17 posts tagged “vox”

EDIT:  Thanks for all the volunteers - I think I'm set on the alpha testing crew (who I will be contacting as soon as I can get the front-end tied to the back-end and make sure it's not going to break when you type in your vox address).  If you missed your chance to volunteer for testing - don't fret; I don't think the testing process will take all that long and I'll be opening it up for general consumption just as soon as I possibly can.

Okay, I'm not actually quite ready for alpha testers just yet, but soon I will be initializing the alpha version of the Vox export tool to those willing to help me test it out prior to making a formal release to the masses.  I wanted to get names of people interested in helping now, so that as soon as I'm ready I can contact you individually and get you started on the testing process.  Please read below and if you are interested in alpha testing the tool, please email me at VoxPorter@gmail.com .  I NEED A VALID EMAIL ADDRESS from each alpha tester so I can be in communication about updates, bug fixes, and requests for more information if I'm trying to figure out what went wrong in your setup.  I will NOT be communicating this through Vox comments or PMs, so if you're not willing to email me, please don't volunteer.

Testers should:

• Be willing to try out the tool (possibly multiple times if bugfixes are required)

• Be able/willing to import the resulting file into a WordPress blog (instructions may be provided if you don't know how) (free WordPress blogs can be created at WordPress.com, or you can set one up on your own server if you know how)

• Be able/willing to review the resulting blog for problems/errors in the import process (i.e. checking to make sure content imported properly, blog post titles, dates, and tags appear correct, etc)

• Be able/willing to inform me of any problems you experience or notice, as well as provide comments/questions about using the export tool, the process as a whole, and any specific areas you think need improvement.  You won't need to be available to run the tool the same day I send you notification, but please only volunteer if you think you can support the testing in a timely manner (i.e. within about a week of getting a notification for testing).

Again, if you are interested in alpha testing the tool, please email me at VoxPorter@gmail.com . I'll select testers based on my current needs and the number who volunteer.

Oh, and FYI, the current planned Alpha version of the VoxPorter (name still in flux) tool includes the following:

• Export all publicly viewable blog posts from a user's blog to a WXR .xml file (WordPress import file)

• Importing this file into a WordPress blog will import blog titles, posting dates/times, content, and tags from posts to the new blog (note: links and media [pictures, music, videos] will still link to their current Vox enclosures for now)

• Select whether trackback pings and comments will be globally enabled or disabled on all imported posts

Future improvements planned once this version is tested and available in a steady-state form:

• Option to also export post comments (would show up under each blog post, just like they do on Vox)

• Automatic splitting of WXR file on the fly into 2 MB sections for blogs with massive archives

• Secondary tool to allow you to quickly and easily download your entire uploaded photos library for use on your new blog

• Secondary tool to allow you to quickly and easily see what other social media services your Vox neighbors use (along with links to their individual accounts) so even if you decide not to stick with Vox, you can still stay in contact with your 'hood through other apps or sites

• Converting Vox links to your blog posts on the fly so they link to other posts in your new blog

• Converting to other blog formats besides Wordpress (Blogger, MovableType, etc)

• Automatic widget/banner creation that you can post on your Vox blog to point people to your new blog location

Note:  The post below is extremely geeky and probably not interesting to anyone except those who would like to follow along with the progress of HOW I'm implementing a Vox export tool.  If you're just interested in hearing when I'm done with it, this is not the post for you - that'll come soon. 

I'm more laying this out for my own thought processes than in any sort of attempt to educate on how the export tool is going to finally work.  The good news is I have a tentatively working solution that will theoretically import a full Vox blog onto a self-hosted Wordpress installation.  The bad news is that the solution in mind will NOT work for (free-hosted) Wordpress.com installations, so I'm still trying to figure out an alternative for those.  Preferably one that does not involve someone having to find a friend with access to a self-hosted version to do an intermediate conversion for them.

After countless hours (days? weeks?) of half-assed research online, here's a summary of what I've come up with regarding exporting from Vox (VoxPorting?  Anyone got a better name for the eventual tool I'll be posting?)

1. Blogging services SUCK at normalizing on an export standard.  Every single one of them is different.  Likewise, almost all of them try to trap you into their service by only allowing you to import their export types and/or only export a type that will be incompatible with other services.  This means people have to get crafty if they want to jump from one platform to another, especially if they do it more than once.
2. The big contenders for free (hosted) blogging services out there seem to be (in no particular order): Vox, LiveJournal, Blogger, and Wordpress (hosted on Wordpress.com).  Yes, MySpace and its clones exist, and no, I'm not going to even try to get content over on to them.
   
