Looking at the users page on FatMixx for some reason and noticed the following posting statistics. Top 5 here passed on without comment:

These are posts written, not comments.

I’ve installed the WP-Cache plugin after looking into it some more to help keep the blog zippier for our users. I’m a little worried about things being sticky when comments are posted, so if you have trouble posting a comment, please get in touch with me. I’ll back the changes out if there are problems.

Thanks.

Wow, a third post in a day… this is amazing. I swear I’m working hard, too…

This is a quick note to say that I’m disabling pingbacks to FatMixx. The pingback spam is becoming a full time job to delete, and it seems to be getting through Spam Karma. So, they’re off.

If you know what this means, sorry I had to do this. If you don’t know what this means, consider yourself lucky.

if you had a FatMixx.com email address, or an alias set up, they’re going to stop working. Last night I moved all of the email for sujal.net, fatmixx.com, and the other major domains I own to Google Apps. If you still want the alias or the box, let me know and I’ll hook you up.

Just messing around with the TwitterTools plugin from Alex King.

For those of you that don’t know what Twitter is, it’s best described via analogy:

• Facebook Users: It’s like Facebook status, but you don’t need to use Facebook and it works with your IM client and SMS.
• Bloggers: It’s a micro blogging platform where you can put in up to 140 characters of text or urls and push that to everyone that’s using Twitter.

It integrates with IM so you can update from your IM client instead of having to log in, fill out the form, etc. (though that’s pretty easy, too). If you’re an SMS junkie or have a Blackberry or iPhone, you can have it work with SMS, too. It’s a pretty handy tool if you have friends updating their Twitter accounts. Like most social services, networks effects do make the service more useful.

So, as of today, for the foreseeable future, FatMixx posts will also show up on my Twitter feed. Enjoy!

http://twitter.com/sujal

Not sure why FM is messed up right now. I’ll investigate as soon as I can and fix… looks like something is corrupted in the DB, but that would really suck.

Update: Pair support comes through. We’re solid again, and I learned something new about MySQL.

This has been coming for a few weeks, just between being super busy at work and at home, but I hit the wall this week on a couple of points. First, I don’t think I’m being all that interesting for everyone to read, in large part because my disappointment, confusion, or outrage at the various things the administration does is predictable and obvious. This is the worst White House in my lifetime, and not because of partisan issues. Everyone knows I think this, and nothing they do surprises anyone anymore anyway. So, that’s one reason.

The other reason is (ironically) that I’m more or less speechless about what’s happening right now in Congress, in the media, and in the world in general. We get told that September is a key month, that General Petraeus is going to give us a report, and when he reports that, “Well, nothing has actually changed, but I really, really believe it will” the President announces he’s going to continue on the same path he’s been following for the last 5 years. Literally, he changed nothing. That’s simply unbelievable. The fact that the rest of the world, including the media, Republicans in Congress, and the public, isn’t excoriating him makes it doubly frustrating.

But, what pushed my decision this morning was finally reading the lead editorial in this week’s Economist. As a magazine I traditionally have respected, even if I often don’t agree, I don’t expect the magazine to go stupid on me. This week, the Economist has gone stupid. I don’t know what else to say. In an issue with the cover boldly stating “Why They Should Stay,” the entire argument of why we should stay is the following:

If America removes its forces while Iraq remains in its present condition, the Iraqi future is indeed likely to be disastrous. For that reason above any other, and despite misgivings about the possibility of even modest success any time soon, our own view is that America (and Britain) ought to stay in Iraq until conditions improve.

In a thousand-word editorial, that is the entirety of their argument for staying. There is literally not one other paragraph in the entire thing that makes a case for staying. Not. One. Paragraph. None. Not a supporting fact. Nothing. The bulk of the editorial then explains why, yes maybe, the folks arguing for a departure might have a point. In fact, the section that closes out the editorial has the subhead: “Not a must, just an ought” Why did they even waste the ink?

It’s clear to me that this war, and politics in general, foreign policy in particular is no longer about being right, or making the right choices. I expect politics to play a part, even a significant part, but it shouldn’t be the only consideration. Making the right choices, or trying to understand what the right choices might be, has been what motivates me to care, the understanding that this nation, yes, even through government, has the ability to do good by being smart, creating good policy, and stepping back when the government isn’t needed. None of this matters in our debate, and none of it seems to have any effect on anyone’s opinion.

So, I’ll continue to care about this stuff, but silently for a while. I’ll still be blogging, but hopefully more technology stuff and also the link posts I do (like the ones below). Just don’t feel like writing about politics right now. Knowing me, this’ll probably last a week, but I am going to try to stick to it to see how it feels.

