evan zimmerman

In the mid-sixties a small, soon to be doomed band ironically called “The Grateful Dead” began playing in and around San Francisco. They would be forgotten, but in their time of glory they managed to generate a following so loyal and intense that their fans, known only by the unusual monikers of either “Deadhead” or, occasionally, “Homeless”, began to record all of their shows. Even the good ones.

In the years since this tradition has, as all traditions must, matured into a widespread habit which we no longer understand the rationale for. What we are left with however, are thousands of people wandering the country with recording devices capable of capturing what is best about bands who are actually capable of playing instruments: live shows.You might not wish to wander the country following the Oracle know mysteriously as “Ticketmaster”, but you too can enjoy live music if you can get it into a format that a device you might actually own can understand.

Here’s where the “How To” part comes in. You see, the tapers and fans who record shows normally do one of two things: they either tap into the mixing board of the band itself (if they’re either lucky or sleeping with someone), or they use directional microphones to capture the sound on a small, outrageously expensive, recording device such as a DAT, or Digital Audio Tape (I’m sure there are other device types and I’m not up to date on the equipment, but stay with me).So the DAT or other recorder saves the sound to uncompressed audio formats that are a) very large in size and b) completely useless to 99.9% of the listening world. The protectiveness and pride taken in this exclusivity suggests that this is by design. Ok, fine, but just for the sake of argument, let’s look at how all that audio might be useful to others.There are sites on the web where tapers meet to trade their files. They’ve always been here, even before the web was won, trading on bulletin boards and across univeristy networks, such is the obsession.

These days forums and boards where files can be posted are the norm, and the advent of Bittorrent has made it possible for those of us with a lesser degree of obsession to play too.The only difficult part that remains is the file type, which is unsupported by the major audio applications common to PC’s and Macintosh’s, and as such doubly unsupported by portable audio players such as the iPod. The most common of these formats is FLAC, which should you care stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec. Cool.

There are thousands of hours of free, legal, and often band encouraged recordings available on the web. If you enjoy live music, it’s a goldmine, simple as that. Boards like Sharingthegroove, Etree, and Jambase have thousands of users, all with aformentioned recording devices, who post their labor of love online out of the sheer joy of sharing. It’s a beautiful thing.So, finally, the how to.What you’ll need:A computer. (haha)

1. Begin by scouring the boards for your favorite bands who play live music. Don’t bother to look for Pop—Britney don’t play here. Think about bands who tour a lot, have close followings, or who are inheritors of The Grateful Dead legacy: Phish, The Stringcheese Incident, The Dead, etc.You’ll find to a lesser degree bands who don’t fit into the “Jamband” category but whose fans are devoted, such as Wilco. 
2. Find a show you’re interested in. If there are lots of them and you don’t know what to pick, try your hometown for sentimental value, or the band’s hometown for crowd enthusiasm.
3. Look for a format that you can download efficiently. Bittorrent is the current best-of-breed for this. Download the Bittorrent client for your platform here. Files that are compatible with Bittorrent will be called Torrents, and will have an extension of .torrent. When you download the .torrent file, double click it and your BT client should open and begin downloading.
4. Double check the setlist for songs that you want and be sure that the audio format is either MP3/AAC already (in which case you don’t need this how-to), or FLAC. Start the download.
5. Now run over to Versiontracker, Download.com, or your other favorite software index site. Search for “FLAC”.For Macs, I recommend Flacer for it’s efficiency and ease of use. There is similar software for Windows and Linux computers, but generally what you’re looking for is free software that converts FLAC to .aiff, which is the most common conversion type. If you find one that converts to .mp3, you’re ahead of the game. Just be sure the mp3 quality is ok, because that’s a big loss to go directly from FLAC to MP3. 
6. When your download is finished and the software installed, run all of the files through it to convert them to .aiff. Your software will vary in method, but usually you’ll select a folder full of .flac files and select ‘convert to aiff’. This downloading and converting is not a fast process, so pick a good show.It is worth it though. 
7. When you have a folder full of .aiff files of your show, you’ll need to get them into your music software. AHA! That’s right, most music jukebox software like iTunes will convert your .aiff files to either .mp3 or .aac, at which point you’re done. I do recommend iTunes, for this, which is available for Windows, Mac, and through Codeweavers, Linux.

