Mid-week Update (3)

Anyone have any good ideas for a Seinfeld themed costume that would work for me?

There does seem to be a lot going on lately, but really that’s no excuse to let things go stale on here. My apologies….

Won’t Someone Think of the Children??
Courtesy of Ars, it is being reported that Anheuser-Busch is coming under fire from 21 stage Attorney Generals over it’s Bud.tv video streaming site. The Generals are saying “that it asks A-B to use a better age-checking tool; the worry is that underage youngsters might somehow see the streaming goodness of Bud.tv and be tempted by the demon alcohol.”

Bud.tv, launched at the Super Bowl, is A-B’s attempt to stake out a media presence on the Internet, and the site offers video clips and original programming to those discerning drinkers who enjoy a cold Bud.

It’s not as though Bud.tv is simply letting people waltz on in after they supply fake birth years, though. The site’s sign-up process is deeply annoying, requiring the creation of an account and the surrender of name, e-mail, ZIP code, and date of birth, which is apparently checked against public records to verify the information. The state AGs want more; anyone could, they say, get access to an adult’s information and easily sign up for the site.

It’s always good to see state resources tackling those bad alchohol companies and their websites that kids could possible go to, enter in fake information, and see advertising for adult beverages. The States are saying Bud.tv isn’t doing enough, even though it sounds like it’s age-checking scheme is even more robust that a lot of…ahem….other sites out there. And where does the fact that you see beer commercials on TV all the time fit in? Quick, avert their eyes so they can’t watch!

Another 7th Guest?
I’ve been meaning to post this up for awhile, but I found a site where a group of people are creating a 3rd 7th Guest computer game. For those that don’t know, The 7th Guest was a computer puzzle game from way back in the day, one of the first “multimedia” games I ever played, and was a blast. You wander around a haunted mansion, solving puzzles to see more and more of a grisly story. Yeah, I’m a dork, but back then, with the lights off and the sound turned up, it was a lot of fun.

Blog Changes
In case you didn’t notice (and I’m doubting any really did), the address for this blog is now http://blogs.fiestyturtles.com/pete. My problem is I’m never content to sit still with technology or software. WordPress recently released a new version of their awesome software, 2.1. My own, and I think all of the other FT blogs were on 2.0.x or something, but this new one has some great changes: a better admin interface, better post writing interface, automatic saving of posts (screw you crashing browsers!) and an improved file uploading/management system that I notice right off the bat.

On top of that, I came across WordPress’ other project, WordPress μ, which is a multiuser implementation for WordPress. Basically, it’s the current WP software, and is the same thing that’s run on WordPress.com. How does this fit in to my stuff? Currently, there are 6 FT blogs, all separate WordPress installations, all with their own upkeep. Granted, there’s not much that I have to do, but if there’s a new version and I want to upgrade everyone’s, I have to individually upgrade each one. Yeah, I’m lazy. Multiuser WordPress lets one installation host multiple blogs, so all of them have one codebase. I can do a single upgrade that fixes all of them, manage useful plugins from one spot, and offer the same themes to everyone. But for each individual blog, it looks just like normal, so it’s all good.

So, back to the “new” location of my blog. I installed multiuser WordPress, and moved my personal blog over to it. There were a few bumps, but I have all of my old posts and even uploaded images and everything seems to be working. I’m going to use it for a bit longer, and then open it up to guinea pigs that are willing to let me move theirs . Ultimately it shouldn’t be that big of a change, just a slight address change. I’ve already got my old address redirecting to the new one, so the whole thing should be pretty transparent. Fun stuff!

Although, on top of all that I’m getting tired of the “pete’s world” moniker.  I’ve got some domains sitting around not doing anything (beerandnachos.com – intended to be a site where people posted the best places to get, uh, beer and nachos; opiesdiner.com – an inside joke from work from way back when, but I think it sounds like a good eclectic blog name; and I’ve batted around the idea of something like evilewok.com – another inside joke).  None of those would work with the multiuser wordpress, though, so I’d be back to square one.  Maybe I’ll just change my blog name to something, but the address would still be /pete/.  Who knows…..food for thought!