Gardening

So my housemate Random loves to have a veggie garden.  Winter is loosening it's cruel grip here in Melbourne so it's time to start planting the Spring garden.

I love some fresh veggies myself so I'm joining in.  I'm leaving all the cerebral "what to plant where" decisions to him and I'm just joining the fun stuff like choosing which veggies to plant, preparing the beds, and watering the plants.  And of course sharing in the eating of anything we successfully produce.

So last Saturday we spent a few hours discussing and paring down the list of items to plant to something manageable for both the size of our garden (8 metres of berry canes was sadly not considered workable this year) and our attention spans (2 years to grow asparagus might be a tad too ambitious for us amateurs).

Then we went outside, and started to clean up the beds from last season. No-one had touched the garden over winter so there was a bit of work to do.  While discussing "full sun requirements" and I was feeling oh so proud of myself for using technical terms :) we figured out the compost heap should really be moved. It's currently in prime planting position.

So we set up a new compost heap up the back.  Here is the photographic proof.

This was the site we selected. It's up the back corner away from everywhere else and tucked away at an odd angle because of the fencing. As you can see overgrown.  Random said he tried to dig and plant in it last year, but the soil is pure clay.

Having cleaned out all of the rubbish plants, I turned the soil over with a pitchfork. I can guarantee it is a heavy thick clay. Not a soil.  Oh it was a yuck that clung to the bottom of my shoes in a two-inch layer that had to be scraped off. However the good news is that we found some worms on the clay, so this could become good soil.

Next was picking out all of the non-organic matter. As this is up the back corner, we think previous people may have used it as a rubbish pile - awesome!  And then Random put on a layer of newspapers.  As we are a household full of techno-literates, this layer is mostly composed of junk mail so thank you Good Guys and Bunnings :)

Finally we wet down the layer of newspaper and threw all of the rubbish plants back on top to start the new compost area. Ta Da!

Flush with our success, we though we'd just start one of the side beds and just pull a plant or two, just to make a start for a couple of minutes before calling it a day ...

Yeah. We did a liiiiitle more than just a couple of minutes.

Finally while I was raking some leaves and cutting suckers from that tree in the background of that picture, Random dug over most of the earth in the foreground and planted some peas.

It was a dry day, with the sun out, but the sun had little warmth in it. We work consistently, but we didn't push ourselves.  The digging up of the ground under the compost heap was the hardest work I did and it barely raised a sweat.  I did exhaust myself but I felt good for spending the day outdoors.

The peas have been rained on or I've watered them every second day. So we will see what the next part of the garden project will be.

Some Multiply Tools now emerging?

There are reports coming through that Multiply has started providing some official export tools with:

* Download Media
* Export to Blogger
* Export to Tumblr

appearing on the side rail of groups.

Stay tuned for further news ......

Or let me know if you see these turn up on your pages !!!

Gothtigger Test Site

I've created this blogger blog to test some of the issues and workarounds being discussed for exporting our data from the about to be closed down Multiply.com site.

I'll be testing a couple of different workarounds just as soon as the backup process finishes.  I ran the backup when most of my data was mostly private and it took 20 minutes and about 100Mb.

Now that I have made all of my multiply site public so I can access all of my data, the backup is currently 1.48Gb and still rising.  Those hi-res photos we kept uploading :)

Also one of housemates has been using a fair bit of bandwidth at the same time, so my speed is quite throttled, so we are unfortunately at 20 hours now and still waiting ...

The blog post will be made available once the backup is complete and I know it's worked OK and hasn't gotten itself into some kinda loop or done something else freaky.

Mel.

Part 3 – Getting your data in order

Multiply Part 3 – Getting your data in order

Whether you are still using your Multiply account weekly or whether it has been garnering dust for a few years, chances are, there is stuff on there that you don’t want to lose.

Here is where we start to get to get technical, as here is where Multiply has NOT provided tools for us. Over the next few articles I’ll list out some of the processes that are being discussed in the various forums that I have tried and found to work.

If you know of others and have found them to work – please let me know or write an article about it yourself and I will link to it!

Private vs Public

First off, everything I have been playing with, will ONLY copy data from public blog posts and photo folders.  So if you are like me and have been writing blog posts for Contacts or Friends of Friends for years, then we have a small problem.

There is a work around. You can change your records from private to public, make your backup or copy your files, and then set them to private again. If you have a stalker or are currently involved in a project that you don’t want made public (secretly stitching a present for a friend for example) then I’m afraid I can’t help you.  I don not know of anything that copies private files.  All I can suggest is make public as much as you are willing to for a brief time or “pick your moment”. If someone else has a better idea, please let me know.

To change records in bulk from private to private, go to your media locker,

 

Select “All Posts” on the left hand side,

This should bring up a list of all of the blog posts you ever wrote in Multiply.  I wrote a few over the years it seems.

As can be seen there are a variety of different levels of private access in Multiply.  Some of the other blogging platforms don’t have that many levels of sharing.

If you want to revert your posts to private settings when you have finished backing up or moving your blog, and you have a variety of settings like I do here, you will want to copy or print out this page.  If you have a snipping tool or simply “Print Screen” on your machine, that will work.