That’s it!

Here are some boards to search for you favorite bands:

Sharingthegroove
Etree
Jambase (This one has lots of mp3’s too)
The Internet Archive
The motherload from Etree and Archive.org

Here are some shows and artists to start you off with:

Wilco at Otto’s 2004
Ben Kweller at Odeon 2004
Acoustic Syndicate
Cowboy Junkies
Damien Rice
Fugazi
Gavin DeGraw
Grateful Dead (who were they again?)
Josh Ritter
Keller Williams
Mekons
Minutemen
Mogwai
Ryan Adams
Southern Culture on the Skids
String Cheese Incident
Tenacious D___

UPDATE: Sharingthegroove is back up now, and the tools have changed. On a Mac, try xACT by the same guy who wrote FLACer—it converts SHN, FLAC etc to AIFF and WAV, both of which can be converted by iTunes to your favorite mobile format.

Steps for Moving to Textpattern from Movable TypeAs mentioned, I decided to move from Movable Type to Textpattern—the hullabaloo (like that word?) about pricing was just the impetus, not the root reason. I’ve been using TXP to experiment and running a couple of other sites for months, and I’ve been so not frustrated by it, that I long ago decided I’d move this site over. Only reason I hadn’t already was that I thought it would be hard. I was wrong. So, here are the basics of moving from MT to textpattern, a short tutorial or guide, in case you’re into it:First off, take care of your business:

1. Do a final backup of your existing site so you can revert if something blows up (which isn’t all that likely unless you delete your db. Don’t do that.)
2. Export your Movable Type blog(s): Log into MT, go to your 1st blog and along the left side you’ll see export options—save an export file to plain text format. IMPORTANT! Note the “blog_id” of the URL you’re saving from. It should say something like “blog_id=1” at the end. Note the number in particular and which blog it refers to.
3. Rinse and Repeat as necessary for your remaining blogs.
4. Save your CSS and Index files to separate text files you can refer to if you intend to convert your layout and/or cannibalize the code for your new site.
5. Create a new MySQL database if you’re going to use a fresh one through your web host’s online interface.

Next, Install Textpattern:

1. Go to the site and pull down the install package.
2. Unpack it and make arrangements to redirect or what have you your old index/site info until you’re ready with the new one.
3. Upload the contents of the folder to the directory you want TXP in. It doesn’t have to be the root, but that’s the norm.
4. Load yoursite.com/textpattern/setup.php in your browser
5. Here you’ll need your database info. I created a secondary db to transfer to, but I understand you can use the same one too. Input the database name and password
6. Follow the directions, which will have you copy and pasting the settings into the config.php file in the Textpattern folder.
7. Delete setup.php when told to – this prevents others from reformatting your blog at will.
8. You should be able to load your site now at yoursite.com/index.php to confirm everything, and then you’ll want to go to yoursite.com/textpattern to get started setting up.
9. Here you have your choice – categories or sections. If you have a multi-blog site, I recommend sections. They can act like blogs within a blog, whereas categories are just that – same as in MT. Sections allow different page formats if you wish, with different URLs as well.Once you’ve decided, create either categories or sections for each of the blogs you’ll be importing by going to the Content > Organize tabs for categories, or the Presentation > Sections tab for Sections. 
10. I chose Sections. Eh. Next, go here and download the import script. Upload it to the Textpattern folder on your server.
11. Now you need to edit the script before you run it to pull in your blogs.Open it up, put in the “To” and “From” database information at the top. Now scroll down and look for the “Sections” part of the script. Note the blog_id=”x” and the section name portion—put in the blog id number and the corresponding section name that you want it to import into. 
12. Run the script that you uploaded and it will import directly from your MT database the specific blog you referenced into the section you specified.
13. Repeat as necessary, changing the “blog_id” and section for each blog you import and run the script again with the new settings.
14. That’s it – all your entries are now filed away in TXP. If you used a fresh database you can remove your MT install now, or if you like you can keep it for old times sake.If you have problems with the direct import—you can import your export files one by one with this script instead, and refer to the documentation for it as necessary. Settling InTextpattern is different than Movable Type. It does not use separate blogs, but you can perform the same functions by using Sections instead. Alternatively, you can use Categories as mini-blogs/sidebars by saving your items into a special category and calling them into the part of your page you wish with a tag.For more information on using Textpattern tags, check this out.The other differences I’ve noted so far are:
    • TXP doesn’t generate static pages – it’s all in the database, including the CSS, but you can still edit with an external editor if you wish.
    • TXP is faster because it doesn’t rebuild. Changes are near instantaneous. Holy No-More-Headaches Batman!
    • Most of the stuff you get plugins for on MT is built in – the Textile/Smartypants/Markup stuff, the “clean” URLs, the referrer log, the comment moderation and more. For some good extra plugins, check out Drew’s.
    • It relies on search more than archive lists. You can browse articles by categories, sections, etc, but it doesn’t do a “calendar” like Radio or MT, and you have to work to get a date based archive page/list. This may be changes in the future based on forum discussions, but for now it is what it is. That said, I don’t miss ‘em at all.

