Permanent change to the Picayune

In less than a month, I made a decision about the future of the Picayune as you can see. I owe a ton of gratitude to my friend Mark for pushing me toward the blog direction with my site. Ever since I finally moved from print to the Web in early 1998, presenting my reviews, news and other hullabaloo has always been a conundrum. First there were frames but that proved annoying and messy, especially when frames within frames would accidently be triggered. Frames fell out of fashion anyway and I went with the opening of new pages as you went. I didn’t care for it much but it was the lesser of two lousy choices since most people get confused or lost when navigating. (Is this a new page or do I press the back button?) It doesn’t help when you still have a significant minority of friends who can’t get broadband in their area. Then came along blogs and just like the homepages of the late Nineties, most them suck! Many blogs suck even more than the horrendous webpages ever done. You don’t need to ask why, you know the answer already but I’ll go ahead and flog the dead horse; they’re mainly online diaries or right-/left-wing diatribes (but more often right-wing). I promise that I would never do one because the Picayune is dedicated to being an electronic letter (or newsletter) from me to my friends near or far. Oh sure, I read some blogs. My brother’s since he isn’t reliable on calling or writing me. Some friends too and thankfully, the majority of them have stayed in the realm of useful information while others go on their rants; one friend has a Jekyll & Hyde complex. then I am also guilty of following the political ones of more well-known intellectuals; Eric Alterman and Juan Cole. I stick with Alterman due to his articulate way of defending the Left and pointing out the hole-ridden logic of the Right and its true ally, the So-Called-Liberal Media. Alterman isn’t afraid to call the Left on the carpet when they blow it too, read his books, especially his latest, When Presidents Lie which spends the first three chapters attacking three Democratic presidents, hardly some kind of bias for Liberals.

I digress (par for the course). While the blog was in an experimental stage as of the Fourth of July, Mark made the best argument to have our friend Giles “flip the switch” on rerouting the DNS back to my house. Chronological Order was Mark’s point in two words. All the writings I do are presented in reverse chronological order when you arrive at my site now. Then on the side bards, the topics I like to review or write about are on the right side if you just want to read about Hockey for example. Another feature I personally like is the interactive nature of blogs. People can contribute to the story and how I am soooo guilty of doing this to other sites, especially when a political grenade is thrown, but I make no apologies there. The contribution part delivers the immediacy I would hope you, my friends will participate in.

Now this will still be a work in progress due to the Picayune being driven by Blosjom (pronounced blossom) through Mac OS X Server 10.4 on a Mac Mini. Unlike the fancier, more well-developed solutions such as Moveable Type or WordPress, Blosjom is a tad too-Java driven for my tastes and its creator’s website isn’t very helpful. Keep in mind though, I work for Apple, I have to deal with Apple’s solutions (even if some become their own problems) to be sharper at my job.

If I just figure out how to make my site properly notify your RSS watchers (aka Safari for 10.4), it would be pretty perfect!