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This [website
debuted](http://ptsefton.com/blog/2004/04/28/platform_for_udell/) on the
28^th^ of April 2004, powered by
[Leonardo](http://jtauber.com/leonardo/), which is written by James
Tauber. I picked Leonardo because it was written Python, and I wanted to
be a Python programmer like James. Leonardo was the first software where
I fixed a bug and sent it in. Alas, I didn't go on to contribute much at
all after that.
After a while I figured out a [hack-ish way to submit content from
ICE](http://ptsefton.com/blog/2005/09/05/blog_this_button_for_openoffice.org_(well_half_anyway)),
meaning I could write in a word processor rather than in wiki format.
And a little while later I integrated ICE with Leonardo in a sorta kinda
way using Subversion, an approach that was never very satisfactory.
A couple of weeks ago, when ICE got its [Atom Publishing
Protocol](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom_(standard)) support I
realized how great it is to write something using the same word
processor interface I use for all my non-email writing and post it off
with a couple of clicks.
The best experience so far has been with Wordpress. Wordpress not only
Just Works, it has oodles of plugins and prefab skins. I was convinced
when I posted a test document to my test blog at wordpress.com. Peter
Murray Rust saw his name there (via Technorati I suppose) and responded
to that post, rather than the one on my real blog. Wordpress even
notified me by email:
> New pingback on your post \#4 "ICE as a blog editor"
>
> Website: Unilever Centre for Molecular Informatics, Cambridge -
> petermr&\#8217;s blog » Blog Archive » I have to eat Peter
> Sefton&\#8217;s dogfood (IP: 131.111.121.99 , wwmm.ch.cam.ac.uk)
>
> URL : <http://wwmm.ch.cam.ac.uk/blogs/murrayrust/?p=806>
>
> Excerpt:
>
> [...] [...] today a supportive reply from PMR to my post with a poem
> in it! Thing do indeed take time, I&\#8217;ve been at this since 1996.
> I [...] [...]
Leonardo is slowly heading in the direction of Atompub support, but I'm
no longer kidding myself that I'm going to work on stuff for Leonardo
– I don't do much coding these days
and if I did it would be for one of our USQ projects or for this other
idea I have about a semantic web for gardeners.
I have spent some of my copious spare time writing an export script for
Leonardo, to export the site as static HTML so that all the old blog
URLs will still work, although any direct links to images won't. Linking
direct to my images is rude anyway.
Sometime in the next couple of days I'll ask Remi at WebFaction to throw
the switch. After that all new posts will be in WordPress. Later I will
write up some thoughts about how hard it is to keep old URLs, which are
optimistically called *permalinks* working, and the kinds of tools that
I would like to have to support what [Jon Udell calls
'lifebits'](http://blog.jonudell.net/2007/08/22/hosted-lifebits-scenarios/).
People who are subscribed to the Atom feed should not have to change
anything as I *think* I put in a working redirect, but if you If you do
notice anything wrong, [let me know](mailto:ptsefton@gmail.com).