Next step will be reformatting your site to use TXP tags instead of MT ones. No problem there really. If you want to do a straight transfer of your layout, copy your CSS and your Index pages straight into the menu—copy CSS into Presentation > Style, and then the Index into Presentation > Pages > Default (default is normally your front page).Then you’ll need to walk through the index (default) bit by bit, replacing the MT tags with the TXP ones. This is made simple by the menu on the left that tells you the tag to use when you pick the function you’re replacing. You can do it in 10 minutes if you’re slick.Once this is done, you’ll need to edit the “archive” page to have the formatting you wish for individual entries, and if you wish to have separate CSS for those you can copy over the base CSS file (from within TXP) and reformat from there.Miscellaneous Issues:

• If you want to create a sidebar from a category OR section: Create a “form” with the layout of each entry (I removed everything but the body text and permalink for mine, for example). Create a new “Article (custom)” tag, selecting the correct form and the section/category you want, with the number of items to list. Put that in the correct Div or other portion of your page. Easy.
• If you don’t seen any entries but just go back to the front page when you click a permalink: you have to select the correct page, i.e., “article” or “archive” in the Section menu. Once you do, you’ll see it go to the individual item page rather than the front page.
• If you’re having problems with ”/clean/” URLs: hit the forums and search there. It’s a common problem but very fixable.
• If you want a quick solution to using sections with subdomains or secondary blogs you can try this.

That’s it. It’s worth it, and probably much simpler that I make it sound.