Look who Joe met over the weekend!

Sorry about the look of the site for those of you using IE6. A 20 minute break from my work broke the layout for folks using Internet Explorer 6. I know what the issue is, vaguely, but can’t fix it right now because I’m busy with work.

On a side note, I hate IE6. I wish Microsoft would fix it so it worked like the other browsers rather than forcing everyone to upgrade to IE7. If anyone has any ideas on how to achieve the layout I’m going for (check the site out in Firefox or Safari), please let me know in the comments how I can do it.

I almost put in a table today so I could get those columns lined up. I also wish CSS had a notion for making column even.

A lot of folks have been asking what I’m up to and, especially for the last few weeks, I’ve been more vague than usual about things. There were good reasons, but today I’m happy to let everyone know some more details on where I’m at and what I’m up to.

My original plan was to build and launch a travel-related site that my cousin had come up with. In essence, I would’ve been my first customer. I wanted to do that to build some credibility and to have the experience of building a scalable web site up without Disney’s infrastructure and with modern open source tools (Rails, Struts 2, etc.).

The idea was good and it looked like it would be easy (or as easy as these things could be) to launch and gain traffic. Unfortunately, the idea was so good that others had thought of it (always a good sign) and at least one iteration had already raised money (not so good for me). In fact, of all of the related startups, TripIt was probably the closest to the same idea, and that was pretty crushing. I was behind these guys and a solo developer on a new technology stack (Rails). It did not feel good.

Around the same time I was reaching out to former friends and colleagues to build out the FrequentMod end of the business. One of those leads worked out. Short version, I’ve recently joined Fanzter Inc., a local CT startup co-founded by a former colleague, Aaron. I can’t say much about what we’re building (more on that some day soon), but the idea for the first product is deceptively simple and powerful. We’re hoping to launch in September.

I said when I left ESPN that sometimes you just have to take the first step off the safe ledge before the opportunities present themselves. This is one of those serendipitous things. Had I not left ESPN, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to be here. Even better, Fanzter got their funding (and ability to hire me) right around the TripIt beta announcement. Timing, as they say, is everything.

On top of that, I had been working on a similar idea as one of my test/learn Rails and Symfony projects, and so I am coming into Fanzter with both a good understanding of where they’re going and what they’re trying to accomplish. To borrow a Disney phrase, there’s a lot of synergy here.

I won’t be blogging about the company much here. I’ll most likely be blogging about this at the Fanzter company blog. I’m excited to be working on this, and you should definitely sign up for the newsletter at Fanzter.com.

PS. To those of you who have reached out to me via LinkedIn or through email about FrequentMod, Fanzter is going to be my sole focus. I won’t be taking on additional clients or work until further notice.

…Not as much as I do, dear. Not as much as I do.

(sujal here): This is in reference to the current headline, which will probably be gone tomorrow, that says I hate weeding. To Heidi, I know you hate it more… that explains how little of it you actually do.

(Heidi here): I am officially turning in my gardening tools.

(sujal here): As if we’ll even notice… (And, yes, Heidi and I are sitting next to each other on the couch with two laptops typing this at each other… on FatMixx. Forgive us, we’re watching the Senate on CSPAN2)

Sorry, fixing a bug I introduced/found.
(Click here to read the rest of this post)

I’m starting to notice some issues with the redesign, specifically with the single post view. The balance of the page is just off and I feel momentarily lost trying to find the post amid the ads, sidebars, etc., especially for short posts. The content of the post, easily the most important thing on the page, has the least weight on the page. I’ll try to fix it over the next few days, though that might involve some major changes to the layout.

Here’s an opportunity to register any other comments or criticisms about the new look.

Heidi and I were away on our honeymoon (delayed from our wedding last year). That’s why our blogs have been silent for the last 11 days or so. Regular posting will resume some time later this week once we settle back in from our vacation.

Pics will be up, as well as a description of the trip, and lots of other interesting stuff. Looks like the Bush administration is about to face their first real investigation. Hope the Democrats do this right and run a good investigation.

It’s the holidays, so I’ll be offline for much of it spending time with friends and family. I expect the same to be true of the others that write here, so expect there to be little posting going on. Today may be an exception, though. Because of travel issues, today’s plans were disrupted and I’m sitting in front of the laptop. I could work on my project or I could write on FM. Guess which I’ll probably do.

Happy Holidays and, to those that celebrate, Merry Christmas! Enjoy the holidays and have a great New Year wherever you are.