For all you nerds out there who feel like spending your Friday night repeatedly hitting refresh ... we are currently in the process of switching everything over.

Tic ... Tic ... Boom.

Posted by Barrett at 07:55 PM | Permalink | 12 comments, last by Chris
Filed under Administration

By the end of January, Perfect Duluth Day will be switching from its current publishing platform, Movable Type version 3.2, to WordPress version 2.8. Please remain calm. You don’t need to buy a converter box or anything else.

Once the switch is made, things will work a little differently, but the site will mostly remain the same. In the process of getting used to it, we hope you won’t bash in your screen with your bare fists.

Continue reading "Change is coming to PDD" »

Posted by Barrett at 09:40 AM | Permalink | 32 comments, last by clumsy
Filed under Administration

happy people in california celebrate taking rights away from their fellow citizens.

Posted by c-freak at 10:33 AM | Permalink | 36 comments, last by @ndy
Filed under Administration | Serious Substantive Matters

Posted by Barrett at 01:06 PM | Permalink
Filed under Administration

Because not every post needs to be a conversation.

Posted by Barrett at 12:45 PM | Permalink
Filed under Administration | Advice | Recommendations

Finn Fest 2008 is coming up next week and I propose a FinnBlogging challenge. Now through the end of the festival let's educate each other about Finland. Music, history, art, strange facts, you get the idea. The festival starts July 23 and goes through the 27th. Oh and it would be a good idea to take in some of the events as well.

I kick off the challenge with the Finland national anthem.

Posted by Starfire at 09:24 AM | Permalink | 11 comments, last by huitz
Filed under Administration | Current Events | Duluth History | Duluth News | Promotion | Web Fun

PDD is 5 today. Anyone up for a little party? Carmody at 7pm?

Posted by Starfire at 12:29 PM | Permalink | 9 comments, last by Barrett
Filed under Administration | Current Events | Duluth History | Duluth Scene | Holiday | Web Fun

So most of the pictures are visible on the Flickr site (as linked to on the right-hand margin ... yeah, keep scrolling down). However, there are a couple which aren't -- what gives?

Specifically, I want to know the background story to the black-and-white one that features some girls dancing and an old guy sort of standing there eyeballing them.

Continue reading "Banner photos ..." »

Posted by cork1 at 11:58 AM | Permalink | 4 comments, last by Nick
Filed under Administration | Photos | Promotion

[ Text written by you, in which you make the topic relevant to PDD readers. Text written by you, in which you make the topic relevant to PDD readers. Text written by you, in which you make the topic relevant to PDD readers. Text written by you, in which you make the topic relevant to PDD readers. Text written by you, in which you make the topic relevant to PDD readers. Text written by you, in which you make the topic relevant to PDD readers. Text written by you, in which you make the topic relevant to PDD readers. ]

Continue reading "Post-It Notes" »

Posted by Barrett at 04:39 PM | Permalink | 16 comments, last by Girl From the North Country
Filed under Administration | Bitching

I love the rotating PDD banners. We all love the rotating PDD banners. But a few of us had a discussion last week and came to the conclusion that it's time for some freshening up around here. So here's what we're gonna do:

1) Make new banners! Get out there and click, scan, whatever. These photos must be your originals and they must be locally relevant. They can be old or new, as long as they haven't been banners before.

2) Upload your banners to the new directory, /headers08/. (Same old technique - if you've done it before, you can do it again.)

3) When we get a good number of new banners in the new directory, we'll switch over to all-new banners. I'll keep the old directory intact, and sometime in the future after we've all forgotten the old banners, we can switch back for nostalgia's sake.

Posted by Barrett at 12:28 AM | Permalink | 23 comments, last by baci
Filed under Administration | I Need Your Service | Photos

So I'm thinking about 86ing the PDD Bios portion of the website. Very few people use it, and almost no one ever updates it. I'd like to pare down the PDD features to reduce clutter and make it so everything is easier to find and use.

What do you guys think? Should we trash it or keep it?

Let me know in the comments or by emailing me at [email protected]. If I got rid of it, I'd probably do it in a week or two.

Posted by Barrett at 02:37 PM | Permalink | 20 comments, last by ironic1
Filed under Administration

On a whim, I added these nerdy little icons that indicate the number of posts each author has made. Hopefully, they're self-explanitory.

Posted by Barrett at 06:08 PM | Permalink | 4 comments, last by zra...
Filed under Administration

I would like to proudly announce the new, improved, and easy-to-manage PDD Links page.

PDD Links is a local blog aggregator that will collect and syndicate as many Twin Ports-related blogs as possible. I've already added nearly 50 blogs from the area. If all works properly, recent posts from local bloggers will appear at the top of the page.

