Jun 21, 2006 | 
1
| MovableType + Tips
As Ramit mentioned, I helped him upgrade his Movable Type blog and things did not go as smoothly as expected.
Ramit was running an older version of Movable Type and drowning in spam comments. I helped him upgrade to the latest MovableType version and get those spammers under control and learned a few things along the way.
Comment spam is worse than I thought
I knew comment spam was a problem, but I hadn't experienced it much myself. Iwillteachyoutoberich.com is a very popular blog and it attracts tons of spammers. There were 6500 comments in the system when I started and after purging the obvious spam only about 1900 legit comments remained.
The latest version of MovableType (3.2) has much better spam control built in. So far it seems to be catching most of his comment spam automatically.
Don't use Berkeley DB with Movable Type
You can power MovableType with mysql, sqlite, or Berkeley DBs. Berkeley DB is the easiest to setup, but the hardest to maintain and upgrade.
I ran into all kinds of problems trying to upgrade from Berkeley DB to mysql. (And I'm not alone.) It is also almost impossible to move a Berkeley DB from one server to another. Hope you don't mind being locked into your current hosting provider! :)
If you expect your blog to be around for longer than a year or expect more than a couple hundred entries and comments, do yourself a favor and start out with a mysql database or upgrade now!
Don't rely on MovableType import/export
The import/export feature build into MovableType should not be relied upon for backing up or migrating your blog (at least in the current 3.2 release).
The import/export button does not export all of your data. If you export your blog and import it somewhere else, you will lose some information like base names, moderation status, and authenticated users. The biggie there is base names.
It means that your entries will probably have different permalink URLs after they have been imported. This will break any links that are pointing to your site and could kill your search engine ranking.
The safer way to backup or migrate is to use mysql database dumps. (I told you that you want to use mysql!)
Lessons learned. I'm just glad we were able to get Ramit's site back up and running so he can get back to writing!
Mar 8, 2006 |
2
| How To + Tips
Want to add a little flare to your web site with one of those little icon-thingys that shows up next to the browser's address bar? That icon-thingy is called a favicon and it couldn't be simpler.
Create 100x100 pixel logo
Using your favorite graphics program, create a 100x100 pixel gif or jpeg that contains the logo you want to use as an icon.Upload your logo to a Favicon Generator
There are lots of web sites that will create the specially formatted favicon.ico file for you. Just upload your logo to one of them and they will spit out a favicon.ico file for you. (For free!)
I have had good results with The Favicon Generator.
Upload favicon.ico to your web server
Take that new favicon.ico file you got from the generator and upload it to the root directory of your web site.
Modify html to reference the new icon
Add the following line in your html somewhere between <head> and </head>.
<head>
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://yoursite.com/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon" />
</head>
You need to do this on every html page.
Enjoy!
Update: If you don't mind getting your hands dirty with JavaScript, take a look at this example of dynamically changing favicons.
Feb 9, 2006 |
0
| Bootstrapping + Entrepreneurs + Tips
If you are just getting started in blogging (like me) and want to start getting noticed, here is a tip. MAKE SOME NOISE!
This site is brand new. I can count the number of visitors I get on one hand. Until today.
I posted a list of 5 must listen podcasts for entrepreneurs. I know people generally enjoy lists like this, so I submitted it to Digg and a business forum I follow on joelonsoftware.com.
Then I thought, Hey, I bet the guys who do these podcasts would like to know that I enjoy their shows. So I emailed them telling them as much.
Within ten minutes I got an email back from the Chief Community Officer at Startup Nation (one of the podcasts on my list) asking if I would like to be on their nationally syndicated radio show!
Then I got an email from Jay at Internet Business Mastery (another podcast on my list). I thought he would appreciate hearing about the response I got from Startup Nation and he replied with some savvy advice.
...Make noise and people will listen.
That's the lesson I learned today. I intend to keep making noise and hopefully good things will happen.
As a bonus, my traffic for today will require me to count visitors on my fingers and toes!
UPDATE: I'm going to be on Startup Nation radio next weekend (March 18-19th).
Also...
There are entries in lots of other categories.