What were you thinking?I’ve finally come to realize that I kind of like being a newbie. I’ve learned a great deal that I really didn’t need to know by admitting I know nothing and seeking information to answer my (often rather random) questions. Besides, you can learn a lot about people based on their reaction to a really simple question.I’ve also learned that there are a lot of superior people on the web. Everywhere you turn, someone knows everything and is perfectly willing to explain why they don’t need to explain anything to you as a result. On the other hand, there’s not much that you can’t learn enough about to at least get started with a new skill, so the tradeoff is fair enough—and in many cases, you can find just as many people who are quite happy to share their knowledge with you. It’s all good.I know this because I decided to learn a bit of programming, and figuring out where to start has been among the most labyrinthine processes I’ve ever engaged in. Sure, I imagine that if I were a CS grad, or otherwise computer science savvy, it’d have been easy—but for a reasonably tech-savvy but non-programmer type like myself, it’s been surprisingly hard to figure out where to begin.Of course, you can ask questions, but the answers you’ll receive will vary extremely widely depending on who or where you ask. Why is this? Well, it’s because apparently the hyper-rational engineering aspects common (and useful) to professional programmers also encourage dogmatic adherence to certain things. If you ask someone who has a peculiar bent, well, they’re not likely to say, “a lot of people do it this way, but I find that this is the way to go about it. Try that first.” No. That would be too easy. Instead, you might get, “this is the way to do it—believe me, you’re wasting your time doing it any other way”, regardless of the truth of that statement.Now, I don’t mean to imply deception or malfeasance, and this certainly is not always the case, but for whatever reason it does happen a lot. You may or may not have heard about religious wars among geeks? Well, apparently a question asked by a newbie is often considered an opportune moment to score a point for the team, rather than to solve the problem the question was meant to address. But I’m not bitter.Anyway, I do as much as I can for myself, and if that means learning a touch of plumbing, wiring or carpentry in analog life, then so be it. In digital life, I learned a bit of html and css, along with the associated technologies and steps to get a few websites up and make them passably purty. The results are self evident, and I’m pleased with them, both here and there among others, though a strict standards person would probably quibble with my choices. It’s been fun, and I’ve learned a skill set that people normally pay handsomely for, though they’ll never pay me for it Now it’s on to the next thing—software. I haven’t been able to find a program that will do what I want in a simple and clear manner, so I’m writing it myself. I’ve surveyed and demo’ed all of the possible options on the Mac for what I want to do, and none do what I need, which really isn’t complicated. If everyone weren’t trying to solve clever problems I don’t have (and can’t imagine need solving), maybe that would have occured to them in their design. But I digress.This little endeavor may take a very long time, but again, it’s fun, and what more could you ask in life than lots of fun projects. What it’s not, is a clear path or in any way easy, especially compared to web design. Why? Web designers are often accessibility/usability wonks, so enough of them pride themselves on being clear that they leave an easy trail to follow. Not so with software writers apparently.Just Doing ItWriting software for the Mac these days can mean using a large variety of tools, which doesn’t simplify things. If you boil it down to the clearest path and most long-term-useful method, what seems to be the best route is to use the native tools on OS X, which are free, and then use the Objective-C language with Cocoa, which is what most modern Mac software is migrating toward if not already using. For some dissenting opinions, see the always well spoken and emotionally balanced commenters at Kuro5hin.Cocoa is essentially a library of code that OS X progammers can use for software development. In short, it means you can quickly create glossy programs whose appearance will be familiar, but which can only be used on recent (10.2 or later) versions of Mac OS X. I decided on Cocoa because it offers a lot of “built-in” features, so you can actually have full featured programs without coding every line yourself. This provides an important feeling of success with even the simplest program, even if it’s not totally earned. Instead of details, your focus will be on the “unique” features of your program, and the rest Apple takes care of for the most part. You should know that you can also use Java and Perl to work with Cocoa, but for me there were more resources for Cocoa combined with Objective-C.Basically, if you choose this route here are the steps you could take:

