scriptygoddess

After installing the mt-blacklist plugin, I did notice a delay in commenting. (I thought it might just be me – since we've been having trouble with our servers anyway) – but it turns out it's not just me. There is a hack on Wizbang that solves this problem [via Jennifer's ETC blog]

While also browsing through ETC – Jennifer's post about James Seng's Bayesian Spam filter reminded me to bring this up into an actual post (it's actually linked in the comments in the Anti-Comment Spam post, and I kept forgetting to highlight it)

Just a few "site news" bits. Although I posted Kevin's "anti-comment-spam" post – I still have yet to implement one of them on this site. Depending on Jay Allen's plugin setup – I am leaning towards that one. (Although the bayesian (sp?) filter method mentioned in the comments also looks really good… decisions decisions). In either case – as you can probably tell – this site gets hit quite frequently with comment spam. (kind of ironic – considering that post) so hopefully this weekend I'll have some time to install something and that will change.
Update: Jay Allen's MT-Blacklist plugin is now installed. If you notice anything funky – please email me and let me know. (Just an FYI – I did have to do a little modification to it to work with my "RSS Feed" display. If you need to know this – I'll post it. But I'm under the impression that it's not a widely used mod. Some good news – it works seamlessly with subscribe to comments – so if you have that running, install without fear. 😉 As Robyn noted in the comments here, however, it does not work with the Comment-Queue hack. If this is something you really need – let me know – and I will try to get it working.

Also – I will probably be doing a "product review" of Apple's iTunes for windows ("Hell froze over" yesterday). I downloaded it the SECOND I heard about it. So far – I give it a "A-". Not perfect, but who is. 😉 So far I am loving it. I think my only complaint will be that it might be "too easy" to buy an album – making things very dangerous for music-addicts like myself. Just to give you a quick summary – downloaded an album. copied the files to another computer. burned a cd. All with NO PROBLEMS!!!! Some minor UI complaints – but other than that a very good experience. Good job, Apple!

On October 13th, the MT-Blacklist plugin was released by Jay Allen. However, I found that the Blacklist.pm conflicts with the Adam Kalsey comment notification Hack.

There is a simple way of fixing this small error if you do not want to receive e-mails of your comments. It worked for me but I can't guarantee it will work for you. If you try it, make sure you back up the original files you are modifying before attempting. I don't suggest this to novice MT users.
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Leaving this post here for archival purposes – but the latest version of the subscribe to comments script is now in cgi format – find more info here

So just to give you some history on the problem I was having. As comment SPAM has been coming in, as well as deleting them as quickly as I can (of course) I've been adding the IPs to my list of banned IPs in MT. The one kicker was that sometimes, while the comment would not appear on the site, I was getting the "comment notification" from the subscribe to comments script.

Took me awhile to figure it out, but what was happening was these types of comments were coming from people who I had already banned through MT, but my subscribe to comments script didn't know that and would send out the notifications. MT would block the comment from actually appearing on the site, but whoever was subscribed to the post would get the SPAM. I don't know how many of you have run into this problem, but I'll post what you need to do to fix it…
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There is a lot of discussion going on right now about now regarding comment spam and how to stop it. Comment spam is basically a comment posted to your blog that may/may not have anything to do with your post (I've seen/had it both ways), but it will include a link either within the comments or from the authors "website" for a commercial website. Most of them seem to be selling herbal products, Viagra, or direct mail items. The idea behind stopping comment spam is two-fold: First, no one wants their website to be a graffiti wall. Second, this seems to be just the first "wave". Many of the spam comments are being done by a few individuals actually trolling for MT websites. The real deluge is coming as more and more automated "bots" start searching the web MT comments forms to auto-fill with their spam messages.
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Upcoming.org is a relatively new service that offers a collaborative event calendar. One of the nice features is that it allows you to syndicate your event listing using RSS to your own weblog – and this site provides instructions on how to do it. Great, easy way to share your upcoming events! [via Matt.]

Typepad just added domain mapping. This allows you to point your domain at your blogs.com subdomain via DNS. I wanted this because I didn't want my blog at blinne.blogs.com but rather at www.blinne.org. But, I also wanted other content at www.blinne.org. This meant I couldn't simply repoint www.blinne.org to blinne.blogs.com via DNS. My solution to this problem is outlined below.
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I know there is so much talk about skinning a site. But I found an easy script that will change your stylesheet. If you code your page right, you can change its look completely just by changing the stylesheet. An example of this is the CSS Zen Garden. The script I found is a PHP Styleswitcher that is really easy to set up if you like the concept of changing the look with just a stylesheet.

[Editors note: There's also some additional info on other styleswitchers here]

Jay Allen recently posted another alternative to trying to rid the world (or at least your blog) of comment spam.

A few very helpful CSS links.

Rounding Tab Corners

Containing Floats

Stylesheets Tutorial

CSS Based Design

Making the Absolute, Relative, demystifying floats