To make all of your posts public, place a tick in every box that does not say everyone, and then click the Access Lock button at the top of the screen.

I’ve made this picture a bit longer so you can see WIP – Draco the Protector near the bottom of the list, that is a photo album.  So this process covers Blog posts and Photo Albums.  Also you can see that I didn’t bother with a post called New Blog that I made available for me only.  That was a practice post I was playing with a while ago so it is just gibberish.  I deliberately don’t want to carry that one over to the new blog.  so we do that all down the page, then click the Access button (top left of the picture).

 This pop-up box is given the name of the first blog post or photo album in the list that we ticked. in my case it was a blog post called Medical Update.

Now click the down arrow next to the Access title and change it to Everyone and put a tick in the box that says Apply to ALL items:

When you Save and Continue it should bring you back to your main page and all of your items are now open to Everyone.

If you are like me and have a lot of blog posts and photo albums, then you will have more than page of these to do.

So just keep going until all of your posts are public.

If, when you are finished the backup and blog move you decide you want to make these posts private again, it is the same process to reverse the situation.  Highlight all of the posts that you want to set to the same level of sharing.  Where above we change the Access level to EVERYONE, you change it to contacts or friends of friends.  Then select the next group of posts and click on that level of access.

The other alternative, is to make these public, back them up or move them and then delete these as they are disappearing shortly anyway.

Next, Part 4 – OK my stuff is public, now what do I do with it?

Part 0 – Preface

Who am I and why am I writing this series of articles?

In a former life I used to be a trainer. I would write these types of documents for a living.  Of course I took a lot longer and studied each option in-depth personally then. For example, I would have set up a blog with all of the services mentioned in Part 2 and written long articles discussing how each individual one compares with Multiply, but that was then and this is now. And now I’m out of practice and this information seems urgent.

I am not an expert

I am no expert at anything except at possibly gathering data and presenting it. So I’m doing what I’m do best and gathering a lot of information I’m seeing being flung around and presenting it here in a hopefully nice readable format for my friends to read and use.

I know some of you reading this are using different services than the one listed.  I know some of you are have used Blogger, Blogster  and even WordPress far more than I have.  Please add into the comments any info you think needs to be added into any section.  Any information that is helpful. Anything that is useful and please point out where my information is incorrect or obsolete!

Add your information in the comments or email me, and I will add your information (with proper credit) to the article.  Helping my friends is more important than my ego.

Any other information?

If I skim over a bit or miss something out that you want added in, please tell me. I’m a bit rusty at this whole thing after being away for a few years …

Part 2 – What do I do Now? Chosing a new home

So now that Multiply is closing, and we have content on there that we are interested in keeping, we have two things need to do.  Rescue our material. Find a new home to blog/share photos/chat with our friends.

1. Choose a new home.

Most of my friends who have already left, have gone to the largest two blog hosting sites currently on the Web. Blogger and WordPress.  Some of the Multiply-refugee groups have also had good things to say about Blogster.

Each blog site has its own unique style and none of them mimic multiply. They each require getting used to a new system of administration tools, upload tools and theme change tools. But they are not difficult once you get used to them, just different.

Blogger

Blogger is similar to Multiply in that it is very easy to set up and a lot of the technical stuff is done for you.  I highly recommend Blogger for first time bloggers and if you just want to get your stuff up there and get on with your life.

Blogger does not allow the formation of photo galleries.  Most of the people who use this site, use separate pages as galleries, or host their photos on a separate site such as Flickr or Picasa and import them in.

Here’s a video on how to set up a blogger account and get moving:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOhW1mXM1yQ&feature=player_embedded

WordPress

There are two types of WordPress. WordPress.com is the Blogger equivalent. WordPress.org are the tools that your download to your site and use to run your own blog.  I started with the first at meltigger.wordpress and then moved to the second form at this place blog.gothtigger.

That’s a big step so at this juncture I’ll talk about the first, easiest version, WordPress.com.  It takes a little longer to set up than Blogger because it asks more questions.  The flip side is that allows you to make more changes to the look and feel of your site, so if you are one to fiddle, I would recommend this over Blogger.

Although there is greater bandwidth for photos at WordPress, it is not as good for photo albums as Multiply was.  I use separate pages as galleries and then use the photos in those galleries in blog posts etc. It saves having to upload the same picture multiple times. See this page or any of my blog pages as examples.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw5InzTqzBU&feature=player_embedded

Blogster

I haven’t tried Blogster but it has received enthusiastic support and recommendation by others.  It even has a Multiply-Refugees group set up.  One of the largest selling points at the moment is the immense levels of helpfulness the Blogster support staff are giving Multiply Users and new users to their service. It appears to also be fabulous for hosting photos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MstdMen3Eh8&feature=player_embedded

The only downsides with Blogster is that your friends may not be on there – hey you can be a leader instead of a follower!  Also as they are careful to keep out a lot of spam, the site reportedly does not work well with Internet Explorer, preferring you to use Firefox or Chrome.  Also they have banned Hotmail email accounts.