• Learn C (or not) – many recommend this prior to learning Objective-C, but enough people say it’s not vital that I think it’s worth skipping and going straight to the meat.
• If not, go straight to Objective-C – read an overview of the language, Apple has several online
• Get an Understanding of Object Oriented Programming
• Read an Overview or start in on one of the Objective-C books
• Download Xcode tools from Apple (free)
• As you read the book(s), work through all the tutorials you can find online
• Download other people’s projects from Sourceforge or wherever
• read ‘em, run ‘em and try to understand how they work.From there, you can go a number of directions, but you’ll probably want to start hacking on your app. Finally. It took me a long time to figure all that out though, which either speaks poorly of my intelligence or means that it’s just not very clear outside of a classroom setting, so I’m going to put up a number of links which have been helpful to me should someone else decide to go this route. These links are most pertinent if you’ve decided to go with Cocoa and Objective-C. Which is the only way to go and you’d be stupid to try any other route … ooh, I feel like a coder already.On being a programmer in theory:A personal essay by Robert ReadThe tools and where to start with them:Xcode and the Apple development process – lotsa Apple links there. The secret to the Apple documentation is, there is almost always a paper to tell you exactly how to do what you want to do, but finding it is damn near impossible. Try lots of search term variations and if possible, code snippets.The Book Breakdown, or, Which ones will help you get started and which ones are for “real” (see: experienced) programmers only:Programming in Objective-C – One of only 2 books that purport to teach without prior knowledge of C or Java. A great place to start.Cocoa Programming for Dummies – the other newbie book, much simpler and less comprehensive, but another ok starter. If you can stomach the title and the obnoxious color.Building Cocoa Applications: A Step-By-Step Guide – you’d think, wouldn’t you? But no, you have to have some C background to get anywhere with this one. This should be the next step when you understand how a program works and need to understand the concepts more fully and implement with good examples.Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X by Aaron Hillegass, one of the original NeXT developers of Cocoa. This one is really well written but again requires a significant understanding of programming concepts and C before you start.Cocoa Programming – have to have a programming background for this one too. A much more reading oriented book than some of the others that focus on tutorials.Cocoa in a Nutshell – good reference, won’t help you learn from scratch. It’s a cheatsheet, not a manual, but worthwhile as such. Ditto for Objective-C Pocket Reference, but you knew that.Links with a Cocoa flavor:Variety of subjects here, though some links are dead.Where to go to see if someone already asked your question:Search the cocoadev mailing list archives. It’s a good idea to subscribe to this once you have a sense of what’s going on—‘til then, subscribe to the student-dev mailing list instead. Or just do both.About Object Oriented Programming Generally and Objective-C specifically:OOP at CocoaDev – OOP is what you’ll be doing with Cocoa. Forgot to mention that.An Objective-C faqTutorials to try, ‘cause learning is doing:A very simple Cocoa App – dive right in.BYOB Build your own web browser in just a few minutes.How to write a text editor in 15 minutes the ease of text services is one of the many big pluses of programming for the Mac with Cocoa.HTMLX, a basic HTML editorSome tutorial variety from CocoaDevCentral, but not many beginning to end projects.Sourceforge Cocoa:‘Cause reading other people’s code will help you understand. Download a project, load it in Xcode, and read the code and comments. Run the program, read the feedback. Try to isolate what each block of code is doing.Working on a document-based application:A great FAQ on the ins and outs of working with documents in Cocoa.Resources/Communities that don’t mind Newbies:CocoaDevCentral – good tutorialsCocoaDev – good glossariesWeblogs of OS X developers, for color:Stevenf of Panic, makers of Transmit, the best OS X FTP program among other things.Brent Simmons of NetNewsWire fame.John Gruber of, well, Daring Fireball fame.Buzz Anderson an Apple developer and PodWorks author.Michael Tsai of SpamSieve fame.I’ll add to this as necessary or as I come across useful resources. Have fun!

Or, more to the point, I wasn’t but I wanted a nice site anyway. Know the feeling?I have little to no web dev experience other than template tinkering and vague unsubstantiated HTML knowledge gained, as best I can tell, by osmosis from the web. It’s with that understanding that I’m going to document a few things that I would have appreciated someone having already documented as I was setting up this site. I looked, but was unable to find such documentation in one place, and felt like writing it up myself.That said, folks with more than a smattering of design and web dev experience (and as such not being required to utter “why the hell does it do that?!” every few minutes) will likely snort and click away in comfortably superior derision, and rightfully so. Those of you who might appreciate the following can read on:

• Actually understandable Movable Type setup suggestions, including plug-in info
• Random commentary that may very well annoy you
• CSS basics without the bothersome reading and understanding requirements
• Whatever else comes up on the way

Huge Caveat: the web is what it is due to the work of folks who just love to do it, so a lot of information is out there for free. That said, the guys and gals who write web tech books for a living and the lovely beings at Six Apart who developed Movable Type need a little love too. If you really want it done right and don’t feel compelled to figure it out for yourself, then pay for it. Or go to Typepad and find a happy medium. In my experience, it’s worth the hassle-prevention. I experienced much hassle with this, but I’m just the type that has to figure it out myself, so I was doomed anyway.“Ma ma ma my Movable Type”I’ve tried various tools and everyone has their favorite, but as I browsed around checking out the types of sites I like and might like to have, I began to realize they are almost all are run by a Movable Type backend. Everyone has their favorite blogging or content management tool, a choice that may change over time and as experience is gained. For me, I flirted briefly with Blogger, LiveJournal, Radio Userland, iBlog, then settled on Blogger after being bitch-slapped by Movable Type the first time I tried to use it. The breakdown of my experience is as follows:

