Well, we’re all back to work now that the holiday madness has ended, and that means that development is heating up again on ORBlogs. This year, Santa dressed up as Bill Jackson and left a development server under our tree. The server is at http://haxx.orblogs.org (which is a redirect currently, but we’re working on that).

Here’s a message from Bill snatched from the ORBlogs development list:

Uh, hello?  I think you have missed some tweets from both John and me; I have had a testing server running at http://haxx.orblogs.org/ for quite a while now!  :)  Apparently I did a poor job disseminating this information, I think even John didn’t realize it was actually working until last week or so.

I wrote a shell script that monitors the Subversion repository, and rebuilds/reloads the app on every checkin.  I just need to test it a bit more and add it to my crontab…

Anyway, everyone please go ahead and start using the site above for testing, and start filing bugs as you find them!

Lastly, anyone not familiar with Pencil (the Firefox plugin) should check it out; it’s awesome for doing UI mockups, web or otherwise.  Bram, I imagine you know about it already. 

Cheers,
-Bill

What this means is that anyone with access to the source code (i.e. working from our ORBlogs Google Code page) can hit the development server, see problems, fix them, and commit the changes.

Not a programmer? Not interested in grabbing code? No matter. Check out the development server anyway. If you see issues that need fixing, head over to Google Code Page and file a ticket. (Do us a favor and make sure someone else hasn’t already done so :).

Additionally, Bram Pitoyo has offered to work on the layout and typography. With such a master as that on board, the ORBlogs user interface is certain to be amazing. Maybe we can talk Amber Case into some great data visualizations as well (hint, hint

I hope everyone had a safe holiday season. With a server running, more people helping, ORBlogs 2.0 is closer than ever to being re-launched. Thanks Santa!

I really didn’t mean to completely desert the blog, it just sort of worked out that way, and I’m sorry. It’s not good because many folks out there are probably asking the question:

“Hey, where did everybody go?”

Well, we’re still here, and I expect it’s time you had an update about what’s going on. Unfortunately, it’s not very glamorous.

Patrick (BigBark writer) and Lyle have done major work on the back-end code and we’re now, apparently, at the stage where we need a server to have it running and have to get a few more people looking at (and testing) the codebase.

That’s where Bill Jackson comes in. Bill is setting up his server to run the current code so that people can play with it and, when things are broken, log bugs or issues when something’s wrong. This means that we’re nearly at the stage where at least something visible is presented.

It’s not magical news, but it’s actually pretty exciting for the developers. I have to say, without the dedication of Lyle, Patrick and Bill, things would be pretty sad. Because of them, we’re closer to having a Digg-able aggregator.

I’ll try to be a better blog host in the future.

Enter Rick Turoczy (Heh, that’s a pretty well used phrase by now, innit?) with a suggestion that the ORBlogs team contact the Portland Java Users Group. A quick email calling for help, led to a number of replies in a thread available on the Google Groups page.

The short Version: Craig McClanahan came out with both barrels swinging.

The Long Version: Remember the early days of the effort- mostly taking place on Twitter and FriendFeed? No? Well, we were discussing how to make ORBlogs not just another aggregator, but a complete tool, powerful, redistributable. My suggestion was an Open Source tool that was scalable that anyone could used (MediaWiki style) but that we could also enterprise, giving ORBlogs the revenue it needs to grow. Craig suggested something very similiar, although from the perspective of a programmer. Read the thread for full details.

However, I still think that we should get BigBark running, for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that people want ORBlogs back now, and we can accomplish that. Here are my thoughts:

• BigBark is basically ready to run. We need to dust it off and turn the key, this makes it an optimal instant, if temporary, solution. Patrick agrees with this assessement, am I right?
• There are at least 1800 blogs currently indexed which are now not served. Many of these folks are, understandably chomping at the bit since we (i.e. I) originally shot for Oct. 1st.
• There are a large number of blogs (I have 4 alone) that are not indexed which need to be added to ORBLogs ASAP.
• Having BigBark up- and experiencing the slam of hundreds of bloggers hitting it with full expectation- will not only give us juice, it will give us data and information on what we want and need in the larger effort.
• The thought was that it was a mere few days to get BigBark running with strong Java people, so it would not take away from the longer term effort.
• Once BigBark is running, we can spend the actual time to design an excellent system while blogs are  being indexed and traffic is being generated. this will make the blogging community very happy.

