Alliance blogroll code

Folks: I know some of you have had problems with the alliance blogroll code lately. I’m somewhat stumped as to what the problem is. That code hasn’t changed in ages, and I haven’t updated anything lately. And, on some sites at least, it seems to be working.
There is a possibility that the problem is due to the fact that the whole site was down due to a domain name problem over the past few days; the fix may still be floating through the DNS servers. So please check back and see if it resolves itself over the next day or so… I’ll keep trying to figure it out on this end…
Update:: I know what the problem is. Remember (scroll down), I recently changed the Ecosystem to retrieve a blog’s name from the TITLE attribute. Well, at least one blog in the Blogdom of God has some funky HTML code embedded in their TITLE. Dunno which it is yet, don’t have time to check myself. But I’ll bet you a dollar that’s what is screwing up the blogroll results.
So: Track down your errant member and convince them to ditch that goofy HTML, and your blogrolls will work again!

A fine start

Congratulations to the team on this morning’s successful test flight!
Not quite in Mr. Harriman’s class yet, Mr. Rutan — but I have high hopes! Keep it up…

Ecosystem Cleanup II

Yet more Ecosystem cleanup today. I have completely changed the way the names of weblogs are identified now. Previously, the name was simply whatever was manually typed in when the weblog was registered.
Now, the Ecosystem is actually reading the TITLE attribute off the HTML of a weblog’s page, and using that for the name.
What this means is that there is now no need to submit requests for updates if you change the name of your weblog; just change the TITLE (as you probably were doing anyway) and it will be automatically reflected in the Ecosystem.
This is a first step in a new way of handling data updates by putting them directly in the hands of the weblog’s owner. In the near future, I plan to implement similar methods to handle deleting blogs from the Ecosystem entirely, and moving a blog from one URL to another. But for now, have fun with titles…

Spirit of America

I’m back from a rather hectic business period and — heaven forbid — a little mini-vacation time.
My task of the moment is digging out from underneath my real work, but while you are waiting for me to a) share pearls of bloggy wisdom or b) fix the damned Ecosystem, go visit of America and do something. Jim Hake and his crew are on a major push to expand their operations o’ benevolence, and they need your help.
More thoughts later, but for now you can enjoy Jeff’s on your way there