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1. 3 5 Managing Your Posts Your first blog posting was small and without a lot of embellishment For the most part though your postings c larger and may feature hypertext links to other web pages or embedded graphics and other media In addition use HTML formatting to make certain aspects of your content stand out such as with bolding or italicizing or ir text you ve pulled as a quote Once you ve created a post you might need to modify it adding new information or perhaps correcting existinc information or to correct typos an all too frequent occurrence in blogs In addition you might regret a posting choose to delete the whole thing All these blog posting management tasks adding modifying and deleting are performed through the Blo view page If you re creating an extensive or long post or making significant modifications we strongly recommend that y work in an offline text tool such as Notepad and then copy and paste the text into the Blogger edit window If arise during posting you won t lose your work and can resubmit your post safely a second time Alternatively t these desktop clients mentioned from Chapter 2 3 5 1 Adding and Formatting Entries Line breaks in the posting are reflected in the generated HTML by default As an example two break tag entrie are added when you hit the Enter key twice in your content Unless you want to add these tags manually leave break conversio
2. u Scott Johnson s Radio Weblog Shortcuts Shertouts make it aazs tn anter repetidiva ar hard Eo ramambar Egst in your weblog When pou ambar a in deu Gated Baie vil replace it Sith e salue as the gage ik cercle Usa the fore tn erker a new hort ar cick an the EDIT button nest ta any ofthe current shortaex to oon it Mama Li I AUG Tearaprazh Fert Sine 1 B y E X HZ ou T WYSIWYG Source Naw Shortcut Current shortcuts T es tate Int your curmentzhgereoues If Chere ac more tan 25 they ara stiwm ann arate pagas To delete s shortest in ime eheckhes arid scroll te the Batten al fia page and rick on tim Delete Gorton what yos types What pou get hzzpwrmb http l wwe Fuzz geno cam EMIT n hzrpywebik rar In the Name field enter the name of the shortcut This is the text you type enclosed by quotation marks that inserts the body of the shortcut in your web page when it is published You do not need to type the quotes In the Value field enter the body of the shortcut This can include URLs pictures that you paste into the WYSIWYG editor plain text and more You can also customize the HTML code for the shortcut by source editing the entry To save the shortcut click the New Shortcut button This saves you
3. 3 4 Basic Blogger Settings In the previous section you created a blog and made your first posting accepting the default behavior of Blogger However over time you ll most likely want to customize the blog to provide a look and feel uniquely your own he first step in customizing your blog is understanding the components of a Blogger blog and how to adjust the settings related to each of them 3 4 1 Title and Description Figure 3 5 shows the blog description at the top of the lefthand column and the title in large type across the top of the page To change the title return to the Blogger Edit view page and select the Settings option from the toolbar at the top of the web page This opens a page that allows you to change various settings of your blog as shown in Figure 3 6 Figure 3 6 Changing the blog title in Blogger Settings You can change the title in the first field as we did for the example You can also edit or remove the description in this Settings page For the example we ll leave the description as is Change the URL field to specify your blog s subdomain on blogspot com For example Figure 3 6 shows a URL of oreilly so the blog is visible at httpz oreilly blogspot com Blogspot will give you an error if you try to set the URL field to something that s reserved or already taken e g www Once you ve made the changes save them by clicking the Save Changes button at the bottom of the page
4. Iz he dead Thats the question in 3 new Of ra e n eg hora r amp rs 8 ee d roD Do E FTE Ths pm mnki gr pany grabs s pig en in TTL ont ue a i alge nave ers a wt haj ordered ik bo gether Gaeta ewamnstitrs Bg Farhad men i CNET 6 4 75812 12707 What you see above is a set of news items from different feeds to which you subscribe Click the Post button next to any news item and Radio will add it to your editing window so you can post it to your blog as in Figure 4 16 Figure 4 16 Item from News Aggregator in post editing window downloaded from fib ommolfcetab ir oaded from fib ommolfcetab ie 2 Dish terete fitter Pie ee E r gt E m Scott Johnson s Radio Weblog a ee E 4 2 E F mme UTR EF Lm E Fa Home dees Aumes nik Fodder beui Tees Togs I Poets Hem D zusce AREE 2 07 09 PW lume Zik j pru Fre Tro a EIU anco eee urea m rere al dbz digig recording rstarm The move looks Kp a bare ony in iz fit seth the anteetermentmnduzry Bs Ged bg P arszraph rant L Sine a EJ EE B ir W ou Emi s rout Frezh fram a victory in court Sonkblue unsals erga cb do Opel rexibng gsm The ma looks bkn
5. merme fates duds EE 3 Ba Febrer hiph iI 001 533 Go ale OSA Deh Prees he dE M UU xj Radio B D 7 Paragrap Fock Siss color 7 EEA ee Geneva drial Bel vetics Sanzg 5eriifkXerikhnbzn HE3 amp for the O Reilly Emergies Cani Avail lable Aleeades POHT2 lt H3 cFOHT sire FONT size iF i ONT faeces Verdanes Genes amp risl Eelvsticte Dant arii ete Journal Taeczhnat cazt ix anas cE tham wahzitimr that x wey cool 19 yee p amp geeky enegs and Jat silly i jeu srzen t hknbap lirei http teohnetosst ddj offers XP3 files and Reel Audio stresses of inmterseztirg conferences ar progrsmmlng tabep Far amp wampla Fou Gen Cb uhila ligtazing to Linus talking sbcut Cr pou Bigkt listen to Amdiv llertzfeld on Eszel or Jon Beatley or Larry 511 Hazbe I s weird East find it than bit izxpirzing Lnbmp POST cPecPO T fsce verdans How you get some of the HPi5 ros tke WYE YO F BosmrpG Tile Lire ET ae Home Page I ris Posa Post Publesh s Scott Johnson s Radio Weblog Hews Stories Shortcuts Events Themes Ioni pef Helo
6. May ZT02 Zum Mer Po Mad The Fri Sat 124 1 amp B 3 1211 i3 iz ba d ib ifig 19 20 I 23 24 23 ze 3034 Ape Jun krel linka ii 3 ir mas pele page far pouw Gen rel thir irk te aci bra ridi aril oun laa drew tham vnu whiih sss are 1n paun an bee mans hiia thay ra dalia ring Fant TL fria the 10D rrezat pezular Facio Hele halay dal ee oo rE sii be nr rameauriiy hares Up deted babies Cent ea de os Pied rr mT 1 dav ire Cla hes b eb steer denial mem m mic E mmc mo moa oe ode Change the HTML tags as needed This may require making changes posting the changes checking the results and then repeating several times 4 10 1 Updating Radio root If you read any documentation on Radio UserLand you will often see references to Start by updating Radio root Hadio root is a single file shipped standard with every copy of Radio This file contains the internal database and much of its actual code Update Radio root really means Update the Radio UserLand program but without exiting the product or running a Setup program Unlike most programs Radio is able to update itself with new features and bug fixes over the Internet While this happens automatically every night if you leave Radio running you sometimes need to do it manually to get the latest feature
7. io charting and Posted 18 1 B P by Shelley Powers B ki Medus Ft rad ADDOGOng tod thats 30087 aod an rip It can be shining ured ot thea and takes rary 4 petis evil ort tu ar account OF Pour erst weblng y Du wg pasri ho cn ba yog T wandar why scu didnt try among sooner Notice in the template that instead of a list of archive file links it has a link to a separate archive file that has a listing of the links As stated previously not all templates have the same layout and this can include changes to how the Blogger template tags are managed Again this isn t as much of an issue if you haven t customized your template but you could be in for considerable rework otherwise Once you decide on a new template republish all of your archives to pick up the new style Blogger isn t the only location of templates that you can access The next section talks about downloading and incorporating a template from another web site blogskins com 3 8 2 Incorporating a Non Blogger Template Blogger templates are nice but sometimes it seems as if every blog you view has one of five or six Blogger templates you d like something different but without having to manage the layout and style yourself Because Blogger templates are nothing more than text it s not surprising to find that people have published templates that you can download and use for free In particular the Blog
8. link rel stylesheet type text css href blogbook css body td font family Verdana Geneva Arial Sans serif j font size llpx color 666666 a text decoration none title font size 12pt font weight bold color 336699 blosxomDate font weight bold color 336699 blosxomTitle font weight bold color 000000 blosxomTime text decoration italicize color 336699 lt style gt lt J head gt Figure 9 6 shows the result of Example 9 4 Figure 9 6 A little CSS style nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie nioaded from lib ommolketab ir 60 6 75 My First Blosxom C te e http 4 127 0 0 1 cgi bin blosxom egi Viv First Blosxom Wed 22 Hay 2002 Second Post It Worked twice Posted at 12 07 First Post Howdy and welcome ti Posted at 12 00 4 wered by Blasxom g Internet zone Should you wish to go beyond CSS for altering the appearance of weblog entries you can override the default see Example 9 3 and define your own using HTML and CSS again in the form of a text file story html save datadir directory Example 9 5 subtly tweaks the default bolding and underlining the title removing the Poste and replaces the with permalink as seen in Figure 9 7 Example 9 5 A custom entry format p class blosxomEntry lt a name Sfn lt span class blosxomTitle gt lt b gt lt u gt Stitle lt u gt lt
9. loaded from fib ommolfcetab ie ed from fib ommolfetab ir lt a name SBlogItemNumber amp nbsp a br lt PostSubject gt lt h5 gt lt BlogItemSubject gt lt h5 gt PostSubject lt SBlogItemBody gt lt br gt lt span class byline gt posted by lt SBlogItemAuthors gt at lt a href lt SBlogitemArchiveFileName S gt lt SBlogIitemNumbers gt gt lt SBlogitemDateTimesS gt lt a gt lt span gt lt div gt lt br gt lt Blogger gt After saving the template change republish the posting and view the results as shown in Figure 6 11 If the change is satisfactory republish all the archives to pick up the template modifications Adding a title for new postings won t impact your previous postings if no title exists none s printed Figure 6 11 Blog page with titled post downloaded from lib ommolketab ir J Essential Hhoqyer Explerer Ple Edt yew Fgewkes Took Help EJ Esi P E CxjFavandes CQyMeda 1 25 Go hip burner nat Go ale Bitseerch web qs os Eraio ESSENTIAL BLOGGER Moe waned Thursday May 09 2002 What this weblog is all about Mogroll J Scott Johnson Blogger is a weblogging tool that s accessed online Q Cory Doctorem be tound a Tie Blogger web site arid takes very Ben and Mena Trott Niue effort to create et
10. far Search Help Thursday May 9 2002 4 Gotta leve the ireny sted for ibegally inchoding the code from company m one of thes products me wonder what ekle Current Location be mcladed m Microsoft s products without disclosure Thanks Bruce 2 Hew Yok HY E USA Het aeck street Lal st eollechonm af H 3 in cepi T gotta get me a Qurk Contact AOL IM Dus article about the torced removal of 3a mxeresbng The ie Widows buzz whe are eating the mudelmes refuses to em eress piatfenm Yahoo IM solutiona even though it can be proven a Ms pese aft only acluben more money I acnder if they reakze that rules are basically repang Ernai customers more money ard that because of the mencpaly ztatus EAycrosolt has there ss very bduerosaft entrenched and ergamnmanons de Dent iesanderstand me maker roma very which Duae it on a daily basis T aen very mach against boasiness peacaces of putting ther customers between a rock hard place Buy Stull za r plnesdav viar A H Ti yiip e e E e ge e CRDI CFTE Figures Figure 1 1 Figure 1 2 and Figure 1 3 are all distinctive in look and content but they share a similar structure A title a logo suggested links and a list of current entries are all standa
11. ba ghbaunyg malbiog Mun Pags The Johnny Glow Never have to choose between blinding yourself with the bog hehte and massmg the bowl again As seen on T v Link vna deepal LR LEM o sz B i mum ll Te unsubscribe from this group send on email to Boingboing mailblag unsubscribeeyahoogroups com 1 2 6 Counters People who manage their own web servers have access to powerful auditing tools that will analyze their server logs confusingly these are also called weblogs telling them how many visitors have been to the site what page visitors were at last what operating system and browser they were using and even what times of day and days of the week are most popular with visitors Bloggers are more likely to be tech civilians hosting their blogs with commercial or free hosting companies that don t provide access to the server logs Free tracking systems such as Extreme Tracking http extremetracking com fill the void providing Statistics and analysis for personal web sites These trackers require that you put a small graphic somewhere on your blog Every time this graphic is loaded from the tracking service s server statistics about the visitor whose client loaded it are gathered see Figure 1 8 Figure 1 8 Extreme Tracking statistics overview nloaded from fib ommolfcetab ie nioaded from lib ommolketab ir r own Free Tracker Now Boing Boing Curre summary gt Unique Vi
12. OGG mol kars aiig 8 m a It cu hg found az the ph sie and bale hary acorr te abe an wrt or a sno DN FOL pron hme par ironic am beg roll hendir why you dank trs eableg ng MT 1 Fr Pao World This example also demonstrates the downside of hosting your blog within a constrained environment such as E you can t upload images or other media to the server If you plan on making use of these types of files move off BlogSpot to a server of your own Embedding other media content is just as easy as embedding images you simply specify the appropriate HT content s media type and publish your blog page 3 5 9 Cleaning Up Occasionally you regret making a post You may decide it s too personal too angry not appropriate not politic correct or whatever and you want to eliminate the post Deleting a posting within Blogger is easy Load the posting to be zapped into the Edit window then click the De button on the Blogger toolbar When you do so a message box opens asking you to confirm this choice Clickii OK button removes the posting from Blogger s data storage To remove the posting from the blog page click P you re finished Try this by removing your first Hello World posting After publication view the page to see that the first post h deleted 3 6 Archiving in Detail When you added modified or deleted a posting in the last
13. Add a comment lt a gt lt noscript gt lt div gt Sor Blogger Save the template change and republish the blog page to add the comment capability to the blog If you click o the Comments link the comment window opens as shown in Figure 6 14 Figure 6 14 Comment window supported by YACCS and attached to Essential Blogger blog E Essential Blogger Comments Mit AID Essential Blogger Comments Add comment Your Comments Emal homepage http www burningbird net weblog Ohrnmernts This 15 Essential Blogger s first comment 2 Submit Comment gt gt Powered Dy 2002 Rabe Tour Music Typing and submitting a comment adds it to your comments refreshing the blog page shows that the comment count is now at one Clicking the Comments link opens the comments window and the saved message is displayed If you wish to try a different look for your comments you can access the YACCS control panel and select one c the public templates or create one of your own The best thing about this is you don t have to modify your Blog template again the comment template is separate from the Blogger template For the Essential Blogger blog we picked the Movable Type template because of its simplicity and ease of reading After previewing it click the Copy link associated with it A new page opens giving you a chance to preview the template and modify it if you w
14. By default the system will not allow visitors to your site to leave comments unless they also leave their name and email address If you would rather let visitors leave comments without a name and email address you can turn on the Allow Anonymous Comments setting Email new comments When visitors leave comments on your site it can be useful to be notified via email This might be useful if you expect to receive controversial comments on your site which you will need to edit or delete loaded from lib ommolketab ir im 8 3 Archiving Options One of Movable Type s greatest strengths is the number of different archiving options it offers When you post entry to your blog it generally appears both on the front page of your site your index as well as on any archiv pages you have designated For example if your site has an archive of all your entries by month any new entry you post is added to the archive for the newest month automatically The system takes care of all the work of creating the archive files and filling them with the correct data Movable Type allows you to archive your entries by day week and or month by category and by individual en This last option means that each entry that you post has a page dedicated to displaying only that entry in the archives his works well for sites with long entries or article based sites in particular 8 3 1 Archiving by Category
15. N i p Radio B D 7 Home Hews Bibong zharscusz Emder Events Themes Too I Prete Holo giu Tem plan Pr JH Main template The main temp atp conitro s the fie anpparance of al pages m your akcep the brome paga It applies te pagez in Ge Dezytopn Webztpb 2s wel as to gages sared to the communi sarar an iz the dot guit The main temolsbs uses Sun maros fo ac partz of the page bbs the bie text of the page etc Maros se endosed between lt and the sio characters The macros tat apply tothe man template arm isted an the Bustin Manos help page Z DOCTTYPE HTML PUBLIC HWHrc fDTD HTML 4 01 Transirional EH gt lt 1 1 1 les zMETA HITP EQUTY Expirces Di Aan 1290 Dir tirgi erp pype rekt paa body i 4 H The HTML template is in the textbox Scroll down approximately halfway until you find the macro navigatorLinks in HTML like this navigatorLinks navigatorLinks br Don t forget to date your checks year Click the Submit button and your Main template change will be saved On the resulting page you can see the effect of your change see Figure 7 8 Figure 7 8 Main template with change nloaded from fib ommolfcetab ie Pla Edt e Prarie Tok be sali e 1 d geh aen per Ty dE CJ a Address d bith 11122 0 0 1 1 otn pas
16. nloaded from fib ommolfcetab ie oaded from lib ommolketab ir E Mares Bir Dr reset F aphte Bener ipa 98 m Scott Johnson s Radio Weblog ie a J a bee glee 2 ru p p Racks Home d Gees Bues d Decus Folder bents Themes Lug Preis kei Haws e da Giza Sake luze Bi 1 fi 8 gt i8 ik if i idi ER Lt I5 5 Bel FR Hi i ti tF 1 zimaj um i i sation WERE Source igre aul marg s Tres harg i T ENT i I mw EM haare dali carra Previus Li peris As you can see the new theme Woodlands is now used for your blog Click Home in Cloud links to see it applied to your blog as in Figure 4 14 Figure 4 14 Woodslands themed blog The final step in your tour is to use Radio s news feature the News Aggregator to post content to your blog from another source Return to the Desktop Website and click the News link The News Aggregator page is shown in Figure 4 15 Figure 4 15 News Aggregator downloaded from lib ommolketab ir fide qum Ran Dant eet Foi peer i s d Bie Yes Hue Hele c Db od o h ait 2 a e 9 EN So Kgs E ae d or er eee pae enne Scott Johnson s R
17. Click the Add New button which will open a pop up window in which you can add a new archive temple In the pop up window for the Archive Type select Category and for the Template select RSS Archives t template you created in Step 4 Click Add After the pop up window closes and the page refreshes you see that the new archive template has been associated with your Category archives Now we just need to create a unique page name for each archiv distinguish it from your standard HTML category archives In the Archive File Template column for the RSS Archives template paste in the following lt SMTArchiveCategory dirify l S 5 rss The attribute means that the category label for example Perl will be transformed into a s suitable for use in a directory or filename This doesn t matter if your categories are single words bi one of your categories had been named Common Lisp it wouldn t do to have the space in the filei therefore it would be transformed into common and the archive filename would be common Click Save That s it Whenever you rebuild your category archives add a new entry the RSS file for the appropriate categc automatically be rebuilt The RSS file is named based on the name of the category with the extension rss th generated files will be placed in your Local Archive Path the setting from the Blog Config screen and the URI be your Archive URL also in the Blog Config screen plus t
18. Go Links Google F aptat am ino i ESSENTIAL BLOGGER Ap ye poe Thursday May 09 2007 to know about starting maintaining Blogger is a weblogging tool that 5 attessad Blogger weblog tat Bb at the Di T ger web site and takes var Archives tbe effort bo create either an account or your first 72002 wealog Once you ve sean how easy webloggimg can z nhar Lois AM 8 1 Done un D internes Though functional and accessiable to all the key elements of a blog postings archives date and person making the posting at some point you ll most likely want to customize the template if only to add a blogroll or implement Blogger Pro titles discussed in a later section The more you want to individualize the look and the behavior of the blog the more customization required Blogger templates such as Chroma used in Figure 6 7 are HTML and CSS bundled into a particular design with Blogger template tags inserted to incorporate your individual blog postings archive files name and so on 6 2 1 The Template Tags Blogger template tags act as placeholders for generated content When the blog page is published Blogger retrieves the writing for the postings as well as other information unique to the blog from its internal database and generates HTML from the data This generated HTML is then used to replace the appropriate template tags within the template The merged
19. Reductoo Ad Absurdum Politics Books Cultu bed 10 American Politics 05 19 2007 Prote ikiii Meds gave the gue suwey in decunens filed in Tadaa cout As George Will wrtes By explaining why they Should ee standing to defend in covet cousutuhonality of BCRA why uweerturmng i5 wall mure then lt hicGen et al reveal lE B comuptian is stam form of compen tht the Firs Amended prevent BCRA s aim 15 the comzenience of ita enactors incumbent blaremakers Mircoln Mixon 05 19 2017 Mahanal Arches regulmily to release batches af Richard pecorded which to reverberate even though the fama m rz International xi Rye roca a te live in i TE pockets wath ad nd teme poverty on the cive wer with jimas mamis UMITA With Savunte s pases the goverment is gmng ic have bo come up wilh a ueber accounizug of ramis ml kere stent 11 the idanec world Since then it has amoug who should be extent to which mucide bombing ira Ca Aegae Brooks cangdes ims culture af death Mare a eee ee low Books and Arts 03 19 2002 Few followers of the Amen stock maka have eer dowtted former fand manager Jum Cramer abilities Bit the manic ethics have heen asmiledl recently In a Sree Adie miba r
20. Convert line and paragraph breaks When you turn on line and paragraph break conversion all paragraphs blocks of text separated by two line breaks are surrounded by lt p gt and lt p gt tags and all single line breaks will be replaced by br tags Welcome message When authors of your blog view the main editing menu by default they are presented with a message welcoming them and providing a link to the manual and some introductory text You can edit this welcome message to say anything you would like including notes to yourself or to other authors announcements and so on Notify weblogs com of updates weblogs com is a centralized site run by UserLand that tracks updates to blogs Users can visit this site to find out when their favorite blogs have updated or they can use specialized tools that use the weblogs com feeds to track a subset of the sites listed on weblogs com If you would like your blog to be listed on weblogs com whenever you add a new entry turn on the Notify Weblogs com Updates setting Google API key Movable Type features integration with the Google API to include the results of search queries on your site Of particular interest is Google s ability to list related sites You can use this tool to display a list of sites related to yours To use the Google API functionality you need to obtain a Google API key and tell it to Movable Type Allow anonymous comments nloaded from fib ommolfcetab ie
21. Radio UserLand comparison FTP File Transfer Protocol publishing via FTPing blog files full text blocks nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie nioaded from lib ommolketab ir SYMBOL A B C D E F G H 1 K L M N O EP Q R S T U V W X Y Z Gaiman Neil Sandman comics 2nd Gillmor Dan San Jose Mercury global publishing Movable Type and grammar checking Blogger Pro Grantham Ewan www a1161 com blog html greg louisville ky us Greymatter cost desktop clients RSS and group blogs Blogger and Guan Joyce www clownagama com Em I I i nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie nioaded from lib ommolketab ir SYMBOL A B C D E F G H 1 K L EM N O P Q R S T U EV W X Y Z Hack The Planet Hard Greg www tssaddicts com Haughey Matt Metafilter headlines MacReporter Hersam Dan dan hersam com Home Page template macros hosting Blogger self hosting BlogSpot and 2nd hosting tools hot text HTML tags in Blogger nioaded from lib ommotketab ir nioaded from lib ommolketab ir SYMBOL A B C ED E F EG H 1 K L EM N O P Q R S T U EV W X Y Z images attributes copyright issues inline Movable Type posts Blogger thumbnails importing Movable Type and Index templates Movable Type initialization Movable Type inline
22. The hostname of the FTP server This is often something like ftp yourservername com Path Where the published blog files are stored on the FTP server The trailing slash is important to Radio The exact value of this depends on where your web server HTML files go URL to your published blog You need this for permalinks Often it s something like http www yourname comvblog although this will obviously depend on where you choose to publish your blog on your site Whether or not your FTP server supports passive mode PASV If you re running Radio behind a firewall you may need to enable this Your systems administrator or webmaster should be able to help you with these settings To publish to your own server via FTP first click on Prefs in the Radio command bar Select the FTP option from the group of Basic Preferences which brings up the form seen in Figure 4 23 Figure 4 23 FTP Preferences om lib ommolketab ir Frelerrenc rs option Iirraspit Inbernat EE Be pi Wee Toe d p i s 7 2 e e 0 2 00 JS UB 00 1 SC red emis prelo mapu m L5 a Redin 9 0 7 Home Hews Eipre Shortcuts Folder Events Themes Tools Prefs Helo E Scott Johnson s Radio Weblog a oo gt basic option Bu ran savei upsirea ed des FT eer Bian the an GST by pog Chad thi
23. its theme Click on the Themes link at the top of the screen The Themes page looks like Figure 4 11 Figure 4 11 The Themes page Select a theme that sounds appealing to you and click its radio button Scroll down the page and select the Submit button The resulting page is shown in Figure 4 12 Figure 4 12 Theme change confirmation page T IM Ms ral Pel erar Eupksrrr E Di pi yen jb amp o Qoi PO Ga 02v 23 4M 3c al e hip z7 0 D 2t eror pare Redio 7 0 7 Hone Hres Stones hprtcutz Evers Took Hep NI Scott Johnson s Radio Weblog US Aene IOI Copa OU Be Coed Radon geer ru Tuae Themes Confirm Cure qu want TO ua erret simos 2 3 These The wii gee aries yar parem fend abes ard appesrsnce pele ences 4pphe Themes 6 Copright 2002 Spo Ez lure PSS Pye AS Came DAL 2 51 71 Before you change your template Radio warns you that you could lose any customizations that you might have made Click Apply Theme to continue Radio applies the theme and returns you to the main Themes page in case you want to try another theme Click the Home link to return to the main Radio page to see the theme in action You may need to click Refresh or Reload in your browser to see the new theme as in Figure 4 13 Figure 4 13 A new theme Woodlands
24. nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie nioaded from lib ommolketab ir Table of Contents e Index e Reviews Reader Reviews Errata Essential Blogging By Cory Doctorow Rael Dornfest J Scott Johnson Shelley Powers Benjamin Trott Mena G Trott Publisher O Reilly Pub Date September 2002 ISBN 0 596 00388 9 Pages 260 Slots 1 With weblogs or blogs exploding all over the Web the only thing lacking for power users and developers is detailed advice on how choose install and run blogging software Written by leading bloggers Essential Blogging includes practical advice and insider tips on the features requirements and limitations of applications such as Blogger Radio Userland Movable Type and Blosxom This book will get you up and blogging in no time nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie nioaded from lib ommolketab ir Essential Blogging By Cory Doctorow Rael Dornfest J Scott Johnson Shelley Powers Benjamin Trott Mena G Trott Publisher O Reilly Pub Date September 2002 ISBN 0 596 00388 9 Table of Pages 260 Contents Slots 1 Index Reviews Reader Reviews Errata Copyright Preface Audience for This Book Structure of This Book Conventions Used in This Book Comments and Questions Acknowledgments Chapter 1 Introduction to Blogging Section 1 1 The World of Blogging Section 1 2 Anatomy of a Blog Section 1 3 Anatomy of a Blog Post Section 1 4 Syndica
25. publicmind blogger com enduser category jsp and FAQs at http archives blogspot com and http profag blogspot com These latter two publications were created by Phil Ringnalda who has provided help to Blogger users for a considerable length of time The blogging community is always willing to lend a helping hand to other bloggers Once you have a few readers you re likely to get an answer if you post a question to your blog Chapter 4 Desktop Blogging withRadio UserLand Radio UserLand by UserLand Software is a desktop blogging tool You build your blog using the Radio UserLand software henceforth referred to simply as Radio that runs on your computer and then Radio publishes it to a web server for the world to read Because Radio is a desktop blogging tool a writer can take it with him and blog wherever he is the beach a coffee shop a plane anywhere For many writers this alone is a compelling reason for using Radio over other blogging tools Radio can be downloaded for free and from download to your first blog post takes only a few clicks Your blog source text is stored on your computer but blog pages are served from an upstream server a server out on the Internet to which your copy of Radio can send files upstream them UserLand Software provides hosting space on its upstream servers for every Radio UserLand customer as part of the license You can start
26. www wilwheaton net blog holding forth on the subjects that have wandered over their personal and creative transoms that day Amateur pundits such as Jorn Barger http www robotwisdom com and pros such as Andrew Sullivan http www andrewsullivan com comment on current affairs and make political points People from all walks of life maintain personal diaries from Scraps deSelby s LiveJournal httpz baldanders livejournal com which chronicles his obsession with music and his struggle to stay employed New York City to Punk Rock Girl http www mokuzen net Journal the caffeinated rantings of its eponymous author Journalists such as the San Jose Mercury s Dan Gillmor keep blogs http www dangillmor com where they engage in Journalism 3 0 interacting with the subjects of and audiences for their articles in real time Paul Boutin former senior editor of Wired magazine does much the same on his blog http paulboutin weblogger com where he has taken to drumming up scientists to debunk the claims of conspiracy nuts who say the Pentagon bombing was faked Freelance analyst George Scriban http www scriban com keeps a blog where he dissects the piracy claims of the entertainment industry by gathering and linking to data from sources all over the Web taking investigative journalism to the next level Jason Lubyk of New World Disorder http www drmenlo com nwd posts a half dozen news of the weird stories ev
27. 1 Open the file mt cfg in a text editor 2 Add the following lines at the end of the file DBUmask 0022 HTMLUmask 0022 UploadUmask 0022 DirUmask 0022 3 Save the file If your hosting provider does not support running CGI scripts under cgiwrap or suexec you may wish to put pressure on them to do so Ultimately your provider has the most to lose if the web server is hacked and files are compromised It is in their best interest to prevent this by installing cgiwrap or suexec 8 5 2 Private Blogs We ve covered security on the web server level But what about security on the blog level If you post an entry to your blog that you only want certain people to read how can you control who can access that entry Movable itself does not possess the functionality to post private entries to your blog and protect them from viewing by anyone other than a select group of people However your web server probably does possess this functionality all web servers implement Basic HTTP authentication which allows you to set up a list of users who can access specific sections of your site When a visitor to your site requests a page protected by this form of authentication the web server firsts tell the user to authenticate himself by entering a username and password If the username and password match those of a user who you have allowed access to your blog the web server will then send the protected file to the browser whe
28. 1 1 downloaded from fib ommolfcetab ir 5 8 Syndication Movable Type s default installation provides RSS syndication Thus with no extra work your Movable Type powered blog can be easily syndicated Two RSS files are created automatically for each of your blogs an RSS 1 0 template and an RSS 0 91 template These two files correspond to two index templates installed into each new blog in the system RSS 1 0 index and RSS 0 91 index By default both templates list the last 15 entries posted to your blog but you can change this by editing the templates For more information on editing the default templates see Chapter 8 Your RSS files will be located in your Local Site Path directory and will be accessible through the web at your Site URL For example if your main site is located at httpz www foo com your RSS 1 0 index is located at http www foo com index raf oyndicating the headlines from your blog allows you to notify your readers when you create a new post using either a dedicated RSS reader or by visiting a centralized syndication service like syndic8 See Chapter 1 for more on syndication 5 9 The Future of Movable Type Version 1 0 of Movable Type was released in October 2001 and Version 2 0 was released in March 2002 As such the system is still young but it is still developing very quickly Features for future release
29. Blagg starts up fetches each feed in turn and quietly adds new stories it finds to your weblog Figure 9 10 shows a new story on Andy Oram appearing just after the annotated ETCON story Figure 9 10 Automatically aggregated story BOGA 3 My First Blosxom Bittp 127 0 0 1 cgi bin blozxem cgi First Blosxom Ihu 23 May 2002 Andy Oram aving O Re editor Andy Oram here at Etech is quite boon daily dispatches rage B eve 1 didn t make rt to the previous conference PZP and Wab Services Washington link raelty bytes 12 55 permalink a 1 T 5 1r al E r 1 H 1 i J Link Discuss Heck ine Cane link bOing bOingl 12 32 permalink Wed 27 May 7002 11 L a 1 1210 permalink First Post H T al Interret Tiie 9 12 3 Blagging to Other Blogs You can use Blagg to aggregate items in weblogs other than the default Blosxom weblog By adding a blog gardening Command line switch you can can instruct Blagg to read the rss dat file in the gardening subdirectory under scdatadir and blog any entries to your gardening weblog rather than initial weblog So if there were an rss dat file in datadir gardening to contain a feed or three you would interactively aggregate items to the gardening blog like so blagg mode interactive blog gardening 9 12 4 Under the Hood If you re curious a
30. Category archives are a flexible way to manage your archives Because categories can represent any sort of structure you wish to impose your category archives can be used to emulate that structure on your public web This allows Movable Type to act as more than just a blogging tool for example it can be used to manage e news site where categories might be standard newspaper sections Local News Politics Entertainme Media e A movie review site where categories might be genre names Action Adventure Comedy Drama e A magazine where categories might be column names Question amp Answer Letters to the Editor Arts amp Entertainment e project site where categories might be project names Revolt Dress Merry Wife Apron In addition Movable Type allows you to assign multiple categories to one entry So in the case of the movie re site you might even wish to use two different types of category archives one categorized by genre and one categorized by the first letter of the movie title A B C etc Or in the case of the magazine one set of catego could be section names and the other issue names so you could categorize your entries by column name All Entertainment Stories or by issue name All Stories from the May 2002 Issue In all these cases the only work you have to do is to create the categories and assign each entry to one or mc categories Movable Type will manage your archives for you 8 3 2 Multiple Arc
31. However it is helpful for yourself and readers to start with a quote bulletpoints that summarize your day etc This helps to ground them and also is a great way to make yourself think of what the net of it was It is also cool to quote someone else because it downgradesthe blog from being 10096 self absorbed to 90 Joyce Guan http www clownagama com Use a content managment system Blogger Movable Type or the like if you re new to blogging or web design It will let you focus on quality content Layout is not THAT important People read blogs to learn about the blogger not to see their cool design skills although they re definitely nice to see Don t make a post just because you haven t made one on a specific day That s no way to develop quality content and it s almost always obvious Blogging for yourself can be liberating use your blog as an online diary of your thoughts Keep the URL secret if you want but blogging is a great outlet for stress and other problems of the everyday world Don t be scared of blogging bloggers Jump in and have fun Don t worry about posting about every single thing that happens in your life Strike a balance between enough detail to get the interesting things and too much detail to separate the good stuff from the bad Greg Leffler http greg louisville ky us When we talk about weblogs we re talking about a way of organizing information independent of its topic Wh
32. In addition to the ability to manually back up all the datafiles Movable ships with export functionality that allows you to export your data into a text file Should you experience data loss on your server you can import this nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie nioaded from lib ommolketab ir text file back into the system to restore your data ee 5 2 Installing Movable Type Movable Type is free for personal use if you re using the system for commercial purposes a license fee of 150 is required The software is donation ware meaning that a donation is appreciated There are incentives for donating for example if you donate 20 you will receive a key allowing your site to appear on the Recently Updated List on http www movabletype org As mentioned earlier in this chapter the process of installing Movable Type can be time consuming and the actual time spent installing the software will vary based on the amount of prior experience and familiarity you have installing server based scripts Users unfamiliar with the process of setting file permissions will no doubt have a different experience from those who are comfortable working in a command line environment However as long as your server meets the requirements and you follow the instructions below you should be able to get up and running without too much trouble Let s get started 5 2 1 Requirements Do
33. Posted at 1200 fir nrw definition ef powered hy Eli ian x Internet Fone Each day begins with the date followed by weblog entries for that day in reverse chronological order the latest entries rise to the top Each entry consists of a title body time of posting and a permalink the bit to the entry itself for easy reference The look and feel is completely customizable see Section 9 10 later in this chapter 9 6 1 The Archives Of course pointing at your weblog s URL provides only the latest view with only the last few postings Blosxom provides automatic virtual archives for your posts as well Appending a slash the four digit year another slash and the three letter month abbreviation or two digit month number transports you back to a particular month For example appending 2002 May displays only entries for May 2002 1999 01 those for January 1999 Appending to the month view yet another slash followed by the two digit day padding the 1 through the 9th with a 0 displays entries for a particular day For instance 2002 May 22 shows entries for May 22 2002 1999 Jarv01 those for New Years Day 1999 To zoom in on a single entry append a slash pound and the entry s filename without the txt extension Thus 2002 05 22 second or 2002 May 22 second displays entries for May 22nd and scrolls down to the second blog entry the contents of the file second txt see F
34. also called the XML RPC endpoint is the URL that you use to access mt cgi but instead of mt cgi at the end it s mt xmlrpc cgi For example if you typically use the URL httpz www foo comvcgi bin mt mt cgi to access mt cgi you would use http www foo com cgi bin mt mt xmlrpc cgi as the XML RPC Server URL 8 5 Security Issues Any application has security issues of which you the user should be aware Because Movable Type is a server based application you and your hosting provider should be aware of web server security issues due to running CGI scripts not just Movable Type but any CGI script In addition as someone who is publishing personal information readable by the entire world you may be interested in blog security or the ability to create private blogs readable only by your close friends 8 5 1 Web Server Security As a web application Movable Type is more vulnerable to security problems than is a desktop application The system is a series of CGI scripts When the web server executes CGI scripts in most configurations they are executed as a non privileged user on the system That is as a user who does not have privileges to write to files in your home directory where your web accessible files are stored Because Movable Type needs to write files into your directories to publish your blog you must make some of your files and directories world writable This is a security risk on a shared se
35. b gt lt span gt lt a gt amp nbsp span class blosxomBody gt Sbody lt span gt br span class blosxomTime gt Sti a href Surl Syr Smo da Sfn gt permalink lt a gt lt span gt lt p gt Figure 9 7 Custom entry formatting permalink First Post 1 permalink All the prepended components are variables provided by Blosxom for use in your story html template They DIM The entry s filename Stitle The entry s title Sbody The entry s body pd Time of posting Du The weblog s base URL yr S mo S da Year month and day of posting In addition to the header footer CSS and entry templating support Blosxom provides natively you always hav additional options available You can pull a weblog s content into a server parsed shtml page using SSI hav content management system pull in Blosxom output and so on 9 11 Aggregating RSS with Blagg Blagg short for Blossom Aggregator affords Blosxom the ability to aggregate i e read and blog RSS syndicated feeds of many flavors 0 9 0 91 0 92 1 0 via a simple command line interface Blagg builds on the simple lightweight framework of Blosxom interspersing aggregated stories amongst original entries Blagg is maintained as a separate project from Blosxom because while it was designed with Blosxom in mind and is indeed fully integrated it has its own place as the basis for j
36. email addresses Unix commands and URLs as well as for new terms where they are defined Constant Width Used for code listings and for keywords variables tags functions command options and strings where they appear in the text Constant Width Bold Used to mark lines of output in examples Constant Width Italic Used as a general placeholder to indicate items that should be replaced by actual values This icon designates a note which is an important aside to the nearby text This icon designates a warning relating to the nearby text Comments Questions Please address comments and questions concerning this book to the publisher O Reilly amp Associates Inc 1005 Gravenstein Highway North Sebastopol CA 95472 800 998 9938 in the United States or Canada 707 829 0515 international local 707 829 0104 fax There is a web page for this book that lists errata examples or any additional information You can access this page at http www oreilly com catalog essblogging To comment or ask technical questions about this book send email to bookquestions oreilly com For more information about books conferences Resource Centers and the O Reilly Network see the O Reilly web site at http www oreilly com Acknowledgments We would like to thank the following people for their generous contributions to this book DJ
37. is problematical with IE 6 0 even with published workarounds Hopefully BlogThis will be fixed by the time you read this In the meantime you can use the second approach which is to add a link to the Blog This functionality in your toolbar To manually add BlogThis to your browser toolbar go to Blogger help at http publicmind blogger com enduser group sp node 171 This page contains instructions for adding BlogThis organized by operating system and browser Click on the appropriate link and drag it to the toolbar to install BlogThis on your browser The currently supported operating systems are Windows and Mac OS and the currently supported browsers are IE and Mozilla To use BlogThis select text from a web page and then click the link in Favorites A page opens that asks for your Blogger login Once you provide this a second page opens that contains the quote and a link to the quote The hypertext link generated surrounds the name of the blog name as pulled from the page title If you re using Blogger Pro there s an updated version of Blog This accessible from the Blogger Pro main web page http pro blogger com Drag the specified link to IE s Links toolbar to install Once installed the Blogger Pro version works in a manner similar to the standard Blogger version select the text to quote and click the Blog This button on the toolbar A window opens containing the quoted material with title and the ability to post it to