I agree with Craig that we should seek the architecture like the one that he outlines, but my thought is that this will (if we do it right) will take time. As I was writing this, J-P Voillequé shot me a Twitter Post stating that he would rather wait and have something longterm and stable than something right now. An excellent point.

It seems to me that the BigBark code would allow us something very strong and stable immediately. Something with which we can have blogs indexed and added, and have people hitting the site to generate traffic. Of course, if we could have such an architecture built in a couple days, we could ignore BigBark, but that is rarely, if ever, the case.

So, my thought: Have these enthusiastic Java programmers spend the few days getting BigBark cleaned up immediately. Then, spend the time to design something fantastic. We may even have enough programmers joining that Craig can lead a team in parallel on design.

What’s your opinion?

There are at least 4 people looking at the codebase, including me. This is a good sign because, although it’s complex and feature rich, it’s relatively clean and Patrick (@plightbo) has graciously provided a script to grab the dependencies, meaning going from “broken” to “not broken” is relatively painless.

Having awakened at 4:45 this morning (don’t ask), I was able to compile the codebase cleanly using his script (For the non-tech folks, this means that the engine runs, although there may be a few problems yet with brakes and steering, so you wouldn’t want your daughter to drive it yet).

I’m communicating with Patrick now about setting the code up on a server. Once that’s done, we will take AJ’s (@linuxaid) database and start connecting it.

Sam Klein stepped up to work on graphics, so when things are running, we’ll have a full graphics design, making a later search for such work unneeded. Thanks, Sam.

Right now the steps we need immediately to get the site running are:

• Get the compiled codebase running on a test server.
• Dump AJ’s database to the server and hook up the wires
• Hook up AJ’s parser scripts to those wires to keep things updated

I’ll keep you updated here on how that’s going. Feel free to comment or send questions to the Google Groups List if you have them.

I also suggest you read my reply just so that you don’t think I’m a thoughtful, intelligent person who calmly considers other people’s point of view before screaming at the top of his lungs.

In short, I’m embarrassed, and want to apologize. I’m sorry everyone. I’m sorry Gil.

There’s a large part of me that’s taken personal responsibility for trying to get ORBlogs back on the map. That responsibility- and subsequent accountability- is important for a successful effort. As I stated in my original post regarding ORBlogs- making one person responsible and accountable will give the community one single person to look to when they want to ask… well… just what Gil was asking:

Why the hell isn’t anything happening?

The one issue with being that person who takes on that accountability is that you have to both have the ability to get the job done, and have the skin thick enough to shrug stuff off. I suddenly wonder if I’ve been disingenuous in taking on this role.

Although there’s a part of me that wants to, I’m not going to give a list of things that we have accomplished, I think it’s fair enough to agree with Gil on where we are. ORBlogs is not yet live. Although I maintain my offense at the suggestion that we are a committee just meeting and not reaching consensus- I agree that the actual site is not running yet.

That’s been bothering me a great deal, and I was very happy when Kyle came forth with Ignoregon, because it seemed the best of both worlds. A functional, if basic, site for the immediate need- and another solid and active person to attack the BigBark code.

It seemed, in fact, like just what Gil was suggesting- and what we’ve all wanted.

So I think it was my earlier frustration with myself. It was anger, sadness and a great deal of pain at what’s happened personally. It was anger with my own lack of progress that I was reacting too. It wasn’t Gil’s comments about committees and camels which still sting just enough that I have to bring them up one more time even though it’s not a camel but a dead horse we’re talking about now (really, John, let it go!).

