Geek Alert

Weekend numbers

May 23, 2005 Geek Alert, News

It’s not quite the [Slashdot effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot_effect), but Sunday’s article in the NY Times did result in a spike in readership, as the chart shows:

sessions chart

Average traffic for a Sunday is about 2,800 sessions; yesterday, the total was 5,500. (A “session” is a way of measuring individual visitors to a site, while “hits” simply refers to the number of times a page is loaded. Sessions are generally considered a more accurate reflection of readership.)

Note that Saturday numbers were up as well; the “Sunday” issue of the NY Times is actually available on Saturday.

While some of these new readers no doubt typed “johnaugust.com” into their browser, quite a few simply clicked the link in the online version of the story. A check of the referral log shows that 1,139 arrivals came directly from the NY Times website.

So what does this mean? Well, nothing really. The site didn’t crash, and long-term readership will probably stay exactly where it always was. But it’s always nice to have visitors.

Tracking a comment thread by RSS

April 19, 2005 Geek Alert

geek alert Unlike some sites, where the number of comments on a given article can reach triple-digits, most of the threads at johnaugust.com stay pretty short. Still, sometimes you want to keep on top of an interesting discussion without re-visiting the site every hour. That’s where RSS can be your friend.

On every article, down by the “Leave a comment” section, you’ll find a link for “RSS feed for comments on this post.”

If you click it, you’ll get gibberish. Rather, copy the link (which ends with ‘/feed/’) and paste it into your newsreader of choice (such as [Bloglines](http://bloglines.com/), [NetNewsWire](http://ranchero.com/netnewswire/), or the new [Safari RSS](http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/safari/)). You’ll then get every comment on the article as it appears, without ever having to go back to check the original page. And when you’re done following a conversation, just delete the link. No fuss, no muss.

Incidentally, this technique works for almost any blog you visit. So definitely try to make use of it.

Movable Type vs. WordPress

April 12, 2005 Geek Alert, QandA

Not a screen-writing question, I’m afraid — more a “Geek Alert” one.

I’ve got a blog on blogger.com at the moment, and am thinking of
moving to a different blogging tool. I’m a techie by background
(computer science degree) now working in film visual effects
(currently on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), and would love to
have much more flexibility than blogger.com gives.

How have you found WordPress vs. Movable Type? They are the two that I
am currently thinking about switching to, and would love to get your
take on the two. How flexible are they, and do they allow you pretty
much any access to the data that you would want?

— Hugh Macdonald
London

In another post, I’ll talk about blogging recommendations for the not-so-technically inclined.

geek alert It sounds like you, Hugh, are geeky enough that either [WordPress](http://wordpress.org) or [Movable Type](http://movabletype.org) will work fine for you. WordPress is done in PHP, while Movable Type is (mostly) Perl, so if one of those languages is more your strong suit, let that be your guide. And if you don’t feel like climbing under the hood, the default installs of either WordPress or Movable are pretty powerful, and both have plug-ins that let you do a lot without touching a line of code.

There are some technical and philosophical differences between the two systems as well. WordPress generates each page on-demand (at the moment someone requests it), which allows more flexibility in design and upkeep, at the cost of a slight delay in page loading. Movable Type, on the other hand, stores static pages that can be loaded very quickly — but can slow down when you make a change that ripples throughout the site. In recent revisions, both WordPress and Movable Type have taken on some of the other’s strengths — MT can generate certain page on the fly, while plug-ins for WP allow it to cache frequently-requested pages.

Both in terms of pricing and spirit, WordPress is “more free” than Movable Type. Movable Type is an honest-to-goodness company, with the goal of making a profit. For a single user, the MT software costs $70. WordPress, on the other hand, is open-source, and free. Both platforms have active support forums, but in my experience, the basic documentation on Movable Type is better.

I found WordPress much easier to install, however. The trickiest part is setting up the MySQL database, and the instructions do a good job explaining that. Movable Type has a much better exporting system, which ironically makes it a lot easier to move from MT to WP than vice-versa.

In summary, they’re both good. My gut tells me you’ll pick WordPress. But if you really want to impress the geeks at the FX bay, also check out [Ruby on Rails](http://www.rubyonrails.org), which is very much roll-your-own, but allows for immense customization.

Picking a printer

March 22, 2005 Formatting, Geek Alert, QandA

What kind of printer do you have? As a fellow geek, I’m curious. In my imagination, I see a professional screenwriter requiring a huge, high-powered beast that can print one script per minute. Or, do you not even print anything since it’s all sent out via PDF in these modern times? How much do you print in the average day/week?

–Alon Ozery
Toronto

We have an HP LaserJet 4100TN (closest equivalent is probably the [4250tn](http://www.shopping.hp.com/cgi-bin/hpdirect/shopping/scripts/product_detail/product_detail_view.jsp?product_code=Q5402A%23ABA)), which is more than adequate. It can print out a 120-page script in about four minutes — but more often it’s only printing 60 pages, because we’ll choose side-by-side layout to [save paper](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2005/screenwriting-wastes-a-lot-of-paper).

I don’t print nearly as much as I used to, since most times I’m delivering a .pdf rather than a printed script. I used to recommend screenwriters spend the extra money for a fast printer, but there’s really no great advantage now. Almost any laser printer — and even most inkjets — can print a script in less time than it takes to walk the dog.

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