38. or you can use the pre bui oite Meter provides by supplying your Blogger ID You can find your Blogger ID by looking at the URL when yo your blog in Blogger Once you provide the ID and your username and password as shown in Figure 6 16 cli Site Meter to Template button Figure 6 16 Service to add Site Meter support to the blog The Site Meter service invokes the Blogger API to embed the Site Meter code within the template without any on your part The code it adds is shown in Example 6 7 Example 6 7 Generated Site Meter code embedded using XML RPC based Blogger API nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie aded from fib ommolfcetab ir lt WEBBOT bot HTMLMarkup startspan ALT Site Meter script type text javascript language JavaScript gt var Site sl3essential lt script gt script type text javascript language JavaScriptl1 2 src http sl3 sitemete counter js site sl3essential lt Scri t gt lt noscript gt lt a href 2 http si3 sitemeter com stats asp site sl3essential target top img src http si3 sitemeter com meter asp site sl3essential alt Site Meter border 0 gt lt a gt S ness op lt 1 Copyright c 2002 Site Meter gt 1 WEBBOT bot HTMLMarkup Endspan gt After publishing the blog page you ll see the Site Meter indicator at the bottom Click on the icon to open the S statistics for the page shown in Figure 6 17 The statistics are accessible only wit
39. problem The single most sophisticated feature in Radio is that its architecture is both open and understandable It can be a bit inconsistent at times like all products but its very very open The meaning of this for you the user is that Radio doesn t lock you in If you need to figure out how to do something you can If you need control of your blog data it s available For a detailed look underneath the hood of Radio and how a user can examine it see http www fuzzygroup com go radioExposed 7 6 Important Radio URLs Radio provides standard URLs to many different aspects of your blog These are listed below so that you understand them All these URLs are available to anyone who knows they exist URL Explanation http yourblog rss xml RSS feed for your blog htto yourblog stories Master list of all your stories in Radio htto yourblog categories All your categories http yourblog gems mySubscriptions opm URLs to all the RSS feeds to which you subscribe Access to all months of your posts Substitute 2002 or the specific year Access to all months of your posts Substitute 04 for the month or the desired month Access to all postings for a specific day Substitute 03 html for the third day of the month All the images in your images directory You might also have htto yourblog images another directory for images to separate your blog specific images from images that R
40. 0022 UploadUmask 0022 DirUmask 0022 5 Save mt cfg and exit the text editor 5 2 6 Installing Files Now that you have decided where your files will be located and have configured the system accordingly you are ready to install the application and create the necessary directories 5 2 6 1 Connecting to your web server Open your FTP program and open an FTP connection to your web server If the directory where you chose to install Movable Type in Installation Directories does not yet exist create it Then open that directory 5 2 6 2 Uploading the application Upload all of the files in the Movable Type directory to your web server Upload these files folders in ASCII mode docs lib mt cfg styles css tmpl and all of the CGI scripts mt cgi etc Upload these files folders in Binary mode image Note be careful when uploading your files as certain files must be uploaded in ASCII mode whereas others must be uploaded in binary mode If you get it wrong the system will not work If you are installing Movable into your cgi bin remember that you need to upload docs images and styles css into the directory outside of the cgi bin that you chose earlier in Section 5 2 4 Set the permissions on the following files to 755 mt cgi mt comments cgi mt add notify cgi mt check cgi mt xmlrpc cgi and mt send entry cgi you are using your graphical FTP client to set the permissions 755 permissi
41. I will go on the road and get a hug in person some of those bloggers whose virtual touches have transformed my unexpected and isolating situations into an extended family party am still on a quest for older wiser bloggers If you know of any send them my way Elaine Frankonis have met people because of my weblog even got my present job because of it I try to use it as an alternative communication media don t write every day usually write something about a subject I think will be interesting maybe from the news maybe one thought about life and then let people comment about it or share different opinions and use the blog as a little debate space Them when the comments slow down I write again another subject and the process starts again Sometimes also write about myself or a movie too Javi Loureiro Barcelona Spain http www sieyin com First if you are using a blog because it s important to you whether that s in a metaphysical sense or a business sense you should make sure that you have more than one way to post l m a Blogger Pro member but I also keep a bare bones API site in my bookmarks www teknik net misfit for times when I m on the road with my PDA which doesn t support the right IE functions or when the Pro publishing engine is out of whack Second realize that your blog doesn t have to be your whole site In my case have the blog with my images tucked away so that someone visiting for th
42. Inc While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book the publisher and the author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein Blogging has exploded Every day 1 500 3 000 new bloggers join the Internet That s a staggering number of new voices new opinions and new experiences You can join these bloggers all it takes is some software and something to say We ve written this book to help you quickly get up and running with the software There are many different choices for blogging software with names running the gamut from the obvious Blogger to the literary Movable Type to the bizarre Blosxom Everyone who blogs has an opinion about the software they use and often about software they don t use This book tries to take a balanced look at some representative blogging tools and to show you how to use them to produce a unique blog worthy of your thoughts We start by defining a blog and how the various blogging tools differ in features price and ease of use The first chapter will help you find a blogging system The second chapter surveys some programs that can make posting and maintaining a blog easier regardless of which tool you choose The rest of the book is devoted to the tools For each tool we show you how to install and configure it post to and maintain your blog cu
43. Movable Type allows you to set permissions for most tasks supported by the application For example if you trust a certain author you could give that author the permission to edit all posts If you distrust the design sense of one of your authors you might not want to give that author permission to edit the site templates 5 7 Uploading an Image Movable makes it simple to upload images to your web server and can even automatically create thumbnails of the images that you upload For example if you have a digital camera or a scanner you might want to place pictures that you have taken onto your web site In the left hand navigation click Upload File In the pop up window Figure 5 27 click the Browse button to select an image you would like to upload from your hard drive Then click Upload to upload the file Figure 5 27 Uploading a file MOVABLE TYPE Personal Publishing System gt MV ABLE Lhi I disneyland jpqg Browse destimatrion j 1 tt i th OT o I t s Movable tells you the size of the uploaded image and gives you the option to create a new entry with either a link to the image or an embedded version of the image Figure 5 28 In addition the system gives you the option to create a thumbnail To do so click the Create a Thumbnail checkbox and adjust the size of the thumbnail using the form For exam
44. Pretty impressive really Ryan A MacMichael http www laze net fait Blogging isn t just a weblog It is a way to share your opinions and thoughts to the rest of the world If you post interesting things share links with other bloggers and post comments on other blogs Linking is the way of the Web that is the key to successful blogging Greg Hard http www tssaddicts com You maintain a weblog because it interests you not because there is an audience for it If you do it because people are watching you then what you do is not weblogging Just playing a musical instrument where you can play for the enjoyment of it and you can play for others to listen to but they are different activities That being said if you do have an audience then treat them well and they will treat you well Lindsay Marshall http catless ncl ac uk Lindsay weblog latest html As Dave Winer says it s the two way web Blogging really enables me to have a conversation with an audience with feedback via comments and mail In February of 2002 decided I d like my blog audience to be able to contact me more directly considered publishing my instant messaging ID but didn t want to constrain my audience to using the same system as also didn t want have to maintain too many persistent IM buddy relationships solved the issue by building a small browser based chat window and embedding it right in my blog People can come and visit my
45. This loads the item text into the editing window where you can many modifications as you want For instance you can modify the new posting you made in the last section by embedding an image in the posti a graphic to the new post load it for editing then add an img tag pointing to the URL of the graphic wherever i In the example we borrow O Reilly Network s Web DevCenter image to use In practice you shouldn t point without the owner s permission as explained in Chapter 1 Once the posting is loaded into the Edit window add the following HTML tag just before the content img src http www oreillynet com images javascript javascript logo jpg align right vspace 10px hspace 10px gt This embeds the image into the page aligned to the right of the posting text with a 10 pixel vertical and horizo To see the results of adding the image click the Post amp Publish button to both save the content to the Blogger as well as publish the modified posting to your blog Figure 3 9 shows the blog with the image added Figure 3 9 Blog page showing new posting including image Geena ialt Inceraer Explorer L pee Fyi oh eru e 2 d smart h aree i aes VEU bleep cory STET TB TER ET POWER PUBLISHING Miyou oer waned Sunday June 09 20072 tn know mantzining a Aet here foe o F WHOMLIN eae ts zi
46. User Prompt 5 Promp Enter the URL pou want to link to Cancel htp Zwei areis comi To add HTML formatting yourself create a new entry in your blog by clicking your mouse in the top window an the cursor at the start of the text edit block Type in the paragraph as shown in Example 3 1 using the Blogge to add the HTML tags shown in the text or by typing the tags directly Example 3 1 Posting containing HTML formatting lt b gt Blogger lt b gt is a weblogging tool that s accessed online It can be found at the href http blogger com Blogger web site lt a gt and takes i very little effort lt create either an account or your first weblog Once you ve seen how easy weblogg be you ll wonder why you didn t try weblogging sooner Don t worry about the line breaks type in the content until the line automatically wraps Once you re finished s content without publishing it by clicking the Post button This stores your posting in the Blogger database but add it to your blog This allows you to check the posting for typos and to review the HTML formatting in the window before publishing Once you re satisfied with the text and formatting click the Publish button to publish the content 3 5 2 Modifying Entries and Adding Images Up until this point you ve only added new blog entries In the Edit view window click the link labeled Edit local beneath the item to change an existing entry
47. accessible then a public html directory that is the root of the web accessible area Placing the database outside of the web accessible area prevents web browsers from seeing any of your database content placing it in the cgi bin directory has the same effect 5 2 4 3 The location of your blog directories Now you need to determine where to place the directories that will hold your blog files These directories determine the URL that visitors will come to when they wish to view your blog There are two directories one for your main blog index files and one for the archives The directories can be the same if you d like them to be Note the path to the directories that you choose because you will be creating them in Section 5 2 6 later in this chapter 5 2 5 Configuring The Movable Type system configuration is stored in the file called mt cfg This file contains system wide settings such as where your Movable Type databases are stored and the URL used to access the Movable Type system from a web browser On the computer where you unpacked the Movable Type archive find the mt cfg file and open it in a text editor 1 Change the line starting with CG Path to point to the URL where you chose to install the application in Section 5 2 4 Make sure your URL contains a forward slash at the end For example if you are installing Movable Type at http www your site com movabletype you would change the CG Path line to CGIP
48. administration that stil L im i a Fae ae LP ITI T downloaded from fib ommolfcetab ir im 5 1 Why Use a Server Based Solution Currently Movable Type is not an out of the box solution And of all the software options profiled in this book it would be the package voted most likely to require a thorough read of the manuals Still a growing number of bloggers diarists and developers are choosing Movable as the solution for their blogging and site maintenance needs Independence and control are primary reasons for choosing this server based solution While you accept a more proactive role as maintainer of the system installing and upgrading the software yourself you reap the benefits of reliability accessibility and customization 5 1 1 Independence from a Central Server Because you install the software on your own server or on server space offered by a hosting provider you are not reliant on a central server that may be subject to universal network outages due to system maintenance and upgrades However this is not to say that a server based application is not susceptible to inaccessibility due to server outages If you opt to install Movable Type on server space provided by a hosting provider be aware that the quality of the provider greatly affects the overall performance of the application If you install Movable and subsequently host your blog with a provider th
49. another blog to manage the projects projects themselves are sorted using categories To create a new blog log in to Movable Type then select the Create a New Blog link You need to name your blog and fill in the paths and URLs for the new blog These values can be determined in the same way as when configuring your first Movable Type blog See Section 5 2 4 in Chapter 5 for more information on selecting your blog directories and Section 5 3 2 in Chapter 5 for information on setting these values For example if you have a blog whose Local Site Path is currently home foo public html news the Local Site Path for the new blog that you create might be home foo public html projects This might correspond to the URL htto www foo com projects for your Site URL When you create a new blog you as the author who created the blog are given full permissions to the blog This means that you can post manage templates rebuild edit authors and so on Other authors currently in the system will not by default be allowed access to the new blog you have created You can grant permission to existing authors by editing their permissions and associating them with the new blog Because you may not wish to grant all your authors the ability to create new blogs in the system the permission to create a new blog can be disabled for an author 8 6 6 Displaying Entries on Other Pages A common scenario is one in which you have a personal site httpz www
50. as a URL If you have local picture files on your computer you can use Radio s upstreamingfeature to upload your pictures to the server where your blog is located Upstreaming occurs every 10 seconds when Radio is running This time interval can be set using Prefs if you need to change it Upstreaming can also be turned off by right clicking the Radio icon located in the Windows System Tray Upstreaming works when your blog is located at radio weblogs com usernumy as well as when you use FIP to publish your blog to your own site To upstream a picture or pictures to your blog open the wwwfolder contained in the folder where Radio is installed On Windows this is usually C lprogram files Radio UserLanda Find a picture or pictures on your filesystem and drag them into the myPictures folder that was created for you when Radio was installed Provided that you have an Internet connection Radio will automatically upstream any pictures you moved into the directory and save them into your myPictures folder on your server Once the picture has been upstreamed to your blog you can insert it into a blog posting or link to it using the Folder command Selecting the Folder command from the Radio command bar displays all the files and directories located on your server in the www directory as in Figure 4 29 Figure 4 29 The Folder view Mice onal Internet Esplorer EB gk wes weak
51. counters Extreme Tracking system trolls troubleshooting Blogger self hosting Movable Type installation nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie nioaded from lib ommolketab ir SYMBOL A B C D E F EG H 1 K L EM N O P Q R S T U V W X EY Z uploading Movable Type and pictures upstream server Radio blog pages and upstreaming Radio UserLand and URLs Uniform Resource Locators Radio UserLand 2nd Userland username Blogger account setup XML RPC API settings im SYMBOL A B C D E F G EH 1 K L M N P Q R IST T U V W X Y Z variable tags Movable Type viewing blogs Blosxom T EEFAITI LE nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie nioaded from lib ommolketab ir SYMBOL A B C D E F EG H 1 K L EM N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z w bloggar Windows web server security Movable Type and Web Services Radio UserLand and Weblog ID setting Blogger API weblogs Blosxom Wheaton Wil Ensign Crusher Williams Evan Windows backups blogBuddy Radio UserLand installation w bloggar Winer Dave Weblogs com Wired magazine writer blogs Radio UserLand writing content Radio UserLand www al161 com blog html www boingboing net www clownagama com www edmurray org www ericd net www imaginaryworld net www laze net fai
52. doesn t have sufficiently advanced JavaScript there s simply a rectangular text box and no toolbar In this case you must create your blog posts using HTML See Learning Web Design O Reilly if you are in this situation and don t know HTML 4 6 5 Saving Without Publishing The Post to Weblog button below the editing panel saves your content and publishes it This forces you to go live with things that might not be ready To save an entry without publishing set your Radio preferences to have both Post and Publish buttons off Choose the Prefs link on the Desktop Website s command bar Under the Weblog grouping click on the Three Buttons or One option A checked box corresponds to three buttons an unchecked box to one Check it to enable separate Post and Publish buttons Click the Submit button then select the Home link at the top left of the command bar to continue adding new entries If you don t see three buttons where the previous Post button was Refresh the browser You should now see something like Figure 4 22 Figure 4 22 Separate Post and Publish buttons WYSIWYG C Source TI E Link Publish Fost amp Publish The Post button saves the material to your local database The Publish button makes it public and the Post amp Publish button does both Fast 4 7 Publishing Your Blog By default Radio upstreams to radio weblogs com This is a service
53. ev Bowers zhal agdhbumingbir nat Surrers Berd http faa bBurrabird nct s 18 2007 03 49 16 This noct iz going to demonstrate how to znell your weblog You T find that the Slogger spall checker E very simae to that of Microsoft 5 apalki Biker D3 47 54 AH Tucsdoy May 14 IE zen s that d accessad i Eus at the uh an tabu ver aT imis tz Coe oF ar ot mnb Or ce DUE nap m y be vou ety yum Rr M 5 14 2007 11 Pii u3 AM EE As you can see we didn t remove the email signature which ended up being appended to the post Another email feature with Blogger Pro is the ability to send an email to a given email address when new material is posted The email address is also supplied in the Settings Email view in the field labeled BlogSend Address When set new posts are sent to the specified email address either an individual s email address or an email list 6 1 3 Future and Draft Posting Another very nice new feature of Blogger Pro is the draft posting With this you can work on a draft of a blog posting save it and then return to it to finish at a later time If you want to save a posting as a draft but not publish it create the posting as usual but before you post it access the Options icon from the Blogger toolbar In the window that opens click the checkbox that says the posting is a draft When you save the posting you ll find that it s been
54. foo com and a blog htto www foo com blog In other words this is a scenario where your main site does not contain your blog entries instead you have a separate index of those entries However you would like to display the most recent entry from your blog on your main site to draw visitors into your blog and to keep your site timely You can use Movable Type s index templates to easily distribute your blog content out to different pages of your site even if those pages are not otherwise connected with the Movable system Index templates are essentially output channels for your content You can use them to push your blog content into syndicated format RSS templates into a pool of entries for random selection Section 8 6 1 into your standard site index your Main Index template and so on To include the most recent entry on your blog in a page unconnected to Movable Type you first need to set up an index template containing only the most recent entry Note that this technique still applies if you would rather display the 2 3 or however many most recent entries All that needs to be changed is the number below in the iastn attribute 1 Log into Movable and select the blog containing your entries Click the Templates button to manage your templates Click on the Create New Index Template link x oet the name of the template to Most Recent Entry set the Output file to recent html and set t
55. html 4 8 1 Creating Stories To create a story click on the Stories link on the Radio command bar Scroll down to the bottom of the list Click the Create New Story option to add to this list This brings up an editing window like Figure 4 27 Figure 4 27 Creating a new story The story is displayed in an editing window similar to the editing window where a post is created A key difference is the presence of the Title field which must be filled in to save the story Enter your story as if it were a normal Radio post Click the Create New Story button to save your story when you are ready to save it and make it available If you write a series of stories such as articles on marketing it can be useful to title each story with a common keyword or prefix For example in a series of articles on marketing for high tech companies you might use the prefix Marketing 101 4 8 2 Editing Stories To edit a story click on the Stories link on the Radio command bar From the list of all stories that is displayed click the story you want to edit The story is displayed as a user sees it Click on the Edit This Page button at the bottom of the screen The story is displayed in an editing window similar to the editing window where a post is created the difference is that the size of the editing window is the length of the story not a fixed height Make your changes and click the Post Changes button Besides editing stories you
56. http www movabletype org docs mtmanual html If you are having trouble with the system support forums are available through http www movabletype org support For some of the features that will be in future versions of Movable Type see the section of Chapter 5 ee Chapter 9 Minimalist Blogging with Blosxom Blosxom pronounced Blossom is a lightweight yet feature packed weblog application designed from the ground up with simplicity usability and interoperability in mind Fundamental is its reliance upon the filesystem folders and files as its content database Blosxom s weblog entries are plain text files Write from the comfort of your favorite text editor and hit the Save button Create edit rename and delete entries on the command line via FTP WebDAV or anything else you might use to manipulate your files There s no import or export entries are nothing more complex than title on the first line body being everything thereafter Despite its tiny footprint at the time of this writing a mere 61 lines of Perl code Blosxom sports the majority of features one would find in any other weblog application multiple weblogs under just one installation multiple authors anyone with access to the filesystem may be a full fledged blogger daily monthly and individual entry permalink archives and RSS content syndication to name but a few Blosxom s simplicity brings wi
57. http www raelity org lang perl blosxom download blosxom Download Blosxom by visiting the Blosxom home page right clicking that s Ctrl clicking if you re on a Macintos the download link and saving the file to your hard drive Alternately from the OS X or Unix command line you make use of CUAL or the like and simply say curl O http www raelity org lang perl blosxom downloads blosxom With the ubiquitous wget wget http www raelity org lang perl blosxom downloads blosxom Or via the Lynx text based web browser lynx source http www raelity org lang perl blosxom downloads blosxom gt blc 9 3 Installing Blosxom Now that you have Blosxom you re just a few short steps away from your first blog entry Customizing Blosxom for your particular environment requires just a couple of simple configuration changes Open the blosxom script in your favorite text editor First make sure the first line of the script 4 usr bin perl w correctly identifies the location of your Perl interpreter If you re unsure and have access to the command line type which perl usr local bin perl Copy and paste the resulting output after the in the blosxom script e g usr local bin perl w If you don t have access to the command line ask your service provider or system administrator for help Be sure there s no space between the and the path to Perl About the only thi
58. in to Movable and select the blog containing your entries Click the Templates button to manage your templates Click on the Create New Archive Template link xw dI oet the name of the archive template to RSS Archives and set the body of the template to the following lt xml version 1 0 gt generator Movable Type lt SMTVersions gt gt lt rss version 0 91 gt lt channel gt lt title gt lt SMTBlogName encode_html 1 gt lt SMTArchiveTitles gt lt title gt lt link gt lt SMTArchiveLink gt lt link gt lt description gt My MTArchiveTitle Entries lt description gt lt language gt en us lt language gt lt webMaster gt lt webMaster gt lt lastBuildDate gt lt MTEntries lastn 1 gt lt SMTEntryDate format SY Sm SdT H 3M SS S gt lt SMTBlogTimezones gt lt MTEntries gt lt lastBuildDate gt lt pubDate gt lt SMTDate format SY Sm SdTSH 5M S S S gt lt SMTBlogTimezones gt lt pubDate gt lt MTEntries lastn 15 gt lt item gt O O N o p 10 11 12 13 lt title gt lt SMTEntryTitle encode_html 1 gt lt title gt lt description gt lt SMTEntryExcerpt encode_html 1 gt lt description gt lt link gt lt SMTEntryLink gt lt link gt lt item gt lt MTEntries gt lt channel gt oave the template Click on the Blog Config button to edit your blog configuration Click the Archiving link in the top right subnavigation
59. iz a weblogging tool that s accessed arlire it be found at the Blogger web site and takes very 7 Scott Johnsen effort bo ether an account or your first Cory octerom eblog Once you ve sean how casy weblogging can and Hens Trott be voull wonder why you didnt ty webloggng Rael Soo mar Shelley Powers 2 24 AM Archive 20 The new blogroll HTML is indented the example After modifying the template save the changes and publish the main blog page The page should look similar to that shown in Figure 6 9 When you re satisfied with the change republish all the archives to pick up the template change This example just has plain HTML added to the template The example in the next section manipulates works with the Blogger template tags to add titles to the blog posts 6 3 2 Adding a Blogger Pro Title One difference between Blogger Pro and standard Blogger is a Title field right above the text edit box in the Edit view page This field allows you to add titles to your post a popular practice among bloggers and an important modification if you re interesting in using RSS and other aggregation technologies In addition titles give your readers something to refer to when they talk about your posts another thing you want to encourage To turn the Title field on and off access the Settings view Click on the Formatting tab and when the page opens scroll down
60. just another blog select some text and then click a link that ll open a Blogger window that includes the highlighted text and a hypertext reference to the page You can edit the text as much as you want When you re finished click a button and the material is then posted to your blog with no other required effort This is particularly handy if you quote and reference material in other blogs No more having to select copy paste and create a link when you want to quote another blogger To enable BlogThis access the Settings view and scroll down to the bottom of the page There are two links in the page each corresponding to a different way to get BlogThis functionality One link points to a registry file that can be downloaded and then run against your registry The second link adds BlogThis manually as a link to your Favorites menu To update the registry right click on the registry file link and select the Install Blog This option A window opens providing some feedback Click OK to open another window to download the file or run it from the current location choose the option to save the registry file to your drive Once the file is downloaded open the file When prompted to update the registry specify Yes to update the Registry In theory you can now select text and right click on it to get a menu that lets you create a new blog entry from the selected text Unfortunately at the time of this writing the registry version of Blog This
61. macro nioaded from lib ommolketab ir Parameter Default Value Meaning maxPosts 25 Maximum number of posts to display maxTitleLength infinite Maximum length of title titles will be truncated to this length flIncludeWhen true List the dates of the posts as well as their titles Catname a Category of posts empty string means all cellSpacing 0 Cell spacing for the table o0 to display a Recent Posts list but truncate the titles at 50 characters you d use radio macros recentTitledBlogPosts maxTitleLength 50 To raise the number of posts to 50 radio macros recentTitledBlogPosts maxPosts 50 gt To add 5 pixels between each line in the post lists and between the title and the data i e set the cellspacing attribute of the HTML table that displays the posts radio macros recentTitledBlogPosts cellSpacing 5 gt To give 10 posts a title length of 50 characters with no dates and 5 pixels of cell spacing radio macros recentTitledBlogPosts maxPosts 50 maxTitleLength 50 flIncludeWhen false cellSpacing 5 gt To add this macro to your template underneath your calendar 1 Update your Radio root file as described earlier in Chapter 3 Click on the Prefs link in the Radio command bar In the Templates group of links click on the Home Page template Find the call to lt drawcalendar 5 ph x o M Add the Recent Posts macro after the call to drawcalendar Exactly where to put it in t
62. myPictures directory When you use FTP these files are moved up to the server and deleted from the myPictures directory An additional limitation is that Radio s linking mechanism via the Folder command does not show the correct URL for FTP d files You will have to correct the URLs that Radio creates 4 9 5 Using the MyPictures Tool In the preceding sections we discussed manually uploading individual image files This is fine when you have only a few images but what about when you have many images The MyPictures tool monitors a specific folder on your computer and automatically uploads any images placed to a folder where your blog resides The MyPictures tool is not enabled by default To turn it on click on the Tools link in the Radio command bar Tools are extensions to Radio that give it new features This displays all installed tools Click on the MyPictures link Clicking the MyPictures link gives you the configuration options for MyPictures as shown in Figure 4 30 Figure 4 30 MyPictures Preferences 1 UITIUM xi Vue Perce Too 3 j Gelert afere ler di d 5 rri grin fu SE FEE kg ET a e e e e a LM a m p E ON The FuzzyBlagl NM NE a E_n DEC s Radio Bad zs Shoetouts Exentz Themes Deets Grete Hed Ju 2g P My Pictures Tool 7 n at My Fitues Toole mnsblec id the ndisted folder w
63. on a regular basis you can end up being swamped in the most unexpected ways Chris Carline http chris carline org My blog s not all that special I m not an A lister but my readership is decent enough a small community of friends and a few people don t know personally However one of my entries seemed to really start a fire and draw a crowd http www laze net fai archive 2001 05 01 archive phpz3850765 In this entry discuss a random charge to my credit card by PORNOTHERAPY NET When searched on the Web for information about this company there was nothing to be found However Google spidered my site shortly after posted my experience and hosts of people started flocking to my blog entry sharing their experiences their hypotheses about how our credit card numbers were stolen and who they thought was responsible htto www laze net fait comments php 3850765 The domain was traced to an Alex Perman and one visitor even went so far as to post pictures to his web site of the adaress that was listed on the domain s WHOIS record It amazed me how simple entry on my blog one that wasn t any more or less notable than any others on my site managed to draw such a crowd It sparked a mini militia While the mystery of Alex Perman and Pornotherapy net Sexmedic org was never really solved that one entry showed me the power of blogging random communities forming around common experiences to solve a problem
64. placed into Drafts rather than the current window in the Posts view at the bottom of the Edit view page The draft will remain as a draft until you edit it again and uncheck the draft checkbox Note though that the date the draft was created will be the one used for publication If you want it to be current remove the date and timestamp or overwrite it with one of your own and click the Set Post Date Time checkbox You can also create a future posting by again editing a post accessing the Options and then supplying a future date and time of the post as shown in Figure 6 5 Any posts with a posting date past the current time appear in the Future posts window until that time is met or past Once the time is met they re moved to the Current post window Figure 6 5 Setting a future posting date 3 xj Post Options Mark as Draft do publish Seb post date time i 2 01 2002 12 00 00 HIDAT Y 557 Help Cancel Future blog postings won t actually post when the time of the posting comes around They ll only post when you next do a manual blog publication after the posting date has passed 6 1 4 Image Uploads It s fairly common to include images within your blog posts You ve already tried this manually in Chapter 3 Blogger Pro provides a technique that allows you to upload images through the tool rather than having to upload them through an FTP program and then work with them i
65. poets Sane poenis iron his If it looks like your archive files didn t move when you made the switch turn archiving off then back on and republish all the archives This should solve the missing archive file links Once switched try out the features of this expanded version of Blogger 6 1 1 Spellchecking Unless you re one of those unusual people who seems to naturally know how to spell every word correctly you ll misspell words in your posts Blogger Pro provides help for bloggers in the form of easy access to a spellchecking service you can use to check your content before you post it for public consumption To demonstrate the spellchecker create a new post and add the following text containing misspelled words This post is goin to demonstrte how to spellcheck your weblog You ll find that the Blogger spll checker is very similar to that of Microsoft s spellchcker Before you post click the ABC icon on the Blogger toolbar this opens up access to the spellchecker as shown in Figure 6 2 Figure 6 2 Spellchecker accessible through Pro Blogger SpellChecker net Microsoft Interne This post is to how to spellcheck your weblog You ll find that the Blogger is very similar to that of Microsoft s Change to change to Suggestions F a pemen omen All groin ial gin red By a Spe nct 1 rcker net goon Each suspect word is underlined i
66. preference screens each with one or more options To make configuring Radio easier we are going to make the following assumptions about how you blog with Radio e You are both a writer and a router That is you both write new content for your blog and comment on news items Radio s news preferences as set to the defaults are usually correct for most users and don t need to be changed e Your blog is hosted at httpz radio weblogs com usernunv e You want one or more categories for your blog Categories which are covered fully in Chapter 7 let you group related blog posts together This is useful for readers because they can see like items in one place Even though the Radio Prefs screen includes the look and feel of your blog this is complex enough that we cover it separately in Chapter 7 and not in this section 4 6 1 Blog Title and Description To set or change the title and description of your blog select Title and Description from the Weblog group of preferences Enter the title of your entire blog e g The Sherlock Holmes Casebook This is shown at the top of your blog Then enter a description of what s in your blog e g Gossip from 221B Baker Street Click the Submit button to save your changes The description appears under the title 4 6 2 Blogdex or Navigator Links To create or edit your list of links select Prefs from the Radio command bar Select Navigator links This brings up a form with a text box whe
67. purposes explained later FTP Archive path The relative location of archive files Leave blank to put the archives into same directory as the main blog pages specified in FTP path Figure 3 14 shows the Blogger settings after the information is added Notice that we left the FTP username and password blank This is for security purposes if Blogger is ever compromised your web site could also be compromised if the crackers obtain your username and password You re better off providing this information once per session than storing it in the Blogger database Figure 3 14 Changing settings to publish blog on your personal web server Unfortunately your username and password are transmitted over the network as plain text This is a security risk as this information can be sniffed by specialized packet sniffing software giving someone access to your username and password Once you ve made the changes save them and return to the Edit view page To publish the pages at the new site click the Publish button Because you didn t supply an FTP username and password you are prompted for the username and password as shown in Figure 3 15 Figure 3 15 Prompt for web server username and password BLOGGER als Essential Blogger Please bog into your FTP server LIfe ale password You must republish all your archive files to restore the archive links and to move these files to your server First make sure the archive
68. r Peeing Glee of Fame 12 27 12 Pra A Fleeting Glimpse of Fame kiem Cane ine Rust iid bn ma Hmmm guess have to weite some mare soot The important parts of the Desktop Website are Radio command bar Links to the different commands in Radio Home News Stories etc Formatting tools and linking options Tools for formatting and linking your content font size color etc Editing window Where you type your blog post Editing options Under Windows you can edit text graphically WYSIWYG or what you see is what you get complete with fonts and pictures or you can use straight HTML Post to weblog Publish your blog entry to the Internet Previous 10 posts List of your previous posts 4 3 Visual Tour of Using Radio In this section we walk through Radio illustrating all the common steps that a new user takes This starts with making your first post checking that it gets to the Internet correctly changing your preferences switching your theme and using the News feature to post to your blog View this section as an introduction only these features are covered more detail later in this chapter and in Chapter 7 To make your first post type anything you want into the editing box you see on the Desktop Website home page shown in Figure 4 7 Figure 4 7 Desktop Website home page Parga ph a I coder B fy Ec l i
69. readers are stil at the Stncthy Business show m Minneapols leit my laptop power adapter plugged mto the wall near the front of Room 1016 at the convention center If you could grab it that would be very cool Figure 1 21 A special typographic character used to indicate a permanent link on Rael Dornfest s Blosxom blog iPod iDiet I confirmed the possibly apocryphal story of James Duncan Davidson s iPod diet It seems he lost around 40 lbs by strapping on an iPod and briskly meandenng San Francisco Aside I m still walng between James and Duncan alternating on every Invacation with lean toward the latter Figure 1 22 An abbreviation permalink used to indicate a permanent link on Dangerous Meta 7 mmm Poses s gm om dnm 1 E E ri 10 avis i discuss permalink i reves reer ome santa fe new mexican more backcountry area closures darnit cnn another wildfire in new mexico and daltons AO contained until july s rainy season i fear this may be a We O CCLIITerice still running in throttle back mode back to top rs a loaded from fib ommolfcetab ir 1 4 Syndication Rich Site Summary RSS is a data format that allows computers to exchange files containing summaries of stories Each story typically has a title location and possibly a brief synopsis RSS is extremely simple and is expressed using standards defi
70. resize images to small thumbnails sufficient to give your readers an idea of what they ll see If they follow the link This is both a principle of fair use of others copyrighted works and a means of reducing the load time for your page Figure 1 12 The post picture e Use the height width and ait attributes in your image tags which reduce load times for your readers e f you re worried about copyright send a note to the image s author asking for permission before posting 1 3 3 The Posting The nice thing about blogs is that they re infinite There s no word limit no copy fit no sense of filling up all the space you have If you want to write a 10 000 word polemic about your subject go ahead and pound on the keyboard like a Fox celebrity boxer That said blog entries typically come in packs you hardly ever get a blog entry all on its lonesome So the tradition is to keep blog entries short a screenful or less Postings to Jorn Barger s Robot Wisdom weblog are a single punchy sentences Movable Type and some other blogging engines allow you to create a preview block of text that links to a full text block for longer entries Infinite space aside as with all writing your blog entry should take exactly as many words as it needs to make its point and not one word more Figure 1 13 The post body Chob sez Great site devoted to Wals ongmal plans for EPCOT I hadn t been to the site for a while but when 1 v
71. script mt load cgi script Perl scripts Movable Type permanent links pictures MyPictures tool pasting from Internet Explorer Radio UserLand posts uploading to Internet upstreaming piracy claims of entertainment industry Plucky POP accounts Mail to Weblog and Post to Weblog button Radio UserLand posting Blogger and posts 2nd blocks of text Blogger adding entries archives bold text CSS styles date and time editing 2nd formatting formatting entries formatting HTML images italic text line breaks links managing Notepad and ordering Blogger Pro drafts email format headlines images nloaded from lib ommolketab ir nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie nioaded from lib ommolketab ir length Mail to Weblog Movable Type custom editing screen displaying on other pages number of days Movable Type creating Radio UserLand categories assigning comments initial listing recent pictures routing Saving without publishing themes titles 2nd size downloading and stories and templates Radio UserLand title writing Radio UserLand preferences Radio UserLand links preview text profiles Blogger publishing blogs Blogger Directory Radio UserLand events and Radio UserLand FTP and Movable Type global publishing radio weblogs com republishing RSS feeds pull models news Punk Rock Girl push models news Pyra Labs information storage EE 2 Ia SYMBOL A B C D E F
72. section the modifications were applied to the associated archive file as well as the main blog page Not all changes are reflected this way if you customize the template or choose a new default template you have to republish the archive pages to pick up this change 3 6 1 Generating New Archives To generate new archive files due to a change in the template click on the Archive button on the Blogger toolbar The Blogger Archive view page opens listing each archive file with icons next to it to republish or delete the specific archive file Because you ve just started your blog only one archive file is present as shown in Figure 3 10 Figure 3 10 Blogger Archive view To republish one specific archive just click the small recycle button next to the archive filename When you do a page opens providing the status of the republication process When finished this window closes and the new date and time the archive was republished is shown in the Last Saved column Note that occasionally a blog error page appears instead of a status page his usually means the Blogger system is under a great load at the time Wait about an hour and then republishing the archive file again this time you should be able to see the status page If you have more than one archive file you can click the Republish All button This forces a republication of all archive files disseminating any template change throughout all the archives Over time you might
73. subdirectory is created open the Archive view and then the archive settings Within the archive settings change the FTP Archive path to add the new subdirectory For instance in the Essentials blog we changed the path to usr local www vhosts essentials burningbird net htdocs archives Once you ve made this change save it and then open the Template view In the Template view add the subdirectory in front of the Archive filename in the link lt a href archives lt BlogArchiveFileName gt gt lt b gt Archives lt b gt lt a gt You ll also need to adjust the permalink for each posting In the Template view modify the permalink text to the following span class byline gt posted by BlogItemAuthor at lt a href archives BloglItemArchiveFileName lt BlogItemNumberS gt gt BlogItemDateTime lt a gt lt span gt lt div gt Once these changes are saved republish all your archive files first and then the main blog page If all goes well your archive files appear in the new subdirectory and you ll be able to access them from your blog page You ll have to manually remove the previously generated archive files this action doesn t clean up the existing files Additionally don t forget to change the current reference in the Archive template to point to the main blog page directory 6 5 Adding Comments Unlike more traditional web pages
