Today I created an account for myself on Flickr, and uploaded a picture (a rather arty shot of a ladybug on a stone wall).
Supposedly, Flickr can talk to Movable Type, so I can – in theory – upload pictures to Flickr, then create new posts here that link back to them. In practice, it doesn’t work very well: Flickr generates nasty HTML, and ended up creating a duplicate post.
I think I’m going to seriously look at alternatives to the current absurd mash-up of software behind the curtain here at http://patrick-rice.net/. The older pages are managed from CityDesk, the daybook is Movable Type, the picture pages are Gallery 1.5 – and I can’t stand any of them.
There’s something Wil Wheaton said a while back that sticks in my mind. He tried to upgrade his Movable Type setup, scrozzled his database, and had to set up a TypePad account just to keep some kind of online presence while sorting out the mess; but when – after Herculean labors – Movable Type’s head was once again screwed on pointing forwards, he discovered:
I really like how easy TypePad has made everything for me; it’s allowed me to put my energy into creating content that hopefully doesn’t suck, rather than mashing away at annoying code that never seems to validate, anyway.
That’s what I want: easy. I don’t want to fight with software, I don’t want to maintain databases. I just want to write. (Not that I consider myself a good writer. I’m not. But I’ll never get any better wasting my time patching Movable Type.)
