Matt’s article discusses a few approaches to using MT(Movable Type) to manage an entire site’s content, one using index templates to generate static content, and (even more interestingly) using MT(Movable Type) as a a lightweight database. As long as you can capture a page’s data in six data columns, you’re all set.

Brad’s solution is a little more complex, and involves using categories to determine file structure, but seems to be worth the effort, because each page corresponds to a entry in MT(Movable Type), which means that each page can be searched on, can have comments/trackbacks, and can even use Textile and/or SmartyPants formatting for the content of the pages.

The only problem with doing this at all is, for me, a purely practical one. Every time I want to change permissions on a folder, I need to contact my web host, which is slightly annoying. I really should just tell them to open up the necessary permissions for my entire site, which would mean I could get to updating some of the amazingly stale sections of my site.

Update: Doug Bowman has also written up his non-standard use of MT(Movable Type) to redo his portfolio page.

The trick was a little inline C#, turning this:

into this:

<code><% Response.Write(Regex.Replace("","default.aspx","")); %></code>

Nerdy, but cool. I like to be able to hide the implementation details (i.e. if I’m running PHP, ASP, ASP.Net, etc.) from my users.

• As further proof of my slavish devotion to keeping track of my BlogShares status, I’ve put a “BlogShares” item in the side navigation, which pulls data from the BlogShares site using David Reynes’s nifty MTBlogShares plugin. Right now it’s showing my weblog’s current value, P/E ratio, and my portfolio value.
• I put the Nice Titles enhancement on my page (in my mind I keep hearing Sean Connery from Celebrity Jeopardy saying “Nice Titties!”), which gives the fancy popup highlight over links with titles if you’re using a “good” browser.
• I added a description for the weblog under the title. It’s lame. Any suggestions as far as what i should change it to?

I’ve added a few more feeds of interest, and now I feel like I’m in control of a huge flow of information. It’s nearly overwhelming, it’s so huge. I sort of feel like Joey Pants in The Matrix, “I don’t even see the code anymore; all I see now is blonde, brunette, redhead…” The auto-refresh goes off every 1/2 hour, the little systray icon goes yellow, and I have new items to look through. It’s sort of like TiVo for the ‘Net.

I’ve also been trying, over the last few days, to bring some of my music collection into work. It’s a decent amount of work; running through existing mp3 folders with Tag&Rename, making sure the folder/file names are short enough to fit on a cd, and getting them burned and in. (As an aside, my next car stereo head unit will definitely have to be able to play burned mp3s.) I also downloaded and (ahem) liberated a copy of Forte Agent newsreader, so I could start plucking “backup” copies of tunes from A.B.S.M.*.

I see Mark Pilgrim has released his site’s MT(Movable Type) templates. Some of them definitely look worth copying, especially the one for the full-page calendar.

I would also like to state why my new job rocks so far:

• I don’t have to do timesheets.

• I don’t even have a phone on my desk (well, it’s not really a desk, it’s a door balanced on two low filing cabinets). Keeps the interruptions way, way down when people can’t call you and disturb you. Heck, I didn’t even get my email set up until about a week after I started.

I have a bunch of maintenence to do… need to pick up the DB-driven elements from my other blog and get them in here, but that won’t be a problem. I’ll need to also go back and fix all the links that referenced Blogger archive pages, as well as starting to do some categorization. Also, I’ll probably be putting the style back to roughly what it was before, but this style here is a nice temporary filler.