74. such as ordering comments in descending order recent comments on top whether the blog is puk and so on Add the information for your blog making sure to pick the Pop up Window option for opening the comments A change the No Comments text to Comments as shown in Figure 6 13 Figure 6 13 Providing basic comment information nloaded from fib ommolfcetab ie aded from fib ommolfcetab ir Be Ek We Fide Hep Beck dodo dAxech aeoe feds 23 Li d EE Fant Vigrdmra Tahoma Anel e5aosbe thet witi Zone GHT 6 00 16 5 03 56 PM nmmearnts Descendng recent comments an tap antt curt Ee nmen Iz your public apen the oTe A pireiup s nce r r a Link text fee 1 mii Darmani ICommante lum nets t eoresent the acb al ri mier archived One you re finished providing information on the page clicking the Modify Your Comments button will open a second window providing two options for installing the comments either manually using copy and paste or automatically Automatic comment installation uses the Blogger API to update your template as is demonstrated in the next section when you add a statistics counter to your blog page For now you ll add the Comment code directly yourself The generated code is shown in Exampl
75. templates Click on the Create New Index Template link Set the name of the template to Random Entry Pool set the Output file to entry pool dump and set the body of the template to the following lt MTEntries lastn 100 gt lt SMTEntryTitles gt SMTEntryLink lt SMTEntryExcerpts gt lt MTEntries gt 5 Save the template Now that you have created the index template whenever you post a new entry the file entry pool dump will be rebuilt It will always contain the last 100 entries that you have posted to your blog All that is left now is to write a script that will grab a random entry out of the random entry pool the file entry pool dump and display it This can be done in PHP Perl or any other language Here is a sample PHP solution which can be pasted directly into your template if you are already using PHP php Sfilename entry pool dump Sposts explode implode file Sfilename srand double microtime 1000000 lretionum Sit gach poslal Sit trim S5it while list num line each posts Sline trim Sline it o line Le 11t if rand 0 Snum 1 lt 1 Sit line list title Surl Sexcerpt explode n Sit 3 echo lt a href Surl gt Stitle lt a gt Sexcerpt lt br gt 2 8 6 2 Displaying the Last N Nonconsecutive Days of Entries In your blog configuration you can set the number of days of entr
76. the cost for a copy of Radio is 39 95 per year This covers the Radio software and hosting your blog at http radio weblogs com yYourUserNum The YourUserNum s a unique user number that is issued to every Radio download and distinguishes your blog from that of another user For example a UserNum of 0103087 gives the blog a location of http radio weblogs com 0103807 lf you download Radio and start using it but decide not to purchase it UserLand maintains the data on your blog for 30 days following the 30 day evaluation period to give you the opportunity to change your mind After this it is deleted 4 1 2 Installation These download instructions are for Radio 8 07 There might be a slightly more advanced version available by the time that you read this The same basic steps however should apply 4 1 2 1 Windows From your desktop double click the Radio installer it should be named something like RadioUserLand807Setup exe Your screen should look like Figure 4 1 Figure 4 1 Radio UserLand setup screen oaded from lib ommotketab ir bies thes pelari Si mee zee l eal Lisa ELT cei oe Crea iz and an program usd RW Dikh Eccl Pe pairar nal Pas oe ans pr ended Veni e ram d Ce a med ems d rem ira a iih inn cd En m r i Lies med rne Ae m s ir pra sure bi reign meg c m
77. time handy when you have blog readers from around the world To support this functionality we need to save our files as PHP based files To change the blog to generate files with a php extension access the Settings view and the Publishing tab In the page you ll want to change the blog filename to index php instead of index htm or index html whichever you already have Save this change If the archives also need the extension changed access the Archive view next Again change the archive filename to a php extension The same extension will be used for all archive files Though the Archive index file won t usually need to have the extension change it won t have server side script the filename is used as the basis for all other archive files which is why you ll need to make the extension name change Republish the archives and the main blog page The files are now saved as PHP files rather than HTML At this point you can open the blog template and add your server side script as you would a regular file 6 10 Exporting Blogger Data When you publish within Blogger you are in actuality exporting Blogger data in a templated format which just happens to be readable in a browser However there s no reason why you can t export the data using any other template As an example of this process if you eventually decide to move from Blogger to another blog tool such as Movable Type you can export y
78. tool you use to maintain your blog you may have to use a third party service to host your discussions On Boing Boing we use QuickTopic http www quicktopic com creating a new topic for each post some blogging tools have message boards built in With Movable Type for example you just check a box labeled Allow Comments when you re creating your post and Movable Type automatically generates a new discussion board and puts a link to it on your post Likewise Radio UserLand has an automated facility for adding discussion boards to blog entries Discussion boards can be a vital part of a healthy blog They transform your blog from a broadcast into a conversation where you and your readers can discuss the items you post Be warned though message boards abstract discussion away from the social cues that we use when we talk face to face Decent people can be breathtakingly abusive on a message board single jerk can ruin a fruitful discussion with persistent bile If you run a blog you will eventually attract such a jerk a troll in Internet parlance and he will make your life absolutely miserable When confronted with a troll you have three immediate temptations e argue back meeting fire with fire e delete the offending post e shut down the message board entirely Hesist these temptations Arguing back is fruitless Internet trolls live to engage otherwise sane people in pointless heated debate Deleting the post s
79. while trying te send file ts server JuzT 228 Goodies a prises This file usually gives you enough information to correct your settings such as providing the correct username or password or providing the correct FTP path Failure to publish can occur due to other causes If your web site is hosted on an ISP that also provides your connectivity through DSL modem or other means you might get a failure because the actual FTP is originating at Blogger s IP address rather than through the IP provided by the ISP If your ISP prohibits this as a security measure you ll need to check with them about how to work around the issue of hosting your Blogger pages AOL members that host Blogger pages on their AOL Hometown space can t use the AOL Hometown system but can FTP the pages directly Contact AOL for more information about hosting generated blog pages Finally Blogger itself can fail easily determined by the message displayed If this occurs your best bet is to sign off wait an hour sign back in and try publishing your page again Check htip status blogger com for information about planned or unplanned outages 3 10 Browser Shortcuts Blogger has a shortcut that allows you to easily select text from another web page and post the selected text as an attributed and linked post to your blog The feature is called BlogThis BlogThis gives you the ability to go to any web site not
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81. with the resulting nicely formatted weblog entry in the background wbloggar v2 03 Jic xj le Edt Pomet Hug Icc 2e m k be seing 5 sit EJ peia Temple A Brust EEES boe Th Po Ector Preview Li qid aces erdere Keel i erit colore I Y EECFF sizes sore a hee gt 68 v comes font w bloggar supports not only multiple weblogs associated with a particular account but multiple accounts across weblog systems and services simply choose Select Account and you re posting elsewhere And w blogger allows you to post a particular weblog entry to multiple weblogs simultaneously associated with a single account mind you w blogger is freeware downloadable as a self extracting installer It requires Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 0 or newer 2 6 Slug Slug http www 3e org slug is designed to work specifically with Movable Type via the Blogger UserLand s proposed MetaWeblogAPI a more generalized and extensible API based on Blogger s and some API calls specific to Movable Type Other than the addition of Movable Type s categories Slug is rather rudimentary and reminiscent of BlogApp for Mac OS X and blogBuddy for Windows Figure 2 7 shows Slug Figure 2 7 Slug s support for Movable Type categories the resulting entry appears underneath in Movable Type
82. within the template You ll add the blogroll just above the archives and contained within the same aiv block class name of links to take advantage of the CSS styles applied to the block The blogroll is nothing more than standard HTML copied or typed into the template as shown in Example 6 1 This particular blogroll contains the locations of the blogs of the authors of this book Example 6 1 Adding a blogroll to the blog div class posts gt lt SBlogDescriptions gt lt br gt div class links Ho Blogroll h55 a href http radio weblogs com 0103807 gt J Scott Johnson lt a gt lt br gt a href http boingboing net gt Cory Doctorow lt a gt lt br gt lt a href http www movabletype org gt Ben and Mena Trott lt a gt lt br gt lt a href http www oreillynet com rael gt Rael Dornfest lt a gt lt br gt a href http weblog burningbird net gt Shelley Powers lt a gt lt br gt cnp lt p gt Archives lt bh gt lt br gt script type text javascript src SBlogArchiveFileName script div Figure 6 9 Blog page with new blogroll OIEEETEITMICTMMATmIm E IB Ble gdt yew Facies Hep El D 143 Le Cb OT g Akes Fit Inn eriam hrania pun Goges search web amp Pee Eroe into fie ESSENTIAL BLOGGER Thursday May 09 20072 5D Blogroll Blogger
83. you re ready to start the template customization detailed in the next section im 6 3 Template Customization Customizations to the blog template can take many forms Some change the blog s overall design and layout others are primarily focused on adding new content to the page such as a blogroll We ll focus on the latter type of customization in this chapter because discussions about design can literally fill books and the customization basics are the same for both categories of change First as a precaution always make a backup of your blog template before you modify it in any way even simple modifications You can do this by selecting the text and copying it into a text file Additionally if your changes are fairly significant you ll want to make a second copy after the modifications and before saving them Problems can occur when transmitting text across the Internet and if you don t have a local copy of the changes you could lose them and then have to reedit the template 6 3 1 Adding a Blogroll Adding a blogroll isn t a customization to the template as much as it is an addition You re not changing the underlying format of the template just adding a bit of text to one side To demonstrate adding a blogroll we ll modify the Essential Blogger blog created in Chapter 3 After opening the Template view page find the occurrence of the lt sBlogArchiveFrileNames gt template tag
84. 4 2 Customizing Templates with Macros Radio macros are always used between the lt and gt delimiters which tell Radio to replace the name of the macro with its action when the blog is published The standard Radio macros those published and documented on the UserLand web site are listed below Your copy of Radio will have additional macros added to it automatically when Radio root is updated The Prefs menu has a list of templates Main template the basic structure of almost every page in your blog Main template the basic structure of your public Radio UserLand home page Day template view of one day s entries Item template the format of a single item and Desktop Website template which contributes the home page when you are authoring your blog in Radio Click on a template to edit it Let s edit your Home page template to add a reminder of how to sign your checks Once you ve selected the template to edit you ll see a page like Figure 7 7 Figure 7 7 Editing the main template ded from fib ommolfcetab ie loaded from lib ommolketab ir lt hr e 956U375 Change it to lt hr gt J leinglebes an bemplabe Interret F epkarer provides by ATAT Drradbiand Inbermet Die DH ieee Pye Hike c QI Dee ueste eer e dci d o9 41 hip UL 0 0 1 25 1 eben poses ipe cra b i Nathan Torkington s Radio ey Z SS Weblog
85. 8 falters What if there vas nae way of navigabreg an online information space we ve ail teen before but just rever theught to use Drm talking about zuterTacking awsy information ths uger doesnt wai Content filtering much mure nabcural of sorang categories eepenmally eben the marprnitr of anbe is under mere than one subject Figure 5 5 Instructional site ary bers Having mam Flatland t5 a TIT IN oF a Mri at 2 amien dianrar 18 comman inte orient Eers i i mum n m Eran n mrchnect a 21 comments The 3 if nda bits d 5 comments CHI 2002 g the if abr 3 12 comments coming Soon downloaded from lib ommolketab ir downloaded from fib ommolfcetab ir a Simmer Stock Recent Updates Simmer Stock Now Playing the latest from Simmer Stock Veal Piccata gt gt Two of the most popular ecnripte here on Simmer Stock are Spagnatt a la Carbonara Tollowed closely ee by Vaal Saltimbocca To follow up on this apparent X interest in Italiam dishes affer one of the a simplest but tastiast of a Italian dishes Yeal Piccata Veal amp floured and sauteed Sices af weal cutlet or sczallupir served with a sauce made in ha same pan of lamon juice wing and parsley thickened with a bet of butter amp s with any dish
86. Adams Aherdofturtles Amber Timothy Appnel Brent Ashley Elaine Ashton Ali Baitam Robert Barksdale Craig Barratt Paul Beard Kristine Beeson Jenny Berger Thomas Beutel David Bigwood Michelle Billies Tim Bishop Laura Blalock Bryce Bounds Ralph Brandi Rowan Brewer Dan Bricklin Paul Brown Buzz Bruggeman Leslie Camacho Shannon Campbell Chris Carline Todd Chapman Chewybrain Tom Coates Mike Coen Jay Cross Christian Crumlish David Davies Joey deVilla Hernani Dimantas Eric Dolecki K Dadamo Meryl K Evans Faust Shawn FitzGerald Jane Fothergill Andy Fragan Elaine Frankonis Richard Giles Dan Gilmor Danny Glassmann Ewan R Grantham Joyce Guan Mike Gunderloy Jimmy Guterman Guy K Hass Greg Hard Eszter Hargittai Guy Haas Patrick Nielsen Hayden Andrew Helsby Dan Hersam Morbus Chris Janton Justin Klubnik Mark Kraft Mike Krus Greg Kucharo Andrew Kueneman Ehud Lamm Fred Lapides Ilya Eric Lee Lawrence Lee Greg Leffler William Leshner Russ Lipton Victor Lombardi Erwin Lyndon J Lomibao lyndy Ryan A MacMichael Tim Maloney Kevin Marks Lindsay Marshall Gordon McLean Allan Moult Lauri Mueller Ed Murray Robert Occhialini Debbi Ridpath Ohi Teresa Ortega Jorge Otero Abigail Leah Plumb Derek Powazek Mike Riley Phil Ringnalda Guido van Rossum Allan Rousselle Victor R Ruiz Jake Savin Doc Searls Bill Seitz Kaiser Shahid Ed Silva Alison Sirota Lisa L Spangenberg Frank Steele Mike Stev
87. Be careful with this button right next to it is one that will delete the blog After saving the changes you re returned to the Edit view page To promote the changes you made to your displayed blog click the Publish button that shows above the calendar in the bottom half of the page View the blog again to see the new title on the page 3 4 2 Formatting Basics As described in Chapter 1 blog postings are commonly date and timestamped and displayed in reverse chronological order latest at the top of the page In the Blogger Settings shown previously in Figure 3 6 you can see that the date formatting and posting display sequence can be adjusted for your blog For instance the number of postings displayed on the main page can be adjusted from the default of seven days postings Instead of displaying a set number of day s postings you can choose to display a certain number of postings at a time This approach is popular if you post frequently throughout the day The greater the number of postings the larger the main blog page and the more time it takes to download If you have large postings or post frequently consider adjusting the number of postings shown on the main page in consideration of your readers who might be using a slow modem and have slow access times Another thing you can change is the ordering of the posts choosing to display postings in strict chronological order However before doing this consider the fact that proba
88. Blog entries are almost always signed by their authors see Figure 1 18 even if the author uses a pseudonym On Boing Boing we link the by lines to the author s email address so readers can respond personally to a story with one click Some sites use feedback forms to avoid putting their email addresses on the Web where they can be harvested by spammers Figure 1 18 By line posted by Gory Doctorow at 12 51 The by line is part of the Internet personal publishing revolution Before the rise of online publishing the average person s only chance to write something for public consumption that carried her name was a letter to the editor The real world is thick with unattributed seemingly authorless material who wrote that Associated Press story on page two of your morning paper or the newscast that you heard at the top of the hour Who wrote the instructions that came with your VCR or the warning label on your gas cap Blogs are covered with by lines Bloggers gleefully lay claim to their words and bear blame when those words arouse ire in their readers 1 3 9 Permanent Link The front page of a blog is a book written on water A busy blog rotates its entire front page every day or two Links to items on the front page of a blog are only good until sufficient new material is added to the page to push the items off into oblivion The solution is permanent links see Figure 1 19 Most blogging tools generate two copies of every pos
89. Datar the UAL of XML rewa feed you want to Subscribe b in the box below rhen dick an rhe Ado bution URL hapy The tabla lists the XML rawe agde mouwe subscribad to Induced ie tha mama of tha source torts Web page the Ernie or day t last changed the number of trees it hss argad since qoi and a ink to the XML fle for the channel To delete a check it and then check on the Unsubsrmba button at the bottom of rhe pagg m LE LiT OT MM 31 IET Hi mDr PA 124 ad arkara 1 i D duo Enter the URL of a news feed and click the Add button You can also subscribe to news feeds on any Radio blog by clicking the orange XML coffee mug button as shown in Figure 4 19 Figure 4 19 XML coffee mug icon Beyond the XML coffee cup there is also the XML button icon shown in Figure 4 20 Figure 4 20 XML button This indicates that a site has an RSS news feed but that you need to manually cut and paste the URL into your News Aggregator Click on the News link in the Radio command bar to return to the News Aggregator Refresh your browser and Radio should start collecting news from your subscribed feeds 4 4 3 Commenting on a Feed ltem To add a news feed item to a blog post and comment on it first click on the News link in the Radio command bar This brings up the News Aggregator shown earlier in Figure 4 15 Click on the Post butt
90. E E ln a id m Tus iial Tha Kat 3 T d 3 10 IL Iz LE 1319 r TUM ik iT id id E ili a 2323 n Himmi sod d s publi BEH Eral Geel Uam ba ple biaredr ani gigs heer vd ow mosca etal diii dr pencrianrg BOSE EA ler i Lis lura rude T Erir a 4 1 eek inder amd nl Capea i Em ra Paar r baier Bre Liddell RES Posto Vepblog Hello World is a fine first blog entry Once you re done click the Post to Weblog button to your blog entry only Radio immediately posts your entry to the Internet You can view it by clicking the Home link shown in the Cloud section of the gray sidebar While your URL and title will be different you should see something pretty much like Figure 4 8 Figure 4 8 Blog with a successfully posted entry haama Radio Wiking Che DE yes Pov Jak pel mad voc Fei HE Fucz pore coni hobledi 3 4 Deen irmas geen Dy oO JA OG o Undsted amp A 20C2 11 49 26 l UN Scott Johnson s Radio Weblog June So line 2 812 B a Bin Tos wi ed Er Monk E g 4 b T E SD 1 17 13 14 13 ie if ij 2d riz 31 34 23 I Now that you know how to make a basic post the next step is
91. Edit Profile Shelley Powers Username inurmncogbird First Maine Shelley Last Name Pereers Crganization Suming 5rd Email shellmyebumingbind net Hide from nor teaninates um Nickname Phone F Hide from non tearmmates City State Country Tinie Zone GMT Di Pactic Tima US E Canade hem Massword Verify kanoe hess niche do nio vani change you papran at ther imas amp bone Internet Change your password frequently and use a combination of characters alphabetical numerical and other In addition you ll want to use a username that s not that easy to guess For instance don t use the name of your blog or other publicly known information In the Profile page you can also set what information is hidden from people who aren t part of your blogging team See Section 3 12 later in this chapter for more on this 3 8 Basic Use of Templates The most important aspect of your blog is the writing However the overall appearance of the blog can affect how people perceive the writing If the blog has a bright cheerful and silly appearance but the writing is somber and very serious the mixed messages can jar your readers Additionally blog formatting can adversely impact people s ability to read the writing If the font is small and light colored against a white background your readers might have a hard time making out the words The current style on the Essentials b
92. For help hover you mouse over an object f Appy DE im B downloaded from fib ommolfcetab ir oaded from lib ommotketab ir 2 2 BlogScript BlogScript by WebEntourage http www webentourage com is a free AppleScript script for Mac OS X that simply posts the contents of the clipboard to a weblog via a single menu selection The obvious advantage is the ability to write in any environment you choose by copying the text you wish to blog and activating BlogScript when you re ready to post see Figure 2 2 Figure 2 2 Running BlogScript from the Mac OS X Script menu EM 40 Sat 11 08 PM Basics Finder Scripts FontSync Scripts Info Scripts Internet Services Mail Scripts Navigation Scripts Script Editor Scripts Sherlock Scripts URLs Ww B BlogScript lt Open Scripts Folder Given its focus on simply being a copy to blog function BlogScript is understandably rather sparse The only additional feature it offers is the option to ping weblogs com You can copy and modify the AppleScript to manage multiple accounts and weblogs Figure 2 3 shows BlogScript in action posting a line of text copied to the clipboard from Mac OS X s TextEdit the window in the background Figure 2 3 Running BlogScript from the Mac OS X Script menu Installation is a snap simply drop the script into your Scripts folder and it ll be ava
93. G EH 1 K L M EN DOT P Q R IST T U V W X Y Z quotes quotes about sites nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie SYMBOL A B C D E F EG H 1 K L EM N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Radio command bar Radio menu Radio UserLand 2nd 3rd application starting backups Windows blog pages upstream server and Blogger API blogs publishing browsers and categories creating enabling posts assigning themes CMS Content Management System comments enabling cost desktop blogging and desktop clients Desktop Website discussion boards downloading 2nd entries source editing events Frontier comparison installation directory Macintosh Windows links macros 2nd custom Manila comparison MyPictures tool networks and News Aggregator 2nd 3rd news feed subscriptions news comments object database open architecture posts categories assigning comments initial listing recent pictures routing nloaded from lib ommolketab ir nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie nioaded from lib ommolketab ir Saving without publishing templates themes title titles writing content preferences setting publishing FTP and radio weblogs com registration resources router blogs RSS and 2nd 3rd 4th Shortcuts automatic creating SOAP and stories templates custom macros adding themes categories custom saving downloading existing upstreaming U
94. IT tere are no Changes since pour last Che publish 7035 Durban wil nob Sppegar E T 32 29 Editing Al posts that you havea permizzion to adit which i al posts by you TE or if you re an admeristrator of a colaboratiea Glog al posts wil appear with am edit link To get to ddar posts that arg not shoeing un in this frame use tbe ter form an aL zm MEE sem m ee Ti b m m z e S 04 Deconent Done 0 NES ees E ud Once you ve typed your test message post and publish it to the blog by clicking the Post amp Publish button This not only stores the content you just typed into the Blogger maintained databases it also generates your first blog page Once you publish the content you can view the blog page by typing the URL into your browser or clicking on the link labeled View Web Page located in the bottom frame of the tool In the generated page an ad is placed across the top This is due because your blog is hosted on BlogSpot The ad can be removed if you pay a set fee of 12 a year per blog If you re content with the default implementation of the blog as shown in Figure 3 5 you can continue adding new content to the existing blog or you can customize your blog using techniques discussed later in the chapter Figure 3 5 Blog displaying your first posting
95. Land is a desktop application meaning you download and install a program that runs on your desktop PC This program contains a web server and a typical Radio UserLand user maintains their blog through a web browser Power users can go into the desktop application however for more advanced content management features Manila users interact with their blogs through a web browser There is no client component like Radio UserLand although you can use Radio UserLand to maintain a Manila blog A Manila blog can be posted to via the Blogger API You can also use Manila to post to another blog via the Blogger API Movable has no desktop component once you ve installed it on your server you are ready to blog It offers an XML RPC interface so you can post to it from a desktop client including any Blogger client You can t however post to another blog from Movable Type Greymatter is also web based with no desktop component It doesn t understand the Blogger API so you can t post to a Greymatter blog from a desktop client nor use Greymatter to post to another blog olash and Zope are also purely web based server side systems Each offers a web interface for administration Neither Slash nor Zope speak the Blogger API but Slash does have its own SOAP interface for posting to journals Blosxom offers neither a web interface nor a desktop interface post to Blosxom or change your blog s appearance you must create files on your s
96. MTEntries gt and lt MTEntries gt IS applied to each in the list If a container tag represents a conditional the markup between the start and end tags will be displayed only if a certain condition is met For example in the case of the lt MTEntryIfExtended gt tag the markup will be displayed only if the entry has extended entry data The Movable Type User Manual contains documentation on all the available tags This manual is part of the distribution that ships with Movable and can be reached by clicking the Help button in the top navigation Then select Template Tags from the table of contents 8 1 3 Advanced Template Manipulation The markup in Movable Type templates is simple pass thru data as opposed to Movable Type tags which represent a slot to be filled with data all other markup in the templates is passed through untouched This means that you can use any kind of markup that you wish HTML XML etc In addition you can use templates to generate code that will be processed by another post processing tool such as PHP Server oide Includes or Mason In fact the RSS pages that Movable Type produces are provided as default templates using standard Movable Type tags In their case the markup language surrounding the tags is XML The body of the RSS data the list of the last 15 items is generated using these tags lt MTEntries lastn 15 gt item lt title gt lt SMTEntryTitle encode html 1 title desc
97. Mecravoft Isbersat Explorer lc 18l xl File dit Wem Foker iip Qj ou getty Zi 2 Sher pages en em ong Radio 6 0 7 Home Hews Stone Shortcuts Folder Themes Tools Pref Hep i amp Scott Johnson s Radio Weblog Events Log This page bts the myt recent events Event What Baeeened Time Secr Lpcate Thames Hes Things 0 Updated Thavas 0 25 20 11 065 Weblogs Porters to 64 changed sites maremen S108 M 7 0089 nots pL ine ad gr S007 08 05933 amp ran 2 pad 0 teres Bos 765 Themes Hes Themes D Updates Themas 0 oe to 277 changed sies racer ud B 15 02 1633 Pry 2 channel pad 0 teres Or oei E internet The Events Log lists the 50 most recent events If you don t see the results of your last publishing action listed other events may have pushed it off the list In that case just republish your post by editing it and clicking the Publish or Post and Publish button 4 7 4 Republishing Your Entire Blog All your entries and preferences are stored in a database Republishing consists of regenerating your blog from that database Publishing pages in Radio is also referred to as rendering them To republish your entire blog you have to interact with the Radio Application Right click the Radio icon loc
98. My blog i razy Hob Decou House of 1 E ull of Wa eile ICE EPI mS 1 rah conl uH VE sterium that thought voud like Check mn out ai http Vu CORY s com low me 247 394 wll nett mire alenton that Why Glow 6 pol check n out SUGGEST A SITE There are some advantages to using a script instead of a mailto link e All the information we use for a post is included no going back to the submitter if she forgot to include the URL e The format is normalized so we can reliably find the URL and the description without having to dig through the message e The messages are easy to write mailer rules for we have a different mail chime that goes off when we get a link suggestion and suggestions are automatically filed in a separate mail folder 1 2 4 Blogroll A blogroll is a list of blogs that you visit frequently and want to call others attention to This is more than free advertising for your friends and inspiration it s also an easy way to keep track of sites that you want to revisit frequently This is especially handy when you re traveling from computer to computer and don t have access to your bookmarks Figure 1 6 shows Boing Boing s blogroll Figure 1 6 A blogroll BEST BLOGS Webloasky Flectrolite Mooselacsness Follow Me Here Jimwicn oro Blatner The Null Device Pigs amp Fishes Factawvision random Walks Subterranean Notes Oddball Comic Book of t
99. RLs 2nd Web Services and writer blogs XML RPC and Radio root file radio weblogs com publishing to random entry display Movable Type reading blogs registration Radio UserLand remote operations rendering pages republishing resources Radio UserLand Robot Wisdom Weblog router blogs Radio UserLand and routing posts Radio UserLand RSS Rich Site Summary Blogger and Blogger Pro and Blosxom and 2nd feeds Live ournal and Greymatter Movable Type and publishing feeds loaded from lib ommolketab ir aded from fib ommolfcetab ir Radio UserLand and 2nd 3rd 4th Slash and syndication and Movable Type XML and Zope and RSS aggregators RSSify tool nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie nioaded from lib ommolketab ir SYMBOL A B C D E F G H 1 K L EM N O EP Q R S T U V W X Y Z Sandman comics saving posts in Radio Userland Scraps deSelby s Live Journal Scriban George piracy claims Scripting News searches RSS aggregators security cgi wrap Movable Type and private blogs web servers self hosting Blogger server blogging Movable Type and server based solutions reasons to use Shahid Kaiser www phrogger com kaiser shortcuts Blogger browsers Radio UserLand automatic creating Sim Gray skin Blogger Site Meter statistics and skins Blogger Slash cost desktop clients RSS and Slug SnorComments SOAP Radio UserLand and spellcheck
100. S capabilities and extend them even further For example the product news2mail automatically delivers news from Radio to your email This has a number of advantages for regular news readers News is changed from a push to a pull model where the news automatically comes to your inbox as opposed to your having regularly visit Radio s News page Because most people check email regularly this is very convenient Additionally this allows you to receive the benefits of the News Aggregator even when you are traveling and away from your desktop computer Finally news2mail even allows posting to your blog right from the email it sends you For more on news2mall see http www rds com doug weblogs news2mail For more information on Radio s Tools feature see Chapter 7 Another powerful news related feature is the Radio Express bookmarklet which gives Radio users the equivalent of the Blogger feature Blog This described in Chapter 3 More details are available at http www newsisfree com blog stories 2002 01 20 radioexpress html 4 4 2 Subscribing to a Feed To subscribe to a news feed first click on the News link in the Radio command bar The News Aggregator is displayed Click on the Subscribed link to get the subscriptions page as in Figure 4 18 Figure 4 18 The news subscriptions page Bl Subscriptions Microsodt Internet i cott Johnson s Radio Weblog Subscriptions PucceLamo
101. SS feed of your blog and can incorporate the RSS feeds from other blogs into your blog Radio UserLand functions as an RSS reader letting you subscribe to feeds and read the latest articles and this makes it trivial to turn a syndicated story into a blog entry Radio UserLand is the only product with a built in RSS reader Manila creates and incorporates RSS but does not include an RSS reader Also built around RSS but in a different way is Blosxom Blosxom automatically offers RSS feeds and the optional Blagg aggregator can incorporate feeds into your blog Greymatter neither produces nor consumes RSS out of the box however a third party modification from http www foshdawg net gm mods makes Greymatter produce RSS Movable Type automatically publishes an RSS feed of your blog While it doesn t come with the ability to aggregate RSS you can use Blosxom s Blagg to insert stories from an RSS feed into your blog Slash produces RSS feeds and can incorporate other RSS feeds into pages Zope does not come with the ability to offer an RSS feed but it s simple to write an RSS generator Table 1 4 summarizes the RSS capabilities of each blog system Table 1 4 RSS capabilities Tool Produce Consume Read Blogger Requires third party add on Requires third party add on N Blogger Pro Y Requires third party add on N Blosxom Y Y with Blagg N Greymatter Requires third party add on N N LiveJournal Y Y but only other LiveJournal fe
102. Set them by changing the 6109 title and 56109 description variables as follows What s this blog s title my Sblog_title My Blosxoms What s this blog s description my Sblog_description Not your garden variety Blosxom blog What s this blog s primary language for outgoing RSS feed my Sblog_language en Entries are presented on your weblog s home page in reverse chronological order with the latest rising to the top and older entries falling off the bottom Control how many appear by setting the snum_entries directive How many entries should I show on the home page my entries 40 im 9 5 Blogging Blogging with Blosxom is no more complex than editing a text file from the comfort of your favorite text editor be it BBEdit Notepad Emacs or Word No cramped featureless browser based checkboxes here Weblog entries themselves are rather free form The only rule is that the first line becomes the entry s title SO keep it short and sweet Format the rest of the entry to your heart s content using text and garden variety HTML When you re ready to publish your new blog entry simply save it to Blosxom s data directory the location you specified in the sdatadir configuration directive during installation Name it anything you d like as long as it ends with txt a hint to Blosxom that it s to be picked up and included in your weblog Let s give it a whirl shall we Fire up y
103. Skins web site http blogskins com offers several Blogger skins or templates All the templates we ve seen at the site are free for the downloading and most even have comments attached that can provide useful feedback about why people do like or dislike the template To try out a template once you ve access the web site follow the Browse Skins link on the left The templates are listed by name but aren t displayed Read the description associated with the template then click whatever link that provides a view of the template If none is provided clicking the link associated with the template page takes you to another more detailed page that has a Preview link For the Essentials blog let s try a skin called Sim Gray To access it set up a BlogSkins account no charge Click on the name for the skin and within the skin detail page click the Apply button BlogSkins uses the Blogger API to get the names of blogs from your account then overwrites the existing template with the selected one After returning to Blogger and republishing the blog the newly skinned blog is displayed as shown in Figure 3 13 Figure 3 13 Newly skinned blog ML Iia Lo 1006 aloj JE Ed Go Tuck Wem jbp ag D k T E A 1 A oH d npe bee ery T irem Back Prin i bie com Ep phar name a ro HoT WEITE GR IETIONS HERE Example a template dengn for B
104. Tm willing to 2 2T 28 29 3021 endure of the upcoming O Reilly Blagging Meg book working title Essential Blogging but a that s currently being debated internally idea what the animal cover will be Call suggestions appreciated at blogging feedback ordilly oor The outiner rs I d Fangatbem how much my programmer brain likes hierarchies Programmar and aditar guass haak and Chapter structure 1 amp al figuring out what needs to be talked about in a top down fashion then arranging the smaller concepts in the night order to fully cover the larger topics Figure 7 6 The Space theme downloaded from fib ommolfcetab ir Aj Mathan Radio Weblog Microsalt Imt 191 Fie Edt Yee Fowortes Took Help Bek D2 A Gah afos Aneto oh of E o Adress je reco vaeblogs com U 10686 1 Pao Nathan Torkington s Radio Weblog May 7007 Su Han Tuo Thu Seat Tuesday May 271 2002 i 2 4 2 E 101 we craabad an Instant Dutlina Tai Ti Ing Ue ll rg Li a zl crosoft Word pain I m andure af the upcomin SHON 209091719 but that s currant being PC al the 1 E 1 808 F i i w E 11 3 7L i at For additional themes for Radio or to see examples of the themes see http themes userland com http themes userland com newsltems viewDepartment new 20radio 20theme 7
105. a link to Movable Type Figure 8 3 Figure 8 3 New links list 8 1 1 2 Public display of categorization downloaded from fib ommolfcetab ir If you categorize your entries and have instructed Movable Type to build category archives you might wish to display to your visitors the category that you have assigned to each entry on your index The name of the category can be used as a link to the category archive This works well as what s related navigation for your site because when visitors read an entry whose subject matter they are interested in they can click the name of the category to read more entries about similar subjects In the default templates the category you have assigned to an entry is not displayed We will add the name of the category to the metadata line below the entry body which currently contains the name of the author the timestamp and optionally a link to the comments Figure 8 4 Figure 8 4 Default entry WELCOME TO HY BLOG 1 iz ig my first blog entry using Movable Type Posted by Melody at From the main Templates menu select the Main Index template for editing by clicking on its name Then find the following markup lt div class posted gt Posted by lt SMTEntryAuthors gt at lt a href lt SMTEntryLinkSs gt lt SMTEntryID pad 1 S gt gt lt SMTEntryDate format 1 M p a Change it to this lt div class posted gt Posted by lt SMTEntryAuthors gt at lt a hr
106. a new entry you have the option of allowing the world visitors to your site to respond With Movable Type those reading your blog can post comments on any entries where you have allowed comments Remember the Allow Comments checkbox that was on the Advanced entry editing screen If that box is checked visitors will be allowed to leave comments on your site To get a sense of what visitors to your site will see click on the Comments link below the entry on your public page In the window that pops up Figure 5 20 visitors see a list of comments that have already been made along with a form in which they can post their own comments Figure 5 20 Submit a comment window First Blog First Blog Comment on Welcome to my blog di Moe E02 Sarge serge gon com itp iweaew Tao ange This iS J areal weblog GYRE MY l PREVIEW POST FORGET PERSONAL INFORMATION Create a comment by filling in your name and email address then writing a comment Then click Post to save the comment and you see the new comment added Figure 5 21 Figure 5 21 Submitted comment 60 First Blog Comment on Welcome to my blog First Blog Comments Welcome to my blog This is great weblog 21 Posted by at Mas Zi AM H Post a comment ECE Name Serge Email Address Link com hittp iwww foo comiserge POY Comments 2 In
107. ach feed in turn and asks whether you d like to blog each story in turn Type for yes n for no or to quit and press the Enter key Figure 9 8 shows Blagg aggregating the BoingBoing feed interactively Figure 9 8 Interactive Blagging Figure 9 9 shows the annotated ETCON item alongside the previous two weblog entries Notice Blagg automatically adds a parenthesized 1ink linking to the original weblog entry on BoingBoing and bracketed boing boing linking to the source of the entry the BoingBoing weblog itself Figure 9 9 Interactively aggregated story e e E My First Blosxom e 9 http i 127 0 0 1 blossom ogi Viv First Blosxom Thu 23 May 2002 IB BT ae EI k Garon Swart as TEDI weed Ehe ETCON Di prar ing j3uide adding links to every blog entry on sach session that he could locate ts meant Fo be the exhaustive JEN i f the comrmentar V DHT Bal h session from last week cant stop clickin Link Discuss vie Hack the Planet link boing 12 32 parmalink Wed 22 May 2002 Second Post lt worked twice in a raw we certainly are off to a good start 12 07 permalink First Post Howdy and welcome to my Blozxom blog 12 00 permalink Powered by Blosxom Infernet zone 9 12 2 Automatic Blagging To run Blagg automatically on the Mac OS X or Unix command line type blagg mode automatic Under Windows type blagg mode automatic
108. ad gt lt body bgcolor 2 ffffff text F333333 11 000000 alink 000000 vlink 000000 gt lt table border 0 width 100 6 cellpadding 0 cellspacing 0 gt LCL lt td colspan 3 gt lt span class title gt My First Blosxom lt span gt lt td gt lt tr gt Stile lt td colspan 9 bgcolor 000000 height 1 gt lt td gt eqs nloaded from fib ommolfcetab ie ed from fib ommolfetab ir lt tr valign top gt lt td bgcolor dddddd width 15 gt lt td gt lt td bgcolor dddddd width 100 gt lt br gt Do the same for the HTML to be displayed after the weblog entries Save the file as foot html Example 9 2 sh for a custom footer Example 9 2 A custom footer lt br gt lt td gt td bgcolor dddddd width 15 gt lt td gt arte SLE td colspan 9 bgcolor 000000 height 1 gt lt td gt lt tr gt SLE td colspan 3 align right gt Powered by lt a href http www raelity org lang perl blosxom gt Blosxom lt a gt lt td gt lt tr gt lt table gt lt body gt May ean ee The above pairing of head htm and foot html dresses up the default weblog quite nicely as shown in Figure 9 Figure 9 5 Custom header and footer HTML nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie nioaded from lib ommolketab ir ooo iT My First Blosxom My First Blosxom Wed 22 May 2002 Second Post It wor
109. adio Weblog b Radio 6 0 7 Hore Stones botos I I Everts B Thames Took Prafz Hep News Aggregator Thee page bets the moet recer stores Inpm ie dianella poe tu Clk on the POET Delect hurcmn no add 3 ciary noi gor Wa biog m ceresgn riz e prec nona orc adir i Teen vos fa dedere Irzrz the pages Chet Bee shone thei pow acento delste then cick bre Da lie beri D wind heed 6 4 20 LET oe A 2 Hi i n Frau Poe m SEE y fee uie E ae Den eee gl s dgra ne porches Sue The mae inokz Gee 3 boite py in 6s igh wath the Ob i nc edhe bo rac eng Fesil Rin eet Eg nemis Tam Bp tha OT Chat Trias DO hiia pz Hane an inn another leq By Brem Del Ed Pam s Saal ered Acgmparw rs dite tees artus chad pom rmm che gener beral In the ware of a Court nre Chart might be 3 peer fol for bow Pop eda Erheenss it Dul sl Ta Weld Cus ra bout t atu t wed agan but Tor an Inbernisbona p tte rea game to wach is the RoboCup Bs Laimi DH p zumi huoran genoms n partage chon m Ez hoo AE fond One and mane genas mons in richer Edzi
110. adio userland com stories storyReader 6926 loaded from lib ommotketab ir ee 7 8 Online Resources for Advanced Users As this chapter has shown you Radio is a very sophisticated product that this chapter only begins to address The following lists suggests additional online resources The radio dev mailing list http groups yahoo com group radio dev The developers section of the Radio UserLand directory http radio userland com directory 6742 developers Andy Sylvester s directory http ruminations weblogger com directory 143 The Radio community server http rcs userland com soapware org directory for SOAP 1 1 developers http www soapware org APIs formats and protocols supported by Radio include RSS 0 92 http oackend userland com rss092 OPML 1 1 http www opml org XML RPC http www xml rpc com Blogger API http plant blogger com api index html MetaWeblog API http www xmlrpc com metaWeblogApi XmlStorageSystem http www soapware org xmlStorageSystem Chapter 8 Advanced Movable Type Once you have mastered the management of entries comments and the other topics discussed in Chapter 5 you are ready to move on to the more advanced customization options of Movable Type You may find that you would like to change the look and feel of your blog make use of Movable Type s powerful archiving features personalize your blog by modifyi
111. adio uses htto yourblog year htto yourblog year month http yourblog year month day html nioaded from fib ommolffcfab ir loaded from lib ommolketab ir 7 7 Upstreaming Upstreaming is the process by which Radio moves information from your local computer the server where your blog is located The overall upstreaming process is controlled by an XML file named Zupstream xml stored in your www folder This file contains configuration information specifying where your rendered HTML files are to be placed Passwords are never placed in this file they are stored in the radio prefs passwords table in Radio s object database There are three types of Zupstream xml files xmlStorageSystem FTP and none An xmlStorageSystem upstream file moves blog postings off to the radio weblogs com destination or to a Radio Community server An FTP upstream driver transfers files via FTP A none type prevents information in the folder where it is located from being upstreamed at all The none type seems confusing but consider this example you want to have a www images photos directory that has all your photos but there are two versions of photos the high resolution versions for print publication and the low resolution version for on screen use If you use an upstream of type none you can prevent the high resolution files from going up to your blog Here s a sample upstream file for F TP lt xml vers