These changes are well and good for home accounts, (I avoid IE) however many friends do access their blogs and read mine during their lunch breaks at work and many workplaces are firmly wedded to Internet Explorer.  I would be loathe to delve deeper into a site that does not work on Explorer unless you know your friends are not stuck using it!

Another Blogspot

Again I haven’t tried it, but this new site is garnering quite a following. Part of the appeal is its complete newness to the blogosphere as the developers are very interactive with the bloggers, listening, conversing, helping and making changes. Bloggers and designers working together to hopefully create something amazing.  Again there appears to be a lot of assistance towards Multiply users migrating to this site.

Of course, it goes down for a major maintenance time (upgrading servers to cope to the extra volume) while I am writing this, so not enough links available.  I’ll flesh out this section more later.

 

So how do *I* choose?

The answer is going to be different for everyone.  There is not one Multiply replacement service which I can recommend for all.  This is sad as we are all scattering, but with the use of RSS feeds we can still follow, subscribe and comment on each others blogs no matter where they are.

If anyone wants a blog post on setting up an RSS reader, let me know.

My recommendation is to have a look through this list, and think for yourself:

• How much time do I want to spend playing with this?
• Do I regularly change my theme or I pick one and stick with it?
• Have I always itched to move things around on my page or am I happy the way they are?
• How important is it *to me* that I’m on the same service as my friends?

There’s no “right” or “wrong” answers for any of the above. There’s only what is right or wrong for you. We each have our own comfort zones and our own priorities for how we want to spend our time each day or weekend.

Finally after thinking it through, I would suggest setting up a blog or two and seeing how each service “feels” to you.  Usually you will find one that feels a little easier or a little more intuitive to the way your mind works.  THAT will be the blog service you like, that will be the one you will WANT to use, so use it!

In the end, you are the person who will use it, so pick the one you find the easiest for you to use.  Write a few blog posts.

In Part 3 I’ll talk about Backing up your Multiply data. But that will be tomorrow. I think my brain has had enough for today.

Part 1 – Multiply is Closing Down

Posted on 18 August 2012 by Mel

For those of you with an old or existing Multiply account, these are going to be shut down and removed soon.  Nominally on the 1 December but in all likelihood way before then.

Multiply’s niche in the blogosphere way back when it started was its integrated use of blog and photo albums and ease of choosing levels of access to each blog post or album, everyone, friends of friends, friends, contacts or even specifying individual people.  At the time there was nothing else that was so user-friendly.  Any person who could use a mouse could use Multiply.  Indeed now, many of the long-term multiply users are finding the instructions to learn Blogger or WordPress difficult because Multiply took care of so much for them.

Unfortunately as time marched on, Multiply’s interface grew buggy and many of us did abandon ship only to realise that we could not easily take our content with us. Oh if you were running two blogs at the same time, Multiply would copy your post to the other blog at the time you wrote it, but it if you didn’t have the forethought to do that, tough luck.

In 2009, Multiply head office noticed a large spike in usage in The Philippines and Indonesia. Closer examination led to the discovery of members using Multiply to trade within local communities. This was completely against Multiply terms and conditions.  Multiply management discussed the situation and instead of shutting them down, they created the “Marketplace” segment of Multiply so these sellers could operate legitimately within the Multiply framework.

If anyone feels like it is after the introduction of Marketplace that the social media interface started to get a little buggy and the support started to be less than the sterling efforts we were used to, well it appears this was when the decision was made to shut down the Social Media side – two years ago.

Fast forward two years, Multiply is sold to Naspers. In May 2012, Naspers CEO Stefan Magdalinski moves to Indonesia and with him the head office of Multiply.com, to focus on the “Marketplace” side of Multiply but still tells the bloggers that “sellers and bloggers can coexist“.  Three months later, 7 August 2012 we are informed that the social side of the site will be closed down on 1 December, and all that will remain is Marketplace.

They planned two years ago, lied to everyone until 7 August and then informed all users without providing ANY export tools or in fact ANYTHING other than an eviction notice in place. This does not leave me any confidence that any tools are forthcoming.

They also misunderstood why these sellers were using Marketplace as opposed to more common forms of online selling. These sellers were mostly selling locally within their community. So they were using the social aspects of Multiply, the blog and photo albums to  remain a part of their community. It is a completely different ideology than the Western ideas of “customers” or “marks”.  By forcing them to cut off that segment and to be a “western-style” business, Naspers is destroying the exact part that made them so desirable as an online selling platform.

Also, coinciding with the publicity surrounding the Multiply.com headquarters relocating to Indonesia, the Philippines government has levied a new range of taxes and registration requirements for these types of sellers.  It may be coincidental, but a proportion are quite angry with Multiply.com and leaving the service in droves.

To summarise, Multiply.com was humming along as an alternative blogging/photo hosting site when it noticed online selling.  Plans were laid to monetise or capitalise on this online selling.  These plans have backfired massively.

From here things could go a couple of ways, and it all depends on Naspers and the online sellers.  For us social users, the prognosis doesn’t look good and I’m doubtful that any of the promised export tools will ever become available or that our content will stay up until 1 December 2012.

So onto Part 2 – what do I do with my stuff?