• Blogger (an early version from 1999-2000ish): great! I was the problem and didn’t blog enough so I bailed.
• LiveJournal: Kind of ugly, but functional – my aesthetic sense demanded another choice.
• Radio Userland: WTF?! was my reaction the first time I launched it. Slow, and it didn’t work in an intuitive enough manner for me, though I understand lots of folks live by it. Not my flavor.
• iBlog (Mac-only): I tried the beta/early version and the functionality wasn’t there for a not inexepensive tool (relative to the free ones out there).
• Back to Blogger: This time it worked, but a few of the cool features weren’t implemented the way I wanted to see them, and it didn’t offer me the flexibility to grow without hacking templates mercilessly, which gets so old.

I also waited ‘til TypePad was launched to see about it before proceeding, and I actually thought I would be using it. When I got there though, I discovered that it’s amazing, but that ease of use comes with a price. What I really wanted was Movable Type without the struggle or the price, which means I had to choose. I chose struggle.So I’m on to Movable Type, which I’ve tried before. I downloaded it, I read the instructions, I understood most of them. Here’s the thing though—you have to understand all of them for it to work. Damnit, don’t they know the world works in half-measures?! Anyway, while I didn’t make it the first time, this time I was commited. Here’s what I did, and you can do, if you like – I make no guarantee that it will work perfectly for you, but I assure you you’ll have a much easier time than I did:

• Download Movable Type. Simple enough.
• Get a web host. You choice, free or otherwise, I decided to commit (commitment=scary!) to a domain and go with some locals, MySiteSpace. They’re cheap, quick, and support has been spot on. They’ve got what you need to run a Movable Type installation with MySQL, which is a good way to go.
• Here’s where it gets fun. You’re going to need FTP ability here soon so get an FTP program – the easiest way to do this is with a simple FTP-only program. I recommend Transmit on the Mac and a ball-peen hammer to the head on Windows. No? Try CuteFTP then. There are free ones if you like at VersionTracker.
• Unpack your Movable Type package and move it all into your local site folder. It’s a good idea to keep all your goodies in one place and a very good idea to keep the original zip file so you can have original copies if you screw something up. Which everyone does. It’s better to just plan for it.
• Open your “mt.cfg” file in a text editor – Textedit is fine on Macs, Wordpad/Notepad on Windows. You don’t have to download them, just look around in your program folders and they should be there. Important point: don’t ever do anything web oriented with MS Word if you can help it. You’ll live to regret it if you do because it will “help” you into madness by altering your files and adding invisible crap to them that then appears where you least expect it.
• The values you need to change are at the top of “mt.cfg” mostly – ignore most of the rest for now. This is Perl stuff, which means to make something active remove the # symbol from in front of it and make it read what is right for your site. So, find the line that starts with ”# CGIPath”. Remove your # and change the www.yoursite.com to your web site’s address, ie, “CGIPath http://www.evanz.org”. Save the file (in text format).
• Ok. Now the sticking point. Movable Type maintains a database with all of your entries, and since you’re running this puppy solo instead of through TypePad or Blogger, you’ll have to have one handy. I recommend you go to your website’s control panel and hunt around. You should have a “database manager” or the like. Create a folder called “db” in your “cgi-bin” directory (you can do this with your FTP program). Click your database manager, tell it to create a new database for you. Done. If you don’t have that option, send an email to your hosting company and ask them to create you a new MySQL (or Berkley or MySQLlite) database. Stick with MySQL if you can as there is a lot of support out there on those.
• So you’ve got your database. Now you have to tell MT where it is and what it is. Then, find the line that begins ”# Datasource” (a few lines below the other one) in your “mt.cfg” file. If you created a MySQL database you should have a login name, hopefully the same as your MT login info. If both are true and you plan on the main page of your site to be a MT run page with your database in the cgi-bin, then the lines should read:

DataSource /cgi-bin/db/ObjectDriver DBI::mysqlDatabase “DATABASENAME”_mtdbDBUser “USERNAME”_“USERNAME”with no quotes, and the databasename changed to your database name, and username changed to your username. These will likely all three be the same word. No quotes.