112. ag which will cause an error lt SMTEnt ryCategory s gt does not wo because it assumes that a particular entry will be in context that is it is replaced with the category of the curr entry In a category archive page there is no current entry there is only a set of entries corresponding to thi particular category So in that context you must use the lt smMTArchiveCategoryS gt tag 8 3 4 Archiving by Calendar Movable Type s calendar is completely customizable it can be used as navigation through the most recent mo entries as it is in the default templates it can be used to power a calendar of events it can be used to lay out entire site as it is by A Day Late http www dollarshort org days as depicted in Figure 8 6 and it can even used to emulate the output of the Unix ca program Figure 8 6 A Day Late calendar a ae C Day Late DAY LATI A Day Late uses a combination of Movable Type and PHP to generate a calendar of daily links On each day t can be zero or more links and all the links appear in the calendar square corresponding to that day This beha differs from more traditional web calendars where each calendar square links to a listing of posts from that day latest post from that day In this case the entries are displayed directly in each calendar square In this example we will create a template for an event calendar similar in style to the calendar at A Day Late tc demo
113. age 81 Order Posts reverse chrono within days F Date Time Format 5 14 2002 90533AM m Date Header Format Tuas deny Mery 1 4 hi Time zone GMT DB OD Pacific Time US amp Canada Language Enaglisn F Convert Line Breaks vas I Au chiving Archive Frequency m X c4 a x Docume Done 0 771 secs gj Once saved republish your blog to reflect the changes 3 4 3 Blogger Archives By default when you create your new Blogger blog archives are stored by week which means there is a separate archive file for each week These archives are accessible through hypertext links within the blog as shown earlier in the blogging snapshot in Figure 3 5 Archives by week are particularly useful because your blog page readers can reference an archived entry though a smaller weekly file rather than a larger monthly one However after a time you can have so many archive files that the listing within your blog page is cluttered and hard to view For this reason a lot of bloggers prefer to store their archive files monthly You can adjust your archive frequency in the Settings For your blog change this to monthly Once you save these changes and republish your blog you ll see that the archive link changes to reflect the new date period Now that you ve made some basic adjustments to your blog settings it s time to focus on the blog content itself your writing
114. agrulling Deas a Fear Continue adding links until all the existing blogroll links are added In this example the target field is left blank so that the page opens in the existing browser window Instead of leaving target blank you can use top to set the target to the top window in a frame or to open a new window The priority is set at 1 for each entry as all entries are of equal importance no one entry has priority over the others The description you provide in the form is used as the it ie attribute of the hypertext link and displays when the mouse is over the link Once the entries are added additional entries can be added later accessing the Get Code link from Blogrolling s member page gets the generated code for displaying the blogroll You can choose to display links randomly by priority or alphabetically You can also add custom text to signal freshly updated blogs Ihe information used to signal fresh blog postings is pulled from weblogs com For presentation you control if the blogroll appears in a aiv block which you can then supply presentation nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie d from fib ommolfcetab ir characters for using CSS within an HTML table and even if the links are contained within blocks of links for larger blogrolls to break them up a bit Finally one field is provided whereby you can put anything to be prepended or appended to a link For the Essential blog the blogrol
115. an class excerpt gt lt a href lt SMTEntryLinkS gt gt lt SMTEntryTitles gt lt a gt lt span gt lt br MTEntries td lt table gt MTCalendarIfEntries lt MTCalendarIfNoEntries gt lt SMTCalendarDayS gt lt MTCalendarlfNoEntries gt MTCalendarlIfBlank amp nbsp MTCalendarIfBlank td lt MTCalendarWeekFooter gt lt tr gt ded gt 10 11 12 13 lt MTCalendarWeekFooter gt lt MTCalendar gt lt table gt Save the template Click on the Blog Config button to edit your blog configuration Click the Archiving link in the top right subnavigation Click the Add New button which opens a pop up window in which you can add a new archive template In the pop up window for the Archive Type select Monthly and for the Template select Monthly Calendai Click Add After the pop up window closes and the page refreshes the new archive template has been associated v your Monthly archives Now just need to create a unique page name for each archive file to distinguish it your standard HTML category archives In the Archive File Template column for the Monthly Calendar template paste in the following lt SMTArchiveDate format cal Sm SY S gt html Click Save That s it Whenever you rebuild your monthly archives or whenever you add a new entry the monthly events calendar is rebuilt automatically The calendar filename is based on the month and the year For exam
116. ance to bid from a major arink distributor through her blog shared pain with fellow bloggers after 9 11 and gotten to know many cool people who have made me laugh cry smile freak out or just celebrate life Meryl K Evans http www meryl net blog In March of 2000 my husband and decided to divorce after nearly 10 years and one daughter of being together While the decision was relieving to me it seemed to unleash this flood of intellectual activity that held in during my marriage issues wasn t even aware existed until then It seemed the time had come to get it all out so could make some sense of what was going through and start completely anew had always written in blank journals but during my marriage stopped So 1 figured since wasn t going to be married anymore could start back up again The only thing was 1 wasn t entirely convinced could write about anything that wasn t business like or technically useful in nature I m a technical writer by trade hadn t written anything personal in years wasn t sure ever could again So to re start my un technical writing engine signed up for a free account on Xanga com and began practicing writing reviews of things liked or found useful It was great practice and got some cool feedback from the other members there and it gave me some hope that perhaps could write my way out of a paper bag If necessary Shortly afterward as started getting mor
117. and self hosting settings skins statistics support templates 2nd 3rd 4th blogrolls customizing tags Template view window titles troubleshooting self hosting Web site XML elements Blogger applications settings browsers and Radio UserLand and Blogger Directory publishing and Blogger Pro cost grammar checking overview posts drafts email RSS nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie spellcheck syndication titles blogging engines Movable Type blogging reasons to blog blogrolling automatic blogrolls templates blogs Blogger removing Blosxom deleting editing viewing definition listing Movable Type configuration configuring Local Site Path multiple blogs naming publishing Blogger Directory Radio UserLand reading updating Mail to Weblog BlogScript BlogSpot 2nd hosting hosting and self hosting and BlogThis Blosxom 2nd archives Blagg Blossom Aggregator blogs deleting editing viewing configuration cost CSS styles customization desktop clients downloading installation RSS and 2nd styles syndication system requirements weblogs nioaded from lib ommolketab ir nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie nioaded from lib ommolketab ir Boing Boing A Directory of Wonderful Things bold text in Blogger posts Bond Julian RSSify tool Boutin Paul Wired magazine Brandi Ralph www thereisnocat com brentashley blogchat com browsers Blogger shortcuts Radio UserLand a
118. archiving them 2 Use your archiving program to make a backup file containing the following directories and files iRadio UserLand Data Files Radio UserLand www UserLand Themes Radio UserLand Backups yes this is redundant but it s safer UserLand root 3 Copy this ZIP file to another hard drive or some removable medium More details on backup are given at htto radio userland com stories storyReader 70 10 7 3 2 Backing Up all Data on the Mac The easiest way to back up Radio on the Mac is to copy the entire Radio UserLand folder to another disk 1 Shut down Radio by Ctrl clicking the Radio icon in the Dock and choosing Shut Down Radio This is important because Radio normally runs in the background and regularly updates files The main files that you need to back up are the root files which contain all your Radio data because you don t want Radio updating those files as you re archiving them Copy the entire Radio UserLand folder from the Application folder to another drive If you don t want to move the program files as well move these folders Radio UserLand Data Files Radio UserLand www Radio UserLand Themes Radio UserLand Backups yes this is redundant but it s safer Radio UserLand All the root files Don t forget to do this regularly Your blog data is important 7 4 Themes Templates and Macros Themes and templ
119. ary advantage Is its simplicity if you accept the default settings and host on BlogSpot you can be up and running within five minutes Once you have your blog you ll find it s just as easy to customize it You can begin with any one of the built in templates and then you can change the fonts colors layout and order of contents Also you can start without technical embellishment and add comments web statistics and support for RSS and other specialized XML If you host your pages you can integrate your blog into your preferred development environment by converting the standard HTML output of Blogger into your preferred application type such as ASP or PHP In this chapter we cover some features specific to Blogger Pro We take a look at some of the most popular customizations for Blogger including template customization adding comments and statistic reporting In addition we discuss blog modifications you can make to integrate your blog into an external application environment as well as generating RSS for participation in aggregation Though most of these changes can be applied whether your blog is hosted on BlogSpot or not the examples are demonstrated with a blog that s hosted on an individual server In addition all the examples are also demonstrated with Blogger Pro We note any dependencies based on Blogger version location 6 1 Basics of Blogger Pro The examples in Chapter 3 used the fr
120. as SHE CSS FORE See Br Alte sy E240 P E ud My sem E el ewe arlene A ora 79 Click the Next button to advance to the Install program to view the license agreement If you agree with the license agreement click the Next button Choose where you want to Install Radio Using the default C Program Files Radio UserLana is generally best Click the Next button two more times to start actually copying the Radio files to your computer When the files are done copying click the Close button to end the installer Radio will start for you 4 1 2 2 Macintosh Radio for the Macintosh comes as a self extracting Stuffit file Double click the Stuffit file and follow the prompts to install Radio If you need to uninstall Radio first backup your data very specific instructions are later in Chapter 7 and then drag the Radio UserLand folder to the Trash To install under Mac OS X extract the downloaded archive Double click the extracted disk image to mount it on your desktop then copy the Radio UserLand folder into the Applications folder Make sure your web browser is running and then double click the Radio UserLand application icon The browser will open the Radio UserLand Setup page To install under Mac OS 9 unstuff the archive if it hasn t been unstuffed automatically Launch Radio UserLand 8 0 7 Installer and follow the straightforward instructions At the end of the installation process the installer wi
121. at headed cat is its head which is flat and enhanced by its unusually small ears Also its eye sockets are completely encircled by bone increasing the width of the head The flat headed cat is nocturnal and its diet consists mainly of fish and frogs Because of its well developed premolars and webbed feet the flat headed cat is highly adaptable to its fishing environment more so than even the fishing cat oarah Sherman was the production editor and copyeditor and Linley Dolby was the proofreader for Essential Blogging Linley Dolby Mary Anne Weeks Mayo and Claire Cloutier provided quality control Johnna Van Hoose Dinse wrote the index Ellie Volckhausen designed the cover of this book based on a series design by Edie Freedman The cover image is a 19th century engraving from the Dover Pictorial Archive Emma Colby produced the cover layout with QuarkXPress 4 1 using Adobe s ITC Garamond font Melanie Wang designed the interior layout based on a series design by David Futato This book was converted to FrameMaker 5 5 6 with a format conversion tool created by Erik Ray Jason McIntosh Neil Walls and Mike Sierra that uses Perl and XML technologies The text font is Linotype Birka the heading font is Adobe Myriad Condensed and the code font is LucasFont s TheSans Mono Condensed The illustrations that appear in the book were produced by Robert Romano and Jessamyn Read using Macromedia FreeHand 9 and Adobe Photoshop 6 The tip and warning
122. at is notorious for network outages and lackluster maintenance the independence you gain from a server based solution is a moot point To some users total independence means running Movable Type and hosting your blog on a self maintained server If you fit into this group you can expect an installation process fundamentally similar to the process of setting up Movable Type on a hosting provider s server However before you install the application you may need to install some of the core prerequisites which most hosting providers offer as a matter of course for example web server software and Perl A complete list of Movable Type s requirements is given later in this chapter 5 1 2 Ability to Store Your Data Behind a Firewall In addition to server performance network security is another benefit of using a server based application While the average blogger actively seeks an audience for his content there are some users who want to keep their blogs and data securely tucked behind a firewall Blogs as portions of intranets and company sites are increasingly common and developers need to seek solutions that require data security In other words hosting their content on a centralized or shared server is not an option 5 1 3 Control over Your Data As you begin publishing to your blog backing up your data might not be a pressing concern However 2 000 posts down the road the ability to back up your content is certainly a desirable option
123. at s going on Click the New button to add the invitee to the list Figure 3 18 Inviting new team members to a group blog Repeating this process adds yet more invitees to the list When finished click the Send Invite s button to send the invitation This returns you to the Team view where you ll find that the invitee has been added to the page with a status of pending until they either accept or decline the invitation The invitee receives an email with a subject line of Blogger blog invitation from your name The invitation includes a link to accept or decline the invitation and instructions how to process the invitation whether they re a current Blogger user or not Clicking the link then takes the invitee to a page where they can accept or decline the invitation Invited team members do not have all the options on the Blogger toolbar that the blog administrator has For instance a team member will not see the Settings Template and Archive buttons as they won t be able to adjust any of global settings of the blog they can only add modify and delete their own postings When the new team member posts to the blog their name will be attached to the posting rather than yours This will be the name the person uses to set up the account not the one you used for the invitation To remove a Team member click the Remove checkbox associated with their name within the Team View window In addition if you want to give anot
124. at we write about does not define us as bloggers it s how we write about it frequently ad nauseaum peppered with links Weblogs simply provide the framework as haiku imposes order on words The structure of the documents we re creating enable us to build our social networks on top of it the distributed conversations the blogrolling lists and the friendships that begin online and are solidified over a bloggers dinner in the real world As bloggers we re in the middle of and enjoying an evolution of communication The traits of weblogs mentioned above will likely change and advance as our tools improve and our technology matures What s important is that we ve embraced a medium free of the physical limitations of pages intrusions of editors and delays of tedious publishing systems As with free speech itself what we say isn t as important as the system that enables us to say it Meg Hourihan http www megnut com Colophon Our look is the result of reader comments our own experimentation and feedback from distribution channels Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects The animals on the cover of Essential Blogging are flat headed cats Also known as little Malayan red cats flat headed cats are found in tropical forests in Thailand Malaysia Borneo and Sumatra Obviously the most distinctive feature found on the fl
125. ated in the Windows System Tray and select Open Radio from the pop up menu This is shown in Figure 4 25 Figure 4 25 Launching the Radio Application from the system tray The Radio Application is displayed in Figure 4 26 Figure 4 26 The Radio Application aded from fib ommolfcetab ie 4 m UserLand padio usert and ES 1582 2007 ard Inc select these menu options Radio Publish Entire Website Answer Yes to the Republish Entire Website question and Radio republishes the entire web site Depending on the size of your blog Radio may take a bit of time to upstream all the files involved Radio upstreams files until your entire blog has been updated and published across the Internet 4 8 Stories Instead of Posts Blog posts are typically short entries between one and four paragraphs in overall length While this isn t a hard and fast rule it is the norm When working in Radio you often find the need to create longer documents than posts Radio handles this with the Stories feature Stories in Radio are designed to be longer essays They also feel more permanent in nature than posts because their URLs include the date and title of the story Here s a sample story URL http radio weblogs com 0103807 stories 2002 05 06 marketing1 01 ItsAllAbout rust
126. ates in Radio are the two features that control the presentation of your blog Each page you see is composed of many templates A template is just an HTML file with some non HTML tags to indicate Radio specific elements such as entries and dates Where these elements exist Radio when posting your blog entry inserts the content represented by those elements A theme is a collection of templates that has a consistent look and feel The non HTML tags are called macros A macro corresponds to functionality within Radio generally written in UserTalk that is inserted into your blog when your page is published Macros add additional functionality such as enabling comments on your blog adding a list of recent blog posts and more While changing your theme involves only a few mouse clicks editing templates to add macros is much harder As with other blogging systems adding macros requires that you understand HTML because the macros are inserted directly into HTML chunks stored in Radio 7 4 1 Using Existing Themes Use these steps to change your overall theme 1 Click the Themes link on the Radio command bar at the top of the screen 2 Select a theme to use by clicking on the radio button to its left 3 Confirm that you really do want to replace your existing theme This is important because changing your theme eliminates all customizations to your current theme Be careful that you don t lose something important To save your existing them
127. ath http www your site com movabletype 2 Change the line DataSource db to instead read DataSource FULL PATH TO DB where FULL PATH TO DB is replaced by the full filesystem path to the Movable Type database directory typically called db For example if you chose to locate your Movable database at home melody db the above line would read DataSource home melody db 3 If you are not installing Movable Type into the cgi bin skip this step In Section 5 2 4 you chose a location for the docs images and styles css in a directory outside of the cgi bin and you noted the URL corresponding to that directory Find this line in mt cfg StaticWebPath mt static Uncomment it by removing the character at the beginning of the line then change the URL to the URL that you chose in Section 5 2 4 For example if the files are located in mt static this line would become StaticWebPath mt static 4 f your server does not have cgiwrap or suexec skip this step cgiwrap and suexec are tools that allow for more secure Movable Type directories and files When running your CGI scripts under either of these tools your files and directories do not have to be world writable This extra security is a very good idea in a shared hosting environment where other users have access to the same server as you To take advantage of cgiwrap or suexec uncomment the following lines in mt cfg DBUmask 0022 HTMLUmask
128. ation on how to configure this tool Check this box ta enable mirroring on the site described below Server hip pant blogger com Port 80 Path e BogID OO Usernane aelity Password Figure 2 8 shows the configuration screen for the Manila Blogger Bridge As you can see it takes the same parameters as the other tools downloaded from fib ommolfcetab ir Chapter 3 Hosted Blogging with Blogger The most commonly used blogging tool is Blogger It requires the least amount of commitment in time or resources allowing you to go from wanting a blog to having one in about five minutes and at no cost This simplicity ease of access and no risk aspect of Blogger is the reason many people have started blogging The Blogger software is the property of Pyra Labs http www pyra com a company headed by Evan Williams known as Ev within the blogging community Blogger is often credited as the reason for the explosion of blogging that s occurred in the last couple of years While it is incredibly easy to use Blogger s popularity can lead to unexpected results at times such as postings that are lost during the publication process archives that go missing and server errors when accessing Blogger or your blog on BlogSpot Throughout this chapter we ll point out the problems that exist at the time of this printing and suggest ways to lessen or resolve these problems Pyra is
129. aving the changes the next step is to incorporate YACCS functionality into the Blogger template Returning to the YACCS control panel the comment account shows in the top of the page Click the More gt gt associated with the account to open the detailed information page for the comments In this page you can sele the new template from a drop down box Click the Apply button to apply the change im 6 6 Incorporating Statistics Over time you re going to be curious about the people who visit your blog In particular you ll want to know if a linking to you and which particular blog archive files seem to be the most popular Though this information isn t improve the quality of your writing it does give you some useful feedback If you FIP your Blogger generated files to a server chances are you have a log statistics package already in p track visitors However if you don t have a package in place or if you re hosting on BlogSpot you ll need a wel package that can be embedded into the blog page itself rather than being integrated with your web server One popular web statistics package is Site Meter accessible from http sitemeter com The basic service is fr because it s a client side process it doesn t require any server side support To get access to this service go ti and sign up for an account following the site instructions Eventually you ll get directed to a page that contains the HTML to add to your blog
130. aware of all these problems and is working on fixing them Hegardless of the occasionally unreliable nature of Blogger it s a great tool to use to get your blogging feet wet This chapter provides an overview of Blogger from signing up for an account to creating your first blog It also looks at the features built into the standard version of Blogger The enhancements available in the subscription Blogger Pro service are discussed in Chapter 6 3 1 How Blogger Works Blogger is a web based tool requiring no installation of software on your personal computer or on your server if you happen to already have a web site You access the tool through the Blogger web site located at http blogger com and the blog pages are posted to your web site or to Pyra s BlogSpot http blogspot com community blog server Architecturally your template archival information and blog content are stored in databases at Pyra It s only the generated main blog page associated supporting files such as images and archive files that get stored on the blog server Figure 3 1 shows this Figure 3 1 Posting a blog q a c ga gem pom e e eg T REILLY blogger com E Glog page and arciive Your blog host e g blogspot com Feber Herr rin H Des aded md pipi Ens While most people interact with Blogger through the web interface it s not the only way You
131. b browser Like Radio Frontier includes a full object database scripting language script editor and debugger outliner multithreaded runtime search engine integrated HTTP server full XML support full RSS support and distributed computing protocols such as XML RPC and SOAP Radio Frontier and Manila all interoperate For example you can use Radio as an authoring tool for your Manila site taking advantage of Radio s enhanced editing features While this is in no way required it is a powerful combination im 7 2 Radio Techniques This section explains some of the quick things you can do with Radio Among the topics covered in this section are shortcuts publishing to your blog via email learning to use Radio s automatic updating republishing your entire blog and backing up your Radio data 7 2 1 Shortcuts Shortcuts are a unique feature in Radio that makes entering content into your blog postings easier faster and more accurate Shortcuts replace quoted text e g tds with other generally longer text The Daily Show with Jon Stewart The text in quotes is the shortcut s name shortcuts can include full HTML content such as an image reference a URL or both When you are writing or editing a blog post you see the name of the shortcut not its value When Radio publishes your posting to your blog the shortcut s name is replaced with its value Shortcuts can be changed globally across all blog entri
132. b ir loaded from fib ommolfcetab ir B LERNTE UEILSU EMT Explorer Be ge yes penes eh Hep Ba o QI De es y D 0 EI Go ge I9 1 Radio 8 0 7 Hew Gbones Enartzutz Folder Events Themes Tool Prefs Hep E AN Scott Johnson s Radio Weblog Faragrap Fost Sizm cu gp r May 201027 amp I B 34 ABIL iz iz s 15 ie if ie oe Oe zw j0 ae Ape Jun Cin links His public pags far yow we irk te acar D IL di ill L id mu gsm B Eater ne ahpe qaid whiih Had jel balira in pour and hee mans Ho hy ra dalwari 3 met pezular Mado igi eega Lirik i i eiri uc whith salidas pirar haven Ha updated acartiy wyeBIW YG C RONCE Homa Pagan Hobbes hin ess pee gen C ge ete tees Ba Pere oe Mig 2001 7128105 Trik rhe Ziti hes ta A license posts ey phen peer help pages 12 2 3D Interne 7 2 3 2 Creating your own categories Although Radio has built in categories you probably want to create your own that are better suited to the needs of your blog To create a new category click on Prefs in the Radio command bar Under the Blog grouping click on Categor
133. bject database in your own applications where you need storage of variable length objects 7 5 3 Scripting Language Although it s not covered in this book Radio has a full scripting language UserTalk which you can use to build custom applications Much of Radio in fact is actually written in UserTalk This means that if you need to change how a built in Radio function works you generally can Additionally Radio has a full development environment for UserTalk including a debugger and a unique outline based scripting environment For more on UserTalk see http www fuzzygroup com go usertalk 7 5 4 Network Engine Radio is fundamentally a network application that is always in contact with the Internet This means that Radio is regularly uploading content downloading news and even updating itself with new features over the Internet This network functionality is also available to your own programs if you want to develop within the UserTalk environment 7 5 5 RSS and Content Syndication As described in Chapter 1 RSS allows you to both accept content and broadcast content assuming that some users subscribe to your blog This means that your blog content can get very widely distributed without any additional work on your part Additionally your blog can incorporate rich content from a vast number of sources 7 5 6 Logical Consistent Permanent URL Structuring By this time you have seen at least some of Radio s URLs suc
134. blog and if l m online chat directly with me like to say that where my web site used to be a brochure about me it s now a tradeshow booth You can come through and browse the articles and if I m there talk to me directly During the development process met a ton of people who came to chat with me and help to guide the development itself Since then l ve met hundreds of bloggers and browsers and it s done wonders to get me closer in touch with the community Brent Ashley http orentashley blogchat com To the new blogger wanting to gather a general audience be mindful of your readers By mindful 1 mean that the visual display of text shouldn t scare anyone off Don t tvP3 L1K3 th15 Keep the text readable with contrasting but not distracting colors use adequate sized fonts make sure lines don t scrunch together and try to exercise proper punctuation practices You don t want to annoy confuse newcomers Or if you do that s fine just remember that visitors will usually scramble to find a nicer looking page immediately without ever looking back Writing style is another matter Anything goes but it never hurts to be somewhat engaging Try to treat each new entry as an improvement in clarifying your voice the more individuality you put in avoid lumping detail after detail in endless lists rants outpourings etc the greater the chance that readers will get to know you and wait on the edge of their seats for yo
135. blog entries On Boing Boing the convention is to limit the number of links per entry to one at the very end of the entry with the hot text being Link see Figure 1 15 We do it this way for a couple of reasons which we ve listed here e We want our readers to get our context on a story before following the link We hope that people come to our blog to get information about the links we post not just links Putting the link at the end of the post encourages readers to go through the context before moving on e Multiple inline links can be confusing Setting the link off on its own and limiting ourselves to one link per post makes the link itself unambiguous Compare the Boing Boing approach to that of Memepool htip www memepool org with sentences such as Professional wrestlers are bigger than ever where every word is a link to a different page related to the blog entry The Memepoo style has its followers There is no right answer here Figure 1 15 A link 1 3 6 Discuss Link Discussion links see Figure 1 16 are links to web based message boards where your readers can talk about your entries Some blogs don t bother with discussions while others are defined by the communities in their discussion areas Some blogs have a different discussion area for each post others have a single Ur message board with a long running discussion about the posts on the front page Figure 1 16 A discuss link Depending on which blog
136. blogging is highly interactive with the blog reader responding directly to the blog writer This process is facilitated with blog comments functionality to allow your blog readers to add comments to each posting At this time Blogger doesn t have a built in comment system but you can use any number of commenting software packages particularly if you host your blog pages yourself and are comfortable with incorporating son coding into your blog One PHP based comment system called dotcomments accessible at http groups yahoo com group dotcomments support files works well Another freely accessible comment system is SnorComments available for download at http www snorland com scripts snorcomments2 This application works if you host your own blog pages and your system supports CGI However if you re not interested in server side coding if you aren t hosting your blog pages on your own set you can still incorporate comments by using a JavaScript client based comment system such as YACCS YACCS commenting is an online service that works with several blogging tools including Blogger and Radio UserLand You begin the process of using YACCS by signing up for an account at http rateyourmusic com ya providing information such as blogging tool used this is important as it impacts the code incorporated into yoi blog your name the URL for the blog and so on You ll also provide some basic operating instructions for the comments
137. bly about 99 of bloggers post in reverse chronological order and changing this default setting may confuse your blog readers If you prefer to post in a language other than English the default you can choose from among other language such as French and German If you subscribe to Blogger Pro you have access to even more language choices including Arabic Croatian and several variations of English German Spanish and so on Other formatting settings you can alter are the date and timestamp associated with your postings By default each posting is date and timestamped and a date field heads each day s postings In addition the date itself is controlled with the Time Zone field Use whatever matches your time zone For your blog change the posting number to show 15 of the latest postings In addition change the Date Time Format to M D YYYY HH SS MM AM PM And the Date Header Format to Day of week Month Date Alter the Time Zone and Language settings to reflect your own preferences The settings at this point should be similar to those shown in Figure 3 7 Figure 3 7 Blog Settings after modifications in formatting edit your blog Mozilla 10 2002051006 _ O H Ble Eck Yew Go Bookmarks ook Window Debug 2 E emoa a search c Posts Settings 3 Template C Archive ty blogs c http hes quat corn onmating 15 lawestposis on main p
138. bout what s going on under the hood it s actually rather simple For every aggregated story Blagg simply borrows a slightly fiddled with version of the title replacing all but alohanumeric characters with underscores and shortening the whole thing prepends the feed s nickname specified in the rss dat file and pops a txt extension to the end The two aggregated items in Figure 9 10 are stored as boingboing The annotated E ETCON txt raelitybytes Andy Oram Oram txt Each time Blagg is run it makes sure it doesn t already have a copy of a particular story from a particular source by checking it against the filename im 9 13 Third Party Additions In addition to Blosxom and Blagg themselves users and fans have created various ports hacks mods associated applications plug ins Blaggplugs tips and tricks Keep up to date on the latest releases and other goings on at http www raelity org lang perl blosxom the Blosxom home page Em I I i Chapter 10 Blogging Voices Simplest piece of advice that was given by a former boss can be easily applied to ANY blog He read before you publish Electronic text can expose unintended meaning easily and it will also make what you say a lot more focused If nothing else it should help you catch spelling mistakes Gordon McLean ttp www snowgoon co uk As well as utilizing the number of links pointing at a pa
139. can also delete them To delete a story click on the Folder link in the Radio command bar This displays the Folder view which shows you all the content that makes up your blog in every folder Click on the Stories link Click on the year the month and the day of the story Radio then displays a list of all stories published on that day To delete a story click the Edit This Page button A folder from your desktop environment will be displayed You can now just click on the story and delete it as shown in Figure 4 28 Figure 4 28 Deleting a story 4 8 3 Limitations While stories are very useful they do have several limitations such as the following e Stories cannot be placed in categories e Stories are not automatically referenced on your home page you have to create a separate blog posting a link to the story By not posting them automatically Radio allows you to promote a story as you see fit e Titles of stories cannot be changed once they have been saved e he built in index of stories in Radio is just a flat list organized by date If you have many stories it can be difficult to locate the story for which you are looking Suggestion when you are editing your stories use the Find feature in your browser generally Ctrl F or Command F e When editing a story using the WYSIWYG editor in Internet Explorer for Windows the Page Up and Page Down keys do not work You can use Ctrl Home and Ctrl End to jump to the be
140. can also use a desktop client from Chapter 2 to maintain your blog In Chapter 6 you ll learn about Blogger Pro s blog by email service 3 2 Requirements use Blogger all you need is a browser that Blogger supports The standard version of Blogger works with most major browsers including Internet Explorer Netscape and Mozilla Until recently browser support for Blogger Pro was limited to Internet Explorer which meant Blogger wasn t accessible from a Linux or other Unix based box However Blogger support has been added to Mozilla Release Candidate 1 0 and up which means you can now manage your Blogger account from Linux and other non Windows environments You can work around the browser completely by using the Blogger API Once you ve created the initial account and blog post and maintain it via XML RPC using one of the client side tools describe in Chapter 2 You don t need to have a web site or a preregistered domain name to create a Blogger blog You can use Pyra s community blog server BlogSpot to host your blog pages However if you want to host your own pages you ll need a web site that allows FTP posting of content It doesn t matter whether it s a Unix or Windows server but it must have access Other than these two very minimal requirements there are no technical restrictions to running a Blogger blog If you meet the minimum requirements you re ready to create your first B
141. chive File templates follow these steps 1 Log into Movable and select the blog containing your entries Click on the Blog Config button to edit your blog configuration Click the Archiving link in the top right subnavigation o In the Archive File Template column for the Date Based Archive template for Daily archiving paste in the following SMTArchiveDate formete sY sm ed i1ndex html s 5 Click Save That s it When you rebuild your daily archives Movable will now automatically create the proper directon structure in your filesystem 8 3 3 2 Categorized individual entries By default individual archive filenames are generated as a padded form of the numeric entry ID 000002 html example and are stored directly in the Local Archive Path directory You may wish for more descriptive filenan however For example if you are using Movable Type to power a music review site it would be useful if the file corresponded to the name of the album being reviewed And it would be even better if the archive file were loc a directory named based on the genre of the review Instead of http www foo com archives 000002 html you like a sample archive URL to look like http www foo com french comic strip html To do this follow these steps 1 Log into Movable and select the blog containing your entries Click on the Blog Config button to edit your blog configuration Click the Archiving
142. content formatting buttons as well as buttons to Post or Post amp Publish the content The bottom part of the framed application page will usually contain previous postings but first contains posting instructions To the right of this is a calendar with which to access specific day s postings and a search option with which to search among previous postings To add a post type something into the text box at the top of the page You don t have to use HTML the Blogger tool will generate enclosing HTML tags for your text Type in the ubiquitous Hello World as shown in Figure 3 4 Figure 3 4 Typing in your first posting nloaded from fib ommolfcetab ie nioaded from lib ommolketab ir ei poet bk Bld E aD dt ew p morske Window Debug i E ipia garab prabe 1901 A earch Posts E Settings C Template Flach E uL My bags 7 Post to O Reilly s Weblogging pent post public ullo world Quick 5tart Inetesrtinns Posting Erter taut andar HTML in thia fore hald above and hit tna post button in thia a upper ngohi Al posts wll shos up here Fis 1 2 gt Saving to your To ranzfer the latest werzion of your blog to your wed srbe hil ries 9 1 the button on the nght of the black bar above or the nost i publish Sutton 1 5i ti aG 1 17 in the toobar at the top
143. cription approximately 255 characters or the first paragraph or a full description complete posting We strongly recommend that you use the short description long RSS entries play havoc with the usability of aggregation tools Finally if you host your blog on your server provide the RSS server path RSS filename and URL these are most likely based on the same location as your blog page path The RSS file for the Essential blog is named to rss xml and is colocated with the blog page Figure 6 19 shows the entries for this form Figure 6 19 Adding RSS support to the Essential Blogger blog Once the changes are saved publishing new blog postings or republishing the archives also publishes new entries to the RSS file All you need to do at this point is add a link to your template to point to your newly generated RSS file This is usually labeled Subscribe or marked by an orange button with XML in it but you can use whatever you wish im 6 9 Integrating Blogger into an External Application Environment By default Blogger generates the main blog page and supporting archives as HTML extensions but this is easy to change if you want to include ASP or PHP or any other type of server side script For instance as mentioned earlier we use a comment system called dotcomments that s based on PHP We ve also added a PHP date and time function showing our current date and
144. decide not to keep a reference to an older archive To remove this reference click the delete icon next to it You still need to physically remove the file if you host your own blog The Archive view page is changing At the time of this writing archive handling was being modified and individual archives are no longer accessible 3 6 2 Troubleshooting As stated in the beginning of the chapter Blogger is a heavily used system and this causes problems at times Probably the most infamous of the Blogger problems is the missing archive problem You ll see this and you re almost guaranteed to see this at least once when you add a posting and publish your blog and the archive links don t show in the blog page or in the archive page if you re using a separate page The actual archive files aren t missing just the reference to them However people won t be able to access these archives without the links so you re going to want to fix the problem There are a couple of approaches to take to restore the links We ve found that if we go into Archive view and click the Republish All button the links will usually re appear If this fails though another approach is to turn archiving completely off set Archiving to No Archives in the Settings reset archiving to your desired frequency weekly or monthly and then click the Republish archives button again Finally if the first two approaches don t work try publishing a new posti
145. deleting editing 2nd 3rd Index templates links markup and uploads and XML RPC and XML RPC API Movable Type blogging engine Mozilla Blogger and mt check cgi script Perl mt load cgi Perl Murray Ed www edmurray org MyPictures tool nioaded from lib ommolketab ir downloaded from lib ommolketab ir downloaded from fib ommolfcetab ir im im nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie nioaded from lib ommolketab ir SYMBOL A B C D E F EG H 1 K L M INI O P Q R S T U EV W X Y Z naming blogs Navigator links networking Radio UserLand and New World Disorder news comments pull models push model News Aggregator Radio UserLand and 2nd 3rd news feeds Radio UserLand subscriptions news of the weird NewslsFree Notepad post editing and im im SYMBOL A B C D E F EG H 1 K L M N DO EP Q R S T U V W X Y Z object database Radio UserLand open source software Slash Zope ordering posts Blogger nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie SYMBOL A B C D E F EG H 1 K L EM N O EP Q R S T U V W X Y Z password setting Blogger API passwords Blogger account setup upstreaming Radio UserLand and pasting pictures from Internet Explorer paulbeard no ip org movabletype Perl modules Movable Type mt check cgi
146. e 6 5 To manually add this to your blog we select and copy all of it Example 6 5 Generated YACCS code lt 1 Begin YACCS Code part 1 gt lt script type text javascript src http rateyourmusic com bclw b 90000020370 gt lt script gt script type text javascript function yaccs c document write ycso 0 function ycs e aded from lib ommolketab ir for r0 T voso l2 gyzid 1f ycsx 1 2 e return ycsx 1 2 1 if e lt ycso 3 1if ycso 2 gt ycso 1 return 1 else return 0 else return 0 function get_comment_link cc ycs e if cc 0 yfs ycso 9 Lt cell yis ycse0 10 1f cc 19 fyis vyosol11 if ycso 13 yfst cc yfst ycso 12 if cc 1 yfs ycso 14 ale Ce document write a target tycso 4 N class yaccslink href N javascript void 0 N onmouseover window status Comment on this post return true onMouseout window status return true onclick window open http ycso 8 commentsn blog id ycso 15 amp blog_entry_id et intags scrollbars yes resizable yes height ycso 6 width ycso 7 left 80 top 80 gt yfst lt a gt else 1 document write lt a class yaccslink href http ycso 8 commentsn returnurl document URL amp blog_id ycso 15 amp blog ent ded from lib ommotketab ir nioaded fro
147. e 8 7 Field configuration downloaded from lib ommolketab ir downloaded from fib ommolfcetab ir e a 2 MOVABLE TYPE Personal Publishing System Field Configuration The field configuration datarmines which entry flelds will appear on your new and adit entry screens You may choose an existing configuration Basic or Advanced or customize your screens by clicking Custom then choosing the fields which you would like to appear Help Basic Advanced custom show the following fields Category Selection Menu F3 Extended Entry Box m Excerpt Box Alla comments opti n Convert Breaks option E Editable Authored On Date Edit Entry screen only Button Bar Position Top af th page e Bottom of the pace CANCEL FAVE Figure 8 8 Saved customization preferences Using this same technique you can enable or disable certain fields from appearing by choosing a Custom configuration You can even choose where to display the button bar with the Delete Preview and Save buttons 8 6 5 Multiple Blogs One Movable Type Installation As mentioned earlier in Chapter 5 Movable Type easily supports running multiple blogs on one installation of the system Running multiple blogs is a good way to create a complicated site containing different sources of content For example the site Sew Wrong http www sewwrong com uses one blog to manage the news section on the main page and
