out her domain there, knowing that in the future, our entire lives will be spent online...(future? gosh, I've been living a virtual life for over a decade, and no IRL life to speak of...)

Well, I figured learning wiki-code would be useful, and will set us up for the next step, as I teach her to write html and css and develop her own site, thus effectively closing the casket on any real social aspirations she may have been harboring, while, hopefully, planting the seed for future, marketable skills. (Next I'll start her on php, perl, python scripting, and, before you know it, we'll conquer the internets and be on our way to world domination. Never say I didn't warn you...)

I've been giving her little assignments for pages or sections to build into her wiki, mostly just to annoy her, since she's on February break this week. (Not like I want her doing fun things, like playing in the snow, or talking on the phone...she'll never learn to hack the fed and move us some funds around doing that stuff...)

Now, I have also created a one page mini profile, as a sort of catch-all basin and minirepository of data on all that is tony baldwin here: tonybaldwin.info.

You know, because, I just know that all of my adoring fans out there have all been dying for some consolidation of the scattered, nebulous universe that is tony baldwin on the internets (self absorbed much?).

So, I've spent more time on livejournal than I have in some time. I have to say, I miss the days where LJ was the axis of my internet social experience. I believe that a social networking site centered on blogging gave greater depth to "social networking" on the internet than sites that impose 140 character limits, or focus more on animated fish tanks than on producing profound discourse and promoting sincere self-expression. As such, I've been ignoring the visage tome and interacting more with LJ, again. This had me thinking about blogging, not surprisingly, and, consequently, about creating a blog of my own, on my own server, etc., as opposed to using someone else's free blogging service (ie. LJ or blogger, etc.). This led me to exploring nanoblogger, a nifty little command line tool for creating, editing, and managing a blog from the bash command line! Very nifty.

I create/edit/manage a blog on my local machine with this tool, on the command line, and then just ftp the whole dir full o' stuff up onto my server, which I've done, thus creating the baldwinsoftware.com / tony baldwin / nanoblog.

I figure that one will be primarily used to document my adventures in hackery and geekery (similar to the tonytraductor livejournal).

With nanoblog, of course, I can make numerous such blogs and load them to my server. I may yet find other uses for that. The nanoblog, unfortunately, doesn't lend itself to community blogging, however, since I can only manage it on my machine and load to the remote host, and it doesn't feature commenting or other feedback/participating/community resources. It does enable both rss and atom feeds, though, so my nanoblog can be followed on google reader or other rss/atom aggregating appartuses.

Of course, at this juncture, I have a completely schizophrenic web presence, with numerous blogs and community profiles on countless sites, some highlighting my artistic whack-a-doodle-ry, others empahsizing my hackery-geekery, others focusing on my professional pursuits, while still yet others, such as this here blogspot, are of a more general and scattered nature, and, yet others, are far more personal.

I question, sometimes, whether it is best to have so fractured a web presence, while at other times I question the value in having any generalized outlets (such as this one), and wonder if I shouldn't do a better job of organizing my distinct efforts in various diverse fields to develop each more specifically, yet more fully (i.e., perpetuate the scattered presence, and fully explore each of those avenues, being 1) art/poetry/music, 2) geekery and hackery, and 3) professional matters pertaining to the international market and translation industry).

In any case, it seems that each of those areas is more likely to find an audience than just the befuddled and scattered ramblings I post here, and, that if I wanted to truly develop such audiences, I should step up efforts in 1 or more of those fields and be more conscientious about maintaining whatever efforts I realize in those specific fields (in others words, post regularly on the specific blogs).

What do you think?

Well, with that, me dr00gies, I must get back to slaving away at these Brazilian academic documents.