Bunker Mulligan "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." ~Mark Twain

As an engineer, I’ve written just enough programs in different languages to be dangerous. I can’t say I’m arrogant about my skills in coding, but often too self-confident. I generally have little trouble with any commercial software.

Not so with MoveableType.

I know nothing of UNIX or servers, although we do have UNIX machines and it appears to be very similar to DOS. And I have absolutely no knowledge of Apache. Yet the MT User’s Manual seems to think I do. I run into problems of /www/b/u/something/something_else/ which bears little resemblance to what I think should be \www\b\u\something\something else\, and where do the b and u come from?

So, when I ran into problems, I did what every man does–sulk. Curse. Bang my head on a desk.

Then I contacted people with knowledge of such things: RAMMER. David. They, of course, responded.

Today I first backed up all my archives. That required four attempts. Then I tried to locate the portion of MT where I could change the templates to static rather than dynamic. That took some searching because I didn’t realize at first that I needed to change the templates and not the archives. Then I tried to rebuild just the individual archives, as these seemed to be the problem. Do dice. So then I rebuilt the categories. Worked. Tried individual again. Worked. Rebuild the entire site. Died in the middle.

Eventually, I got all the archives rebuilt. Then I checked the trackback link from rishon-rishon that first highlighted the problem. It still didn’t work. I found that, for some reason, that ONE individual archived post didn’t rebuild! I did an ftp of that one and rebuilt once again, and here it all is.

I spent most of the day today escorting some consultants around who will do some IT work for us. I spoke eloquently and often to them about how little I knew about hardware, and what I expected from them in the way of advice. Mercifully, I also asked them for advice on software to use, and assistance in building the necessary applications and integrating them with one another and the things we currently have running.

They think I’m smart.

Well, smart enough not to do it myself.