148. e Type users to build sites that go beyond the standard blog format depicted downloaded from lib ommolketab ir in Figure 5 1 Some examples of non standard blog content include photo logs such as Figure 5 2 news headline sites such as Figure 5 3 movie music review sites magazine sites such as Figure 5 4 instructional sites Figure 5 5 and project oriented sites such as Figure 5 6 and Figure 5 7 Figure 5 1 Classic blog day lare and a dollarshort org e 2 e DOLLarISHOIT O gt vere Bee ee RECENTLY UPD ED E I print i i F k 5E E LITTLE PEOPLE IN A LITTLE WORLD Tha tram hling earth and my mention of the Outer Richmond s sandy past causes me to recall the w onderftal cxlackion of at the Be sure to check cut the ctt of Gan Francisco Birds gt lt ave View fram the hay cour ard CIPTA 1070 can t find a way to make a permanent link to thia map Ard tor those nat in San Francisco Remember to zoom Ths ars fantastic ll ere zer Figure 5 2 Photographic blog downloaded from fib ommolfcetab ir downloaded from lib ommolketab ir eoo CLomography lomaleg com photas travels journal about interact goodies lomoloc a collection of lomo imacery Recent Additions dick for lenges inge Fie Log gt By date or By Category People Places or Things 1 What iz Lomo It z a funky lite manual camera that originated a
149. e a Server Based Solution Installing Movable Type Using Movable Type Creating a New Entry Comments Adding a New Author Uploading an Image Syndication The Future of Movable Type Chapter 6 Advanced Blogger Section 6 1 Section 6 2 Section 6 3 Section 6 4 Section 6 5 Section 6 6 Section 6 7 Section 6 8 Section 6 9 Section 6 10 Basics of Blogger Pro The Blogger Template Template Customization Customizing the Archive Adding Comments Incorporating Statistics Automated Blogrolling Adding Support for Syndication ntegrating Blogger into an External Application Environment Exporting Blogger Data nloaded from fib ommolfcetab ie nioaded from lib ommolketab ir Chapter 7 Advanced Radio UserLand Section 7 1 Radio Frontier and Manila Section 7 2 Radio Techniques Section 7 3 Backing Up Your Radio Section 7 4 Themes Templates and Macros Section 7 5 Understanding How Radio Works Section 7 6 Important Radio URLs Section 7 7 Upstreaming Section 7 8 Online Resources for Advanced Users Chapter 8 Advanced Movable Type Section 8 1 Changing the Look and Feel of Your Blog Section 8 2 Blog Configuration Section 8 3 Archiving Options Section 8 4 Using the XML RPC API Section 8 5 Security Issues Section 8 6 Tips and Tricks Section 8 7 More Information Chapter 9 Minimalist Blogging with Blosxom Section 9 1 Requirements Section 9 2 Downloading Section 9 3 Installing Blosxo
150. e blog visitors will be presented with a standard HTTP authentication dialog into which they will have to enter one of the usernames that you have allowed in your htaccess file im im 8 6 Tips and Tricks Movable Type is a complicated application and as you may have guessed from some of the sections earlier in this chapter and in Chapter 5 a very powerful application This section contains some tips and tricks that may not be readily apparent via the Movable manual how to display a random entry from your blog how to display the last n non consecutive days of entries on your blog and so on 8 6 1 Displaying a Random Entry A common request from users is the ability to display a random entry from their blogs on one of their pages This can be useful in driving traffic to your site archives By providing visitors with a teaser of one of your older entries you could hook them for hours as they trawl through your archives looking for similar gems Because Movable produces completely static pages there is not a built in set of tags for displaying a random entry on your public site It is fairly simple however to add this feature using a post processing tool such as PHP or server side includes Following is an example of using PHP to include a random entry 1 Log in to Movable Type and select the blog containing your entries Click the Templates button to manage your
151. e changes go into each template in the Prefs section of Radio and copy each of the templates to a text file After changing to a new theme you can make these changes to the new theme 1 Click Submit 2 Click Home to return to the home page If your new theme doesn t appear refresh your browser and it will be displayed 3 Check your blog to make sure you like the appearance you chose If you don t like it repeat this process to choose a different theme Radio comes with many variations on the Adult Contemporary theme plus several exotic themes such as Soundwave Space Transmitter and Woodlands Many people have made Radio themes available for download and a simple Google search for UserLand Radio themes will find them For example http radio weblogs com 0001246 gthemes Figure 7 5 shows a blog with the Woodland theme while Figure 7 6 shows the same blog with the Space downloaded from lib ommolketab ir theme Figure 7 5 The Woodland theme Torkengton s Radke Weblog icrosodt Inbermet Explorer provided by ATE Broad Eie Ed Wem Faves Took eek c GAA Dreh itemm ier Ly db cd D Address i weblogs con 106861 May 2002 Homa Tuesday Moy 21 2002 Sun khen Tas Wed Then Fri Sat lye created an Instant Outline containing Ene A m n i i structurae ibut not the conbent there s a limit La 20 mE 22 23 24 25 tn how much Microsoft Word pain
152. e comfortable decided to use my existing web site malleron com for something other than an extended hard drive In looking around for diary scripts happened upon Blogger and immediately signed up Of course wasn t exactly sure what wanted to say and procrastinated for weeks before wrote anything worried for days about the consequences of putting my personal thoughts online what if a co worker reads it What if my ex husband reads it What if get fired because of it What if anyone reads it and gets the wrong idea about me What if someone reads it looks up my domain record and stalks me What are the risks to my daughter if do this Finally after what seemed like forever posted something to my site It took me several hours and felt rather painful but when saw it published felt strangely better For the first year or so didn t post very often or regularly After my divorce was final however my posts picked up in both frequency and intensity even started getting visitor feedback on my writing which was at once gratifying and frightening When I started a blog didn t even know what it was or how it was supposed to be used It just looked like an efficient way to keep a journal online and needed something that would challenge me to be truthful with myself about my life so far and where wanted to go Having it online seemed the natural thing to do since I was afraid the insulation of an offlin
153. e first time isn t immediately hit with a five minute wait Finally remember that your blog should be about your voice and your thoughts Many blogs seem to be more about Me too than About me Ewan Grantham http www a1161 com blog html have been interested for some time in becoming more of a producer than a consumer want to give back in some way find mailing lists and newsgroups are OK for some interchanges and seach engines can help locate stuff but sometimes it helps to find a site that gives the information you seek some context You can find related informationat the fog density you feel comfortable or ask the author a question So I have a place to collect my random musings and HOWTOs and like a snowball it gets larger and larger with each entry A couple of hundred visits a day after just a couple of months makes me think some of this is useful Rather than bother people with email can let them find stuff via Google and still feel like l m being useful As for MT a friend showed me his site and told me how easy it was to setup took me less than an hour and it s been easy Like all good tools it lets you focus on what you re doing not how to use the tool have done very little in terms of customization Mena made all that unnecessary thanks and it looks great Paul Beard http paulbeard no ip org movabletype Blog for fun If it stops being fun you re doing it wrong Don t worry about
154. e from the newly modified template syntax 9 Save your changes and republish all the archive files Once you ve adjusted the archive template change the main blog template to remove the JavaScript surrounding the archive file call and replace it within a link to the archive filename lt a href lt SBlogArchiveFileName gt gt lt b gt Archives lt b gt lt a gt After saving the template changes republish the archive files and then the blog page When you view the blog main page you ll now have a link to the archive file rather than a list of archive files Clicking on this link will open the Archive index file which should look similar to Figure 6 12 Figure 6 12 Blog archive index file To make this transition easier Example 6 4 contains the complete text of the Archive template Example 6 4 Complete example text DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC W3C DTD HTML 4 0 Transitional EN gt aded from lib ommolketab ir aded from fib ommolfcetab ir html lt ncad gt title SBlogTitle title lt style gt body background 666666 margin Opx font family Verdana Arial sans serif blogtitle font family Verdana Arial sans serif color white font size 32px margin left 20px margin bottom lpx text transform uppercase A font weight bold text decoration none font size smaller A hover color red lt style gt lt head gt lt body bgcolor 666666 marginwidth 0 marginheight 0 Lin
155. e journal which one else would ever see would encourage me to avoid the issues was looking to explore Plus figured if you re going to be your own therapist and bare your soul in public you may as well be as truthful as you can Indeed had avoided so many issues lied to myself so often throughout my marriage couldn t afford to any longer now that it was just me and my 2 year old daughter needed the public space to force me to examine myself and my life even when didn t want to because of all the fear and guilt carried Now that I ve been keeping a blog for a couple years can t imagine not writing in it or not writing at all period Keeping a blog has helped me through a lot in my life most of which wish had never happened as has the positive feedback l ve even made some new friends because of my blog people wouldn t have known if kept all my thoughts in a book in my desk drawer People who have expanded my awareness and made my roughest times much more bearable Jenny http www malleron com While working for my previous employer AGENCY COM we launched a weblog htto lab agency com using Movable Type We were all interested in weblogging and how it made publishing and communicating thoughts insight and knowledge easier Interested in how far the tool and the concept could be taken we endeavored to be a bit different We wanted something that featured posts that were more refined and in depth than th
156. e layout you prefer for your blog Background colors images and font styles are easy to change but page layout can be complex particularly when you have to work around the necessary Blogger template tags As a general rule pick a blog that has the layout that you want and finetune the selection with color and style For instance you might prefer centered content in a fairly traditional three column style Or you might prefer a left justified blog two column style blog you re not concerned about displaying archive hypertext links and a blogroll next to your blog content you can also pick a single column layout Play around with the template styles As an example of changing templates in your test blog click the Use This button next to the Sports Cut template You get a warning message about losing your template customization if you proceed Clicking OK accepts the change and takes you to a page where you can either proceed to the Edit view page to publish the content with the new template or the Template HTML view page to modify it For now go to Edit view and publish the blog with the new template Figure 3 12 shows the demonstration blog formatted with the new Blogger template Figure 3 12 Blog with the Sports Cut template cy ia Gha JPavker Meds of 2 2 gir Piip fear hee coral biog spot GET YOUR OWN BLOG blog spot Sumday June 09 2002 a Potted iif bp Shelley Poser Al ysu arar
157. e multiple short off the cuff posts that were common in the blogsphere The lab agency com site would also feature contribution from multiple authors as opposed to a single individual would guess that some would argue this approach isn t blogging at all even question it myself At the time we started it was I think pretty unique in that it was run by a commercial entity who is paid for its thinking think it was a success but marginally so You re always a little bit better for trying something even if it doesn t succeed as you have planned because you always have the knowledge of why it didn t work to avoid issues next time Here is some of the wisdom I gained on weblogging that can impart from my experience with this project Frequency of updates is important to effectively communicating through a weblog In choosing to exclusively publish in depth and therefore long format entries the communal dialogue of the medium is diminished as less attractive and less interesting liken this type of posting to a conference presentation rather then a birds of a feather BOF Another effect of our focus on in depth pieces is that the time and effort required to compose an entry put quite a burden on contributors particularly given other responsibilites personally found myself looking at a backlog of posts wanted to do Sometimes by the time got around to finishing or even starting a post it wasn t relevant In retrospect think br
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159. e of the key components that make up Radio e Overall content management system e Object database e Scripting language e Network engine e Content publishing preprocessor e XML engine e Logical consistent URL structuring e SOAP and XML RPC server and client engines e Open architecture Each component is discussed below Please note that depending on your level of geekiness you may want to skip this section 7 5 1 Overall Content Management System The Radio blogging tool really began life as an earlier product from UserLand called Frontier a powerful content management system CMS A CMS is designed to make web publishing much easier and more powerful At the simplest level a CMS isolates content from presentation This lets you alter your web publishing with a few clicks of the mouse rather than hours or days of HIML changes For example a CMS lets you globally change your web site s look and feel just by applying a theme or style to it A CMS also lets you globally manage and fix broken links If this sounds like Radio you re correct Radio is a full CMS and has features normally found in larger more complicated more expensive products 7 5 2 Object Database One of the problems with typical web publishing is the huge number of individual files involved Radio s object database the root files it uses takes care of managing all the files involved in your blog Additionally if you are a developer you can use Radio s o
160. e prepping a speech writing a column or working on a story will usually work with a browser window open to Blogger s Edit Your Blog screen cursor tabbed into the search field I flip back and forth between my browser and my editor entering a few keywords and instantly retrieving the details of some salient point it s my personal knowledge management system annotated and augmented by my readers Being deprived of my blog right now would be akin to suffering extensive brain damage Huge swaths of acquired knowledge would simply vanish Just as my TiVo frees me from having to watch boring television by watching it for me my blog frees me up from having to remember the minutae of my life storing it for me in handy and contextual form Cory Doctorow http www boingboing net Check around to see if your city has a blogging community Some cities have such communities and arrange happy hours or other fun events in the city One example dfwblogs com we rule Since blogging I ve meet and shared a room with a fellow bloggette at SXSW South by South West got hooked on Googlewhacking sent and received a gift from the Secret Santa Exchange met the DFWblogs com crowd at SXSW gotten help on a personal level from a bloggette help that otherwise might not have gotten if had not met her edited a book because someone found me through my weblog a fellow bloggette who works for a web design shop received an HFP with a ch
161. ealize that the Web is not as decentralized nor empty as it seemed While seldom let my online persona interfere with my person offline the type of response got from people who d read my blog actually strengthened my support for the US to the extent that started wearing a US flag bandana and carried a bag similarly decorated to school At the end of the day learnt that a certain extent of self censorship is inevitable Unless your blog is like totally anonymous it d be wiser to practice some sort of self censorship especially when the blogging community in your state is small Blogging advice Don t tell your boyfriend girlfriend about your blog unless you keep absolutely nothing from each other l ve gotten into trouble countless times when my boyfriend reads about something off limit in my blog like the time commented that was picked to do a project with the cutest guy in class he went off his rockers http lyndy org consume digest and excrete information for a living Whether I m writing science fiction editorials columns or tech books whether I m speaking from a podium or yammering down the phone at some poor reporter my success depends on my ability to cite and connect disparate factoids at just the right moment As a committed infovore need to eat roughly six times my weight in information every day or my brain starts to starve and atrophy gather information from many sources pr
162. eatures are available LiveJournal sells a subscription 5 for 2 months 15 for 6 months 25 for 12 months that provides you with benefits such as a livejournal com email address text messaging advanced customization and faster servers Radio UserLand has a free 30 day trial and costs 39 95 per year This gets you free software updates and blog hosting You can continue to use the software after your subscription expires but you won t receive updates and you must make separate arrangements to host your blog Greymatter is completely free The author accepts donations through PayPal however This may seem odd at first but it enables those who can afford to pay for their software to name their own price If you can t afford to pay you can still use the software and not be a criminal Movable Type is free for personal and non profit use Commercial users need a 150 commercial license Personal and non profit users can donate in a PBS like model 20 gets you a key to be listed on Recently Updated Movable Type Blogs and 45 gets you all that and support for instant messaging within certain hours Manila is part of the 899 commercial product called Frontier Manila is the blog hosting and management part of the larger Frontier content management system You can get a free 60 day trial of Manila from http manila userland com slash and Zope are both open source software You can download install and use them without payi
163. ects e Bark ard i Bafresh Ah Frnt Mul 3 tl Pm ion rg com prm Recien ilm Dg BI Tracker Pore 5 Braticcqa Cor Sew Wrong 9 z Dam ore dhe free rece parie Sleeves are our friends E Pm F Li seg Then a replica of an expensive designer shirt ra Tee ete Session Number Two j i Ean LO Ey inmi From Jennie s en adn which T learn that paying l s than bzon for a machine may not have been the bert ides afer all EMEIBIER AiTH SCE Coum bmw Off to a Crawling Start From Jennie s Undersea Pajamas an optimistic mood I figured I could accomplish quite a bit this evening in the space of beware F ire be bared Gmel Dn Figure 5 7 Project site downloaded from fib ommolfcetab ir downloaded from lib ommolketab ir 5 le cadavre exquise boira le nouveau J uU iz 3 r 3 pxquisite SL Or OF Those of you who obsessively morrtor tha progress lists might have noted that a number Tm hoping all of the most sanously dalinguent corpses have been put in the hands of folk hopefully mare eager to fulfil ther duces There are few other details of
164. eds N Manila Y Y Y Movable Type Y Requires third party add on N Radio UserLand Y Y Y slash Y Y N Zope Y N N 1 5 3 1 Local versus remote Almost all the blog management systems we ve talked about offer web interfaces That is regardless of whether you re using Radio UserLand Blogger or Movable Type you can use your web browser to post and administer your blog Some server based systems such as Blogger and Movable Type also offer an XML RPC interface called the Blogger API although it s not specific to Blogger that lets you edit posts and templates remotely If your chosen blog management system offers the Blogger API you can choose one of several desktop clients programs you install on your desktop PC to administer your blog Chapter 2 discusses some of these desktop clients in detail Blogger is a web application that resides on the blogger com server You can interact with Blogger from any web browser There is no desktop component to Blogger however you can use a desktop client to post to your blog Blogger can also be used to post to any blog that supports the Blogger API LiveJournal is a web application that runs entirely on the LiveJournal servers While it does offer API so that desktop clients can post to a LiveJournal blog it s not the Blogger API Thus the desktop clients discussed in Chapter 2 do not work with LiveJournal You can t post to another blogging system s blog from LiveJournal Radio User
165. ee version of Blogger If Blogger is your long term blogging solution consider upgrading to Blogger Pro the subscription version of the product Blogger Pro has additional features such as email blog posting RSS generation and spellchecking Also the Blogger Pro system isn t hosted on the same servers as the standard Blogger system providing more reliable and faster service A Blogger Pro subscription is for the individual or organization that signed up rather than any particular blog You can still work with multiple blogs To switch to Blogger Pro go to the Pro web site at http pro blogger com and follow the instructions Figure 6 1 shows the Blogger Pro page after making your switch Figure 6 1 After moving your blog to Blogger Pro Pim gdt een LI Qi 4b Ah ees 0 Uy 2 EL bkta 8 upra Exogger com bie bles 9 04730 D wie Lea Log A Soarch meb srh seg H Eie r z D meds B Settings E wete Mhe HR Tern Vy bigs Exod ig Hb 2 apoi Bi GGIE Post to Essential Blogger lopiem _ Wh NO 7 T Dpat Fe Pot aih 5 9 2002 11 24 03 AM Shealg 9oesri Inleupgur ns Weegee Toa Ins s um nine EE can feud 48 the Ss tebe 59 eee cresie either an szcaount nr your rs webing Once you we sen how mary Weblog can be your wonder why pou ciet try wen Sooner T
166. ef lt SMTEntryLinkS gt lt SMTEntryID pad 1 S gt gt lt SMTEntryDate format 1 3M Sp S gt lt a gt in category lt a href lt SMTEntryLink archive_type Category S gt gt lt SMTEntryCategorys gt lt a gt Then save the template and rebuild your indexes to update your public site Figure 8 5 Figure 8 5 Entry with category The metadata line for each of your entries now contains the name of the category assigned to the entry which is a link to the category archive for that category 8 1 2 Movable Type Tags As mentioned earlier templates in Movable Type are composed of special tags embedded within Standard static markup All Movable Type tag names start with Tags come in two flavors variable tags and container tags Variable tags are simple substitution tags They represent and are placeholders for dynamic pieces of data For example wherever the lt smrentryTitles gt tag appears in your templates it is replaced with the title of the entry Container tags on the other hand represent either a list or a conditional They contain a subtemplate a chunk of markup and Movable Type tags between two other tags the start of the container and the end of the container The start and end tags look like standard HTML tags If a container tag represents a list the subtemplate within the container will be applied to item in that list For example when you use an lt mMTEntries gt tag the markup between lt
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168. enson SubAverage Andrew Sylvestor ThatGrrl Gasper Torriero Roger Turner Jon Udell Benjamin Vierck Donald Weightman Tyler Weir Robert Williams Evan Williams Dave Winer Peter Wolf Phil Wolff Matt Yarbrough Mark Yeager Sie Yin Jason Zada Steve Zellers Judith Zissman Cory I d like to thank Tom Coates Joey DeVilla Meryl K Evans Dan Gilmor Patrick Nielsen Hayden Mark Frauenfelder Debbi Ridpath Ohi Teresa Ortega Derek Powazek Dave Winer Judith Zissman Rael Dornfest and Nat Torkington Rael To Asha and Sam my inspiration and support dedicate my work on Blosxom and this book And of course many thanks to my gentle readers and dedicated contributors without whom this would all be just so much software Scott I d like to thank Guy K Haas Lawrence Lee Jake Savin Andrew Sylvester Russ Lipton Eszter Hargittai and Buzzy Bruggeman Shelley I d like to thank Laurie Petrycki and Simon St Laurent for allowing me time off from the Unix Power Tools and Practical RDF books in order to work on the Essential Blogging book also like to thank my weblogging virtual neighborhood for making weblogging much more interesting Chapter 1 Introduction to Blogging Here s a dry definition of a blog A blog is a web page that contains brief discrete hunks of information called posts These posts are arranged in reverse chronolog
169. epycat com and DB File can be downloaded from the CPAN http www cpan org If you on a Windows server you can install DB File using the Perl Package Manager PPM 5 2 2 Downloading The distribution can be downloaded from the Movable Type web site at http www movabletype org download shtml The file that you download is saved in tar gz format this is a compressed bundle containing all the files necessary to run the application on your web server After downloading the archive to your computer s hard drive unpack it If you are in Unix you can use gunzip and tar to unpack the archive 5 gunzip file tar gz S tar xvf file tar If you are on a Macintosh Stuffit Expander can unpack the archive If you are on Windows PKZip or Winzip in classic mode can do the job If after unzipping the distribution archive you find a folder without a directory structure that is files dumped into one folder rather than grouped into subfolders you will have trouble installing Movable Type This problem usually signifies you used Winzip s wizard mode to unzip the archives If this is the case delete the folder and try again with Winzip in Classic mode 5 2 3 Locating Perl The following files from the Movable Type distribution are Perl scripts mt cgi mt comments cgi mt add notify cgi mt load cgi mt check cgi mt xmlrpc cgi and mt send entry cgi The first line of each file called the shebang line must contain the path to Pe
170. ere you installed Movable Type Failure to remove mt oad cgi could enable someone else to create a blog in your Movable Type installation and possibly gain access to your data Failure to delete mt oad cgi introduces a major security risk Delete it now 5 2 9 Troubleshooting If you have problems installing Movable Type head to the Movable support forums at http www movabletype org support The creators of the system along with a dedicated set of expert volunteers will help to answer your questions If after reading through the above steps you do not want to attempt to install Movable yourself you can sign up for a paid installation at http www movabletype org pay shtml For 20 you can have Movable Type professionally installed and configured on your server 5 3 Using Movable Type Now that you have installed Movable Type you are ready to start using the system The first steps are to log in and change your username and password because the system by default always uses the same username and password The next step is to configure your first blog 5 3 1 Logging In Open your web browser and point it at the URL for mt cgi on your site mt cgi is the main Movable Type application For example if your site is http www your site com and you installed the application into the mt directory type http www your site com mt mt cgi
171. erver A plug in for Blosxom lets you upload posts to another blogging system via the Blogger API but you can t post to a Blosxom blog from a desktop client Table 1 5 summarizes the interfaces for each blogging system Table 1 5 Desktop versus web Tool Web Installs on Post to blog via Post to other blog via Own interface your PC Blogger Blogger API interface Blogger Y N Y Y N Blogger Pro N Y Y N With Third Part Blosxom N N Greymatter Y N N N N LiveJournal Y N N N Y Manila Y N Y Y Y Movable Type N Y N N Radio UserLand Y Y Y Y Y Slash Y N N N Y Zope Y N N N N 1 5 4 Summary Blogger and LiveJournal are low impact easy to get started services However they have their limitations you must pay to use advanced features and LiveJournal doesn t support the Blogger API which would let you use a desktop client LiveJournal users tend to be part of the LiveJournal community whereas Blogger users tend to form their own communities Also good for entry level bloggers is Radio UserLand More so than Blogger and LiveJournal Radio UserLand offers something for people who like to program and experiment Radio s not only a user friendly blogging system it s also a fully fledged content management system You must pay for it after the free trial period however To host your blog on a Unix server you probably want Movable Type or Greymatter Of the two Movable Type is more actively maintained a
172. ery day while Gary Farber s Amygdala http amygdalagf blogspot com does much the same with lengthy commentary analysis Glenn Fleishman s 802 11b Networking News http 80211b weblogger com is the place for news and analysis of new wireless networking technology He s not the only one bloggers cover technology like no other subject Wes Felter s pithy notes on Hack The Planet http wmf editthispage com provide razor sharp point form commentary on important tech news The author of this chapter is Cory Doctorow a coeditor of a blog called Boing Boing A Directory of Wonderful Things Boing Boing http www boingboing net originated as a paper cyberculture zine and while the medium has changed the content is much the same snide and impassioned commentary on technology civil liberties Disney theme parks community wireless networks science fiction natural oddities and Fortean phenomena und zo wieter While all three contributors to Boing Boing earn parts of their living as professional journalists the blog is a wonderful opportunity for us to spout off on the subjects we re excited about without having to duke it out with an editor over subject and word choice downloaded from lib ommolketab ir 1 2 Anatomy of a Blog Figure 1 1 shows Kottke org while Figure 1 2 shows Calamondin hitp www calamondin com Figure 1 1 Kottke org eee kottke org hom
173. es just by completely republishing your blog Instructions on how to republish your entire blog are at the end of this section 7 2 1 1 Automatic shortcuts An automatic shortcut is created when you publish a blog entry with a title Radio automatically takes that title and makes a shortcut out of it For example if you published a book review of Perl programming books that had a title of Perl Books you could always create a link to that post by putting Peri Books Into a blog entry To prevent the Perl Books shortcut from being expanded put backslashes in front of the quotes Perl Books Radio treats backslashed quotes as literal quotes so the string that appears in your final blog is simply Perl Books and not a link to the Perl Books post 7 2 1 2 Creating your own shortcuts You can also create your own shortcuts Your own shortcuts can for example convert text into URLs insert boilerplate and even insert the HTML code for images For example my shortcut virgii Inserts a picture of my cat Virgil and the shortcut fuzzyweb inserts a link to my web site http www fuzzygroup net To create your own shortcut click on Shortcuts in the Radio command bar This displays the Radio ohortcuts screen shown in Figure 7 1 Figure 7 1 Adding shortcuts T shortoske Microsoft Internet Fe Di Wee Took s Qo od eote y d EJ
174. es that broke climbing the ranks on Daypop and Blogdex and getting picked up by major news outlets The more blog the more reward generate Strangers approach me at conferences and tell me how much they liked some particular entry people whose sites l ve pointed to send me grateful email thanking me for bringing their pet projects to the attention of so many people Blogging begets blogging blog because I m in the business of locating and connecting interesting things Operating a popular blog gives people an incentive to approach me with interesting things of their own devising or discovery for inclusion on Boing Boing The more 1 blog the more of these things get as other infovores toss choice morsels over my transom The feedback loop continues on Boing Boing s message boards where experts and amateurs debate and discuss the stories I ve posted providing depth and context for free fixing the most interesting aspects of the most interesting subjects even more prominently in my foremind The upshot is that operating Boing Boing has not only given me a central repository of all of the fruits of my labors in the information fields but it also has increased the volume and quality of the yield know more find more and understand better than ever have all because of Boing Boing The nuggets I ve mined are at my instant disposal can use Blogger s search interface to retrieve the stories l ve posted with just a few keywords Whil
175. es your readers an easy way to send suggestions Figure 1 5 shows Boing Boing s suggest link Some advice on handling suggestions e You don t need to follow every suggestion you get it s your blog e You don t need to explain why you re not following any given suggestion it s your blog e f someone pesters you about your rejection of his suggestion try a response like Sorry it just didn t tickle my bloggerbone which is of course another way of saying It s my blog e Be sure to attribute suggested links that you include in your blog Thanks John We used to thank every person who sent in a suggestion but we get lots and lots of suggestions on Boing Boing over 30 suggestions per day and it became impractical This Boing Boing form is shown in Figure 1 5 Your suggestion link can be a simple maiito link that sends you a message by email On Boing Boing we use a form with a script that my pal Chris Smith wrote and hosts for us You could use a script like Formmail from http nms cgi sourceforge net The Boing Boing form is shown in Figure 1 5 Figure 1 5 Suggestion form note bo submitters It s not that we re lazy but w 7 k a FE IL i x T ule Ste LE MOr We urota ily pet du i asie LUMINE US A INE T Ong UH 2 re busy vou re subimitting two entries on the site that you think are especially noteworthy What were getting m were m thal a submsssin abong the mes of
176. es your web server meet the requirements for installing Movable Type The system is a server based application comprised of CGI scripts Perl library modules and frontend display templates and images Data is stored in Berkeley DB databases which provide a solid data repository for all your important blog data To install and run Movable you will need A web server The application itself is around 2 megabytes but we suggest you have at least 25 megabytes of disk space available on your server to accommodate future files and posts FIP program or shell access Perl 5 004 04 or greater Most web hosts should have this version or greater installed If they don t ask them to upgrade You can determine the version of Perl installed on your host s server from the command line perl v This is perl v5 6 1 built for 1686 linux Copyright 1987 2001 Larry Wall Perl may be copied only under the terms of either the Artistic License or the GNU General Public License which may be found in the Perl 5 source kit Complete documentation for Perl including FAQ lists should be found on this system using man or perldoc perl If you have access to the Internet point your browser at http www perl com the Perl Home Page Berkeley DB and the DB File Perl module If your server does not have Berkeley DB or DB File you will need to have your hosting provider install it Berkeley DB can be downloaded from http www sle
177. ets up an arms race where your troll returns again and again assuming new identities until you find yourself spending all your time hunting down and eliminating offensive posts while your blog idles away untended and static Deleting the message board altogether satisfies the troll s victory condition he has silenced your readers with his vitriol Take a lesson from free speech advocates the answer to bad speech is more speech Ignore your troll and encourage your readers to do the same while you continue to have your discussion Trolls really do disappear if no one pays them any attention Some message boards have email gateways allowing you to read and post from your mail client If your message board has this option use it and avail yourself to your mailer s filters and delete the troll s posts unread Matt Haughey runs a sprawling and excellent group blog called Metafilter http www metatilter com where heated debate often flares Matt jokes about installing the ultimate anti troll measure a filter that makes it appear to the troll as though his posts are being sent to the Metafilter message boards but makes those posts invisible to all other users removing the temptation to encourage the troll by responding to him 1 3 7 Attribution The currency of the Distributed Republic of Blogistan is the link One link equals approximately 0 00 Even so links aren t worthless There is no shame in getting links for your blog
178. execute access to all users owner group and everyone else See Figure 5 10 for an example of 777 permissions Figure 5 10 db Directory permissions 5 2 6 4 Creating your blog directories In your FTP program create the directory where your blog files will be stored this is the directory that you chose in Section 5 2 4 for the location of your blog directories nioaded from lib ommolketab ir If you are using a separate directory for your archives create the directory where your archive files will be stored 5 2 7 Required and Optional Perl Modules Open your web browser and point it at the URL for mt check cgi on your site For example if your site is http www your site com and you uploaded the Movable Type files into the mt directory you d type http www your site com mt mt check cgl mt check cgi is a Perl script that checks whether the required modules are installed on your server If you get a 500 Internal Server Error when running this script check that you set the permissions to 755 mentioned earlier in Section 5 2 6 and that you uploaded the file in ASCII mode If you continue to get errors look in the server s error log for clues as to what is wrong If the script runs successfully it displays a list of Perl modules and for each module it tells you whether or not the module is installed on your web server Modules under the Checking for Required Modules section are required by Movable Type modules u
179. existing authors Movable uses a task based permissions system to allow as well as to deny author access to certain aspects of administration As the administrator of your blog you can choose how much access you wish to give to a user whether the user can post to the blog can edit the templates for the blog can edit the configuration and so on Figure 5 25 Add edit blog authors MOVABLE Personal Publishing System add an author scroll down to the Add an Author section and fill in the form You will need assign a username and password to the new user Then from the list of blogs on the right allow the user access to a blog by checking the checkbox next to the blog name Click Save to create the new author once you have done this the new author will be activated and will be able to log in to the system to post to the blog By default new authors are given posting permissions only in the permission editing screen Figure 5 26 you can modify these permissions if you wish to Figure 5 26 Editing permissions 860 MOVABLE TYPE Personal Publishing System hi VABLE ir lan i Edi Pr at T Epi 1 ral P i sh Hi Hl vl Fi Canti 773 pinard Fili Rabi jina Filit Pivi eral Haii Edit Edit Aulhors amp Perinirsial Edit Addrserzs Book Lh nul Selecta blag ADI
180. files are going to the correction location by accessing the Archive view and then clicking on Archive Settings In the page that opens check and see that the FTP Archive path is specified You can also check this value within the Settings When finished republish all the archives by clicking the Republish All button Once you ve moved your blog to your own server you ll be free to post pages in ASP or PHP format or to incorporate other technologies 3 9 3 Troubleshooting If you submit a posting for publication but the blog page archive page or posting aren t showing up chances are the publication process is still working this can take a few minutes when the system is under load You should also make sure that your browser cache has been refreshed However if the page doesn t show after a considerable time at least a couple of minutes something has happened during the publication process This can range anywhere from not providing the correct FTP path or username and password when publishing the first time to not being able to get a connection for one reason or another problems with your server or Blogger To start the troubleshooting process click on the Status link that appears above the calendar in the Edit view page after you publish your blog Information about the most recent publication process appears in the titlebar such as Transaction successful if the blog was successfully published If the publication wasn t successf
181. for a number of months decided the best way to learn about this fascinating subset of the Internet was simply to start a blog myself One of the first things realized was how a handful of companies people really had developed amazingly sophisticated yet simple tools to enable personal publishing for so many The second thing realized was that the blogging community truly is a community in all the best senses of the word When needed help it was there When I had questions they were answered Not to mention encouragement virtual pats on the back advice and meaningful challenging interaction Blogging also has helped me to rediscover my voice again both personally and professionally Putting yourself your opinions thoughts ideas etc out there every day will do that to you And learning the technologies CSS template driven web sites RSS XML various APIs third party tool integration etc couldn t have come at a more opportune time had been feeling ho hum about most things Internet but the world of weblogs has reinvigorated my sense of enthusiasm for the medium Ed Murray http www edmurray org Shortly after the Sept 11 attack in NY blogged about how angry was with the Islamic militants and how I would give support to USA regardless of its stand And all of a sudden my blog was invaded by Muslims who were angry with me for supporting the US Such an experience was more of a Chiller than neat It made me r
182. from other bloggers indeed one of the blogiverse s finest characteristics is its ability to examine a single story from a thousand angles wearing it as smooth as a riverstone as it is handled by a horde of self appointed analysts o0 no blogger will complain that you are stealing from her if you reproduce her links on your site but woe to the blogger who does so without attribution see Figure 1 17 If we find a link on your blog we don t need to ask your permission to post it on ours but we d be very rude indeed if we didn t link back to your site Figure 1 17 Attribution with link Attributing links establish the chain of authorship They drive your readers to the sites that you read They are the invaluable payback from one blogger to another the indispensable virtual high five On Boing Boing we attribute in two ways e For suggestions sent by email we add Thanks first name of sender with link gt to the end of the post e For items found elsewhere we add via name of site link was found on to the end of the post Other blogs handle attribution in their own way Some do it inline Found on Metafilter Yet another domain hijacking Some do it very briefly at the beginning or the end of the post Check out this amazing Flash animation slashdot Scripting News More cease and desist letters from the Church of Scientology 1 3 8 By Line Blogs are written by people not PR departments or staff writers
183. g people to stop by and read what you have to say In the blogging community this is known as generating buzz The first step to promoting your blog is to change the settings from being a non public blog to a public one This is accomplished through the Blogger Settings view by changing the drop down menu value of No for the field labeled Public Blog to Yes Once you ve done this this adds your blog to the blog verification process Pyra reviews the entry to ensure that it doesn t violate the TOS Once verified your blog is then added to the Blogger Directory It also shows up on the Blogger web site when you make blog updates though only briefly and only if your update is within the time frame of the current view on Blogger The second step is Ping Weblogs com whenever you make a change to your blog You can do this through various automated approaches outside of the scope of this book Or you can do this manually through the Weblogs com update notification form at http newhome weblogs com pingSiteForm In this form type in the name of your blog keep it short and your blog URL For the demonstration blog we ve built so far the values would be Essential Blogger essentials burningbird net This adds the update to the Weblogs com queue and your blog will show within a minute or two on the Weblogs com page By adding your update notifications to Weblogs com you re also adding it indirectly to several other resources that use Web
184. ge to determine its overall relevance Google also places a high emphasis on words used in title and header tags to determine its PageRank This can sometimes have unintended consequences Here in the UK a popular TV show called Pop Idol gripped the nation s imagination including mine Every week we would tune in and vote for our favourite Pop Idol with the lowest polling contestant being eliminated from the next round After many many weeks and a nail biting final posted a somewhat embarrassing entry to my online journal entitled Will Young Wins Pop Idol 2002 For a couple of weeks nothing unusual happened My friends posted a few sarcastic comments light banter was exchanged and everything including my critical faculties slowly returned to normal That was to be the lull before the storm Almost two weeks after the previous last comment was posted came this message We all think Will is gorgeous and Chloe wants to marry him He has a brilliant original voice and we r gona be buying the single This was to be the pebble that began the avalanche For some reason Google had ranked my posting one place higher than the official Will Young web site and the screaming hordes descended After a month or so of will i luv uuuuuuuuuuu comments my page dropped off the first page of results and much to my relief the postings finally came to an end But it certainly goes to show that however few people actually visit your blog