I hope it turns out to be a good resource for all of us. Bloggers will attract more readers. Readers will find new blogs to follow. It's win-win.

If you author a blog, or have a favorite blog that should be listed, please e-mail me ([email protected]) with the URL of that blog's feed.

Also, maybe we should discuss if any other RSS-driven media should be included, such as DNT headlines or whatnot.

Posted by Barrett at 12:36 PM | Permalink | 7 comments, last by ironic1
Filed under Administration | Promotion | Web Fun

I'm sure that many of you have noticed that the TypeKey commenting system is currently down. To be honest, I have no idea what is wrong with it. I've contacted the people at TypeKey, and they insist that the problem is not on their end. However, both PDD and my personal blog are experiencing the same problem, even though they are separate installations.

We'll try to figure out what is wrong. In the meantime, I've opened the commenting to everyone -- not just TypeKey members -- to allow free access to commenting.

What this means to you is that for the time being, you won't have to log in to comment. You will, however, notice spam in the comments from time to time.

Sorry about the inconvenience.

If you still see a "sign in" requirement, do a SHIFT + REFRESH and that should clear up the problem.

UPDATE: There is now a simple word-verification test in the comment form. From now on, no one will be asked to log in, but instead will have to type "PDD" into the comment form to prove that they're a human being, and not a spambot. This should work. TypeKey no more!

Posted by Barrett at 12:17 AM | Permalink | 25 comments, last by blogger police
Filed under Administration | Bitching

Say, I just noticed that Flickr is changing a few things, including email sign-in. Is this going to affect pdd banner submissions? And what can we do to replace it if needed?

Posted by edgeways at 01:09 PM | Permalink | 3 comments, last by in.dog.neato
Filed under Administration

As I mentioned in this week's Budgeteer article, there are a lot of PDD members who've never posted. I think this is because many members have joined to comment, not post. PDD membership, however, is not required for commenting.

To comment on another person's post, you DO NOT need to be a PDD member. You do, however, need to sign up with TYPEKEY. Your PDD username and password DO NOT automatically work with TypeKey.

TypeKey is an third-party authentication service we use to eliminate spam. Like all aspects of Perfect Duluth Day, it is completely free of charge.

If this has confused you in the past, I hope this helps to clear things up.

In short: To leave a comment on someone else's post, sign in with TypeKey. To create your own post, sign in to your PDD membership.

Posted by Barrett at 01:20 PM | Permalink | 3 comments, last by funkenschutz
Filed under Administration

It really felt like a shame to let the post about free wi-fi connections in the area drop off the page, as it seemed so useful. No need! Now there's a place right over there in the sidebar for all the posts we need to keep alive and updated, for reference purposes. Let me know in the comments if you think this is a good or bad idea and why, and maybe what posts you'd like to dig out of the (recent) archives to be revived.

Stipulation: The posts must be useful, like the wi-fi post.

Posted by Barrett at 12:20 AM | Permalink | 8 comments, last by ironic1
Filed under Administration

Well that was fun. 34 posts in 72 hours! Thanks for playing. Keep it up.

sf**

Posted by Starfire at 08:44 AM | Permalink | 1 comment by tamara
Filed under Administration | Web Fun

Hey Kids,

Let's get this party rolling. Starting this morning and lasting through the weekend I challenge all PDD members to contribute something to our little Blog. Post a picture, tell a story, make a movie or just tell a joke. If every member here posted one thing it could be quite a party. So get going there are only 72 hours left to get in on the fun.

--->over and out, for now.

Posted by Starfire at 09:02 AM | Permalink | 3 comments, last by ironic1
Filed under Administration | Creepy Duluth Stuff | Promotion | Web Fun

So I just made this whole new thing, and man it would be nice to get some help.

Introducing: PDD Links.

What I would like to do is provide a venue where we could literally have a link to every single website of relevance in the Twin Ports region.

Do you want to help?

Click the link to see the many ways in which you can help.

And email me with whatever ideas for improvement you might have. Let's get this party started. It's about time.

Posted by Barrett at 03:37 AM | Permalink
Filed under Administration

Tomorrow is the 3rd anniversary of the first post to Perfect Duluth Day. So let's have a little gathering on Saturday. I'm thinking an outdoor affair in the late afternoon/early evening. Maybe Leif Erickson Park on the stage? Frisbee, Croquet, Jarts? Whatever you folks wanna do is cool by me. The weather looks like it will cooperate so let's have some fun in the real world.

RSVP in the comments.

