Certain external catalysts have encouraged me to change how I'm keeping things civil here. So I installed a couple of new plugins, and have a new procedure that everyone might as well know about, since it'll eventually become obvious anyway.

I installed the Membership plugin that Mike Lietz started for me. This plugin allows me to mark certain posts with tokens that grant and prohibit access for specific users. It also provides unique feed links for each of those users so that they can use their regular feed readers to obtain access to the same posts they see when they're logged in. Of course, those users do need to be logged in to affect this. Otherwise, they'll see the posts that have been on the site all along -- and nothing new.

I then wrote a new plugin, Login Redirect Group, which redirects users in certain membership groups back to the home page instead of taking them into the administration pages. It also provides the nice new login form that you see in the sidebar column.

What does all of this mean? Well, it allows me to continue writing whatever I want, and target it to the readers that should be allowed to read it. It also means that some people won't have access to everything. It also means that the home page is back.

One of the best things about this is that this functionality - being able to target content to specific groups - is provided within Habari's core. The extra plugins just provide the interface to it. This is different from other blog tools, like WordPress, that need to have post-based permissions grafted on entirely. The Habari API allows plugins to produce the permission system they need, but enforce it in the core. This pleases me greatly.

Anyway, it specifically serves my purpose in writing here. And you might know those purposes if you had a login. For which, you can ask by emailing me.

When I started writing this blog way back in the ancient times, I was using it to write. Sure, a lot of it was opiniony stuff, but there were a few poems and stories. It's something I enjoy doing.

Over the years, I've kind of stopped posting that stuff here. I think this is primarily because I think the audience of my site here would be confused about it. When I have posted fiction in the past amidst regular opinionated content, it has seriously confused regular readers, who have commented in what reads to me as humorous, but really isn't a kind way to treat readers.

So what I'm wondering is if I've yet sufficiently whittled down my readers with a lack of content to start posting just plain writing. Of course, I shouldn't care what readers think. It's my blog after all. I'm just curious.

Would you regulars who are left care if I posted some really bad fiction to the blog as I write it? I've been thinking of taking up a kind-of daily writing exercise that I could post to keep my writing production up.

Would it be helpful to mark the fiction/writing content in a different way? I'm wondering if that's a burden (slight as it may be) that I'd be willing to endure over time. Curious.

As many people know, I enjoy going into the city to attend technology events. I actually ran the Philadelphia WordPress meetup for a while, and I've attended many other meetups, including the blogger meetup, PANMA events, the PhillyCHI design slam, the Philly Standards meetup, DrupalCamp, and the Philly PHP meetup. I've even presented topics at a couple of these meetings. While all of these meetups have been fun and educational, I think it would be beneficial to have some events exclusive to the suburbs and attract suburban developers who might want to attend regular meetings without having to drag themselves into the city every month.

With the economy the way it is, some folks might consider it useful to informally enhance their skills or extend them into other areas. Networking with other people in these fields could also lead to more industry contacts when times get rough.

So I've been considering which to do. It's always been a thought of mine to build a local blogger meetup. I think it should start off on the right foot, too. Rather than being just a social gathering of bloggers, it could hit those topics that bloggers always find themselves asking about, like how to make money doing it, how it can benefit your business in a practical way, what software to use, and even what to write about. But blogging... It's got a stigma attached to it that maybe it deserves ("Today for lunch I ate...") and maybe it doesn't (see any of the excellent journalistic blogs on the net).

Instead, maybe it should simply be a technology meetup. We could talk about blogging, or we could talk about development, or we could talk about... Whatever technology-related topic someone wants to bring forward. The only reason I'd consider this is because I think it might offer more value to the common person than a blogging-specific meetup.

I realize that there are classic "user groups" that meet in our area, and I mean to attend at least one of their meetings. But my impression based on what I've read is that they're really user-oriented, readers or blogs or consumers of technology, and not creator-oriented. Also, I get the impression of them being run by the stereotypical 80's computer geek, who looks and acts much like that comic book guy on the Simpsons. None of the meetups I've attended in the city give that impression, and I'd want to stick with the format I know and like - informal but regular and informative presentations along with useful and enlightening networking social events.

What do you think? Are you local in the suburbs to me? I'm thinking that a good place to hold these meetups would be in the Exton, Downingtown. or West Chester areas, since those are fairly central and built-up places to suburbanites in my area. But Phoenixville might also be a worthwhile destination. Would you be willing to travel that short a distance, rather than into the city? And what topic would you like to discuss? If there's enough interest (and we'd only really need a handful of people to get the ball rolling), I'd be happy to start the organizing process.

Should I start a podcast about blogging issues? Wanna be a guest on the show?

Not exclusively "how to blog" or "make money blogging" or "build your corporate identity with a blog", but real discussions about issues in blogging today with people who actually publish blogs, not just pundits.

Is this a worthwhile endeavor? Can you think of other topics you'd like to hear about?

I've spent a good bit of time over the past week (probably to Chris' chagrin) working on media functionality for Habari. You can see my quick, obviously unrehearsed screencast describing all of the features visually if you don't want to read my post.

Essentially, media in Habari is about unifying all of your media sources inside your blog software so that you don't have to go running from place to place to assemble a post. In other words, making it easy for the user. I have a pretty common scenario that I use when I start into my diatribe about Habari media.

Paying for hosting is a pain in the butt, especially if you use a lot of photos or audio. Anyone with any sense uses a service like Flickr to house their photos and link to them from their blog. It's simply more cost effective. The trouble is that integrating these services with the interface you're already using to write your blog. Habari is great at this.

Rather than forcing you to upload your photos to your own server, you can keep photos anywhere that Habari can connect to with one of its media "silos". A silo is simply a plugin that connects Habari to these services in a standard way so that you can access it directly from within Habari.

So now if you are writing a post and remember that you want to upload a photo to insert into the content, you don't have to switch out of your "blog writing" mental state to load up Flickr and upload stuff. You click open the media panel in the Habari interface - right on the post authoring page - upload your photo to Flickr, and insert it into your content. Done!

The opportunities for this are awesome. The media silos will also handle audio and video, so services that store these files for you off-site can still house your stuff, but you can embed them directly into your posts without leaving your writing interface. Even if you have a Gallery installation on your own server, you can still use a silo to interact with Gallery to access and maintain your photos without leaving Habari.

The simple file silo that comes with Habari gives you access to store files on your own web server and embed them. It lets you organize files how you want them to be organized, without forcing you into any structure you don't like. If you have a dozen photos to upload, you can use the more efficient FTP to transfer them to your server into the directory you want, and the simple file silo will display them just the same.

I am really excited about the progress we've made on the silos in the past week or two. I've managed to finally connect uploading to the simple file silo so that you can upload photos to your own server. With the back-end worked out, the Flickr upload should come very quickly next, and then shortly afterward, the Viddler embedded recording functionality.

Yes, that's right, you're going to be able to record video blog entries directly within the Habari post interface. How cool is that?

The possibilities for the media system in Habari are wide open. I'm anxious to get some other providers on board. For example, I'd love to have a Hipcast API to embed my Hipcast audio into posts. I'd certainly use it a lot more often.

Can you think of any other services that might be useful to try to include? Any comments on the system? Let me know!