Understanding Nothing

Ick.

When I write a weblog entry, Radio “knows” what id it’s going to store that post as in its internal database.

If you already have an entry with that ID, it clobbers it.

Well, it sort of merges the two. Any field that is filled in in your ‘new’ post, will overwrite any in the ‘old’ post. But if, for example, you don’t add a link for your new post, but your old one had one, then your new post will keep that link.

I think I’ve repaired it all now…

Now supported: If we can persuade existing weblog authors to insert this one line of code, and then get it into the default templates of Radio, Manila, and Movable Type, and we could make news aggregation an order of magnitude easier.

Out of curiosity, I tried to set up a hotmail account yesterday. They really go out of their way to make it difficult for you to sign up for a free account. Firstly, they told me that “Microsoft® .NET Passport no longer supports the Web browser version you are using. Please upgrade to a current Web browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4.0 or later, or Netscape Navigator version 4.08 or later.” (I was using Mozilla 1.0RC1).

I switched to IE, and tried to register, only to be told that my surname wasn’t valid, and to please choose a different one! So, I made up some details, and got through the first part of registration.

After giving them your basic details they take you to a page where they expound at length on the benefits of a £19.99 account, and present a large button to “continue”. As it appears to be the only link on the page I clicked it, but was then expected to give them credit card details. I hit back, and then spent several minutes trying to discover how to get the free account. Eventually, I found a small link at the bottom of the “About MSN Hotmail Accounts”, immediately after dire warnings about how all your e-mail, addresses and folders might be deleted, saying, “Click here to sign up for a 2 MB account.”

[Oh, and having told them that I was in the UK, with a time-zone of Belfast, they then proceeded to tell me that my fees would include Irish tax ...]

As soon as you log in you get a usage bar showing that you’re already using 1% of your total space. I was initially puzzled, but then discovered this was the welcome message. I tried to view it, but every time I clicked on either the inbox button at the top of the page, or the inbox text link in the left hand column, nothing seemed to happen. I eventually had to switch back to Mozilla (with which you can apparently log in just fine – just not register!), and open the message there.

If I was more paranoid, I’d think that the free account is deliberately set-up to be harder to use. But then reality kicks in and I remember that this is Microsoft, and that all versions are probably really difficult.