There has been more blog maintenance over the last month, and today I attempted to install the MT-Approval plugin.
It didn’t seem to work. After I installed it, I couldn’t comment at all. There is a tag missing or in the wrong place in my individual entry template. I have removed the plug in and will live without it until I can get it set up properly. When I get it installed – if I do – it will change the comment procedure. Commenters will have to preview the comment before being able to post a comment. At that stage the plugin adds some extra hashes to the comment. These steps will foil spamming spider programs. I don’t know if this will reduce the flow of comments that MT-Blacklist has to filter – that’s my hope.
Category: Web Log Notes
Tinkering
I have changed the appearance of this blog by importing a stylesheet called Tiny Green from Movable Styles. I also got around to upgrading to the latest version of Movable Type.
Upgraded to MT 3.1
I have downloaded and installed the upgrade to the new release of Movable Type, version 3.1, which came out August 31. I had been running version 3.0D. I didn’t need or want the Developer edition but the tried and tested version 2.6n was no longer available when I moved my blogging from Typepad to my own hosted web site.
If it isn’t broken…
Movable Type has released version 3.01 which is a bug fix on 3.0D. The notes at MT’s web site said just download and unzip a file which contains upgraded files – no scripts. Just unzip and upload to the server.
Problem 1: which file? The download box gives you two options – full version or “upgrade”. Which one is the bug fix? Is “upgrade” a new set of files for people who installed 3.0 by upgrading from an older version or is it the bug fix for everyone running 3.0? Why is there a full version option on a page for downloading the bug fix??? Then Problem 2 – uploading. Remember the original installation? I have operating files in /cgi-bin/mt/ and I have a separate /mt-static/ container, which is the recommended configuration. Some of the files go to /mt-static/ and some of those files should be ftp’d in binary. There is no documentation in the upgrade zip archive. There is no warning or reminder on the SixApart web site. They assume you know or remember.
On the first try, I managed to overwrite mt.cfg, and loaded everything to /cgi-bin/mt/. I broke my blogging tool. After careful study, I reloaded the 3.01 files into the right containers on the server, and edited mt.cfg repeatedly until the whole thing started working again.
It came back in stages, like my colon coming back from my colostomy. Such great pleasure from such a modest accomplishment. This is not for the faint of heart. I feel like an Internet Red Green – pass me the duct tape, Harold.
Offsite Material
I posted a number of book reviews in this log over the last few months. I joined the Blogcritics site. At first I simply republished book reviews from this site there, and then I tried to publish the same material on my site and the Blogcritics site concurrently.
I don’t need to publish the same post twice (although I will keep copies of the Blogcritics version of the reviews as text files, as backup and publish those again sometime if Blogcritics ceases to publish them).
So for now, if I publish something offsite I won’t necessarily duplicate the material here. I will try to post a short note with the Permalink to the published review.
July Changes
Over the last week or so, I fiddled with the design and content of the Web pages. I think I have it organized properly for now. I have some “about me” information and a links list on the Web pages, and I have links in the blog pointing back to those pages. I have a few ideas for getting some pictures and images, and to dress it up but I am going to try to leave it alone.
I closed my Typepad account which means that the old versions of the Web log will be erased.
I have started to receive comment spam. There hasn’t been much and I erased it. However one post seemed to have come from an automated source and I am concerned about getting more that that, and I took a few steps to make it harder for spammers to post to my site although I haven’t taken all the countermeasures discussed in the comment spam articles at the Elise site.
I made some changes to comment configuration. I have enabled comment registration. Once I approve a commenter, that person can post comments. I will hold and review comments from unregistered commenters which should take out the spam comments.
Don’t hesitate to comment.
Hosted Site Running
Over the last 10 days, I have been working on installing Movable Type and transferring the Web log to my own hosted web site. You are in fact reading this Blog in its new location. Entering www.sea-of-flowers.ca in the browser navigation bar brought you to a new Welcome page. The new location of the Sea of Flowers blog is www.sea-of-flowers.ca/weblog/sea/
Follow this link. Then please add the page to Favourites or Bookmarks the usual way.
Registered domain
I got an email from Steve who asked me if if I had registered Sea of Flowers as a domain name. That wasn’t a bad idea, and I registered sea-of-flowers.ca. I haven’t set up the web page redirector yet.