I was pretty forceful in my original post that we needed a point person, one person, to take responsibility. I didn’t actually think it would ever be ME (You’d never even heard of me before that!). I was stunningly honored that people would accept me, and suddenly felt that I had found a lot of friends. Still, we need to think seriously about this. My response to Gil was pretty irresponsible.

(By the way, that whole “friends” thing, oh and the italicized “active”- heck, half of this post- I can’t help it. We bloggers are writers first. I just can’t ignore those dramatic, touching bits. They shouldn’t sway you, however. Snap out of it.)

I’m sorry everyone. Seriously. I shouldn’t be speaking for ORBlogs, nor for AJ, Patrick, Rick or Kyle. If someone else wants to take over, I can turn over the domain, the blog, the Google groups account, the Goog-

(See- there I go, listing everything- even after I said I wouldn’t. Drama, I tell you.)

Okay, seriously. There are plenty of people out there better than me. Take over. Be someONE.

But you needn’t start from scratch. There’s that Java code just waiting. It’s right there- we’re pretty close.

By the way, Rick Turoczy has the keys to this house. AJ and Patrick have the keys to the code page. They- as anyone, should feel free to lock me out at any point.

Until then, I’ll just keep on chugging away, and realize that I owe Gil a beer for screaming at him. I really am sorry, Gil.

Yes, Virginia, there is an Oregon Blogs aggregator. But it’s time for some pause before swamping the poor fellow’s server.

Backstory

Earlier today, I was emailed by Kyle Ritter of Barfly Magazine, who said that he’d taken Paul Bausch’s XML data and created a simple aggregator based on some other work he’d done. Then, after putting it up and registering a somewhat comical address (ignoregon, which I think is just hillarious) he decided to see if anyone else was doing anything.

Then, having discovered that there was indeed an effort to restore ORBlogs to even more than its original glory, he contacted me to ask about the status, and what steps he should take in order to not dillute or derail the current effort- if there truly was one.

All in all, it was a very thoughtful message, and I tried to reply in kind. Telling him that there was indeed an effort, that we had a functional and robust platform on which to build- and that we merely needed to get it on a server, work out a few bugs- and dump the database.

I discussed that, originally, our plan was to get something up immediately, and then design what we wanted- but that Patrick Lightbody’s code was basically everything we wanted anyway (categorization, Digg-style ranking, etc.) so the goal was to go live by October 1st (This was all something I was working on when a family death and some other home casualties derailed my deadline, by the way- I’m not ignoring you ORBlogs, honest!).

I then suggested that we talk ASAP. Mainly this was because I’ve been in a situation where I’ve done alot of work that was basically thrown out (that sucks, lemme tell ya) and wanted to personally recognize and thank him. But also- and more importantly- I thought that this could be a way to have something basic up and running that the blog community could use immediately, while we work on getting the more advanced code working- given my delay.

Frontstory

But, neither Kyle nor I recognized the blogger’s love of The Story (or at least the Blogger’s tendancy to… well… blog).

It seems that Jack Bogdanski came home and casually (not- as he notes- obsessively) checked his logs and noted the hit from Kyle’s aggregator and immediately wrote a blog post about it, setting off a flurry of activity.

So, now Kyle’s server is live with blog posts, but this is time for some pause for a couple reasons- not the least is that we don’t want to crush Kyle’s server

Kyle, did you know that Paul Bausch was seeing about 1300 page views per day? That’s one of the issues Louis and Clark was going to help us with. Hope you have bandwidth!

The Rest of The Story

So, the question is how do we proceed. My idea was that, assuming it can take both the traffic and the abuse, Kyle’s site be something Oregon Bloggers are immediately able to use, and we- still as quickly as possible- get Patrick’s code running. This will do a number of things:

1. Give Oregon Bloggers something to use immediately.
2. Give Kyle a name- since he is the man.
3. Give the ORBlogs team an idea of load, desires, needs, etc. earlier than we’d otherwise have it.

Kyle’s happy to provide the bandwidth (assuming it’s not too much) and supports us using Ignoregon until the new code is bug free and live.