Posted by Starfire at 08:14 AM | Permalink | 8 comments, last by Purple
Filed under Administration | Duluth History | Promotion

I've just learned that I apparently haven't tweaked the TypeKey comment authentication to work with all systems. Some people are experiencing difficulty. Please have patience while I sort this out.

Posted by Barrett at 05:32 PM | Permalink | 3 comments, last by baci
Filed under Administration

Beginning immediately, PDD is taking extreme measures to keep the riff-raff (meaning spammers) out of the comments. This means an extra step for those who would wish to comment.

From now on, all commenters must register with TypeKey, an authentication service provided by Movable Type. Registration is quick and easy, and only needs to be done once. Once registered, commenters will simply sign in before commenting.

Posted by Barrett at 08:24 PM | Permalink | 2 comments, last by Netland Jr.
Filed under Administration

Hello and good morning.

PDD has been under attack with a higher than usual amount of Spam comments. In response I have turned up the junk threshold in our comment settings. If your comment does not appear it has most likely been funneled into the junk comment section. In order to avoid this I suggest not putting any HTML in your comments.

Barrett may be making some changes to the comment process soon but there is no perfect solution so bear with us.

thank you.

Posted by Starfire at 06:41 AM | Permalink | 6 comments, last by Bad Cat!
Filed under Administration

I need to talk to someone who can teach me 5 or 6 things about PHP and/or RSS for some upcoming improvements to this site that I'm contemplating. Mainly I'm interested in the PHP. If you're fluent in PHP and want to help make this site spectacular, you should definitely email me and we should definitely talk.

[email protected]

Posted by Barrett at 12:53 AM | Permalink
Filed under Administration | Geeky

The usefulness of this new feature depends on whether or not people pick it up and run with it, but I've just added a calendar function to PDD. Now anyone can add events to a calendar and we all can check it to see what's going on on a particular day.

It's easy to use, so hopefully it'll become a good resource.

Try it out at http://www.perfectduluthday.com/calendar.

[Note: You have to log in to post an event. I created a guest account to make it as free and open as possible. If this becomes a problem, then we'll have to figure out a different strategy, but for now log in as "guest" and we'll see how it works.]

Posted by Barrett at 04:02 PM | Permalink | 6 comments, last by Barrett
Filed under Administration | Duluth Scene | Promotion

Y'know, while perusing the 120-odd comments on the Creepy Japanese Things topic, I was suddenly struck with a thought: "We're Better Than This."

It really is narrowminded to focus our ridicule on the Japanese. Sure the Japanese are an easy target. But let's face it -- there's plenty to point out and mock in this world. From Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi pretending to hump a meter maid, to the oh-so-American picturesofjesus4you.com, people all over this world are just begging for our hot links and tasty comments.

I believe that the best way to solve this debate is to stop arguing and pool our creative talents to improve this blog. PDD is filled with creative people who have great ideas. We need to come up with a new category name that really shines. It can't just be "Creepy Things" or anything lame like that. It needs to be witty. It needs to be good.

So let's have a contest for the renaming of the Creepy Japanese Things category. Post your ideas as comments. The winner will receive a PDD T-shirt, five PDD stickers, and a burned copy of Phil Collins' No Jacket Required album.

Finally, I'd like to say that I've been friends with Jon since we were 16 years old. I hope we will remain friends. Also I want everyone to know that Jon is indeed Asian, that I took gym class with him in high school, and that certain stereotypes, in this case at least, are true.

He'll argue otherwise, but he sucks at math.

Posted by Barrett at 11:40 AM | Permalink | 43 comments, last by The Professor
Filed under Administration | Art | Politics

Check it out, fools! Remember back in the old days when we used that cheesy third-party comment system whose one cool function was that it displayed the name of the most recent commenter on the main page? Well, I received an email this morning requesting that we bring that sort of thing back. Hmmm, I thought. I bet there's a way to do it.

After combing the web for far too long, I found that there's nothing out there about how to do such a thing. The MT community is big on listing recent comments in the sidebar, which I think is clunky because sometimes people make really long titles, and that throws everything off.

But still ... I knew there was a way to do it. I focused all my brain power on this problem, and behold! Hopefully, this will make it easier to keep track of whether a thread you've been following has been updated.

If you're a real geek or a Movable Type user, check the extended entry for the method.

Continue reading "Now, Run the Gauntlet" »

Posted by Barrett at 12:30 AM | Permalink | 11 comments, last by budb
Filed under Administration | Geeky

Hey you crazy kids. I have gone and made up another batch of PDD shirts. This time on swanky American Apparel T-shirts, which are made in LA by people earning a living wage with health care and all that. Plus, the owner of the company likes to jack off in front of pretty girls so you may want to consider washing your new shirt first.