185. gestize s raga 1 1 Nathan Torkington s Radio Weblog Radio H D 7 Home Haws Bimer Events Ihema Took Prefs Hole 2 Tee plan reat Donrt forget F ml Main template checks 2002 The main the fie aoe of al pages m your erbo akcep the home paga applies te pagez in thip az wel to gages saved to the communky sarar an iz the templa The main temolshe uses Gun mecos fo acd partz of the page bbs the bie text of the page etc Maro sm endosed between c and the So characters The macro thet apnhy tothe main temolste are bested on the puta H page Z DOCTTYPE HTML PUBLIC Hrc DTD HTML 4 01 Transitional Fa zhrnl theads lt cnic les lt HTTP EQUIV Expices CONTENT Hon 01 dan 1390 Qiiid rLype rexyripssa body i When Radio constructs a page from the Main template it now finds the macro lt year gt which is replaced with the current year 7 4 3 Useful Macros Macros for use in the Main Home Page and Desktop Website templates include lt Stitles gt Title of the page e g Stories SsijteName Name of your blog e g Sherlock Holmes Casebook Sdescription Description of your blog e g Elementary Dear Watson lt sbodytext gt Body of the page The Main template is used to generate every page you see from Radi
186. gger weblog You can also choose to publicize the blog through the Blogger Directory http www blogger com directory lastUpdateDirectory 1 pyra by checking the Public Blog option Because yourre just starting the blog and trying out the tool you won t want people coming around and peeking over your shoulder so choose No for now you can change this later The next page asks if you want to host the blog on your own server or host it at BlogSpot This option is covered in more detail in Section 3 9 For now accept the default of hosting the page on BlogSpot an option that can be changed later The third page that opens asks you to provide a physical name for the blog It combined with the blogspot com domain forms the URL by which your blog is accessed by your reading public For example choosing hemp here would give your blog the URL Attpz hemp blogspot com Use a name you won t mind being publicly known by and one that is easily remembered In the example shown in Figure 3 3 used oreilly as the name also checked the box agreeing with the Blogger Terms of Service required to use Blogger which you ll want to take time to read carefully before proceeding with posting your first publicly accessible blog posting Figure 3 3 Providing a blog URL and agreeing to the Blogger TOS BLOGG Create Blog uid De 2101205006 alo T Be EM Mew go oses Window ep zl E b
187. ginning or end of the story You shouldn t be put off though stories are a great feature in Radio and definitely worth using and exploring 4 9 Adding Pictures to Your Posts Radio offers several different ways to add pictures to your posts ranging from shortcuts and global shortcuts to pasting from Internet Explorer and image uploading using Radio s upstreaming model 4 9 1 Pasting from Internet Explorer If you use Internet Explorer for Windows the easiest way to add pictures to your blog is to copy them from another source on the Web Let s say for example that you have an existing web site where your pictures are stored The Copy command in Internet Explorer lets you copy images from other URLs and paste them into Radio To paste an image from Internet Explorer find a picture on your web site and view in your web browser Right click the mouse button with the mouse pointer over the picture you want to copy Choose the Copy command from the pop up menu Go to a story or post in Radio s WYSIWYG editor set the cursor where you want the image and press Ctrl V or choose Paste from the right click pop up menu The picture is then pasted into your editor Make it available to your readers by publishing the post or story 4 9 2 Adding Pictures by Uploading Files The problem with adding pictures using the WYSIWYG editor is that the picture file must already be somewhere on the Internet accessible
188. gs Let s create a new weblog on gardening Create a new directory named gardening under your specified 5datadir Whether via your graphical file manager FTP or on the command line For instance if your Sdatadir Were home sam blosxom on the command line type cd home sam blosxom mkdir gardening You can name a weblog just about anything you wish The only restrictions are that weblogs must begin with a letter and contain only letters and numbers e g yetanotherblog blog2 SamlAm gardening Blog as usual saving all entries meant for your new gardening weblog in the gardening subdirectory To view your gardening weblog point your browser at the same URL as before and append gardening as shown in Figure 9 3 Figure 9 3 Gardening weblog entries for May 15 2002 Hepeat these steps for any number of weblogs saving entries to the appropriate directory and appending the blog name to that of the Blosxom script 9 9 Syndicating with RSS Blosxom makes creating an RSS feed a snap Blosxom keeps the RSS representation at your weblog s URL suffixed by flav rss You can point your browser at this see Figure 9 4 but it s most useful as fodder for aggregators or syndication services Figure 9 4 An RSS representation of the default blog eo http 127 0 0 1 cgi bin blosxom cgi xmi ino Blosxoms titles http 127 0 0 1 cgi bin blosxom cgi n Mot your garden variety B
189. h 23 2 007 Agian wiern 1 Radio 6 0 7 Home Hees Stones Shorts Events Themes Tools Pref W Du BEWELAPMD Scott Johnson s Radio Weblog LUE www f This 15 he Polder vies of the Bade Web server It alkres yoru 16 birsta the wew Snider hhii m shere poy wes hos Pe sarai works beland the Tite Sise Hits Link B ii 2 n0i ik tOLI KOSPUUI 001 ek Brlzy2001 1K 11 2i 2 0 01 ik 11 19 2001 1 B is 2 n01 n 7 2nnz IK 5 7 2002 litemz e002 items 5 7 2002 sk Hrs 5 7 2002 S5 items i 11 2 001 ik 5 7 2002 iitems gii GDF 15 iea W202 17 thems 5 72 002 Tr zi7 2002 lrbems n2 2002 4ibems a feO02 zrbems HR md ee MUL SL I oo oo eeo089 E c rm n as e Click on the link to the myPictures folder This displays all the files in that folder If you click on the globe icon next to the picture to which you want to link the picture will be displayed If you are using Internet Explorer for Windows you can insert the picture into your blog by right clicking it selecting Copy and going to your blog and pasting it into a post or story This is the same process described in the preceding section To get an uploaded picture into a blog post or story if you aren t using Internet Explorer for Windows you need to copy
190. h a code name and passwor by Site Meter to you in an email when you signed up for the account Figure 6 17 Site Meter statistics for blog page downloaded from lib ommolketab ir downloaded from fib ommolfcetab ir 25 te heler and Statistics Tracker d e interret Explorer illl x be Ei dee avons Toole tel Bea Qd 2 EER Site Summary bre at tines PEF Wah Gregg Just qu a2 Z nag i Fas q mare BT riore Qi wena inar a rode caf Frag paral Pina mgr Fora tena cf B Rrin Fagat Average AU Average Visit Length T Lug ask Beh Today m Lu FJ ul dh re forced Bigr mp rem gas ara ment Free Em VW Page Views T zzi T L Poe Average perc i are nary Average per Visit oll dale Labbe quinh seb Last T Lp iid om pris fune Today rai CELETTE llai A gig dg L This Wisk Page Views HET Web war Wisit Trackin ete If you re not comfortable supplying your Blogger account name and password you can copy the generated HT paste it into your blog yourself 6 7 Automated Blogrolling Automated blogrolling is another JavaScript enabled technology you can incorporate into your blog This service is available once you sign up for an account at htip blogrolling com With automated blogr
191. h as A home page http radio weblogs com 0103807 A daily posting http radio weblogs com 0103807 2002 05 01 html A list of all stories http radio weblogs com 010380 7 stories An individual story http radio weblogs com 0103807 stories 2002 05 06 marketing1 01 ItsAllAbout I rust html Radio automatically generates these consistent permanent URLs for all your blog entries This makes your blog posts very accessible to search engines because they represent just straight HTML not complicated CGI URLs Additional examples of Radio s URLs are covered in the next section 7 5 7 Web Services SOAP and XML RPC Web services SOAP and XML RPC are three of the hottest technologies in the computer industry today A full description of these could take pages not just a paragraph In short not only does Radio let you create web services those web services are fully standards based and support both SOAP and XML RPC in fact UserLand software helped define both of these very important standards For more on using XML RPC and SOAP in Radio please see http www fuzzygroup com go radioSOAP http www fuzzygroup com go radioXML RPC http www fuzzygroup com go radioWebServices 7 5 8 Open Architecture software products from vendors differ in their degree of open ness This is not only their support of an or a standard but it s the ability for a user to get under the hood of a product and fix it if there is a
192. h email address you specified if you have more than one Once you click the Submit button you should see the page shown in Figure 4 3 Figure 4 3 Successful creation of a UserLand account Click the Continue button to begin using Radio and you should see the page shown in Figure 4 4 Figure 4 4 Installed and ready to blog downloaded from lib ommolketab ir downloaded from fib ommolfcetab ir i mem a 6 y i 5 RL AF Sie Scott Johnson s Radio mM Weblog 1 May 2002 FEJ nita T jii Z 13 14 LS 1E 1T 1E af z8 da ax jH rS Tr rk d9 Dui lun Timet Links rcg tha public zur mand Sig link to acer irand aed collaagzas Sg grgry wou pe regi Source fo pte and fes mas Bj Hsapa cip Sg ha rio bra iJ mH 190 mead papalar anaiba Seeding uri Teo ie Upit show p Previous 10 post Tig Hh LIN THE NIGHT BEFORE jones haa Twas the night before shi Ebtabum Conker Ei3a4rdT DA Tog yarn deyr mening Och bees 2 And all through the Maseat The geeks were praying camber limna cast TEM PTS kssr Han 840 Wa far college to slip cedit x NEVEI f Sotel
193. hat lets you set many different preferences Radio s Prefs screen mixes together two very different types of preferences how your blog operates blog properties and how your copy of Radio operates Radio preferences In this section we ll cover the Radio Prefs screen and point out the options that really matter for your blog and for your system To get to the Radio Prefs screen click on the Prefs link in your Radio command bar The Prefs screen is shown in Figure 4 21 Figure 4 21 FTP Preferences Preferences Microsoft Internet Explorer 10 x Eile Edit Wew Favortes Jools Help Bak gt G A E Address 4 hrtp f 127 0 0 1 5335 systev 30 G gle Links 1 rua Lt ow da lu m May 2002 Basic Preferences Sani bhin Tine Wed Thi Fri Salt L 2 3 2 5 101 1 12 13 14 15 16 1718 19 ZD zl zz 43 zd 20 26 27 28 29 3031 Spe Jun ke Weblo itm Online g About He a a E ii E The Radio Prefs options are broken down into different categories Basic Preferences System level configuration Weblog How your blog operates for readers and for yourself the author Templates The presentation of your weblog Internet and server settings How connectivity functions in Radio News Aggregator Settings to control the News Aggregator Advanced Changing passwords backup and URLs In total there are approximately 50 different
194. he body of the template to the following lt MTEntries lastn 1 gt a href lt SMTEntryLinkS gt gt lt SMTEntryTitles gt lt a gt lt SMTEntryExcerpts gt lt MTEntries gt 5 Save the template This template will produce a small chunk of HTML with your most recent entry which can then be inserted into another page on your site using server side includes SSI PHP or another post processing technology For example to include this file in a page using PHP you would use this code lt php include recent html gt To include the file in a page using SSI use this code lt include virtual recent html gt Whenever you post a new entry to your site your index templates will be rebuilt including the Most Recent Entry template The chunk of HTML will then be dynamically inserted into the main page of your personal site and will thus always reflect the most recent entry on your blog without any manual work on your part 8 7 More Information The above tutorials have given you some sense of the power and customization abilities of Movable Type Of course there is much more that the system can do Some of these features were described in the introduction to Chapter 5 and others are described in the online documentation The definitive reference guide to Movable Type is the manual available in the distribution through the Help button in the top navigation It is also available at
195. he Day 1 2 5 Mailing Lists We have two mailing lists for Boing Boing One is a general purpose announcement and discussion list usually used to pass the word that our server has gone down and when we expect it to come back up The other is a moderated list that gets a copy of every entry we post to the blog It s a convenient way for our readers to get new items without having to check back several times a day to see what s been posted his is a feature that s new with Blogger Pro the for pay version of the Blogger blogging tool see Chapter 6 There are any number of free mailing list services online including the popular Yahoo Groups service http www yahoogroups com In five minutes you can create a moderated or unmoderated mailing list and away you go Yahoo Groups even generates HTML for a sign up form that you can paste into your blog template Figure 1 7 shows what an emailed post looks like Figure 1 7 A post by email using Yahoo Groups nloaded from fib ommolfcetab ie nioaded from lib ommolketab ir P pa ri m Boing Boing Blog Fiss elegant idea a iy Link P o ame A Calepories T Reply Mowe T From Cary Goctorow dactarcwitwiriconium nget Repdy T boingkoing maishlog awner yanoogrnaps par Date Monday April 29 2002 6 41 T boingboing mailblogseyahoeagreups com Subject Boing Boing Blog idea YAHOO Grou s hy
196. he HTML depends on the template you re using For example in the Default template the calendar is part of a table with your navigation links and various Radio and XML icons In this case it s best to put the Recent Posts list outside that table In the Woodlands theme the icons and links are elsewhere so you can simply put the Recent Posts macro call immediately after the drawcalendar call radio macros recentTitledBlogPosts maxTitleLength 50 gt 6 Click on Submit to save your template Reload your blog s home page and you should see the Recent Post list Figure 7 10 shows the Recent Posts list added to the Default theme Figure 7 10 Calendar and recent posts Ple D pem jok ep densk gt QR 2 h grit B Updated 3 20 2002 0 15 18 AM scott Johnson s Radio Weblog Monday May 70 2002 May 2002 Bar fius Tux Ae En Look Pirbureg in a Blog Entry 5 F 11 19 l9 2G 21 22 23 2425 zB Z7 28 Z 30 Xl taturday May 12 2002 E Om Peaga go te wee Tuzzwgroup com hag Ent toro Slate Sree Horie HLHS f pt Tuesday 14 2002 5 14 02 V D If you find that the macro s output doesn t appear on your blog one of two things is probably wrong error message from Radio probably indicates a syntax error check that you haven t mistyped the gt characters or mistyped
197. he destination v tells rsync to be verbose about the operations it takes and the files it transfers source username hostname and destination are what you would expect source and dest ination are directories Here is a sample invocation of rsync rsync a v essh Users foo Sites blog bar myhost public_html blog Copying your files using rsync will be faster than using FTP because rsync transfers only the pieces of the files that have changed Thus using rsync means that less data must be sent over the network 8 6 4 Customizing the Entry Editing Screen By default the entry editing screen contains all the possible fields that can be associated with an entry title extended entry box excerpt and so on This may be overkill for your particular use of Movable Type For example if you only use the title the post status and the entry body you might want to display only those fields when editing entries Movable Type allows you to customize the fields that appear on the entry editing screen When you are on that screen click the Customize the Display of This Page link The customization window Figure 8 7 gives you the option of Basic Advanced or Custom configurations In a Custom configuration you can choose the exact fields that you would like to appear Try changing the configuration to Basic by checking the button next to Basic then clicking Save You now see a much simpler new entry screen Figure 8 8 Figur
198. he filename For example if you have a category Perl and your Archive URL is htto www foo com archives the RSS file containing your syndicated Perl sto live at http www foo com archives perl rss 8 3 3 Archive File Templates Archive File templates allow you to customize the URLs used for the archive pages on your site using standarc Movable tags We saw Archive File templates briefly in the previous section when we assigned a filenam the RSS Archives template In that case we were using Archive File templates to distinguish the RSS archive 1 from the standard HTML archive files But Archive File templates can also be used to impose a hierarchical dir structure on your archives 8 3 3 1 Date hierarchy For example suppose you blog daily and you have been writing your blog for two years In the course of these years you are keeping daily archives of your blog which means that in your archive directory you have 730 3 daily archive files You are starting to feel overwhelmed by the large number of files in the directory Instead of storing all your daily archives in one directory Archive File templates allow you to create a hierarchy your archive files to populate This makes your directory structure much more manageable and it can also mal archive URLs prettier instead of http www foo com archives 2002 05 04 you could have http Www foo com archives 2002 05 04 To create this structure using Ar
199. hen a nee mage Ale shoe un FEG 8B SE nn eor al X epu it 56 ser Adee folder acsi HI ube aru ise uw basa roster F iB ii ji HTML tot for ce image ore inaded hiz muet omarm vers ponfuzing If 20 check cut siu dal alan oce lcd Aue ther probably panum you mmn mors 4 77 2D Ju heck Fhiz bag to anahe khe My Piros tec nn hie folie CDocernmmnts and a Dozarea hh Pica Persio Lice acer m Online tar nae Copy nai Liz m modi meto rrara n n FTUN DEDE ba Eu rodar TemolatE Lime src ur1 width Ipwidk atte hzigkt berdec 0 aLligne ri qar La2pacem i15 wapacskm hh pitite m filansem the bar to mpr the gonraratec HTML bret bo Eno zy rbem cip basg Su beni You probably don t want to use your main image directory such as My Pictures in Windows You should create a directory below this so that images you don t want put online can still be in this folder The default folder name that Radio uses is Radio Upstream and if you use this all you have to do to start using MyPictures is create this folder select the MyPictures checkbox and click the Submit button If you need to change the folder on your blog where images go when they are uploaded just modify the option for x www images For example if you were uploading photos you might want them stored in a photos directory on your blog In this case set the fo
200. her an account or pour first KRaelDarnfest weblog Ont you ve sean how easy weblogginmg can Shelley Pomers youll wonder why vou didn t try weblogang EDO Lista A 202 Though the template modifications just demonstrated adding a blogroll and a blog title were fairly minor hopefully they demonstrate that working with the Blogger template can be a straightforward process downloaded from fib ommolfcetab ir 6 4 Customizing the Archive Take a look again at the blog page screen shot in Figure 6 11 Notice the format of the archive list a date range with each archive accessible via a different hypertext link Over time this list can get quite large and take up considerable room in your page Rather than list each archive link within the main blog page you can host a separate Archive index page that contains the list of archived items Then within the blog page attach a link to this page rather than the individual archive items 6 4 1 Creating a Custom Archive Page To demonstrate how to create an Archive index page within the Archive view click the Archive template option in the upper righthand side of the page new page opens showing a small template used to print out the archive history links As displayed in Example 6 3 the content doesn t contain any HTML elements Example 6 3 Blogger archive listing text lt B bogger gt docu
201. her flavors of Movable default template Alternate templates are located at hitto www movabletype org default styles html To choose one of these templates copy the CSS into the Index template named Stylesheet then rebuild Your site will now take on the new layout Or if you prefer you do not need to use the default templates at all you can remove all the default templates from the system and start from scratch if you wish If you re not sure what tags to use and where you might consider starting with the default templates as a base and modifying all the markup around the Movable Type tags To edit your blog templates log in to Movable and select your blog Then click the Templates link in the left navigation to display the list of templates in your blog Figure 8 1 Figure 8 1 Templates list gt MOVABLE Personal Publishing System m Lir Ternpldez There are two main types of Movable Type templates Index templates and Archive templates Index templates are used for one off pages such as the Main index of your web site or the RSS syndicated list of the last 15 headlines on your site Archive templates describe the display of your site archives where your entries are stored after they are no longer displayed on your Site index 8 1 1 1 Your list of links The index html file on your site is generated from the Main index One reason you might wish to edit this template is t
202. her team member administration capabilities check the box labeled Admin Note though that the team member will now be able to modify any team member s post nor can she add or remove members or modify the blog Use caution before giving this privilege to others 3 13 Removing a Blogger Blog The procedure to remove a Blogger blog differs based on whether the blog is hosted on BlogSpot or your own server hosted on your own server you can manually delete the blogging pages and then delete the Blogger blog Until recently if your blog was hosted on BlogSpot you had to manipulate the Blogger template to remove the files However with recent changes deleting the Blogger blog also deletes the pages on BlogSpot To delete a Blogger blog access the Settings view scroll down to the bottom and click the Delete this Blog button You are then asked to confirm your decision Once you do the blog is removed from Blogger s data stores and blog pages are removed from BlogSpot If you hosted the blog on your server you must manually remove the pages 3 14 Throughout this chapter we ve talked about some of the quirks of Blogger and what to do to minimize problems associated with them There are a few other things that you can do and places to turn to when you run into problems There s a help system at http
203. hive Templates An archive template defines the layout of your archive pages and the slots into which your archived entries w placed For each archive type that you use you can associate one or more archive templates with that archive This allows you to create multiple views of the same set of archived entries For example you might wish to pri standard set of HTML archives along with a printer friendly set of archives or perhaps you wish to cater to an readership so you also might provide a large font set of archives In any case creating multiple archive templates is a simple matter of defining a new archive template and associating it with the archive type of your choosing nioaded from fib ommolffcfab ir loaded from lib ommolketab ir For this example we will create an RSS feed for each category in the Movable Type system As discussed in 5 8 in Chapter 5 syndicating your entries to an RSS feed allows users to easily determine when you have adc new entry Suppose your site discusses several programming languages Perl Python and Ruby and devote readers interested in your Perl stories may not wish to read your syndicated Python stories in fact they may b upset when you even mention Python Therefore you wish to create separate RSS feeds for your content or RSS feed each for Perl Python and Ruby Assuming you have already categorized your entries into Perl Python and Ruby categories this is easy 1 Log
204. ical order the most recent posts come first Each post is uniquely identified by an anchor tag and it is marked with a permanent link that can be referred to by others who wish to link to it That s what a blog s but not what it s for A blog is a means of communication and there are many different types of messages carried by blogs Some are nothing but pointers to other web sites while others run long essays some are personal diaries others feature technology some are edited by one person others by teams This chapter is an introduction to the world of blogging You ll learn key terms such as blog and syndication see the different types of blog analyze the ingredients of a blog and compare and contrast the different ways you can run your own blog After reading this chapter you can make an intelligent decision on which blogging system to use and will know which of the later technology specific chapters are for you 1 1 The World of Blogging There are hundreds of thousands of blogs on the Internet and new blogs are created every day Originally they were known as weblogs a term coined by Jorn Barger The word implies that it might be a record of where some editor has been that day and what she has seen along the way Now they re blogs as in we blog a term coined in jest by Peter Merholz http www peterme com and contain everything from political commentary to private journals The
205. icons were drawn by Christopher Bing This colophon was written by Sarah Sherman The online edition of this book was created by the Safari production group John Chodacki Becki Maisch and Madeleine Newell using a set of Frame to XML conversion and cleanup tools written and maintained by Erik Ray Benn Salter John Chodacki and Jeff Liggett TEAM LIE SYMBOL A B C D E F G EH 1 K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Team vie SYMBOL A BI IC D E F G H 1 K L M N O P Q ERI S ETE U V W X Y Z 802 11b Networking News nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie nioaded from lib ommolketab ir SYMBOL A B C D E F G H 1 K L EM N O P Q R S T U EV W X Y Z A Day Late Movable Type accounts Blogger profile editing setup administration tools ads Blogger aggregation Blosxom Blago AmphetaDesk Amygdala AppleScript BlogScript applications Blogger API settings Blogger integration Appnel Timothy tima mplode com architecture Radio UserLand Archive File templates Movable Type Archive templates Movable Type Archive view page Blogger archives Blogger 2nd Archive template custom file location Template view Blosxom Movable Type 2nd 3rd categories Ashley Brent brentashley blogchat com attributes images attribution links authors Movable Type multip
206. ief and rapid posts in which our views would take shape and change over time would have been more effective A group weblog requires coordination and focus When it came to topic matter the site had loose requirements Being a diverse group of individuals from quite different backgrounds and different belief systems the site seemed a bit scattershot and struggled to have an identity in my opinion The freedom of one author with free reign to the weblog s content work because the personality and interests of that author are defined Combining a group of personalities with loose or no focus is a different matter It becomes too difficult for one person to filter and follow along Coupled with our low frequency of posts no real personality or focus emerged Weblogging must come from personal motivation and passion not just another line item on a typically too long list of responsibilities There were some less than inspired posts made because someone was getting poked and prodded to make one Others simply didn t make any despite being prime candidates to participate This is why I believe that while the concept of a knowledge weblog or k log is a good and valid assertion a mangerial dictate will not derive much value out of the effort to use use weblogs on knowledge or project management The reality is they are unlikely to be successful anytime soon without a cultural shift that will take years to achieve at best While the difficu
207. ies and then follow the New Category link This gives you the New Category options page shown in Figure 7 4 Figure 7 4 Creating new categories Ele pie Eyi J a Dah aHes T hip LET i 01t 07 0 DeC nre Da PC abigere io sae brh web FMAM Tue ai Scott Johnson s Radio Weblog New Category Tepe he reer ial fs ys nem aed into the tess below ane disk Toca leo language ned choose Theme tor the coon al HTML renders reg Cath gry Ds Chart thig bos to render tik catagory in HTM Check this box to not y Weblogs Com on updakgs to the HTL rendering of this category TI a hi a w Language Nor specnhad SO Last undae 2 Core i interna Enter the name of the category This can be anything you like including multiple words provided that it doesn t conflict with an existing category It is recommended that you use only letters numbers and spaces for category names Fill out the category description Turn on the Render as HTML option as needed This controls whether or not Radio builds a full home page and calendar entries for your category This really treats your category as a blog within a blog You generally turn this on o
208. ies that you d like to appear on your index template You can also customize the entries listed using either the days or iastn attributes to lt MTEntries gt For example lt MTEntries days 10 gt will list the last 10 days of entries and lt MTEntries lastn 10 will list the last 10 entries no matter when they were posted However suppose that you wish to display the last 10 days on which you actually posted an entry to your blog This is covered by neither of the above options but there is a way to do it 1 Turn on Daily archiving if you do not already have it turned on this technique currently requires that you use Daily archiving as one of your archiving methods 2 In your Index template instead of using MIRntrTes MTEntries where is all the markup between the two tags use MTArchiveList archive type Daily lastn 10 gt lt MTEntries gt lt MTEntries gt lt MTArchiveList gt 3 Save your Index template and rebuild This works because lt MTArchiveList archive type Daily lastn 10 gt always lists the last 10 days in your archives if you use the lt MTEntries gt container within lt MTArchiveList gt It lists all the entries from that archive page in this case all the entries posted on that day 8 6 3 Blog Locally Publish Globally lf you have a server account where you do not have the ability to run CGI scripts you still may be able to use Movable Type to publi
209. igure 9 2 The URL for a specific entry is known as the entry s permalink and is the preferred form of referring to an entry rather than the day as a whole or the weblog s home page Figure 9 2 Viewing a particular entry by its permalink URL osi Blosxom DE sU http A127 1 corbin 2002 2280 second Blosxom Wed 22 May 2002 second Post It worked twice in a row we certainly are off to a good start Posted at 1207 Penwered for some narrow dammen f powered by le sours In ernet Fone 9 7 Editing and Deleting Entries Because a blog entry is nothing more than a text file editing is just a matter of opening it back up in a text editor making whatever changes are needed and saving Deleting is equally simple delete an entry s text file and it s gone One note of caution editing an entry alters its file s modification date used by Blosxom to determine under which date to display it So editing yesterday s entry today means that it now shows up under today s date in your weblog im 9 8 Creating Another Weblog Blosxom supports any number of weblogs from a single Blosxom installation Until now you ve been editing the default weblog placing entries into the main data directory Additional weblogs are just subdirectories completely independent of the default weblog and any sibling weblo
210. ilable from your toolbar Script menu The only prerequisite is Script menu for OS X 10 1 available for free download at oaded from fib ommolfcetab ie http www apple com applescript macosx script menu ee 2 3 Also from WebEntourage is BlogApp 6 shareware Mac OS X application that offers rudimentary drag and drop text editor with bold italic and hyperlink buttons see Figure 2 4 as you type spell checking the ability to maintain multiple weblogs and weblog entries and template maintenance functions Store Post Edit Last Post Edit or Delete Recent Post Edit Main Template and Edit Archive Template Figure 2 4 BlogApp and resulting Blogger weblog entry browser window in the background ooo BlagApp Edit Tags A mmr Something lt a href ttte gt lt cb gt fascinalingob gt c a gt this way Comes Post number 85153507 completed h a is successfully Post Post amp Publis Saturday June 08 2002 Something fascinating this way comes BlogApp requires Mac OS X Version 10 1 2 or higher Downloadable as a compressed disk image installation is just a matter of decompressing and mounting the image and copying the application to your Applications folder 2 4 blogBuddy blogBuddy http blogbuddy sourceforge net is the Windows 95 NT ME 2000 XP equiva
211. images inline links installation Blagg Blosxom Movable Type application location blog directory location configuration database location directories file installation troubleshooting Radio UserLand directory Macintosh Windows interactive mode Blagg Internet Explorer Blogger pasting pictures from italic text Blogger posts Item template macros Team Lie SYMBOL A B C D E EF G EH 1 K L M EN O P Q R S T EU V W X LY Z Kottke org 2nd nioaded from lib ommotketab ir nioaded from lib ommolketab ir SYMBOL A B C D E F EG H 1 K EE EM N O P Q R S T U EV W X Y Z Leffler Greg greg louisville ky us line breaks in posts Blogger links attribution Blogger posts discussion links inline Movable Type templates permanent links Radio UserLand suggest link suggest links mailto links listing posts Movable Type 2nd Radio UserLand literal quotes backslashes LiveJournal 2nd cost desktop clients RSS feeds local operations Local Site Path Movable Type blogs log in Movable Type logging counters and Loureiro Javi www sieyin com Lubyk Jason New World Disorder Lyndy lyndy org lyndy org nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie SYMBOL A B C D E F EG H 1 K L EM N O P Q R S T U EV W X Y Z Mac OS X BlogApp and Macintosh Radio U
212. ing Blogger Pro domain names and statistics Blogger Site Meter tool stories posts and Stuffit files Radio UserLand for the Mac styles Blosxom subscriptions to news feeds Radio UserLand subtitles suggest links mailto links Sullivan Andrew current affairs Syndica8 syndication 2nd Blogger Pro Blosxom downloaded from lib ommolketab ir Movable Type RSS titles and system requirements Blagg Blosxom Movable Type downloaded from fib ommolfcetab ir nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie SYMBOL A B C D E F EG H 1 K L EM N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z tags blockquote Movable Type templates Blogger technology Template view Blogger templates Blogger 2nd 3rd 4th Archive template blogrolls customizing tags Template view window Movable Type Archive File templates Archive templates archives mutiple templates deleting editing 2nd 3rd Index templates links markup and Radio UserLand custom macros macros adding posts ThatGirrl www thatgrrl com themes Radio UserLand categories custom saving downloading existing posts thumbnails tima mplode com time stamp overriding titles Blogger Blogger Pro posts Radio UserLand 2nd subtitles syndication and tools cost hosting tools installed nioaded from lib ommolketab ir downloaded from lib ommolketab ir downloaded from fib ommolfcetab ir message boards tracking
213. ing your blogging environment for a long time you probably know everything we say and more You don t have to be a power user to run your own blog The software described in this book runs the gamut of complexity from Blogger no deep computer knowledge required to Blosxom designed for Unix tinkerers and experimenters You don t have to be a Unix guru or own a PC There are blogging systems that run on Windows Macintosh and Unix machines None of the systems we describe in this book require guru level knowledge of the operating system to install configure or use Although some systems attempt to hide it from you blog posts are eventually turned into HTML Most blogs let you write and edit HTML However this book doesn t cover how to design in HTML For more information on HTML we recommend Learning Web Design by Jennifer Niedherst O Reilly To benefit from this book all you need is interest enthusiasm and some basic technical know how Structure of This Book We ve arranged the material in this book so that you learn about blog systems acquiring the knowledge to select one that s right for your needs then jump straight to the chapters that address those needs Chapter 1 talks about the different types of blogs their basic structure and the different features of the various blog management systems Chapter 2 shows you several programs that run on your PC or Macintosh and lets you po
214. int radio television conversation the Web RSS feeds email chance and serendipity used to bookmark this stuff but just ended up with a million bookmarks that never revisited and could never find anything in Theoretically you can annotate your bookmarks entering free form reminders to yourself so that you can remember why you bookmarked this page or that one don t know about you but never actually got around to doing this it s one of those get to it later eat your vegetables best practice housekeeping tasks like defragging your hard drive or squeegeeing your windshield that you know you should do but never get around to Until started blogging Blogging gave my knowledge grazing direction and reward Writing a blog entry about a useful and or interesting subject forces me to extract the salient features of the link into a two or three sentence elevator pitch to my readers whose decision to follow a link is predicated on my ability to convey its interestingness to them This exercise fixes the subjects in my head the same way that taking notes at a lecture does putting them in reliable and easily accessible mental registers Blogging also provides an incentive to keep blogging As Boing Boing s hit counter rises steadily growing 10 30 percent every month get a continuous low grade stream of brain rewards rewards that are reinforced by admiring email cross links from other blogs that show up in my referrer logs stori
215. ion 1 0 gt lt upstream type ftp version 1 0 gt lt username gt fuzzygroup com lt username gt lt passwordName gt ftp lt passwordName gt server ftp fuzzygroup com server path htdocs ftpblog path url 5http www fuzzygroup com ftpblog url lt mode gt passive lt mode gt lt upstream gt Here s a sample upstream file for xmlStorageSystem upstream type xmlStorageSystem version 1 0 gt lt usernum gt 1015 lt usernum gt lt name gt Dave Winer lt name gt lt passwordName gt default lt passwordName gt nioaded from fib ommolffcfab ir loaded from lib ommolketab ir lt server gt radio xmlstoragesystem com lt server gt SCDOPLCOUeJDOTL protocoloxml rpos protocol lt rpcPath gt RPC2 lt rpcPath gt lt soapAction gt xmlStorageSystem lt soapAction gt lt upstream gt Here s a sample upstream file for none lt upstream type none version 1 0 gt lt upstream gt The real power of the upstreaming architecture becomes apparent when you use multiple upstream files concurrently You can have Zupstream xml files in multiple locations in your www folder and mix the three different built in types to have one folder upstreamed with xmlStorageSystem another upstreamed to an FTP server and another folder with an Zupstream xml using the none type so it isn t upstreamed This is a powerful content management feature in Radio For more on upstreaming see http r
216. ip jm car czarq blog rur zara 28 Tuath BLOGGER PUSH BUTTON PUBLISHING FOR THE PEOPLE CREATE A BLOG Page 3 nf 4 Choose address for your blog and indicate acceplance of the nf Tha address wou chong wll be the VAL af vik ree site olor Gr ashes ahg orsd b blogspot Tapet te the phanged Ee vus 97 bob J Deocurani Dara 0 32 sacr After creating the URL a template page opens displaying a set of predefined blogging templates Templates form the basis for how the content is displayed and organized within your blog Pick one from the list in order to proceed don t worry if you don t like the selection later in the chapter we show you how to easily change the template Only a random sampling of the Blogger templates are shown on this page For the demonstration blog l ve picked one of the most commonly used templates within Blogger the Chroma template For your own blog if this template doesn t show pick any of the others that are displayed Click the Finish button at the bottom of the page to finish the process of creating your default blog You re now ready to starting posting 3 3 3 Posting Once Blogger is finished creating the default blog the Edit view page opens The top part of the page is an open text box where you enter your content his is headed by a toolbar containing
217. ired Please note that Blogger API support in Radio provides both import and export support for moving your blog entries between systems This is obvious when you think about it but not apparent when you are used to a file based approach to importing and exporting 7 3 Backing Up Your Radio It s always smart to back up your data in any program even in a blogging application For Radio this means backing up the database of articles and configuration information The files that Radio publishes onto the Internet don t have all features of your local copy These files are only HTML pages and they lack important metadata formatting directives and so on All your Radio data is stored in the Program Files Radio UserLana set of directories on Windows and in the Radio UserLand folder in Applications on OS X 7 3 1 Backing Up All Data on Windows Here s your backup process for all your Radio data It relies on WinZip or another archiving tool such as WinRar to make a single backup file as Radio stores its data in many small files i Shut down Radio by right clicking the Radio icon in the Windows System Tray bottom right by default and choosing Shut Down Radio This is important because Radio normally runs in the background and regularly updates files The main files you need to back up are the root files which contain all your Radio data because you don t want Radio updating those files as you re
218. ish Clicking on the link to modify the template opens the template modification page as shown in Figure 6 15 Figure 6 15 Template page for YACCS comment jen g J dseeh Gees 4 v dirum 5 eh m links Ternplate Cade Limit 3500 characters 2 IITLE T2AmhbivcsmbpEnt Comm naa TITLE BLYE DRE REEL he mom Ai Link i zexr deoorariod enne Go bore essa fonr uweigsriboldi _ nane iloarz WocgocBB z ones tga pha Le kietis iczBxzrL ecorsericz cone calorz ARaccccHB Zonr weigrr hnl tart cdaccrmtinn moms color fcat umightzbeoelz i lL HEAD XxBOPY EGCOLOBE EFFFFTT font Iaces ygep ana facss gar sns migas pnulnre gll 5 7 h c0HHENHTIESERS nntr 2 deck div mlzigzse 4umrzify fcz z eiree 1932 Coe tr fonts do E Dre finitsons Definition of SEmadt gt d non Las As you can see the YACCS template page is quite similar to the Blogger template page a top text box for editing the template as well as individual fields for modifying specific elements of the template such as how to handle the email field when a user doesn t specify an email and so on For now the only change we made to the template is to change the comment window title from Unambivalent Comments to Essential Blogger Comments After s
219. isited it the other maht I nohced that they ve just added Quicktime o Walt s Last Film in which he presents Ius viston for the Florida Project They ll be presenting three new clips per month between now and June oome blog authors play at mystery in their postings writing deliberately obscure things like Boy this sure must have hurt and nothing else The idea is to pique the reader s interest with your pith and jocularity so that he follows the link to find out what it is that hurt so much try never to do this operating on the principle that the best way to get someone to follow a link is to describe what s on the other end of it and why it s interesting as in Figure 1 13 1 3 4 The Quote oometimes the best way to explain why a page is blogworthy is to include a brief quote or two As with pictures there are copyright issues associated with this because fair use is generally held to include only excerpts not the whole text though some would argue that the standard for fair use is the minimum amount necessary to make the point which could conceivably be the whole thing It s traditional to set off quotes from the main body of a blog post see Figure 1 14 with some combination Of blockquote tags and stylistic changes such as italicizing Long blocks of italic textare difficult to read though Figure 1 14 A quote from a referenced page 1 3 5 The Link There are a lot of little niceties that comprise many
220. k 336699 vlink 003366 alink red gt oar lt div align center gt lt table width 95 align center border 0 cellspacing 0 cellpadding 20 gt SEI td bgcolor 336699 height 65 valign bottom gt div class blogtitle gt lt b gt lt SBlogTitlesS gt lt b gt lt div gt lt td gt eee SEIS td bgcolor white gt Blogger script type text javascript document write a href lt SBlogArchiveLinkS gt gt lt SBlogArchiveName gt lt a gt lt br gt lt Blogger gt if location href indexOf archive 1 document write sa hrer SeurrentE gt lt a gt script SE br lt tr gt lt table gt lt body gt lt html gt You can get more creative with this file if you wish A good place to see variations of handling archive script is at Phil Ringnalda s Archive Script web site at http www philringnalda com archivescripts 6 4 2 Changing the Location of the Archive Files Archive files are stored in the same directory as the blog files by default If you prefer to have the archive files located in a subdirectory such as one named archives you ll need to change the archive file location and adjust the main blog page template Before proceeding with changes to the Blogger templates and settings create an archives subdirectory If you don t have one already created you ll get an error when you attempt to generate the archive files Once the
221. ked twice m a row we certenly are off to a good start Posted at 12 07 First Post Howdy and welcome to my Blosxom blog Posted at 12 00 Powered by Blosxom a Internet zone Now let s change the default font You can apply HTML and CSS stylesheet magic not only to your weblog s h footer but also to the individual entries and daily date stamps as well A Blosxom entry s HI ML looks somethin Example 9 3 by default Example 9 3 Blosxom s default weblog entry format lt SPAN CLASS blosxomDate gt Wed 22 May 2002 lt SPAN gt lt p class blosxomEntry gt lt a name second span class blosxomTitle gt lt b gt Second Post lt b gt lt span gt lt a gt aor gt span class blosxomBody gt It worked twice in a row we certainly are off to a goo lt span gt 7 gt lt span class blosxomTime gt Posted at 12 07 lt span gt lt a href http 127 0 0 1 cgi bin blosxom cgi 2002 May 22 second gt lt a gt lt p gt You ll notice standard CSS class calling for blosxomEntry blosxomTitle blosxomBody and blosxomTime I nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie aded from fib ommolfcetab ir a CSS stylesheet containing style definitions for these classes you can control the look of weblog entries Exai the custom header from Example 9 1 with an inline stylesheet to change the entry font Example 9 4 A custom header with style SEL head lt title gt My First Blosxom lt title gt