• Next, set up your static web path. Find the line that reads ”# StaticWebPath”. Remove the #. If you’re using MT to run your main pages as mentioned above, this should read “StaticWebPath /mt-static/”. This means the stuff MT uses to run MT will be in there, and you won’t get confused and mess around with ‘em. That’s it. Close your “mt.cfg” file and save it as a text file.
• Now to put all that stuff online. Open your FTP program. Connect to your website – just type ftp.yoursite.com – and look at the folder list. If it didn’t ask you to log in, find the option that says “login as” and give it your username and password that you got when you signed up for hosting. You should see a list of folders – just ignore them mostly. There should be a folder called “www” and/or one called “public_html”, depending on your host. These are one and the same, and they are the root of your website. When you see a web address that reads www.evanz.org/index.html? The index.html file is in the “www” or “public_html” folder. Or should be. One hopes.
• In your FTP program, browse to the folder where your MT files were unzipped on your computer. Open that folder. Drag all of the contents of that folder to the “www” or “public_html” folder on your host. Move “docs”, “images” and “styles.css” to your “mt-static” folder. (The styles.css file? It’s not your CSS file, it’s MT’s. They should tell you that. Yours is styles-site.css.)
• Now, do the permission dance. You have to change the permissions on certain files to make sure some are executable and other aren’t. It’s pretty easy, but it’s very exact. There is a matrix in your MT installation instructions that you’ll want to look at. Select each of the files one by one that end with .cgi in your FTP program. For each one, find the “permissions” or “set permissions” option. Set each’s permissions to 755 or if you’re a visual type, make it look like the matrix in your instructions.
• Open your browser – if it says “Internet Explorer” at the top, close it again and find your ball-peen hammer… just kidding. Open it, type in “www.yoursitename.com/mt-check.cgi”. This is going to tell you if your files are in the correct places, permissions set, and if you have all the Perl modules you need. Depending on the results, you’re either ready to go forward, or you need to review. If you need additional modules, check the installation instructions for links to instructions. Also check out CPAN for those modules listed if you aren’t sure from the instructions. This part is hairly if your host doesn’t have it all installed for you. If it looks too complicated, take the names from the mt-check.cgi screen of what’s missing and email it to your host. For me, it just worked… after I fixed my screwed up permissions and stuff. The upside, is, getting this to work and everything installed is the hardest part
• Now Re-run mt-check.cgi until it says you’ve been a good boy or girl.
• Type “www.yoursitename.com/mt-load.cgi” to initialize your installation. If it runs successfully, DELETE it from your site directory with your FTP program. Very important. Monkeys-will-come-get-you-if-you-don’t kind of important.
• OK. Whew.
• Type “www.yoursitename.com/mt.cgi”. If it loads Movable Type, get up and reward yourself however you see fit. Boston Creme donuts are nice, but be good to yourself. If it doesn’t work, review the earlier steps or if you’re at wits end, contact Six Apart to do it for you. They’re nice and deserve your money.

From here, it’s just a matter of writing. As any self-respecting writer knows, there are far better things to do than that, so it may be best to just skip to the “blog abandonment” phase directly at this point.This is only the beginning, too. Now you have to make it look good (or at least passable). I’ll be updating with some simple CSS suggestions here when I get a chance for just that purpose. I’m sure you can’t wait.UPDATE: Upgrading MT broke Textile among other things, and I’m not interested in hacking it back into place. Consider WordPress or Textile if you haven’t already done the above.