What do you think bloggers? Leave your comments here or head over to the Google Groups page for input. Until then, check out Ignoregon, and send Kyle a message- without knowing anything was going on, he got a basic site up and running. One more great person working for the benefit of ORBlogs.

Thanks Kyle!

Oregon Blogs is looking for images to feature on its front page and banner slots. We’re generating a collection of random images to show on the front page, and three banner images to show on the front, article and archive pages of the Oregon Blogs Blog (that long, narrow image at the top of the page).

If you’ve got a great picture, artistic piece or drawing and you want it featured on our blog, mail it to us at the contact link at the top of the page. Make sure your images conform to these guidelines:

• 965×70 for the top banner image
• 470×175 for the rotating front page display
• Include name and caption if you want attribution (not required, but fun!)

We’ll be adding all images to a master gallery for viewing as well so that all of the images used on ORBlogs can be enjoyed.

Feel free to throw in your comments below. I’ll start by noting the most important issues first.

The Completely Pointless

We have undertaken a number of tasks that are seemingly orthogonal to the project, mostly as a reason to use the word orthogonal.

1. ORBlogs.org: We no-longer have use of the ORBlogs.com domain, so I have registered ORBlogs.org. Ever the helpful one, I’ve populated it with a completely pointless wiki page that is more confusing than functional. Did this step need to occur? Of course not, who cares if ORBlogs.org is registered? The real reason I did it is the hope that If there’s ever a formal organizational authority, I can sell them the domain name for riches and glory (or a pint of Rubinator).
2. @ORBlogs: Just so that we assure ourselves that our geekiness cannot be surpassed, we actually have a Twitter update account to post update to our fellow pasty-faced coders who hate sleep. Yeah, I know, that’s over the top. “What the hell are you updating Twitter for? Have you done anything yet?” Well of course we have! We made a Twitter account!
3. More @ORBLogs: Not geeky enough? There’s actually an Identi.ca account as well. What a pointless waste of time, especially since we haven’t quite gotten around to that because certain team members keep passing out (wimps).
4. Funding: Yes, a seemingly orthogonal path to getting the site up and actually running it is looking for witless people to dump upon our intrepid souls gobs and gobs of money. Yes, one could argue that it’s not important to look for funding sources now, but I’d argue that there are some people who can’t help directly with setting up the site and coding SQL queries in javascript. Those poor, lost, lonely, useless souls are just begging for reasons to forego sleep. Why not give them the thankless job of door-to-door “canvasing” of PDX neighborhoods at midnight? (Or, as one somewhat secret ORBlogs agent is doing, finding money through somewhat more realistic methods?)

The Somewhat Pointless

Some pursuits are slightly less pointless, being merely tangental to the overall cause.

1. This Blog: Do we need it? Of course not. It’s here to serve two purposes, really. The first is to make you try to say- three times, really fast: “The official Oregon Blogs Blog is at blog.orblogs.org.” The second is to see how much meaningless writing we can convince you to read before you get to the slightly less mindnumbing stuff at the end of articles such as this.
2. Google Groups: We’ve decided that it would be beneficial to overlap as many channels of communication as possible in an attempt to be as confusing as a Lawyer advertising conference. Therefore, we started a Google groups page where developers can get together and write posts that, tangentially at best, discuss development. (Personally, I think development proceeds best when individual files are emailed back and forth, but some crazy people want to try bleeding-edge new development techniques).
3. Friendfeed: What was incredibly pointed and helpful in the beginning has become somewhat less so. Mere moments after Paul’s Announcement, J-P Voillequé started a FriendFeed page to help keep us all abreast of the situation. The effort was somewhat overshadowed by later communications, but it was a beacon in a storm of chaos for a bit, and much appreciated. It’s still live as of this writing, but the Google Groups Email List has taken it’s place as the main comm stream.