3. Additionally, you've got Wordpress (self-hosted) and MovableType (self-hosted) which are free, but require you to host them somewhere.
4. Paid services exist (TypePad, etc.) but since they require you to front money, I'm not focusing on trying to export to them.
5. That being said, looking at the free services, I've found the following:
   

• I'm not looking to import into Vox, since that's obviously contrary to the whole point of a Vox export tool.  I believe there are easier ways to migrate content from one Vox account to another than exporting/importing.  That being said, if you're just trying to back up your Vox blog, you can either use BlogBackupOnline (to back up online only) or Simon Wistow's VoxSlurp (to back up to an .mbox file) - more on these in another post.
  
• Apparently exporting to a file to import to LiveJournal is out, as LJ doesn't even appear to be able to import its own export files.  Unless you're planning to repost every individual post on LJ, probably not an option.  I'm not even considering this at the moment.
  
• Blogger only imports "Blogger export files".  There are solutions out there that seem to use Blogger APIs to get around this limitation, but this looks like A LOT of work.  I looked at what the Blogger export files look like and don't know that I can forge one to duplicate a Vox account onto a Blogger blog.  Holding this out as a last resort option, especially as there seems to be an alternative (see a couple bullets down, below).
• Wordpress (self-hosted or on Wordpress.com) seem to be the most likely choices.  I've had success importing an RSS feed from Vox to a self-hosted Wordpress blog.  It would be fairly trivial to expand this to create a custom RSS .xml file to encompass a full Vox blog, and import that into a new Wordpress blog.  HOWEVER, Wordpress.com blogs (free-hosted) do NOT have the "import from RSS" as one of their options (for some bizarre reason, they don't offer this??)  Instead:
• Wordpress.com imports from Wordpress export files, called WXR (WordPress eXtended RSS).  Both self-hosted and free-hosted solutions export to WXR files, and both can import from the other (I believe).  Furthermore, once you've got a WXR file, you can use a solution to convert this into a Blogger-compatible format to import to Blogger!  Sounds like the winner, if I can figure out how to properly create a WXR file from a Vox blog.  Except documentation on the WXR format seems to be pretty much non-existant, so the only way to figure it out is to analyze an existing blog's export file, the Wordpress import code, and experiment.  Not the ideal way to make sure I'm doing it correctly, and definitely a way that's going to take more time to get to complete.
  
• One added benefit to doing a WXR file - if I set it up properly, I could actually scrape the Vox blog posts for comments, and forge new comments to be imported along with the blog posts - this way, not only would you be importing your hard work to a new blog, you'd be carrying along the comments (which oftentimes are as informative/entertaining as the original post!)  Currently the plan is to do the first pass with just blog posts, and then once I get that up and running, consider devising the import w/ comments.  The big problem is my approach to getting the content off the Vox blog will vary tremendously depending on whether or not I'm capturing comments - if I am, I have to do the much more tedious (and much slower) page-scraping, as opposed to taking advantage of the Vox RSS feeds that I would be using for the other non-comment method.  I'm not sure I'd want to commit to doing a page-scrape for every Vox export - I currently am doing that for my Picture and MP3 backup tool and it takes a bit of time - this would be even worse, given that some people have thousands of posts on Vox.
  
• Movable Type also seems to be able to import WXR files.  Definitely looks like WXR is the way to go, and then provide that file to the user for their use in importing to Wordpress or MT (directly) or Blogger (via the converter).

Since I know you CAN import to a self-hosted Wordpress blog from Vox and then export that right back out to a WXR, the cynical part of me says I should post this solution and then people who self-host can go ahead and import, and people that don't can find someone to do it for them.  Heck, I might even go ahead and do this as an intermediate step to the final soltuion.  But in the end, I don't want to create half a solution and have most of the users have to fend for themselves.  People shouldn't be penalized just because they signed up for a free blog on Vox and now want to have a free blog somewhere else instead.

So yet another of my Vox neighbors has decided that the crap Vox and SixApart has forced us all to deal with lately for the last 6 months or so is not worth the benefits of sticking with the Vox community.  He's going to be missed, but at least he'll be blogging elsewhere, so you can keep up with his posts, if you are so inclined.

