I've decided that rather than spending time typing about my struggles with Radio that I will budget 4 hours over the next few days to reading through all of the documentation I can find and figuring out how to make it work for me.    

Bargaining for the Afikomen

OK Dave, this is a pretty cool feature.  I didn't understand it before, but the myPictures tool gets Radio to watch a specific folder on your HD (or network) and when you plunk a picture in it, the picture will automatically appear in your editing form.  As this picture just did. 

This is from last night's seder.  The kids found the afikomen and they're negotiating with me for its ransom.  I ended up parting with it for one Sacajawea dollar each.  Pretty good bargaining on my part, since you can't end the seder without it!  Don't tell the kids, but I was willing to give $2 each. 

They asked for $20 each to start, doing the multiplication and gleefully announcing that it would cost me $100!  Something magic about that number.  But that was just too dear.

  

Sondra asks: Why did you sign up for Radio?

An IM log:

sondrak@jabber.com says: The jello picture looks like you did an open-heart transplant...of Mitch McConnell?--and preserved it in urine. Weird
Howard Hansen says: What a lovely image. Can't wait for dessert!
sondrak@jabber.com says: Why did you sign up for radio?
Howard Hansen says: To increase my blood pressure.
Howard Hansen says: a) Dave said it was cool
Howard Hansen says: b) I've been freeloading on him for 2+ years and felt obliged to send the $40.
Howard Hansen says: c) I'd like to switch to hosting our own weblogs eventually, rather than relying on etp.com, which often fails.
sondrak@jabber.com says: what's the problem?
sondrak@jabber.com says: with radio?
Howard Hansen says: Many of the cooler features of Manila simply aren't there.
Howard Hansen says: I can't say Sondra and have a link to your page appear automatically.
Howard Hansen says: I can't say "sep_map" and have my separator image inserted.
sondrak@jabber.com says: Features. Bugs?
Howard Hansen says: Just different. I had this foolish expectation that they'd taken the best of Manila and put it into Radio. Not so. They're different products.
Howard Hansen says: And there's every possiblity that I just don't understand yet.
sondrak@jabber.com says: HAve you asked Dave?
sondrak@jabber.com says: HAs he ever responded to your disgrunts?
Howard Hansen says: Not a peep. I emailed him once after not hearing from his "customer service" department for a couple of weeks. I even put a joke in the email. No response.
Howard Hansen says: I'd be loathe to bet my business on this technology.
Howard Hansen says: But then, at $40, you get what you pay for, it seems.

  

I just noticed that the images in my story are broken.  Please put a <BASE> tag in the standard template so that / is the root of my radio folder, rather than your domain.  I.e., currently / means http://radio.weblogs.com.  It should mean http://radio.weblogs.com/0100703 for my site.  And if I upstream to justenoughlinux.com, it should be http://justenoughlinux.com.    

To summarize. 

To link to a story you've created in Radio you need to:

1. Click the Folder link at the top.
2. Click on the stories folder.
3. Click on the appropriate year folder (2002 in this case)
4. Click on the appropriate month folder (03 in this case)
5. Click on the appropriate day folder (29 in this case)
6. Find the story, right click its web link icon () and choose Copy Shortcut. (I'm assuming Windows and IE, sorry.)
7. On your log entry, select the text and click the link button, and then paste in the URL.

 

  

OK, now I'm getting frustrated.  I just created a story in Radio, but when I copied the URL into the page to create the link, it fails. 

Now I've figured out the error.  Since there are two servers involved here, I decided to leave the server part out of my link.  I created a link to:

"/stories/2002/03/29/creatingTheRedSeaInJello.html". 

For some reason, this gets translated into a link to the local server:

http://127.0.0.1:5335/stories/2002/03/29/creatingTheRedSeaInJello.html

This link will fail on all but my machine. 

I'm going to test something.  I'm creating another link to Creating the Red Sea in Jello, using the local server link.  Now I'm posting. 

That fails as well.  Maybe I'm missing something here.  Doesn't Radio automatically translate between local addresses when running through the local server and public addresses when upstreaming to the live server?  That's not the behavior I'm seeing.  

*

Maybe it's just because I put a slash in front of the URL.  Try this link to Creating the Red Sea in Jello.  There's no slash at the start.

Lo and behold, that works!  Goody.  Of course, I had to add the .html at the end to make it work.  And I only figured that out by going to the folder browser and drilling down to find the "rendered" version of the story.  Let me try it without the .html and see if Radio is smart enough to figure that out. 

Try this link to Creating the Red Sea in Jello. 

No, it's not smart enough to figure this out. 

*

Oops, this is no fix. To speed up refreshes, I switched to looking at today's entry:

http://radio.weblogs.com/0100703/2002/03/29.html

And (of course) since I've got a relative URL, it merrily tacks the link path onto the end of the current path, giving us:

http://radio.weblogs.com/0100703/2002/03/stories/2002/03/29/creatingTheRedSeaInJello.html

That doesn't work.

*

Oh, hell.  This gets worse and worse.  It does do translations.  Unfortunately it translates TO the local server.  I had typed in:

http://radio.weblogs.com/0100703/stories/2002/03/29/creatingTheRedSeaInJello.html

This worked in the initial post.  Then I reedited this story and posted again.  What does the URL look like now?

http://127.0.0.1:5335/stories/2002/03/29/creatingTheRedSeaInJello.html

Huh?

*

I hope I've just confused myself.  I've made another edit to the entry.  Do the links stick?

*

Yes. 

  

The Red Sea in Jello

For last night's Seder, I created the Red Sea in Jello.