222. l blogs have come into my own among some major bloggers and the process is keeping me sane retired from my job more than a year ago to care for my 86 year old mother something swore would never do but well connections are connections after all Making that decision however disconnected me from the creatively and intellectually active life that l ve always had Blogging re wired my personal connections and resurrected my identity as a writer and a catalyst for ideological exploration It s not that blogging has enabled me to find my voice as a published poet who used to also give reading l ve always had a very strong voice Blogging has given my voice an even larger world to reach While I m tempted to say that it s unfortunate that haven t encountered many other bloggers bear my age 62 with similar interests the truth is that am energized excited and inspired by the amazing young minds continue to meld with In a truly magical way they have given me my dream Cronedom Wise Woman status And say that with only a partial smirk I have done some virtual rituals that have been as much fun as the old 1960s happenings and ultimately more productive to boot Through the magic on the blognet I ve been able to tough the lives of people never would have met otherwise and in many ways know some of them better than know people who have been in my real life for years And at some point when life frees me up to do so
223. l is ordered alphabetically and the word Recent is appended to the blogroll item if it has been recently updated on weblogs com Ihe blogroll entries are enclosed within the default aiv block and no other customization is provided The generated Blogrolling code is shown in Example 6 8 Example 6 8 Generated Blogrolling code lt Hide script CDATA var r lfdc3cZ2dbdo641bca887be02ead42ec985 var o alpha var xb var ut 0 var pb 1 var tb var tw var tcs var tcp var sr 1 var srp 73 var sra Recent var lpp var lap var url hEetp 7 blogrolling com br Js phpo s url Pr 4rt EO 4 04t amp XD 4 xbt E amp pb pbt amp ut t ut url amp tb 4tbt S amp tw twt E amp tCcs tcst EtCcp tcp url amp sSr 4 srt ESrp srpt E amp sSra srat Elpp lppt E amp lap lap document write lt script language JavaScript src url gt document write lt script gt if gt End script hiding gt lt script gt Automated Blogrolling is incorporated into your Blogger blog by replacing the existing blogroll HTML with the generated code You can edit add or delete new blogroll entries customize the generated code as well as changing the ordering If you change your blogroll frequently Blogrolling is quite handy Even if you don t adjust your blogroll that often the service s abi
224. lder to C UserLand Radio Clean Radio UserLand www photos to access them at httpz yourblog photos or set it to C UserLand Radio Clean Radio UserLand www images photos to access them at http yourblog images photos If the MyPictures tool isn t installed with your copy of Radio it can be downloaded and installed from http radio userland com myPictures Tool This is also the place to go for more information on MyPictures nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie nioaded from lib ommolketab ir 4 10 Source Editing Your Radio Entry If you are using Internet Explorer on Windows as your Radio interface you probably enjoy its rich editing features Being able to create your blog as though you were using a word processor with WYSIWYG formatting is tremendously convenient However in Radio as in most graphical tools that product HTML you sometimes need to change the HTML source directly For example you might find that list items that look fine in Internet Explorer actually are incorrect in Opera due to missing lt UL gt or lt gt tags To fix this you need to use Radio s source editing To source edit your Radio posting go to the post or story you need to edit Click on the Edit link or button Change the WYSIWYG Source radio button to Source This will change the display of your content to a source view showing HTML tags as in Figure 4 31 Figure 4 31 Source editing E Scu Jobutwern s du Webley
225. le automatic blogrolling automatic mode Blagg nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie SYMBOL A B C D E F G H 1 K L EM N O EP Q R S T U V W X Y Z backslashes in quotes backups Radio UserLand Windows Barger Jorn Beard Paul paulbeard no ip org movabletype Berger Jenny www malleron com Blagg Blossom Aggregator configuration installation interactivity system requirements Blagg Blossom Aggregrator downloading Blalock Laura www imaginaryworld net blockquote tags blocks of text blog directories Movable Type creating installation blog pages Radio upstream server and blog posts See posts BlogApp Mac OS X blogBuddy Windows Blogdex Blogger 2nd 3rd account profile account setup ads Archive view page archives 2nd Archive template custom file location Template view blog creation blogrolling automatic browsers shortcuts buzz Chroma template comments cost data export descriptions desktop clients group blogs HTML tags integration into external applications nioaded from lib ommolketab ir nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie nioaded from lib ommolketab ir Internet Explorer Mozilla naming blogs overview posting posts adding entries archives bold text CSS styles date and time editing 2nd formatting formatting entries formatting HTML images italic text line breaks links managing ordering removing blogs requirements RSS
226. lent of BlogApp providing a basic text editor with bold italic underline and hyperlink buttons see Figure 2 5 web service based spell checking meaning you don t need to install a big dictionary support for multiple weblogs but not multiple accounts and the ability to edit previous posts and main and archive templates Figure 2 5 blogBuddy and resulting Blogger weblog entry browser window in the background File Echt Format Took Blog Help 7 U View page E dit posts Combent Something fascinating this way via blogBuddy cones Past Post and Publish Saturday June 08 2002 Contacting remote host Something fascinating this way via blogBuddy comes blogBuddy is open source software distributed under the GNU Public License downloadable as both a self installing executable and a ZIP archive 2 5 w bloggar The most featureful desktop client is w bloggar http www wbloggar com for Windows It sports a colorized HTML editor including tables and images with text formatting bold italic font color size alignment and so forth an integrated preview window and everything else one would expect to find under the File and Edit menus Toolbar drop down lists provide instant access to previous posts and main and archive templates Figure 2 6 shows w bloggar in action Figure 2 6 w bloggar showing off its HTML editor
227. like mail somedomain com Check with your ISP Once your mail account is set up follow these steps to configure Radio to publish to your blog via email 1 Click on the Prefs link in the Radio command bar 2 Click on the Mail to Weblog option You should see a screen like Figure 7 2 Figure 7 2 Mail to weblog form 3 Check the checkbox to turn on this feature 4 Security for Mail to Weblog is handled by a Secret Subject approach What this means is Radio will only post your email to your blog if the subject line matches your Secret Subject Don t pick something obvious or anyone who knows the account name can publish to your blog 5 Fill out your Radio password in both fields 6 Click Submit To submit a blog entry via email send a message to the account you set up The subject line of the message must be your secret subject Until you have used this feature several times you should check your blog carefully to ensure that the correct information and formatting is posted to your blog Mail software can add footers and headers to messages or even mangle them as attachments so it pays to confirm that your blog isn t garbled 7 2 3 Categories The Categories feature which is disabled by default in Radio lets you segment and organize your blog into different types of content For example you might write a blog that mentions your work but also talks about your personal life and your hobbies You could create ca
228. link field could go to the CD s page on Amazon In general though you tend to leave the Link field blank and Radio then inserts a PermaLink to your post Click the Submit button to save your change Select Home from the Radio command bar to see the blog entry page with its two new fields 4 6 4 Not Using Internet Explorer When you start Radio it launches a web browser to view the Desktop Website The WYSIWYG editor builds on the editor built into Internet Explorer on the PC and doesn t exist in other browsers and other platforms One way to get roughly equivalent functionality in another browser is to enable the JavaScript based editor via Radio s preferences To do this click on the Prefs link located on Radio s command bar Then click on the Enable the WYSIWYG editing tool option Turn off the checkbox and click on the Submit button Radio then saves your changes and redisplays the preferences screen so you can see that your changes were saved Click on the Home link located on Radio s command bar The editor now has a slightly different interface If your browser supports JavaScript to the appropriate level there s a toolbar The JavaScript interface which doesn t offer the same WYSIWYG formatting does provide the same features such as applying tags inserting formatting elements and creating links Use this interface by selecting text in the writing area with the mouse and then choosing a command from the toolbar If your browser
229. link in the top right subnavigation I In the Archive File Template column for the Individual Archive template for individual archiving paste in t following lt SMTEntryCategory dirify 1 S gt lt SMTEntryTitle dirify 1 S gt html 5 Click Save When you rebuild your individual archives the filenames for your reviews will now be based on the category as to the entry e g French and the title of the entry e g Comic Strip Besides the more memorable URLs for your review archives a side benefit of naming your individual archives the entry title is that entry titles will not change unless you manually change them The entry ID on the other he could change if you ever need to move your entries from one blog to another using Movable Type s export and mechanisms Basing the filename on the entry title rather than the ID decreases the number of links to your s will break if your entry IDs ever change 8 3 3 3 Usage of existing syntax Archive File templates use syntax that you already know to name your archive files they use Movable Type tac Each archive type has a set of tags that will work in Archive File templates the working set of tags depends or context of the archive For example when defining the Archive File template for category archives you need tc the lt smTArchiveCategoryS gt tag to represent the name of the category being archived common mistake in tl scenario is to use the lt sMTEntryCategory gt t
230. lity to highlight freshly updated blogs is very useful Any reliance on third party software makes your blog vulnerable to system problems at more than one location In addition using JavaScript fails for any browser that turns scripting support off These potential problems apply to YACCS Site Meter as well as Blogrolling However for the most part these services respond quite nicely The fun of using the services usually compensates for occasional problems im 6 8 Adding Support for Syndication oyndication gives your readers the ability to subscribe to an XML extraction of your blog information This can be used within aggregation products such as Syndic8 http www syndic8 com or Radio UserLand Just as we finished writing this chapter automatic support for RSS generation was added to Blogger Pro The process does require that you use titles for your entries but again this is automatically supported with Blogger Pro If you have access to Pro and self host your blog RSS isn t currently supported on BlogSpot enable RSS generation by selecting the Settings view and clicking the RSS tab In the page that opens turn RSS generation on by changing the entry in the dropdown box labeled Publish RSS from No to the version of RSS you wish At this time the only version supported is RSS 91 You can also choose whether a description is added for each entry in addition to the link and the title You can choose a short des
231. ll offer to launch the program for you Accept this offer Your web browser will open the Radio UserLand Setup page 4 1 3 Registering When Radio starts up it displays the form shown in Figure 4 2 Figure 4 2 Successful installation of Radio UserLand nloaded from fib ommolfcetab ie aded from fib ommolfcetab ir E eerta Pirae iriarrat E iz E De LM ee Pyrin o Hee i 2 3 h ugrem r d r aj Pc iee hapan i cd si pg os p iz J My Radio Weblog It worked gen my ete Fr Umen anc amp f argu 1 s D po pr voor Se rh re Coon Sr 5 ic nen voip eren loci rip rd V cn fhe pub ris ae hls oe Sora Werk and I In acl creer Pn eT ap pices are Said ahi as Didia PETRO A EE guns LET e nw ier Do aT er Forni Sas ro a orae re Se sot 1 D ponneonn n sir rho comm zer you re installing Radio T Before you can begin using Radio you need to fill out this web form to finish configuring Radio This creates an account on the UserLand server for you Obviously you want to make note of your password and remember whic
232. log Chroma is one of the most popularly used primarily because the words are very legible and its neutral format fits most writing and content styles However it s fun and interesting to try new looks 3 8 1 Changing the Blogger Template When you created your blog you picked a default template You might be happy with it or you might be regretting your choice about now Regardless changing the default template is easy within Blogger To change the existing template click the Template button on the Blogger toolbar When the Template view page opens a large text box at the top shows the existing template HTML including the embedded Blogger tags to be discussed in more detail in Chapter 6 When you pick a new Blogger template you lose everything in this block including any additions and modifications you may have added If you ve customized the template make a backup of the existing template first Then you can work on incorporating your modifications into the new template Backing up your template is as easy as selecting all the text in the textbox clicking the Copy button in the Browser Edit menu and then pasting the contents into your favorite text editing tool such as Notepad To change the existing template click the link labeled Choose a New Template In the page that opens you ll see several different template formats from which to choose including the one you currently have Before selecting a new template think about th
233. logger ha is a degn for Blagger this a ete fer Bloggar thin m a lee dagr n far Blzzgm im a ampal for Blogger Lasva carmine al ee le labi Gr bikz Tuesday 14 iMagger ii rabisj3grg tae data azeciiud amine It es he at the i and 18 63 cp Ie eee fe create abbat ar account or your first weblog Gree youve see how easy meblopgirg gan be veu muide why pou dids ttry seblogging sone Shales Pase f arjan 5 armari Dore 02941 ee The new skin requires editing to provide links a description and so on but the basic formatting and layout has been added and is ready for customization Many of the skins also have archive templates for separate archive index pages These also get uploaded during this process Republishing all of the templates propagates the template change to all archive files After playing around with different templates return to the Chroma style In the Template view select Choose a New Template Link The Sim Gray template didn t require any graphics but many templates do In addition you might want to use other graphics within your blog or add photos This isn t a problem if you have your own web server but it is if you re using BlogSpot 3 9 Self Hosting Where you locate your blog can impact what you can do with it If you host your blog o
234. logger blog 3 3 Your Blog Quick Start The best demonstration of the simplicity and ease of use of Blogger is to create a Blogger account then create your first blog a process that takes five minutes from start to finish 3 3 1 Creating Your Blogger Account To set up a Blogger account access the main Blogger web site at http blogger com In the page that opens there s a box in the center titled Create your own Blog and a button labeled Start Now Click the button to go to the signup page shown in Figure 3 2 Figure 3 2 Blogger account sign up page E Be Mew p ows Waie Bep petu Q4 i ij b I i arr 58 Search Reload Ern PUSH BUTTON PUBLISHING FOR THE PEOPLE CREATE A BLOG I you already have a Blogger account ratum to the and sign i Line vite Pose Onesie 5 sSccpunt EO gel ss ted Lane n dg meni Confirm Passed 7 Jae Lee uctor ves Weed Ami aha cd TT Fire Last Hamm Powers RO rgasszatinn ETE Mie Quetes Email elis ayee to Lo c45 Dar 1 302 Enter your preferred username and password your and email address and your organization if any Don t reuse a password from another system you have access too the web traffic between you and Blogger is n
235. logs are made of successive postings Some blogs are updated only once a week others get updated 30 or more times per day the record for Boing Boing is 27 posts in one day Everything about a blog post is optional There are no rules for blogging That said Figure 1 10 shows what a post on Boing Boing looks like Many weblogs follow a similar format Some of the salient features of that post follow Figure 1 10 A sample post from Boing Boing The real old skool EPCOT Chob sez Great site devoted to Walt s plans fer EPCOT hada t been to the site for while but when L ated it the other mght I that they ve just added Quicktime clips of Walts Last Film m which he presents Ins vision for the Flonda Project They ll be presentmg three new ches per month between now and June Waltopia the real EPCOT cemprehenzree mward winning site about Walt Disney s enginal plans for Progress City the Expenmental Prototype Community of Tomorrow EPCOT Flenda The purpose of thia ete 15 through research and dizcugsion to further the understanding and appreciation of Walt Disney and Ius viaton of EPCOT descnbe the various facets of Walt s EPCOT and illustrate how the Walt Disney Company has made Walt s dreams a reality 1 T T zar zh qp Link Discuss Thanks Choh I 1 3 1 Title A post s title see Figure 1 11 serves much the same role as a newspaper headline to sum up the
236. logs com as feeds to their own notification systems If you re a Blogger Pro user there s a checkbox in the Settings view in Publishing that you can check This makes edits to your blog automatically update Weblogs com The third step to promoting your blog is to add it to Blogdex and Daypop They are services that scan blogs to see what people are pointing to See http blogdex media mit edu and http www daypop com 3 12 Group Blogs In addition to maintaining a Blogger blog for your own personal use you can also create a group blog and then invite people to participate As you are the owner of the blog you ll be the designated administrator and the only person who can add or remove other blog team members add a new member click the Team button on the Blogger toolbar In the window that opens you should be the only person listed as a team member at this time with a check underneath the column heading labeled Admin To add a new member click the Add New Member s button on the toolbar In the window that opens there are a couple of boxes including one with a list of Available Users one for team members being added and form fields to add a member who isn t in the list of Available Users The Available Users list is made up of people who are team members of other group blogs to which you belong Figure 3 18 shows an invitation The message that goes with the emailed invitation explains wh
237. losxom ation ens s 5econd Post lt titles http 127 0 0 1 cgi bin blosxom cgi 2Z00z May 224 second 3 gt It worked twice in a row we certainly are off to a good start lt criptions ciEem First Post dini 127 0 0 bin blosxom cdgi 2002 x Internet Fone Appending flav rss to any Blosxom URL default blog particular blog even month or day archive view gives an RSS representation of that blog For example the following URL produces an RSS view of April 1 2002 on your gardening blog http example com samvcgi bin blosxom cgi gardening 2002 Apr 01 flav rss nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie d from fib ommolfcetab ir im 9 10 Customizing and Styling Blosxom s default style is more than a little drab and purposefully so in the hope it will influence you to add and feel This section shows you how to do that First let s do away with that rather flat header and silly footer In your text or HTML editor create a new file cor HTML you wish to add to the top of the document before the actual weblog entries themselves This might be your site s standard toolbar or simply a nicer looking title Save the file to the sdatadir directory as head html 1 shows a sample custom header Example 9 1 A custom header html lt head gt lt title gt My First Blosxom lt title gt lt link rel stylesheet type text css href blogbook css gt lt he
238. lt situation of the company contributed to the loss of motivation in retrospect contributors should have been completely voluntary and given their own personal weblogs to operate The site got off to a good start when soft launched but slowly began to loose interest for the reasons stated above By the time it was officially hard launched http biz yahoo com prnews 020424 nyw046 1 html it was struggling under its own weight and the pall of impending reductions and reorganization in the company tempered much of the enthusiasm l m not discouraged at all in my first experience with participating in weblogging believe in it perhaps maybe even more so than before In fact l m setting up my own to continue publishing my thoughts and insights while look for new employment It s a great way to stay sharp I ve also found it to be a good way to get prospective employers to get a better sense of my abilities and knowledge of the space Perhaps it will helo me land a new job and that would be a really interesting story worth publishing Timothy Appnel http tima mplode com Keeping a blog updated daily is taking on quite a bit It sounds simple just type out a few lines about your day your thoughts of the day or what you found on the Web that day Doesn t sound complicated But it can be don t feel like writing every day Some days don t feel like even turning on the computer except for a quick game or nine So my blog quickly ge
239. lts of the exportation of the data are AUTHOR Shelley Powers DATE 11 24 AM BODY img src http www oreillynet com images javascript javascript logo jpg align right vspace 10px hspace 10px gt lt br gt lt b gt Blogger lt gt is a weblogging tool that s accessed online It can be found at the lt a href http blogger com gt Blogger web site lt a gt and takes lt i gt very little effort lt i gt to create either an account or your first weblog Once you ve seen how easy weblogging can be you ll wonder why you didn t try weblogging sooner Because there s only one posting there s only one entry in the exported file If there were more postings there would be more entries Once you re finished return your blog filename back to the original turn archiving back on again and change the number of posts back to what you normally display Any format can be used to export the data You can export into a spreadsheet format a plain text format or even a specialized XML format Chapter 7 Advanced Radio UserLand Radio UserLand Radio is a sophisticated rich product Radio goes far beyond simple blogging with powerful features such as macros object databases outliners a built in web server a full development environment a scripting language support for the Blogger API and the ability to build your own web services In this chapter we start with a description of the products
240. ly don t want to pay for the bandwidth used by your blog you can choose to host it on someone else s server Radio UserLand Blogger and LiveJournal come with free hosting There are caveats to blog hosting services though Blogger s free service BlogSpot puts banner advertisements on your blog they do offer an ad free service for 13 year The LiveJournal service doesn t let you host your blog on anywhere but LiveJournal s web site In all cases when you use someone else s hosting service you re at the mercy of their quality of service both Blogger and UserLand have had occasional outages And although it hasn t happened yet if your blog hosting service goes broke your blog could be a victim Table 1 2 summarizes the installation and hosting requirements and choices for the blog systems Table 1 2 Hosting and installation Tool Publish blog m own Publish blog m free Must be on the Free server service server hosting Blogger Blogger Pro Blosxom Greymatter LiveJournal Manila Movable Type Radio UserLand Slash Zope lt lt lt lt lt lt lt lt lt zizi izi ixzzi lt lt 2 i ixizi xixiziz 2 2 lt lt lt lt 1 5 2 Price LiveJournal Blosxom and Blogger are completely free Blogger has an upgrade path however for advanced features such as RSS and Weblogs com notification you have to pay for Blogger Pro now 35 per year will be 50 per year once all the planned f
241. m Section 9 4 Optional Configuration Directives Section 9 5 Blogging Section 9 6 Viewing Your Blog Section 9 7 Editing and Deleting Entries Section 9 8 Creating Another Weblog Section 9 9 Syndicating with RSS Section 9 10 Customizing and Styling Section 9 11 Aggregating RSS with Blagg Section 9 12 Running Blagg Section 9 13 Third Party Additions Chapter 10 Blogging Voices Colophon Index Copyright 2002 O Reilly amp Associates Inc All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Published by O Reilly amp Associates Inc 1005 Gravenstein Highway North Sebastopol CA 95472 O Reilly amp Associates books may be purchased for educational business or sales promotional use Online editions are also available for most titles http safari oreilly com For more information contact our corporate institutional sales department 800 998 9938 or corporate oreilly com Nutshell Handbook the Nutshell Handbook logo and the O Reilly logo are registered trademarks of O Reilly amp Associates Inc Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks Where those designations appear in this book and O Reilly amp Associates Inc was aware of a trademark claim the designations have been printed in caps or initial caps The association between the image of flat headed cats and the topic of blogging is a trademark of O Reilly amp Associates
242. m fib ommolfcetab ie d from fib ommolfcetab ir cJ lt 1 End YACCS Code part 1 gt The code gets added to the Blogger template directly after the opening head tag In the next step code to handle the individual post comments is copied and added to the template area contair within the Blogger tags The actual placement of the code can vary and depends on your preferences as to wh you want the comment link to appear In the Essentials blog we placed it right next to the lt sBlogitemDateTime template tag within the posts div block with a couple of dashes preceding it as shown in Example 6 6 Example 6 6 Modification of Essential Blogger template to incorporate YACCS comment Blogger lt BlogDateHeader gt div class date gt lt SBlogDateHeaderDateS gt lt div gt lt BlogDateHeader gt lt div class posts gt lt a name lt SBlogIitemNumberS gt gt amp nbsp lt a gt lt br gt lt PostSubject gt lt h5 gt lt SBlogIitemSubject gt lt h5 gt PostSubject SBloglItemBodyS br span class byline gt posted by S BlogItemAuthor at lt a href archives lt SBlogItemArchiveFileNamesS gt lt SBlogiltemNumberS gt gt lt SBlogitemDateTimesS gt lt a gt lt span gt lt SCRIPT language javascript get comment link SBloglItemNumberS5 SLODBTIPITCSNOBDPITDPS lt a href http rateyourmusic com yaccs commentsn b 90000020370 amp e SBlogItemNumberS
243. me blogging tools such as Radio and Movable Type publish RSS feeds by default Others have options to enable feeds If your blogging tool doesn t generate its own feed you can still publish blogs by using Julian Bond s RSSify tool at http www voidstar com rssify php Most blogs that offer RSS feeds have links to those feeds on their sites A new technique that s gaining popularity is to embed in your web page a pointer to the RSS for that page This makes it much easier to write tools that automatically discover RSS feeds 1 4 2 RSS Aggregators An 55 aggregator is a tool that regularly fetches RSS feeds and stores their contents in a database A personal aggregator such as Plucky available at http geotfreygrosenbach com plucky html or AmphetaDesk available at http www amphetadesk com is used as a kind of software agent a tool that searches any RSS feed you specify for stories filters them according to your preferences and displays the results Some blogging tools such as Radio UserLand include aggregators You can fetch and filter RSS feeds from all over the Internet from blogs to major news organs such as the New York Times which has special arrangement with UserLand Spftware to provide Radio UserLand users with exclusive news feeds Radio UserLand s aggregator makes it trivial to turn stories that you discover via RSS into blog entries by ticking a box and adding some commentary Internet aggregators such a
244. ment write lt a href lt SBlogArchiveLinkS gt gt lt SBlogArchiveNames gt lt a gt lt br gt lt Blogger gt if Location href indexOf archive 1 Irpor2 t s 4 cuavprenb gt e j The content of the Archive template is so simple because the content is normally opened within the template page using JavaScript script type text javascript src lt SBlogArchiveFileNameS gt gt lt script gt When the file is opened in the blog page JavaScript prints out the archive links To create a separate archive page copy the blog template to the Archive template and then adjust the contents to display archive links rather than postings The steps to do this are 1 Open the Archive view and then the Archive template 2 Make a backup of the template and then access the Template view 3 Copy the template and then return to the Archive view 4 Open the Archive template and paste the copied template text at the top of the file being careful notto overwrite the existing text 5 In the copied material remove the left column by removing the leftmost ta tag You ll also need to remove coispan 2 from the top row of the table 6 Modify the CSS for the page changing the anchor tag style to A font weight bold text decoration none font size smaller 7 Replace the Blogger block within the copied template with the Blogger block of the Archive template 8 Remove the reference to Hom
245. mplates see Chapter 8 Figure 5 18 Blog with new entry 6 First Blog mum FIRST BLOG May 2002 ik WELCOME TO HY BLOG This is my first blog entry uang Movable Type Posted by Melody at RRLIHIYES EX TRIES POWERED EY mores Now you have created your first entry But suppose that you did not preview it first and you made a spelling mistake or you realized that one of your links was incorrect To edit an existing entry click the Edit Entries link in the lefthand navigation bar find the entry you wish to edit in the list on the List amp Edit Entries screen Figure 5 19 then click on the entry title to edit the entry The entry editing screen looks much like the new entry screen but with some additional sections to edit comments and to send notifications regarding the entry Once you have edited the entry to your satisfaction press Save to save and rebuild the entry Figure 5 19 List amp Edit entries screen If you are so unhappy with an entry that you decide you would rather delete it press the Delete Entry button to delete an entry Or if you would rather you can delete an entry directly from the List amp Edit Entries screen by clicking the checkbox next to it and pressing the Delete button at the bottom of the page 5 5 Comments Now that you ve shared your thoughts with the world by creating
246. n Blogger To upload an image or any other file type click the Upload File option on the Blogger toolbar In the window that opens shown in Figure 6 6 enter the name of the file you want to upload or click on the Browse button and access the file from your directory In the demonstration the upload location is equivalent to the location of your blog pages if you want something different edit the Upload path In addition you can change the remote name of the file Figure 6 6 Uploading an image After clicking on the Upload button a second window opens if the system determines that you re uploading an image such as a GIF or JPEG file This window asks whether you want to add an inline or link to the new image If you choose the inline option HTML to add the image to the page is added to the edit text box and you can then add additional content If you choose the hypertext link route HTML for the link is added instead downloaded from lib ommolketab ir downloaded from fib ommolfcetab ir 6 2 The Blogger Template The basic blog created in Chapter 3 used a default Blogger design without any customization as shown in Figure 6 7 Figure 6 7 Default blog design with Chroma blogger template Essential Blogger Microsalt Internet Explorer E _ Took LI 0 dee meds L D c o http essentials barrad net
247. n name Limited to 20 megabytes of disk space with no clear way to purchase more Server farm is managed maintained and backed up Google regularly crawls radio weblogs com for new pages and adds them to the index No bandwidth charges regardless of how popular your blog is A list of third party blog aware domain name services is available at http www fuzzygroup com go blognameservices 4 7 2 Publishing to Your Own Site via FTP The pros and cons of publishing to your own web site via FTP are given in Table 4 2 Table 4 2 Advantages and disadvantages to publishing your blog via FTP Advantages Disadvantages You can use standard web server security tools to protect your content You can integrate your blog into your home Radio has some interesting issues with FTP covered in page Section 4 9 4 Your own domain name is easier for people to remember than the long radio weblogs com domain name You have to handle the server maintenance and backup You pay the costs for Radio s hosting without taking advantage of it You cannot publish to an FTP directory that is actually a symbolic link in this case Radio will appear to work moving a single file up the destination and then fail completely To publish to your own server first configure Radio s FTP settings Here is the information that you need to know before publishing User name and password Your login and password for the FTP server Server name
248. n setting as is Though line breaks are managed for you any other use of specialized HTML formatting must be added to manually Thankfully there are Blogger buttons that handle some of this for you The formatting buttons do not when you use Mozilla They display only within Internet Explorer at the time of this writing For example you might want to italicize text in your posting for emphasis You can do this in Blogger by embex lt i gt i or emphasis lt em gt lt em gt tags directly in the page Clicking the Blogger toolbar button labeled I italic tags and embeds these at the cursor location directly for you You can bold text by surrounding it with embedded tags lt strong gt lt strong gt lt b gt lt b gt typed in directly oi by using the B button in the Blogger toolbar If you prefer to add more complex styles use CSS styling and enclose the text in either span tags with no ass breaks surrounding the text or within aiv blocks If you re adding a link to another web page use the button labeled with the small globe and link When you clic new window as shown in Figure 3 8 opens providing you a place to type in the URL of the link Once you re f typing clicking the OK button will close the window and generated hypertext link HTML with the URL embedde page at the cursor location Figure 3 8 Adding a hypertext link to a posting using the Blogger toolbar URL generator Explorer
249. n something such as BlogSpot you can only host your web pages on this site not additional files such as graphics or other media files However hosting your own web site for your blogs isn t always a trivial exercise 3 9 1 Why Self Host BlogSpot www blogspot com is a handy place to park your blog when first starting out The cost is very cheap 12 year to eliminate the ad if it bothers you it will No maintenance no hassles with working things out with an ISP and so on However there are two primary disadvantages to hosting your blog on BlogSpot The first is as stated earlier you can t load other files on to the server or run other technologies such as PHP or ASP You can work around this limitation somewhat by hosting your graphics at a free web server such as freeservers com In addition other bloggers are usually willing to give up some space for graphics though you may have to work through them to get the graphics uploaded Unfortunately this won t help if you want to use server side technologies such as PHP For this you ll have to self host The second reason not to use BlogSpot is that it is at times an extremely overworked server leading to slow page loads and occasional server failures The subscription based Blogger Pro gets you access to faster and more reliable servers however You will almost definitely need a subscription ISP service to run your own blog Many free web sites such as GeoCities won t allow
250. n the page with the first suspect word bolded You can choose to change the word to a suggested alternative ignore it or add it to your personal dictionary This latter is particularly helpful with words such as weblog which you ll use a lot but isn t a real word at least outside of the blogging world Once you ve made the decision on the current word the spellchecker then moves on to the next word The spellchecker has individual options you can set such as being able to ignore domains a must and mixed case words common in technology posts You can also ignore words with numbers and all cap words or upload a file with your own vocabulary to enhance the built in one Clicking the Options button opens a page with the options listed a checkbox next to each check those options you prefer Once you re finished with the spellchecker try the associated grammar tool accessible via the second tab For the example text the tool suggests not using contractions such as you ll within formal writing However blogs are anything but formal writing feel free to disregard the grammar changes to suit your own particular style The thesaurus tool highlights several of the words in the example and provides recommendations for possible replacements as shown in Figure 6 3 Figure 6 3 Blogger Pro thesaurus checking This 3 trate how to spell yo
251. nd buzz Blogger and bylines im nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie nioaded from lib ommolketab ir SYMBOL A B C D E F EG H 1 K L EM N O EP Q R S T U V W X Y Z Calamondin Camworld Carline Chris chris carline org categories Movable Type and archives Movable Type entries Radio UserLand creating enabling posts assigning central servers independence from cgi bin directories Movable Type and cgiwrap security and chris carline org Chroma template Blogger CMS Content Management System comments Blogger Movable Type 2nd news feeds Radio UserLand enabling posts SnorComments YACCS configuration Blagg Blosxom Movable Type blogs 2nd container tags Movable Type copyright issues images cost tools counters creating CSS styles Blogger posts Blosxom nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie nioaded from lib ommolketab ir SYMBOL A B C D E F G H 1 K L EM N O P Q R S T U EV W X Y Z dan hersam com data hierarchies Archive File templates Movable Type databases Movable Type location Radio UserLand object database date and time in Blogger posts Day template macros deleting blogs Blosxom descriptions Blogger desktop blogging Radio UserLand and desktop clients 2nd BlogApp blogBuddy Radio UserLand Slug w bloggar Desktop Website template macros Desktop Website Radio Use
252. nd has more features e g it supports the Blogger API Manila is a good choice if you want to host many blogs on a Windows or Macintosh server although Movable does run on Windows If you re a programmer and a tinkerer looking to learn and experiment about the insides of blogging take a look at Blosxom The Blosxom code is short and easily extended in Perl Radio UserLand is also extensible and programmable using its own scripting language Frontier To build a full portal site try Slash or Zope If both support the features you re looking for the choice between the two probably comes down to language preference Slash is written in Perl and Zope is written in Python While Zope does support extensions in Perl you ll soon run into Python if you hack Zope for any length of time We don t cover Slash or Zope in this book but you can learn about them from books such as Running Weblogs with Slash O Reilly and web sites such as http www zope org Chapter 2 Desktop Clients As we saw in Chapter 1 most blog systems provide web based interfaces Browser text fields though are primitive constrictive and awkward to use It s very easy to accidentally delete a post you re working on and there are no autosave or Are you sure you want to lose this message prompts Desktop clients are a more convenient way to blog A desktop client is an application that runs on your desktop PC and communicate
253. nder Checking for Optional Modules are optional and are needed only for certain features These features are disabled automatically if you do not have the optional modules installed but the rest of the system is still useable In the current release of Movable Type 2 1 the following modules are required by the system HTML Template Image Size File Spec DB File and CGl Cookie These modules are optional LWP UserAgent File Temp SOAP Lite and Image Magick 5 2 8 Initializing Open your web browser and point it at the URL for mt load cgi on your site For example if your site is http www your site com and you uploaded the files into the mt directory you d type Atto www your site com mt mt load cgi mt load cgi is a Perl script that loads initialization data into the Movable Type databases an initial author a blog and some starter templates If you get a 500 Internal Server Error when running this script check that you set the permissions to 755 and that you uploaded the file in ASCII mode If successful mt load cgi reports its success If unsuccessful it reports an error The error that occurs most often when running mt load cgi is a Permission Denied error when trying to initialize the databases If this happens it means either the permissions on your db directory are incorrect or the path to the db directory Is incorrect After running mt load cgi successfully you should remove mt load cgi from the directory wh
254. ne which curl which no curl in usr local bin 6 which lynx which no curl in usr local bin which wget usr bin wget Windows users can pick up a precompiled version of wget at ftp sunsite dk projects wget windows 9 11 2 Downloading Blagg lives at http www raelity org lang perl blagg the Blagg home page The latest version of the script itself is always available for download at http www raelity org lang perl blagg download blagg Download Blagg by visiting the Blagg home page right clicking that s Ctrl clicking if you re on a Macintosh the download link and saving the file to your hard drive Alternately from the OS X or Unix command line you can use the application Blagg will be using to grab remote RSS files Here s how to use wget from the command line to download Blagg wget http www raelity org lang perl blagg downloads blagg D Ub http www oreillynet com 7Erael lang perl blagg downloads blagg gt blagg Connecting to www oreillynet com 80 connected HTTP request sent awaiting response 200 OK Length 3 347 text plain OK gt 100 23 55 10 272 38 KB s blagg saved 3347 3347 9 11 3 Installing Blagg Blagg setup is all but identical to that of Blosxom simply open the b agg script in your favorite text editor and adjust a few lines First make sure the first line of the script 4 usr bin peri w correctly identifies the location of
255. ned Extensible Markup Language XML Thousands of blogs and other web sites all over the Net produce RSS files describing their content The cool thing about RSS is that it s easy to write a program to produce or manipulate the data in an RSS document RSS is so simple to generate and manipulate that hundreds of programmers have written tools to exploit the thousands of RSS feeds on the Internet For example the Mac OS X toolbar application called MacReporter http inferiis com products macreporter can regularly fetch headlines from news sites and blogs You can then scan the headlines looking for interesting news to blog or simply read Meerkat http meerkat oreillynet com is an excellent web based RSS reader that allows you to filter the feeds you receive by keyword time and origin oome bloggers have coded custom RSS tools that integrate tightly with their blogs so that filtered headlines from other sites appear in sidebars on their front pages Dave Winer s Weblogs com is a list of blogs that have sent an updated notice over the Internet to the service If you re looking for a list of recently updated weblogs you can visit http www weblogs com and browse the list but if you re a programmer you can fetch the Weblogs com RSS feed and get an easy to manipulate list of recently updated sites to feed to a search engine or RSS reader RSS is a powerful way of spreading your blog entries far and wide 1 4 1 Publishing a Feed oo
256. ng Slash is released under the GNU General Public License GPL while Zope is released under the Zope Public License ZPL Table 1 3 summarizes price and optional services for each blog system Table 1 3 Price and optional services Tool Free If you pay You get Blogger Y 35 50 yr Advanced features Blosxom Y N A N A Greymatter Y Anything A warm feeling inside LiveJournal Y 2 2 50 month Advanced features Manila 60 day trial 899 Frontier Movable Type Y 20 or 45 Listed on the home page and for 45 support Radio UserLand 30 day trial 39 95 yr Hosting space and updates Slash Y N A N A Zope Y N A N A 1 5 3 Syndication As we Saw earlier in this chapter there are two aspects to syndication producing an RSS feed for your blog and consuming the RSS feeds from other sites LiveJournal automatically creates RSS feeds for you and autoaggregates the feeds from your buddies in the LiveJournal community There is no way to aggregate RSS feeds of non LiveJournal blogs Blogger does not create or consume RSS by itself although you can use the RSSify script mentioned earlier in Section 1 4 to produce an RSS feed of a Blogger blog If you upgrade to Blogger Pro you can create an RSS feed of your blog Blogger has no way to consume an RSS feed though the Fyuze aggregator has a way to automatically incorporate its feeds into Blogger blogs http www fyuze com blog Radio UserLand is built for and around RSS It automatically creates an R
257. ng You can always delete this immediately if you wish if this solves the missing archive links At the time this was being written Ev was testing a new publishing engine which should eliminate the missing archive problem 3 7 Changing Your Account Profile Over time you might need to change your email address or want to change your username In addition for security reasons you should consider changing your password every three months or so All this information is kept in your account profile To modify your basic account profile information click on the Team button in the Blogger toolbar and in the page that opens click on your name Another page opens listing Organization URL Time Zone and other information In the right side of the toolbar is a link labeled Edit My Profile follow this link The user account profile page is shown in Figure 3 11 This page is where you can modify your username email personal URL and so on In particular this is where you can change your password Once you ve made your modifications click the Save Profile button to commit the changes Figure 3 11 Changing your account profile E ETZE 101 Be EE Wee eb Pete QR Dh utewte dyes i s 1 d hikes skagen cor blog por atio D dne C Posts BE settings 2 Templa Mede G Temm Mybiogs Form Elo isin our BLOGGER PRO