One of the main reasons I first joined up with Vox was for the community aspects.  I had heard interesting things about the varying privacy levels of posts, photos, and media, and when I came and checked it out and saw all the connections and communication that were driven by the Vox neighborhoods, dashboards, etc., I jumped on board.  I got a great kick out of being able to quickly and easily take a look at all of my neighbors' posts, comments, photos, etc., and join in on some conversations and easily share my own posts with others in my neighborhood.  However, as the number of folks in my neighborhood grew, the means of interacting with them through Vox's interfaces seemed to shrink, until now I find it a pain to try to keep abreast of even the most prolific writers in my neighborhood unless I read their posts in my RSS reader.  Only occasionally do I venture onto the site and navigate the blank screens and laggy loads to seek out the neighborhood-only posts from those I haven't heard from in a while.

For the moment, I'm still sticking around here.  I haven't posted a lot recently because of my busy work/home schedules, but that also has the quasi-beneficial side effect of not allowing me to get too pissed off with Vox (yet) to want to ditch the buggy servers for another service (or my own personally-hosted site).  I can see such a move coming, however, if things don't improve here when I do end up having more time to write.

I'm still working on my Vox export tool to allow someone to back up (export) their entire public blog archive to an .xml file that can be imported into a Wordpress/Blogger blog.  I doubt it'll be the web tool that will cause a full-scale diaspora of Vox users to other utilities, but hopefully it'll be useful for the more-than-a-few folks who are abandoning ship for another service that appears a bit more stable and still appears to be trying to innovate, rather than just grab all the advertising money it can while it's still afloat.

I've been remiss in posting here on Vox lately, mostly because work has been kicking my butt during the day and dealing with sick kids has been kicking my butt at night.  In my spare time though, I've been toying with a couple programming ideas for things I can do to help improve the Vox experience - specifically, areas where I think Vox itself is lacking in the functionality I'd want to see (such as exporting and backups).  Obviously, I can't do much to change the framework/backend of the program, but I might be able to make some changes to the UI (through Greasemonkey scripts) or to third-party interaction (through other programming languages). 

I'd like your opinion, too.  If you don't mind, click on some options in the poll below and let me know what you think I should be focusing my meager time & efforts on over the next few weeks:

Dear Vox and 6A,

I like that you try to auto-allocate people's posts into one of the 5 categories for your Explore module (at least, I'm assuming you're not doing it by hand!)  It's neat to subscribe to the technology RSS feed and suddenly have 30-50 posts from a random sampling of Vox users talking about different tech subjects.  And of course, on the rare occasion that the Tech Editor puts up new featured posts, I'll see that in the feed, too.  But could you tweak something for me please?  Pretty please with cherries on top?

Just because someone is using LoudTwitter or another Twitter archiving service to archive their tweets on a Vox account does NOT mean that post is tech-related.  Please change your filters so posts with the word Twitter¹ in the post or title are not automatically allocated to this category.  There's nothing I like less than hitting "next" through 25 posts on this RSS feed because Joe Schmoe's twitter archive post with 12 tweets about his cat Fluffy has been lumped into the Tech category.

Thanks,
Ross

¹How much do you want to bet this post gets lumped into the tech category because I mentioned Twitter?

MP3 Linker Example

Vox provides a great way to check out music that people have uploaded, but what if you've got a browser that doesn't have a flash player, or you just want to listen to the music in a different media-player plugin in your browser?  This Greasemonkey script is the answer for you!

This script simply adds a hyperlink directly to the .mp3 file on any individual song file page.  Once that link is present, you can access the .mp3 directly, instead of having to go through the flash player interface. 

And, although I guess you could use this to right-click on the link and download the .mp3, I urge you not to illegally download your music and instead buy your music legally from someone like Amazon's MP3 Store or iTunes.

Want to install this script for your own use?  First install Greasemonkey, and then get the script here.  (Instructions to install Greasemonkey can be found here.)

THANKS TO: lemon, for beta-testing this script for me over Easter weekend!

(Please note this script assumes the Vox audio file that was uploaded was a .mp3 file. If it was a different audio format, this script may not provide a proper link to the file, or the file may not play back correctly in your media player.)

As promised, I spent some time over the past week putting together a Greasemonkey script to reorder the modules on the new Vox homepage.

After the feedback people left, the new order I ended up using is:

Left Column                      Right Sidebar
 1) Posts                         1) QotD
 2) Comments                      2) Vox Hunt
 3) Neighbor Activity             3) Team Vox News
 4) [This is Good] Explore Box    4) Tips Box
 5) Vox MSN Advertisement         5) Themes Box
                                  6) Advertisement
                                  7) Find your friends box

Want to install this script for your own use?  First install Greasemonkey, and then get the script here.  (Instructions to install Greasemonkey can be found here.)

As always, if you have any comments, feedback, or suggestions, or notice any bugs, please leave me a comment or send me a note.  I'll do my best to stay on top of any issues that arise.

