Recently in Technical Category

Well, I finally figured out how to make my blog publish dynamically. There really was no clear direction from the Movable Type Manual. I sort of stumbled upon it by accident, really. I noticed, finally, that the list of templates state whether they are published statically (an html file is produced and stored on a server) or dynamically (the post content is stored in a data base, then recalled and quickly produced on the spot). So, I took a look at the individual templates and discovered you simply choose at that point which which type.

So, I now have all my templates publishing dynamically. It should decrease the wait on submitting comments, and immediately show them, instead of displaying the cached page saved on your computer, which never has your just submitted comment.

That means, Bryan, you won't be doubling up on your comments, leading me to delete one of them. Not that I enjoy deleting your comments.

No, seriously Bryan. I don't enjoy deleting your comments. I only enjoy deleting the comments of assholes who think insulting me, or another commenter, on my own low traffic blog is going to be tolerated. It's why I switched back to registration. I want to be able to weed out the trolls intent on simple ad hominem attacks.

As always, I end up with problems when I upgrade. I received an email informing me of difficulties in commenting. If anyone else should have problems email me a rook at rooksrant dot com. You know what to switch around.

I'd say more, but I have to get ready for work.

Well, that took a while. But, I've now have a shiny new MT upgrade installed on my hosting company's server. It allows for much easier manipulation of the side columns. I can switch different widgets in an out with extreme ease. It was just the initial creation of the widgets that took a bit.

On a more sober note, I lost 2 months worth of posts. Not like my lost achieves that are sitting in a flash drive waiting for repair. These two months are simply gone. Puff! It seems my old installation just didn't have quite the oomph to download every single post. Or, the program I used didn't have enough oomph. Either way, I've lost August's, September's, and the first few days of October of this year.

There really was only one post I regret losing; My popcorn recipe.

Now, I've removed the CAPTCHA widget because I understand it's a pain for some. But, that also means I've resumed requiring registration. There are multiply ways you can register. You can just register with my native Movable Type system. That requires approval from me. Or, there are several other services, OpenID, Vox, TypeKey, and LiveJournal, all of which don't require my approval, but do give me the ability to ban.

Now, I understand some of you already registered once. Unfortunately, I wiped my database clean to eliminate some bugs that were held over from my 3.XX version of Movable Type, so you'll have to register once again. Yes, Brian, I am sorry.

Now, I have a few more images to upload, then my work should be complete.

At 6:30 PM this evening someone from Saint Mary's, Georgia was the 55000 visitor. They were doing a Google search for "iraq war budget."

I just did a quick check of the search results, and I am #2 on that search list result, on page one! There is something wrong when I am higher than most of the major newspapers. If there is such a commotion for holding down government spending, than the cost of the Iraq war should be getting a lot more coverage.

Seems that there's a problem, so I did this test post to see if it would clear up the problem.

Update: Yup, that worked.

Two things I want help with, both involving the RSS template. One, I'd like to insert some ads into my RSS feed. May not actually amount to any additional revenue, and I've none now with this blog, but any extra won't hurt. Two, I would like to know if there is a way to add RSS hits to a counter?

At 7:38 AM someone from Dayton, Ohio, clicking through The All Spin Zone was my 50,000 visitor! That it took over 5 years to get to this lowly number is somewhat embarrassing, what with some sites getting 50,000 hits in a minute. Still, it's cool to have finally reached 50,000.

I've installed reCaptcha to my blog, in hopes of improving the ease of commenting while eliminating spam. Leave a comment hoping for the best!

Update: Got it! So, now there is no need to register or authenticate. Hope this makes commenting more enjoyable.

Whew! That took quite a bit of time. But, it is done. I know have several blog rolls back on the site. Of course, The Liberal Coalition is prominently displayed at the very top left of the site; most fitting, I think. Down farther in the left side you will find a Minnesota Media roll. All Minnesota blogs all the time. On the right, down a bit you will find The Big Roll. It ought be on the left as well, but due to my nature of maintaining some type of visual balance, it is on the right. I know it ain't blog shui, but it will suffice.

