August 15th, 2003:

Mark Pilgrim announced today that his URLs are now cruft free. And I agree, his URLs look nicer than they did before. However, I have a problem with calling these URLs cruft free. Because, while the actual URL itself maybe free of the aforementioned cruft, the system that implements these URLs (Movable Type) had to have extra cruft added to it. First of all, the archived post file name had to have extra logic built into it. This isn’t really a problem, however, it intensifies the next issue. He also had to use MovableTypes EntryKeywords field to supply the name of the uncrufted URL. Additionally, he had to install a plugin because MovableType didn’t support this operation by default. So now, he has an installed plugin, additional logic in the archive file naming convention (which takes additional time to prepare when rebuilding), AND the added cruft of using a field for an intended purpose.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not downing Mark for this at all. It’s MovableType’s issue… he’s just doing the best that he can with it. And maybe I’m even more wrong. Maybe it’s not possible to do what he wants to do without having cruft SOMEWHERE in the system, regardless of what publishing engine he uses. But I doubt it.

For those of you who intend to host on the new server (which will, from this point forward, be referred to as inklog.net), please comment here or email me with the domain name(s) you will be intending to transfer. I will add your existing DNS records to the server and, when that is complete, ask you to switch your whois information over to our DNS servers. This way, when the time comes to move your data to the new server, we can decrease the amount of time it will take for DNS information to propagate the entire Internet which means we decrease the amount of time in which you have to pay for two services at once in order to avoid an outage.

I’ll handle all of the domains for which I currently have admin privileges. This includes inklog.net, revjim.net, inkshop.org, taintedwords.net and sivatonight.com.

If you’d like technical details in regard to what is occuring, read on.

I’m going to mirror your CURRENT DNS information on the new server. However, I will be setting the TTL to one hour. This means that, whenever your current DNS record expires with the various DNS servers that have cached it, they will refresh their data. When this refresh occurs, they will receive data from the new server and will be informed to begin refreshing every hour (as opposed to whatever you currently have your refresh time set to). Then, when your website is actually transfered to the new server , and the DNS changes are made, the NEW information should be active within 2 hours, maximum (with the exception of some misbehaved DNS caches). During the transitionary period, not only are you paying for two services (which isn’t really an issue since I’m not all that picky about when I start billing you), but, if you make updates to your site during that time, some portions of the Internet will not see those changes (which may include you, as odd as that sounds). Therefore, we want to keep the transitionary time to a minimum, and this is the best way to do that.

Thanks.