Also, to those people who left me feedback but didn't get the exact order they wanted - I'm willing to make a custom version of this script just for you with the modules in the alternative order that you wanted.  Please leave me a comment as to whether you still want the order you suggested, and I'll send you a PM with the location where you can download/install your custom version of the script.

Enjoy!

Okay, that Greasemonkey script I mentioned the other day took a lot less time to make than I thought.  Still waiting to hear what the majority wants for the order of the modules, but my first cut at it seems to work well and doesn't interfere with the readability of the page at all:

Vox homepage, above the fold

If you haven't noticed yet, Vox pushed out another release (release 42) that fixes some of the issues people were having with the Vox homepage.  Now, you have all your recent comments, posts, and activity visible by just scrolling down the page.  The QotD and the Vox Hunt are together (although not above the fold).  As improvements go, this is MUCH better than release 41, but not quite yet what I could see myself wanting to have on my homepage.

I'm planning to put together another quick-and-dirty Greasemonkey script for the Vox homepage - the first revision of this (and only planned revision, at this time) will only re-order the content boxes around on the page.  For example, I would much prefer to have the QotD and Vox Hunt up in the top right, where currently the "Find your friends" and ad boxes are.

I'd like to make this script something that people would want to use, so for now, I'd like to hear how you'd like your homepage reordered.  Please leave a comment if you think you'd like to have your homepage reordered in any way, and let me know what your dream order for the boxes would be.  Keep the following in mind:

• On the first revision, I'm only going to reorder the stuff on the left up/down, and the stuff on the right up/down.  I'm not going to be moving things left-to-right or vice versa, or merging content of boxes.
• I'm not going to delete anything.  If you don't want ads, use an ad blocker.  I will however be amenable to putting things that aren't used often (like the find your friends widget) at the very bottom of the screen, where you won't see them often.

If I get overwhelming direction in the comments to order things a certain way, I'll definitely create a version of the script to order them that way.  If there's a more even split for what people want, I will probably pick the solution I would prefer and just implement that.  If you have any special requests after the fact, send me a note and we'll see what we can do.

I will be waiting to hear what people think until early next week (March 17th), after which I'll decide on an order, put together the script, and post a follow-up with a link for people to install it.

Edit: While hacking Vox to our whims may be fun and useful, the only way it's ever going to be "fixed" for real is by sending Vox some feedback with what you would like changed.  In addition to leaving a comment for me for the short-term fix, I urge you to tell Vox what you'd like reorganized on the home page - if they get enough feedback asking for a specific change, they will probably at least consider making the change (as shown by their efforts in release 42 to fix some of the complaints they received from their release 41 modifications).

Thanks for all the people that did this today that reminded me that today's Tuesday!  This is my first one of these, and while I don't plan on doing it every week, I hope to do it often enough to remind myself of some of the stuff I take for granted, and learn not to sweat the small stuff.

Things I Loathe

1. Getting up early.  Seriously have a problem with that.  Could be related to thing I love #1 below.
2. Getting stuck in traffic.  Slightly ameliorated now that I can amuse myself with my GPS and see exactly how long I've been sitting there stuck in traffic.  But not enough to make me like it.
3. Feeling like a slug.  I NEED to start exercising again.  NEED NEED NEED.  I like how I think and feel a lot better when I do.
4. People who aren't open-minded and accepting of others.  I don't need to get into details on this one right now.
   

1. Going to bed late.  I'm a late-night person.  It just feels like I should be doing stuff then, even if what I'm doing is just reading a book or playing on the interwebs. Got to stop doing this if I want to get up early.
   
2. A good hot cup of coffee.
3. My Vox neighbors.  You all manage to cheer me up, entertain me, and teach me things on a regular basis.
4. Dave for providing me the link to a year's worth of Stereogum music downloads.  I now have 3.2 Gigs of free music sitting on my drive waiting to be listened to and rated.  So far, I'm finding I'm liking/keeping about 1 out of 3 tracks, which is pretty damn good, in my opinion.
5. The fact that we've finally been able to get Rosalie to sleep in the swing.  It's not the crib, but it's a huge improvement over only getting her to sleep on us.  The crib is coming, I promise.  But Dee is finally able to get some stuff done during the day and we're both getting some sleep at night, so I'll gladly take what we're being given.
6. Playing with Violet when I get home.  Last night I tied a headband around her head and we pretended we were rock stars, complete with times where we did guitar solos, lead-singer headbanging, drum solos, and pretended to be backup singers/dancers.  Sooo much fun.