Well, skippy, that great coinage blogger has a post up about Blogroll Amnesty. I have to admit, I've been without a blogroll myself for quite some time. Well, today I've done something about that. I have re-instituted a Blogrolling.com account and am now in the process of populating those rolls with links.

It will take a while. Once apon a time I had over 500 links. Many of them were dead enders, others were long dormant. It was a hassle to weed them out. I had been in the process of dealing with the hassle when I was forced to abandon my rolls completely after updating to MT 4.

You see, I had switched from Blogrolling.com to a MT Plugin called MTBlogRoll. I then unthinkingly deleted all my rolls from Blogrolling.com, after having exported/imported all the rolls. When MT 4 rolled along, it turned out MTBlogRoll was not compatible. Then I lost my data base for MTBlogRoll. So, I lost all my rolls. Hence, the rebuilding process.

So, I am asking for Amnesty while I rebuild my links.

Just claiming a feed for Bloglines.

All my old posts can be seen here!

Well, I guess I had my comment settings at a severe range, which limited the ease of commenting. Hopefully, with the change of settings, commenting will be easier.

I've done some minor updating. Mostly, I've added a donation button to PayPal, just in case George Soros happens to drop by and takes pity on this poor, pathetic blog languishing in the back waters of Blogstonia (which I happen to believe I coined - take that skippy!).

I also hope to be doing some testing on MT-Blogroll, which is undergoing a complete rebuild, from the sounds of it. I am not the most technical of coders, but I think I can be of some help. If nothing else, Arvind will be able to design the new plugin with an understanding of how to make it idiot proof.

I was looking through the MySQL database back up I saved prior to switching over to MT 4. It appears most of my past post were not exported in the file. Funny that, because all of the comments from the past were exported.

Anyway, it's official now; The past posts of Rook's Rant are dead. I've not a way to bring them back. It sucks, but that's life.

One simple bone-headed mistake, one that I knew better then to do, and I've lost my blog history.

Damn.

Update: Of course, on the bright side, I can start a new blog roll. My old one was so huge, it was not possible time wise to cull out the dead, or corrupted, links. But, not until Arvind gets his plugin MT-Blogroll up and running for MT4. And for my fellow Liberal Coalition cohorts, be patient. I will get the links to you guys back up.

It would appear that Movable Type 4 has the ability to use multiple Authentication services as well as there being native registration; that is, just for this blog.

I am currently setup for registration. Let me say right now that I will not release any information you supply to my site when registering. However, I registered myself under another name, with another one of my emails, and I have yet to receive an email requesting that I verify my having registered. So, I am not quite sure if I've got all the settings correct. Should anyone register, and not receive a verification email, email me at rook {at} rooksrant {dot} com.

For anyone that's interested, the following Authentication services are used here at Rook's Rant:

1. LiveJournal
2. Vox
3. TypeKey (Six Apart - the company responsible for Movable Type)

Well, I've managed to actually add some widgets to the side columns! So, I am getting a handle on the design aspect of Movable Type 4. It's still going to take me a while to add a blog roll. It turns out that the MT Blogroll plugin by Arvind Satyanarayan is not yet compatible with MT4. Until then, I would hope the members of The Liberal Coalition will be both patient and understanding about not having that particular Blogroll ensconced on my side column.

I'm not sure what the hell makes Six Apart think they can say it's easier to work with templates. I have been looking over the various templates and am completely, utterly, lost. How the hell I'm going to work any blogrolls back onto my blogs is beyond me at this time.

I guess it means digging through forums, and talking to those more adept at dealing with the new MT4 coding and such.

See, I am a self-taught computer geek. No class room training. I've gotten as far as I have by simply diving in and mucking about. I've made more mistakes then I care to admit. But, I've manage to come away with a decent understanding of HTML, CSS, and can even insert other scripts, though I don't know how to write Java or JavaScript.

But damn! I can't make heads or tails of the newest version of Movable Type. This really sucks.