Barrett Chase and I should have some kind of store up soon but in the meantime you could pop into Bullseye Silkscreen-32 E Superior St. and buy yourself one all in person like. I have small through xl available. 15 bucks

Posted by Starfire at 06:50 AM | Permalink | 10 comments, last by chris m
Filed under Administration | Current Events | Duluth Scene | Weird Stuff

I've created a couple of tutorials to help you kids out there. It's just basic stuff right now, but I know that a lot of people don't know how to post images or make links. If anyone has any suggestions for desperately needed tutorials or any other features, let me know.

Posted by Barrett at 01:44 PM | Permalink | 2 comments, last by Bad Cat!
Filed under Administration | Geeky

Thanks to everyone who participated in the recent PDD survey. You can read the extended version of this post for a full run-down; I won't bore you with all those details right here on the front page.

As you can see, I've made two major changes based on suggestions submitted by members. People have been griping for quite awhile about the legibility of the site. Hopefully, the new improvements will help.

OK, I've done plenty on my own, now it's time for you to get involved.

See that photo at the top of the page? We need more images of Duluth. Send me your photo and I will plaster it on the top of PDD. I've installed a script that will rotate the banner photo randomly every time you refresh your page. But there's only one photo there now, so send me yours! If you want to crop your photo to 698px by 221px, that would make my life a lot easier. Send 'em to [email protected].

And oh, hey, we're looking for someone who wants to help commandeer a links section, which will go up in the near future. This will be a large undertaking. If you'd like to be a part of the action, e-mail me at the above address.

Also, please e-mail me if you find any grave mistakes I've overlooked.

OK. I'm done. Go about your business. Or continue reading my long diatribe if you're that kind of geek.

And thanks again.

Continue reading "Behold." »

Posted by Barrett at 01:06 AM | Permalink | 28 comments, last by neil diamond
Filed under Administration

Sorry to keep bothering you folks while you're gabbing about Swedish rock and yellow furniture and Sam Adams and creepy Japanese things, but I'm trying hard to make this website rock as hard as it possibly can. Unfortunately for you, I can't do that alone.

I know you have opinions. That's why you're here. So here's an opportunity to privately and anonymously voice your opinions about Perfect Duluth Day.

Below you'll find a link to a few questions about how PDD is working for you. I'd really appreciate if you would take a few minutes to fill it out. Leave your name and e-mail and we can discuss it further, or if you'd prefer not to, don't. It doesn't matter if you've made a post or not, or whether you're a member or just a lurker. I want your opinions.

I want to make some significant additions to this site's features, but I don't want to wreck anything or do anything stupid or wasteful. While Starfire and I run this thing, it really belongs to you. Please let us know what you want.

Fill out the PDD QUESTIONNAIRE and help us dominate the universe.

Posted by Barrett at 01:49 AM | Permalink
Filed under Administration

I love stats. Don't you? In particular I love to see how people come to PDD. Above are the top searches which yield a PDD visit. My favorites? #19 is always a classic. I think it is a bit ironic that #9 is the band i saw before I got a #10.

Enjoy.

Posted by Starfire at 08:43 PM | Permalink | 11 comments, last by c-freak
Filed under Administration | Anecdotes | Duluth History | Funny Stuff | Geeky | Web Fun

After some consideration and a little bit of beta testing, there is finally a place where PDD'ers can post and/or read bios. There's already a handful of bios up, so check them out by clicking the button on the right of this screen.

Now, if you'd like to post your own bio, it's easy. Just do as you normally would to make a PDD post, only choose the "Your Bios" blog instead of PDD. Also, here are some IMPORTANT INSTRUCTIONS. Please READ AND FOLLOW THEM.

1. Give your post a title which is also your name. Failing to do this will cause problems for you and others down the line.

2. Create a category that is also your name. This puts your name in the alphabetical list of bios. If you fail to do this, no one will be able to find and read your bio.

3. When creating your category, capitalize your name. Otherwise, it will not be alphabetized correctly.

4. MAKE ONLY ONE BIO POST. When you wish to update your information, update the post you've already made.

Other than this, there is no set format for bios. They can be as long or short as you want them to be. Include a picture of yourself, a drawing you've made, a picture of your house, or no picture at all.

Now I will stop posting so much and leave you alone.

Posted by Barrett at 02:57 AM | Permalink | 3 comments, last by edgewood
Filed under Administration

Harriet Lane's post makes me think about one of the many problems with this blog, which is the lack of author bios. There has never been a decent solution for this. Back in the day, there was a roughly slapped-together bio page which had to be manually updated. People would e-mail their updates to me, and I would paste them into the HTML. It was a tedious process for me, and the levels of involvement prevented most PDD members from participating. Few people visited the page because the information was sparse and static.