The Fairly Un-Pointless

Before you get too far down the road of questioning the overall usefulness of weblogs as a communication platform, we’ll go ahead and tell you some of the somewhat useful information that you actually came for. There are a few things we’re doing that, believe it or not, actually involve rebuilding the ORBlogs website. Stunning, I know.

1. Database: AJ (i.e. The man of the hour) has taken the XML file from Paul Bausch and grokked it completely, spitting out a near complete list of blog feeds. He’s also coding up- by himself, while the rest of us selfishly sleep away our #afterhours- at least 8 different parsers so that we can get the data from feeds that return substandard or non-standard formatting (ironically, like this one).
2. Presentation: We have an initial presentation framework graciously donated by Patrick Lightbody. Called BigBark, it was initially coded up for a political aggregator. It comes complete with DIGG-style ranking and lots of other goodies. As of this writing, he’s “scrubbing” the code so that we can get it into our source control system. (Last time I tried to scrub my code, I completely shorted out my motherboard. Maybe too much soap?). Good luck Patrick.
3. Google Code: Speaking of data and presentation, there’s a Google Code page housing the source repository for the backend code. As soon as the presentation layer is cleaned, it’ll be housed there.
4. Server: It’s pretty amazing the number of people who’ve come out in support of the ORBlogs rescue effort. Two such people are David W. McKelvey and Robb Shecter of Lewis & Clark College. They have graciously gotten Lewis & Clark to front server space for the ORBlogs effort and are waiting merely for us to get on the ball with our framework so we can plug all the wires in and make it sparkle. Rumor has it thatall blogs listed on the site will be contacted monthly by the Louis & Clark Alumni Committee. (That’s just a rumor, right David?)

Finale (i.e. “The Good Part”)

Overall, the database is coming along quickly under AJ’s unrelenting assalt, and once we have Patrick’s BigBark running, we’ll dump the database, spit it out, and realize just how ridiculously broken a website can be. We’re hoping for later this week. Patrick’s mixing the soap very carefully.

Future Pointlessness

Got an Interesting idea? Cool Wordpress plugin? Let us know. You can help with the pointlessness by suggesting changes and functionality to the Blog, or the Twitter account.  We want to keep our media presence as kitch as possible so that people are convinced that we are total geeks. In the future, Oregon’ Favorite Floral Arranger will also help build a team of blog authors to make sure that people have plenty of ORBlogs to read while at work.

We also need, at some point, some sweet-ass graphics to convince the world that, well, we like sweet-ass graphics. Again, this project is somewhat tangental to the current coding effort, but utterly necessary to the sweet-ass graphics lovers of the ORBlogs team.

Future Pointedness

There are also ways that you can help actually do something. Head over to the Google Groups page. Until the presentation layer is up, it’s pretty quiet- but soon there’ll be plenty for you to do while you’re supposed to be sleeping.

Disclaimer

Oh, and just so you know, I was talking about chocolate donkeys. What we need are graphics representing donkeys made of chocolate. Those are the graphics we need. Not the other thing you were thinking of.

Remember: Chocolate donkeys.

With the announcement that Paul Bausch’s ORBlogs was being taken offline, a groundswell began. A groundswell to save the aggregation of Oregon blogs. A movement to save an “historical landmark,” as it were. An effort to save the spot where many of us first found one another and where we continue to find new voices.

And as part of that groundswell, people stepped up. They started doing things. And they started fixing the problem.

I’m proud to have played a small part in that amazing activity.

But there is still much to do.

And while any number of folks are currently running as fast as they can to get another version of ORBlogs on line, there are a number of other folks waiting in the wings. And they’re wondering what’s happening. And what they can do to help.

So now, we have the ORBlogs Blog. To help communicate what’s happening a little more effectively to those who are interested in keeping tabs on the activity.

To those who are interested in participating more directly, I’d also suggest joining the Google Group dedicated to the ORBlogs rescue effort.

There’s more news coming. And there will definitely be more ways you—regardless of your technical acumen—can help.

We’re glad you’re here. We appreciate your wanting to help. We will get there.

Welcome! And please stay tuned.