MT3 FeedBack

In response to Mena Trott’s “How are you using the tool?” post:

I currently have 14 blogs from one installation of MT 2.661. Pulp Fiction Pub is a group fiction-writers blog with 7 authors, which is not currently being updated by anyone. f-stop is my single-author photoblog. Design MT is a group blog with the main topic about designing MT blogs, it has 3 authors, but it hasn’t been updated in months. Still, it’s a useful, if messy, place to store my design links, tips, and tricks. Endsville is my single-author storyblog where I write fiction. Leabhar Fil�ochta : Book of Poetry is my single-author poetry blog. Skull & Bones is a single-author blog I’m using to create a database of members of this Yale secret society. Silent Lucidity is my main single-author blog which is updated regularly. Art News is my single-author blog I use to write News Releases for the BlogShares Art Industry (game). Night Watch is my single-author writing blog where I experiment with my writing and writing exercises. My spouse has a blog about car restoration. And I have a private blog which is server-side password protected for those times when I just have to scream but don’t want to offend anyone. *grins* I also (currently) have four single-author testblog setups which I use to test new blog designs, and I often just create a new blog for each new project since the files don’t really take up that much disc space, so I anticipate that these testblogs could eventually grow into dozens of blogs. They won’t ever be used as actual blogs, they’re just my design and experimental workspaces.

I just started using MT back in Nov. 2003, having migrated my Nucleus blog to MovableType (ah! Quite the fiasco!). I caught on quickly as to how the software works and began to dig in and figure out how to add little tweaks to it for useability and accessibility (notice all the “title” text when you mouseover links?). I’ve also installed bug patches and a couple of plugins (though I haven’t gone overboard on the plugins), although I’ve chosen to spend more time on figuring out the templates and CSS. In fact, it was because of MT that I finally began to really -learn- Cascading StyleSheets instead of just piddling around with them in other applications as I had been doing for the past few years. The results (this blog in particular) of that learning have spurred me on to learn even more new things.

I’m a self-taught web designer who occasionally does design work for others in exchange for them buying me something off my wishlist. I do not make a living doing web or blog design work, in fact, I’m a disabled veteran on a very small fixed income, but the wishlist items I receive do help and are very much appreciated. It would be nice if I could make a living doing design or freelancing my writing, but I’m realistic enough to know that that’s not very likely to happen unless someone sees my work online and decides to hire me. I currently make $400/mo. in veteran’s disability compensation (and veteran’s benefits are taking massive cuts), out of which, I feed a family of four and pay for our cable internet access and my webhosting fees. This year I’ve begun accepting some paid advertising in order to help with the hosting expenses, and I also work parttime for a small stipend as an admin at blogshares.com. If Six Apart wishes to help me out a little, it would be nice if they would make an exception to the payment options for version 3 of MT for me, or buy some advertising either at this blog or at blogshares.com. I guess this is my way of letting them know. *grins*