I want a solution that will be easy for the user and functional for the reader. The best solution I can come up with at this point is to make an additional blog for bios; each PDD member would make one post, which would be their bio. To make updates, all they'd have to do is update that one post. Everything could be done from the same page you make your PDD posts from.

We do have the ability to create a list of all the PDD members and how many posts they've made, which is available here. I could easily use this to create links to bios, but it's updating the bios themselves that's difficult.

Any thoughts or ideas anyone has will be greatly appreciated.

Posted by Barrett at 01:36 PM | Permalink | 10 comments, last by BooGooKing
Filed under Administration

I'm passing this email from Donny Ness to you all in hopes that you musician types are in the know.

Dear friends of Homegrown, Things are changing with Homegrown this year and I wanted to give you a quick heads up. The festival now has non-profit status and is being run by a steering committee chaired by Alan Sparhawk and Amy Abts. Its a really good group, we've have a good plan for the year and I think we can make the festival even better than before. The top priority for the group this year is to be sure that all the bands enjoy the Homegrown experience and are paid for their set. We see Homegrown as a celebration of the local scene and a thank you to everyone who contributes to it throughout the year.

We are also looking for feedback and ideas from everyone who has a stake in Homegrown - we also want to keep in touch throughout the year and give updates on a regular basis with what's going on with the festival. We are planning to have a large gathering sometime in February or March as an opportunity for you and your band mates to share your thoughts on the 05 Homegrown and looking ahead to the 06 Homegrown. First things first, we need to get up-to-date contact information for everyone.

I need full names, e-mail, phone, and mailing addresses of everybody who plays in your band(s), including yourself. We have some contact information, but very little - we want to have a full database of local musicians so that we can send you mailings and other information as it relates to Homegrown. If you could get that to me by early next week, that would be a huge help. We want to mail a letter and survey to everyone by the middle of the month.

Also, if you know of new bands, artists in the area who have not played Homegrown before - send us their name(s) and any contact info you might have for them. Thanks for your help and you can look forward to more information from us in the near future...

Don Ness

Steering Committee Member

Posted by Starfire at 08:20 AM | Permalink | 18 comments, last by dog ramps
Filed under Administration | Art | Current Events | Duluth Scene | Music

This rules so much! Bob Ross, one of my favorite television personalities ever, passed to the other side a while back but his spirit lives on. Ace Hardware downtown is offering several painting classes this winter instructed by Bob Ross approved teachers. There are 4 paintings to choose from and they are offering each class twice. V-Nick and I are signed up for the February 11th Snowbound Cabin class. The best part is that it only costs $15.00. The classes last three hours and you walk away with your own Happy Little Clouds. All supplies are provided.

For more info go here. You can also call Ace Hardware at 218-722-4496.

Seriously, we should pack the 2/11/06 class with PDD'ers. Of course there will be some sweet Vlog action taking place.

Posted by Starfire at 09:38 PM | Permalink | 3 comments, last by Adam
Filed under Administration | Art | Duluth Scene | Funny Stuff | Geeky

OK. PDD has been pretty fun ever since its rebirth. But still, I'm curious -- why is it that 3/4 of the members of this site have never posted anything?

I wonder if there are things we can do to make it easier, or if there is a problem that we're overlooking.

When I look at the Activity Log for PDD, I see a lot of weird things. A lot of people are apparantly having trouble remembering their username and password. Well, I can't help you there really. But if there's anything else about the way the site works that's keeping people away, I'd like to know.

Keep in mind that there is a lot I can't change. I don't have power over how Movable Type works. But should there be tutorials? Clearer instructions? A better "psychological environment"?

I'd especially like to hear from those PDD members who have not posted. But everyone is welcome.

Thanks.

Posted by Barrett at 01:26 PM | Permalink | 11 comments, last by de man
Filed under Administration

Hello and welcome to the new version of Perfect Duluth Day, powered by Movable Type.

We need your help now more than ever. We need you to join, to post, and to comment. We need to know how to make this blog spectacular.

Whether you are a new visitor or a longtime member, you will need to join in order to participate in the new PDD. Just click the link that says "Join PDD" on the upper right of your screen and fill out the form. We will get back to you soon with confirmation of your membership. After that, it's all yours.

You may experience some bugs at first. There are still some timeout issues happening with the server, which we are assured will go away over time. In the meantime, thanks for you patience, and sorry it took so long to get to this point.

So. Enough about us. How have YOU been?

Posted by Barrett at 10:53 PM | Permalink | 4 comments, last by JiggaDigga
Filed under Administration