258. ng Blosxom really needs to know is where you keep your blog entries Change the Sdatadir line from my Sdatadir Library WebServer Documents blosxom to the appropriate directory path For Mac OS X and Unix users we recommend something alongside your web server s document directory my Sdatadir Library WebServer Data blosxom my Sdatadir usr local apache data blosxom Under Windows somewhere like my Sdatadir c Inetpub wwwdata blosxom If you ll be running Blosxom on your service provider s web server somewhere in your home directory will do nicely my Sdatadir home sam blosxom Wherever you choose just be sure the directory is readable by the web server That said you probably don t want to put Blosxom s data anywhere web accessible your server s document root or public html directory While of course your entries will end up being publicly viewable anyway you may want to keep drafts or other assorted files that might end up in your Blosxom directory private save the blosxom script then move the it to your cgi bin or other directory out of which you re able to run CGI scripts Mac OS X Library WebServer CGI Executables Unix with typical Apache installation usr local apache cgi bin Windows c Inetoub wwwroot Cgi bin Fairly typical service provider s web server home samvpublic html cgi bin You can do this either via your operating system s graphical file manager or
259. ng its configuration to suit the way you use the tool display a random entry from your blog somewhere on your site or one of many other advanced topics described in this chapter im 8 1 Changing the Look and Feel of Your Blog Movable is a template based tool To change the look and feel of your blog you edit templates These templates give you complete control over the look and feel of your blog the system will never produce output where you have not explicitly instructed it do so Templates are composed of special Movable tags embedded within standard chunks of plain text or HTML or XML or any other markup language you wish to use see Section 8 1 3 for more details When you rebuild your pages the application processes your templates fills in the tags with data and generates static pages on your web server 8 1 1 Modifying Default Templates When you install Movable and create your first blog the blog will be initialized with a set of default templates These templates are laid out using CSS because with CSS changing the design of all your templates is as simple as editing one stylesheet as opposed to editing each template in the system Of course you do not have to use CSS in your Movable Type templates Movable Type places no restrictions on the type of formatting you use If you tire of the default templates you may wish to try one of the ot
260. nly when you want people to go directly to your category and see the rolling group of entries In other words you turn this on when people use a category as a destination within your blog in and of itself If you just want people to see your category from an RSS feed or linked to from your home page leave this option off Turn on the Notify option as needed Normally whenever you post an entry to your blog Radio notifies the central server at weblogs com of your update allowing others in the blogging community to see your update If you are using categories to segment your blog so that material stays private you want to leave this option off Select a theme for the category Radio defaults all new categories to the default theme so if you aren t using the default theme for your blog then you probably should select a theme for the category select the language in which your blog is written Click Submit to create the category When you refresh the New Blog Entry page you should see a new category at the bottom of the screen listed with the other existing categories that Radio supplies by default There is a New link above the categories listed on the home page You can also use that link to create a new category with fewer steps 7 2 3 3 Assigning posts to categories If you have Categories turned on before you publish your post select the categories to which you want to assign the post and click Publish Edit old posts to a
261. not published unless you check the Publish checkbox If you re self hosting your blog and you want to publish immediately to your web site you need to add your web site username and password to the Publishing settings Otherwise the system won t be able to publish the email text when it arrives You ll have to judge if email posting is worth the extra security risk of storing your username and password within Blogger The subject line of the email will become the title of the posting and the content of the email the body You ll want to remove any email signatures and make sure not to send the email in HTML format You can include HTML tags but the email itself should be sent as plain text Finally soacing can get a bit weird with the posts so you might not want to rely on this too much keep email posts reserved for short one paragraph posts as much as possible To try this we created an email with the following content Subject Testing email posting This is a test of email posting This eventually showed up in the blog as shown in Figure 6 4 Figure 6 4 Blog posting via email ELLE hres rea tenet Ppl Edt Dee lyerkm nh ecc 8 Deh d tabb ri PF abr nas pe ESSENTIAL BLOGGER ail pou ever wanted Saturday ay 18 Eu brow ahou rud mintai di Mogga Tasting email posting This a rest of amal posting Sel
262. nstrate the use of the Movable Type calendar tags If you run a news site with a list of events for each mc you might wish to generate your archives in calendar form rather than in the standard entry listing form used in default templates This example will generate event calendars for all of your monthly archives 1 Log in to Movable Type and select the blog containing your entries Click the Templates button to manage your templates Click on the Create New Archive Template link B X I oet the name of the Archive template to Monthly Calendar and set the body of the template to the followi table border 1 cellspacing 1 cellpadding 0 gt SLT td colspan 7 align center gt lt SMTArchiveDate format B Y S gt lt td gt aded from fib ommolfcetab ie aded from fib ommolfcetab ir eq a SO td align center gt Sunday lt td gt td align center gt Monday lt td gt td align center gt Tuesday lt td gt td align center gt Wednesday lt td gt td align center gt Thursday lt td gt td align center gt Friday lt td gt td align center gt Saturday lt td gt cq lt MTCalendar month this gt lt MTCalendarWeekHeader gt lt tr gt lt MTCalendarWeekHeade lt td valign top gt MICalendarIfEntries table border 0 cellspacing 0 cellpadding 5 gt lt tr gt lt td gt lt SMTCalendarDays gt lt td gt lt tr gt lt tr gt lt td valign bottom gt lt MTEntries gt lt sp
263. ntainer for date displayed in daily header blogDatePoOoLer Container for content displayed in daily footer PostSubject Container for posting title Blogger Pro only Not all Blogger template tags must be enclosed within container elements lt SBiogTitles gt SBlogArchiveFileName and lt SBlogDescriptions gt can be used anywhere within the Blogger template However tags requiring enclosure within container elements and placed outside of those elements are ignored by the Blogger generator and displayed as regular HTML content on the blog page 6 2 2 The Template View The Blogger template can be examined in the Template view window opened by clicking the Template button on the Blogger toolbar At the top of the Template view page is a large text edit box that contains the actual template itself as shown in Figure 6 8 Figure 6 8 Blogger template view window with template In the Figure the lt sBiogTities gt template tag is used to name the blog page Scrolling down through the template text you ll quickly spot the other Blogger template tags that control the archive and posting As a good rule of thumb once you ve modified the template make a backup of it before saving it to the Blogger database This way if a problem occurs you won t lose your work Additionally you ll have a copy of the template as a backup in case of future problems Once you re comfortable with the template and the placement of the tags
264. ntry feet seno rend the blog entry all addad MTML will bs in Jed im the ema B interit zat To delete a comment click the Delete checkbox then click the Delete Checked button To edit a comment click on the name of the author who left the comment On the comment editing screen Figure 5 24 edit the appropriate fields and then press Save Figure 5 24 Edit comments form loaded from fib ommolfcetab ir downloaded from lib ommolketab ir oo 5 MOVABLE Personal Publishing System C M RMVABLETYPE x iwen mws o sete V PERSOA PUBLISHIUG STSTEN Users Malody Mais Menu Farst Blog Edatimg Menu gt kaii Comment Edit tha salzrtad commant Drazz SAVE whan you ara finished You will need to rebuild for there changer to take affect IP Adriresz THF 165 1 iit muthar Serge Email addrass sergegfon com http wmw fao comjs This i a great weblog CANCEL DELETE downloaded from fib ommolfcetab ir 5 6 Adding New Author Movable Type allows multiple authors to post to the same blog This is often called a team blog and it is very easy to set up in Movable First go to the Main Menu by clicking on the Menu link in the top navigation Click on Add Edit Blog Authors This screen Figure 5 25 allows you to add new authors to your blog and to modify the permissions of
265. o 8 reg Congratulations You have now installed Radio and are ready to begin blogging im 4 2 Welcome to Radio Radio is an application that runs usually in the background on your machine It acts as a web server so most of your interaction with Radio takes place through your web browser The terms we ll use are Radio Application for the program that runs mostly behind the scenes Desktop Website for the administrative pages served by the Radio application to your web browser and Your Weblog for the final publicl visible product of all this your blog Figure 4 5 shows the interaction between your browser the Radio Application and your blog on the upstream server Figure 4 5 Radio UserLand components 4 2 1 Starting the Radio Application The Radio installer launches Radio for you automatically To start it manually on Windows go to the UserLand group in your Programs menu and run Radio If you are on Mac OS X Option click on the Radio icon in the Dock and choose Home Page 4 2 2 The Desktop Website Figure 4 6 shows the Desktop Website with the various components labeled Figure 4 6 Desktop Website in Internet Explorer T TE Radin H 3 5 Hame few Sines Cokie Events Themes aux I Frets Help Abra Fani Tirs pr T mi E F7 EE A Z iE E Se Sms TR Lok Frusiin veBlk ij Fraw amp 1ur lil parke
266. o from Create New Entry to Prefs The content specific to the Create New Entry and Prefs pages is represented by the lt sbodytext gt macro lt gt Current year e g 2002 SauthorNames Your name e g Dr Watson lt SauthorMailAddress gt Your email address e g watson example com Conavidgatorbinksse nioaded from lib ommolketab ir Contents of your ZnavigatorLinks file see Chapter 3 radioBadge Image that links to the Radio UserLand home page corssbhinks Orange XML button that links to the RSS version of your blog nowS 2 Time you published the page used for Last Update message e g 5 21 2002 10 06 40 P M Macros for use in the Day template include SarchiveLink Image that links to the archive page for that day lt longDates gt Long version of the date for that day e g Tuesday May 21 2002 lt Sitems gt Posts for that day Macros for use in the Item template include lt S itemText gt Text of a blog post lt S itemTitlest gt Title of a blog post if specified lt Swhens gt Time the post was made e g 4 31 19 P M Spermalink Image that links to the post on the archive page a small sign by default lt seditButtons gt The button that appears next to blog posts in the Desktop Website csonclosures Link to a post s enclosure applies only to items that have enclosures An enclosure is a bina
267. o change the list of links in the right navigation do so edit the Main Index template Figure 8 2 and find this HTML in the template body hrer SAdc Your Tanks Here lt a gt lt br 7 Figure 8 2 Editing the links list in the Main template downloaded from lib ommolketab ir ea MOVABLE Personal Publishing System C nen TELE FESLISHIMU 3 TEI Firei Eg po Melody m Main Menu gt First Blog Editing Mena gt List Templates Edit Template 7 h E 5 EHATE Hain Indes LOO es html this template sutemetc Links dm dasse sede lt 4 hrafa Your Links Hare sa br gt igy z dm clazzz zyndcste gt za hrefa index rdf Syndicate this zite XML gt xdi div casse powarad Powered breier 8 hrefe hitpilwwmmaovablitresa org Movable Type SMT War sign f s fas cbr f zdm zdm x RERLITLD SAVE rilertat core You can add links to this section by editing the HTML of the template First remove the above line Then for example to add a link to movabletype org you could add this HTML lt a href http www movabletype org gt movabletype org lt a gt Save the template using the Save button and rebuild your indexes to update your public site Instead of the Add Your Links Here text you see
268. olling rather than make a change in your Blogger template every time you add remove or update a blogroll link you make the change to the service and it s automatically reflected in your blog To create an automated blogroll you must first provide a Blogroll name and URL location at Blogrolling Next add links to the blogroll as shown in Figure 6 18 using the Add Links option on Blogrolling s member page Figure 6 18 Adding a link to Essential Blogger s automated blogroll de Tack 305 A dee Geese Greets 4 05 ol dcin Dice nli conn 2 links sil 1 bos beoe oe cis T og r Peet 0 Info 5 z AO DE TOC EOE ng MASOF DIBHE METIS COON Pi nce wmiw WPS _ popular zecungs thes chon rou can asa set bo noting maios you bet batie Set az default target should b checked if scura antaring multiple links and arent using tha d t aut Dag tanget Priory canos rha ander of displas F you ant co conos tee ordering of Pie inks 1 6 Ez priores 2 Oh beget Th iz aptiona and doer mobing T yru ara using tha or aghabatica dispar options More nn Ehre dm Cie oet code section Adding link te Essentials tile Hac Domber uri rey csi Zerrnptirm ms Ban Taryel Set aa default target griurity aur rE zddt an C meang amer ink lack ta Bl
269. om other content management systems I e Blogger GreyMatter NewsPro and manages those posts through Movable Type Entry categorization Groups your entries into categories for your own reference for archiving purposes and for display in your blog You can assign multiple categories to a single entry for example if an entry about a book you read belongs in both Reading List and Technology Built in comment system Allows your blog visitors to post comments on your entries and engage in conversations Multiple archiving options Archives your content monthly weekly and daily provides individual pages for each entry archives by category Archive filenames are fully customizable and you can associate multiple archive templates with each archive type allowing you to create multiple views of the same archived content Integration of file and image uploads Uploads files and images onto your web server then seamlessly integrates them into your new entries Also you can automatically create thumbnails from uploaded images XML HPC Implements the Blogger and MetaWeblog APIs allowing you to use existing client tools w bloggar BlogApp etc to manage your blog Flexible template editing By linking a template to an external file you can edit your template in an external editor such as DreamWeaver The system will transparently synchronize the external file with the Movable Type database This flexibility allows Movabl
270. on the command line if your CGI directory were home samvpublic html cgi bin you d say mv blosxom home sam public html cgi bin You may need to rename the blosxom script to blosxom cgi so it s recognized by your web server as a script Again you can do this via graphical file manager or on the command line cd home sam public html cgi bin mv blosxom blosxom cgi Make sure your web server has permission to run the blosxom cgi script by saying chmod 755 blosxom cgi Note Permissions vary from situation to situation if you re unsure ask your local administrator or service provider That said 755 is a reasonably safe bet Next create the directory you specified as the sdatadir to hold your blog entries This directory and its contents must be readable writable is not necessary by the web server If you chose home sam blosxom for instance you d say mkdir home sam blosxom chmod 755 home sam blosxom Your Blosxom weblog is ready to go n oaded from fib ommolfcetab ie d from fib ommolfcetab ir 9 4 Optional Configuration Directives Blosxom has a few optional configuration directives that might be worth your while to set These are in the same Configuration section of the Blosxom CGI script as the sdatadir directive you set just a moment ago Your weblog s title and description are used in outgoing RSS feeds for syndication
271. on to the right of the news item Radio moves the news item to your entry form where you can edit it add comments or just post it im 4 5 The Radio Menu Almost everything you do in Radio is controlled from the Radio command bar the row of links across the top of your screen Here s a quick rundown of what each menu item does This is called either the Radio menu or the Radio command bar Home Jumps you back to the main editing window You may have to refresh your browser window to see any changes you made News Radio s RSS News Aggregator which lets you subscribe to syndicated RSS feeds and easily base your blog posts on stories from those feeds Stories Essentially longer essays but written in the Radio environment Folder Browse the Radio server layout so you can see how the data is stored This lets you find URLs to your blog posts so you can link to them It also enables uploading content such as pictures and other files to your blog Events Traces what Radio does behind the scenes Themes Change the look and feel of your blog with two clicks Tools Utilities within the Radio environment Prefs Configures Radio and makes it function For example getting Radio to FTP to your own web server is something you d set up here Help Documentation 4 6 Setting Your Radio Preferences Radio is a very configurable product t
272. ons give read and execute access to all users owner group and everyone else and write access to just the owner See Figure 5 8 for an example of 755 permissions Figure 5 8 Program permissions nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie Permissions Read Write Execute Owner v wv Group v Everyone 7 Cancel If instead you are using the command line to set permissions you should use the chmod command to set the permissions on each of the CGI files to 755 Figure 5 9 Figure 5 9 Changing permissions with chmod usr bin login ttypz btrott gainsbourg mt chmod 755 cgl T btrott gainshourg mt f ls 1 cgi rwxr xr x 1 btrott users B4 Hay 19 19 3 rwxr xr x 1 btrokt users 887 Hav 19 19 31 rwxr xr x 1 trott users fee 19 19 31 rwxr zT x 1 btrott X users A37 19 19 31 IWXr XT X 1 btrott users 1646 Hay 19 19 31 L IWXI ZI X 1 btrott users 15148 May 19 19 31 2 i btrott users 691 Hay 19 19 31 btrottagainsbourg mt f f 5 2 6 3 Creating your database directory In your FTP program open the directory you chose in Section 5 2 4 for the location of your Movable Type database Create a new directory called db If you are not running Movable Type under cgiwrap or suexec set the permissions of the directory db to 7 77 using the chmod command If you are using your graphical FTP client to set the permissions 777 permissions give read write and
273. ot encrypted and your password may be emailed to you in plain text By picking a unique password you ensure that a malicious packet sniffer can gain access only to your Blogger account and not your email ISP account etc If you don t see the Start Now button on the Blogger main page look for a form with the words If you don t have a blogger account sign up In the form type in your Blogger username and password When you submit the form you are taken to a second page to type in the rest of the account information You only have to create a Blogger account once you can use the one account to create many different blogs 3 3 2 Creating Your First Blog Once you have your Blogger account you can log into your account and begin using the blogging tool by going to the Blogger main page and entering your username and password At this point you can also check the option box labeled Remember me to have the web site remember your login information and log you in automatically every time you access Blogger Once logged in click on the link labeled Create a New Blog listed on the front page In the page that opens provide a title and description As you ll see later in this chapter this information can be printed on your blog page if you so choose For the demonstration blog we ll use O Reilly s Weblogging as the title and the following for the description All you ever wanted to know about starting and maintaining a Blo
274. our existing posts and all associated information into a format that Movable can then import To demonstrate exporting the Blogger Data we ll use the Movable Type Blogger Export template To download and learn about this visit http www movabletype org docs mtmanual_importing html exporting 20blogger 20entries This template is shown in Example 6 9 As you can see it s much smaller than your existing template Example 6 9 Movable Type blogger export template blogger AUTHOR BlogItemAuthor DATE lt SBlogItemDateTime gt BODY lt SBlogitemBody gt lt Blogger gt Once you ve backed up your existing template copy the Movable Type export template over it and save the change Next access the Settings view and the Publishing tab and change the name of the generated file to export txt to prevent overwriting your existing blog page Save this change Access the Formatting tag next and change the count of postings to cover the number that you want to export At this time the value is set to seven days worth of posts which we ll leave as is If you want to export all your data just make sure you pick the Latest Posts option and set the number of posts to be greater than the number you know you have Finally access the Archive tab and turn archiving off so that you don t override the archived pages nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie nioaded from lib ommolketab ir Publish the page The resu
275. our favorite text editor and type something inspired like First Post Howdy and welcome to my Blosxom blog Save the file as first txtto Blosxom s data directory To get the full effect create another entry and save it as second txt second Post It worked twice in a row we certainly are off to a good start That s all there is to it Here s a helpful hint save partially complete drafts with a txt extension ensuring Blosxom won t pick them up until you re ready When you re ready to publish rename the entries with txt im 9 6 Viewing Your Blog Point your web browser at the Blosxom CGI script If you re running Blosxom on your local machine the URL will probably be something like htto localhost cgi bin blosxom cgi On a service provider s web server you ll most likely find Blosxom at httpz www myprovider com samvcgi bin blosxom cgi where myprovider com is your provider s domain and sam is your username If all goes as planned you should see something along the lines of Figure 9 1 your first two blog entries in Blosxom s default look and feel such as it is Figure 9 1 Viewing your blog My Blasxoms RR pl LN http 127 0 0 1 blosxom egi Blosxoms Wed 22 May 2002 second Post It worked twice in a row we are off to a good start Posted at 12 07 2 First Post owdy and welcome to my Blozxom blog
276. ple for t month of May 2002 the calendar filename is cal 05 2002 html 8 4 Using the XML RPC Movable Type supports the Blogger XML RPC API the metaWeblog XML RPC API and several XML RPC methods of its own Because of this you can use client tools such as those described in Chapter 2 to post to your Movable Type blog Although the Movable web application is more full featured than any existing desktop clients there are reasons you might rather use a desktop client for adding or editing entries For one thing desktop clients can provide a richer editing environment than a web application a WYSIWYG editing environment and tools automatic spell checking word counts and integrated search and replace Of course Movable Type offers some of these tools tools to embolden italicize and underline text search and replace but as a web application support for these tools are browser dependent And what s more the speed of response that you might expect from a desktop client is difficult to provide in a web application Configuration of the tools will differ slightly depending on the tool In all cases however you will need the same three pieces of information the XML RPC Server URL your Movable Type username and your Movable Type password Your Movable username and password are simply the username and password that you use to log into the web interface The XML RPC Server URL
277. ple to create a thumbnail that is half as wide and half as tall as the original image select Percent from the Width pull down menu then enter 50 into the input box Figure 5 28 Image thumbnail screen MOVABLE TYPE Personal Publishing System MiITVABLE w a image Thumbnail vi z Pme 5 99 Pixels E POPUP IMAGE EMBEDDED IMALE Click Pop up Image to create a link to the full sized image in a pop up window The system displays the new entry screen Figure 5 29 and the HTML needed to include your thumbnail is automatically included in the entry body Figure 5 29 New entry linking to thumbnail You can type in some text below the HTML that the system has inserted and save the entry by pressing save The thumbnail appears on your public site Figure 5 30 and visitors can view the full size image in a pop up window by clicking on the thumbnail Figure 5 30 Entry image and thumbnail downloaded from lib ommolketab ir i mm 4d emi Habl http 192 168 1 gt ARCHIVES FIT Portrait of the blog author as a young mouse RECEHT EHTRIES brunt are ad Ex Posted by Melody at 03 52 A Comments Welcome to my blog LINE S WELCOME TO HY BLOGI ICD This i my first blag entry wing Movable Type Sa rae erret temet Posted by Melody at 02 31 AM Comments 1 POWERED BY HELE ITE
278. post in a few words that are meant to intrigue the reader and highlight some aspect of the story A title visually separates your posting from the one above it Usability guru Jakob Nielsen in his essay on Microcontent http www useit com alertbox 980906 html warns headline writers to be aware that headlines are often viewed out of context on search engine result pages in alphabetical listings he advises leaving off leading and A s for this reason and as subject headers for email and titles for web pages Figure 1 11 The post title As you ll see later titles are also used when blogs are syndicated using a technology called RSS in which they may appear in a list of hundreds or even thousands of other blog headlines The point is that your title should be separable from the posting below it informative even when taken out of context nioaded from lib ommolketab ir 1 3 2 The Picture There are of course copyright issues when posting an image to your blog such as the one in Figure 1 12 and technically it can be a little harder to post an image than it is post plain text though increasingly blogging engines make this simpler Here are some tips for posting images e Make a local copy of the image on your own server Don t inline someone else s images by linking directly to the other person s server because this uses their bandwidth and server cycles to serve images on your blog This is rude e Crop and
279. r http olant blogger com Path api RPC2 Weblog ID Many blog systems support multiple weblogs for example with only one installation of Movable Type you can publish as many different weblogs as you like Some desktop clients understand the concept of multiple weblogs and will let you select the blog to which a particular post is to go Others require you to hardcode the ID of a particular blog A Blogger ID is a string such as while Movable uses numerical IDs Figure 2 1 shows a fairly representative configuration panel Beyond these standard options are features such as Ping Weblogs com which notifies http www weblogs com each time you post a new story Check the desktop client s documentation for details of such features Figure 2 1 BlogApp s fairly representative configuration panel downloaded from lib ommolketab ir 00 BlogApp User Informatian _ Optional Settings User al Ping Weblogs cam rae lity W Open weblog after post Password I Clear edit area after post Denotes required items Check Spelling as you type Advanced Settings RPC URL finclude both URL and 25 http fi plant blogger com api RPC2 m e mail address Serial Number not registered not registered d
280. r shortcut and displays the list of all shortcuts below the value field If you need to change the shortcut click the Edit button If you need to delete a shortcut select the checkbox on its left and click the Delete button A useful tip for creating shortcuts is using a consistent naming style For example you might use donkeypic for a picture of a donkey and donkeyik for a link to the Donkey site 7 2 2 Using Mail to Weblog to Post to Your Weblog Mail to Weblog lets you update your blog by mailing in postings from any email account or even a Yahoo Mail or Hotmail account Within corporations many firewalls block FTP so if your blog isn t hosted at radio weblogs com your only option may be Mail to Weblog Be careful with this though and make sure you understand it completely before you begin to use it with Radio if you configure Mail to Weblog incorrectly you can lose email messages from your mailbox You need a POP compatible email account that can be dedicated to the Mail to Weblog feature Radio retrieves and deletes any messages in the account that it monitors If you use your main email account for Mail to Weblog you wi lose email messages don t do that Here s what you need to configure Mail to Weblog The account name This is usually either accountname accounthame somedomain com We recommend that you call it something easy to remember like myblog domain com The POP server This is often something
281. r when bugs have been fixed you can enable a UserLand automatic software update mechanism which can upgrade your Radio installation while you sleep In this chapter we re going to discuss how to download install and configure Radio then walk through publishing your blog and using the News Aggregator some powerful features of Radio themes macros and content management will be introduced in this chapter and then described fully in Chapter 7 4 1 Installing Radio UserLand Installing Radio is your first step toward using it as your blogging environment Radio can be easily downloaded and installed in about 10 minutes using a cable modem Your time may vary if you have a dialup connection or a slow Internet link Directions for installing on both Windows and Macintosh platforms are covered in the following sections 4 1 1 Downloading Radio like many Internet applications is not sold in stores It is available for download directly from UserLand Software You can download it via the download link at http radio userland com Choose the right version for your computer and click the download link to begin For convenience you probably want to save it to your desktop Once you download Radio you can use it for 30 days under the evaluation license After 30 days your copy of Radio will stop working and you can then either uninstall it or purchase it for full use At the time of this writing
282. rLand diaries directories Movable Type blog directories installation Radio UserLand installation discussion links Doctorow Cory Boing Boing 2nd Dolecki Eric E www ericd net domain names spellchecking and downloading Blagg Blosxom Movable Type distribution Radio UserLand 2nd themes draft posts Blogger Pro nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie nioaded from lib ommolketab ir SYMBOL A B C D E F G H 1 K L EM N O P Q R S T U EV W X Y Z editing blogs Blosxom posts Blogger 2nd source editing entries stories Radio UserLink templates Movable Type Electrolite email address Blogger account setup Mail to Weblog and posts Blogger Pro engines entries by lines format images in length links discussion links permanent links quotes syndication titles Evans Meryl K www meryl net blog events Radio UserLand exporting Blogger data Extreme Tracking system nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie nioaded from lib ommolketab ir SYMBOL A B C D E F G H 1 K L EM N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Farber Gary Amygdala feeds RSS publishing RSS aggregator and Felter Wes Hack The Planet firewalls First Blog Movable Type Fleishman Glenn 802 11b Networking News formatting Blogger posts entries post entries Blogger posts HTML Formmail suggest links Frankonis Elaine Frontier Manila and
283. rd components of a modern blog Here and in the next section we ll look at these elements drawing our examples from Boing Boing Figure 1 4 Figure 1 4 Boing Boing downloaded from fib ommolfcetab ir nloaded from fib ommolfcetab ie nioaded from lib ommolketab ir Boing of Wondertel Thira Internet E Pie mit vew Fmerter Toole Bak o gitar bomb JA 2 ce k com da Monday May 20 2002 ae Electrie Velocipedo i WA Bong Bong Ihe Elector Velocppeds Jobe s excellent Werary st ane has relaunched The of the zz play a lizle to my love af the ermal sub peere eg E W eiere IHEERH AL DEVICES or Alan Moore exemplary come THE LEAGUE OF EXTR ACGEDINAE TY GENTLEMEN or eves of the of China PEEDITX2 STREET STATION I de not waai te ane miret Composed c such stones bot yoa will catch my ear vou try Take a ook mr what s in the fret few issues and yos T see what Iwan Uke the act thal no mati bev techeeogcaly advanced one pet ipe person doesnt quite keow how t al works for example player or even a but can use all the technology Tour Characters don t need te be miper grewuies In sene cases I een when te technology simos feels kke mage io
284. re it will be displayed like a normal page The method of setting up this authentication depends on your web server With the Apache web server for example you use htaccess files to configure the web server and set up password protection In addition your hosting provider may have an online control panel that will allow you to set up password protection you may wish to consult your provider s support manual for more information on setting up a password protected directory To set up password protection using htaccess files you first need to create a file containing the list of users who can access your blog You do this using the htpasswd command from the command line htpasswd c htpasswd blog friend New password password Re type new password password Adding password for user foo This will create a file htpasswd blog in your home directory to set up the user friend The next step is to set up an htaccess file in the private directory allowing in only the users who you wish to allow to read your blog In the directory that you wish to make private create a new file called htaccess and paste the following text into it AuthUserFile lt path to home directory htpasswd blog nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie aded from fib ommolfcetab ir AuthName My Private Blog AuthType Basic Require user friend Once you have saved this file your blog will be password protected When visiting your privat
285. re you enter URLs and titles for the links as XML Your block of links should start with lt navigator gt and end with lt navigator gt In between Is a set of lt item tags The two attributes of an item tag are name and pagename The name will be shown to the user as a link the destination of the link is the pagename For example lt item name O Reilly pagename http www oreilly com gt item name Home pagename gt The URLs given as pagenames can be either absolute as in the case of the O Reilly link or relative to your blog s home page as in the second link oave your Navigator links by clicking the Submit button Reload your blog to see the effect of the navigation bar 4 6 3 Adding Titles to Your Posts By default Radio posts are untitled and simply appear in a series under the date on which they were blogged To give each post its own title select the Prefs option from the Radio command bar Click on Item Level Title and Link Turn on both checkboxes and then click the Submit button This adds two extra fields to the Desktop Website page for adding a new blog entry Title and Link The Title field is used in your RSS feed to provide a title for your blog post when it is viewed in a reader s News Aggregator it is not displayed in your blog post The Link field stores a hyperlink to an alternate representation of your post For example you might have a post that talks about a new music CD The
286. related to Radio UserLand Frontier and Manila After that we continue with Radio techniques such as shortcuts and categories and then move into more advanced topics such as macros and UserTalk 7 1 Radio Frontier and Manila Blogger and Movable Type are pure server side products They run on a server only and all authoring is done through a web browser Radio by contrast runs on your desktop or notebook computer and publishes to a server UserLand Software also offers UserLand Frontier http frontier userland com that includes another tool called Manila http manila userland com Manila provides equivalent functionality to a Blogger or Movable Type style blogging system Radio UserLand A desktop blogging tool for a single blog UserLand Frontier An overall web content management system for any type of web publishing including large web sites Manila Like Movable Type and Blogger Manila runs on a server and all authoring is done through a web browser Manila differs from Radio in that it is really targeted at applications beyond the level of individual blogs Manila for example lets you build your own community of blogs Though Frontier and Manila are technically separate Manila is heavily used by virtually all Frontier customers Both Manila and Frontier run purely on a server e g Windows NT Mac OS or Mac OS X and all authoring is done through a we
287. result is then FTP d to the blog location The format of the template tags is lt Stag names gt The tag names themselves determine what type of content is embedded in place of the tag The following is a list of currently Supported Blogger tags and the content they represent lt SBlogTitles gt Title of the blog lt SBlogArchiveFileName gt Name of the Blogger archive index filename lt SBlogDateHeaderDates gt Daily date header lt SBlogitemNumbers gt Individual posting item number SBlogItemBody Posting body SBlogItemDateTimeS5 Date and timestamp of posting lt SBlogitemAuthors gt Blog author SBlogItemAuthorEmailS Blog author s email address lt SBlogitemArchiveFileNames gt Individual post archive name SBlogItemAuthorNicknameS Nickname of blog author if any usually not shown SBlogItemAuthorURLS URL for blog author usually not shown SBlogItemSubjectS5 oubject title of the posting URL of the blog SBlogArchiveLinkS S In archive template link for archive page lt SBlogArchiveNames gt In archive template link for archive name In addition to the template tags Blogger also supports custom XML elements that act as containers for individual postings or a footer that s placed at the end of a day s content The elements are Blogger Container for all postings and related date and footer content BlogDateHeader Co
288. ription MTEntryExcerpt encode html 1 description lt link gt lt SMTEntryLinkS gt lt link gt lt item gt lt MTEntries gt The encode_htmi attributes encode any special characters in the Movable Type data into entities suitable for use in the XML feed 8 2 Blog Configuration Movable Type has many configuration options that you can set for each blog controlling archiving notifications comments and so on When you set up a new Movable Type blog these options are all given suitable defaults This means that you can set up a new blog without worrying about setting the configuration options which works well if the configuration options are what you would have chosen anyway But if you would like to edit your configuration options do so by logging in selecting the blog you wish to edit then clicking the Blog Config button in the left navigation Then select Preferences from the navigation on the right side Following are descriptions of some configuration options you may be interested in Blog description Your blog description is displayed in the Movable main menu as well as in the header of the default templates under the blog name Language for date display If you write your blog in a language other than English for the sake of consistency you may wish to display the dates in the other language as well The system currently supports 10 languages for date display
289. rl on your web server typically this location is usr bin perl so the first line of the file is usr bin perl You may need change the first line of each file if Perl is in a different location on your web server To determine the location of Perl on your web server take a look at the support pages for your hosting service Alternatively if you have a shell command line account and are comfortable using it you can log in to that account then type 5 whereis perl This will give you the location s of Perl on your system If the location of Perl is not usr bin per but instead usr local bin perl change the shebang line of each of the cgi files to usr local bin per1 If you need to change the setting take care not to remove the w at the end of the first line in each file this setting turns on warnings in Perl and it is important that it be left On 5 2 4 Installation Directories There are three main components to Movable Type the application composed of CGI scripts library files and templates the database directory where your data is stored and your blog itself which is the public accessible output of Movable Type and is the reason that you re installing the system in the first place The next step is to decide where to place these three components 5 2 4 1 The location of the application Choose where on your web server you would like to install the software This is the location that you will u
290. ro to your blog The Recent Posts macro lists the titles of recently added posts You must have titles enabled see Chapter 4 to use the Recent Posts macro Figure 7 9 shows the Recent Posts macro in action Figure 7 9 Recent Posts macro EIER joj Ele Edt Wew Favortes Joos E Address http Iradio weblogs com 000101 eGo Links 22 Recent Pasts Hew feature Recent F Ports Instant urine Past az 7 02 natant Ourline Post dz TO Iz it time for a directory 3 26 02 p weblogs xd servers cool or not Plaving with a new aiat Tecting categories and Sil 02 Uu publishing the qos get aque afi4 02 Support Tr jute Mills F suing with anew 3413 02 Mike aE bug 3 13 02 Tasting a new feature 3712 02 Goagle It macro fo 3 12 02 This post only haz i o2 Ind ba ri d i give th a 11 02 ili Experts Sun lawsuit a 11 02 Done 4B Internet Like many Radio macros the Recent Posts macro actually called radio macros recentTitledBlogPosts can be called with parameters In the case of this macro the parameters specify how many posts to display whether to truncate titles and so on The five parameters all of which are optional are listed with their default values in Table 7 1 Table 7 1 Parameters to the Recent Posts
291. rs maids posted acd T k to d IT L byty RIP Stephen Jay i Stephen Jay Gould oce of the great science writers of all te died of cancer al vnur amail JOM can up bz ep Boa Bong poet hs E a Dens 1 2 1 Title Titles are pretty self explanatory As with any project name your blog s title should be easy to remember catchy easy to spell and distinctive My favorite blog title of all time is Insolvent Republic of Blogistan http slotman blogspot com A good distinctive title helps people find your blog easily on Google if they lose the address so think twice before naming your blog after the English rock band The The 1 2 2 Subtitle A subtitle is an opportunity to further explain the raison d etre of your blog or to indulge in a bit of wit Here are some examples Kottke org http www kottke org Home of Fine Hypertext Products Electrolite http nielsenhayden com electrolite Growing Luminous by Eating Light Scripting News http www scripting com Its a weblog about scripting and stuff like that While not obligatory subtitles are a widely used convention in blogging Figure 1 4 shows Boing Boing s subtitle 1 2 3 Suggest Link Blogging is a collaboration between readers and writers As people become familiar with your blog they may stumble upon interesting material that they think might interest you A suggest link giv
292. run by UserLand and is paid for by your annual subscription However you can also instruct Radio to upload the blog it builds to any machine that runs an FTP server This lets you publish your blog for example to your ISP s server where you have an account with your own custom domain name 4 7 1 Publishing to radio weblogs com By default Radio is configured to publish to radio weblogs com so all you really need to do to publish to this destination is to create a blog entry and click the Publish or Post and Publish buttons depending on how your Prefs are set up Radio will automatically send your blog entry to the radio weblogs com site Table 4 1 shows the pros and cons of hosting your blog at radio weblogs com Table 4 1 Advantages and disadvantages of radio weblogs com hosting Advantages Disadvatages No security on content you can t limit access with passwords No control over the server farm if Publishing is faster than using FTP UserLand has problems your blog goes down temporarily Extremely easy as Radio is configured for this out of the box Your blog is part of a growing expanding community of blogs and blog readers Many people treat radio weblogs com as a No ability to publish AVI files destination and have an affinity for its content No ability to customize your blog with a language such as PHP or Perl The domain name is long and difficult unless you use a third party blog aware service to create a domai
293. running your blog from UserLand Comments are disabled by default To enable comments add the lt 1 gt macro to your Item template 1 Click on the Prefs link in the Radio command bar In the Weblog grouping click on the Comments option Click on the comments checkbox and then click Submit m X N Now you need to modify your template to allow comments to be added Click on Prefs again and then click on Templates e Under Templates click on the Item template 6 Paste the text lt scommentLinks gt Into the edit after the lt seditButtons gt This places the link to the comment tool on the left hand side of the screen below your post 7 Click Submit to save your change 8 Reload your blog To disable the comments go to the Prefs page and simply remove the lt comment Link gt macro The standard Radio comment tool has limitations such as relatively slow performance no ability to delete comments and no notification to authors of comments here are other services offering Radio compatible comment engines such as htto rateyourmusic com yaccs nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie 7 4 6 Listing Recent Posts People who read your blog will vary from everyday readers to occasional browsers If you blog frequently you may find that those occasional readers are penalized by the sequential newest to earliest nature of blogs make this easier for readers you can add the Recent Posts mac
294. rver The web server user can now write files to your directories but so can any other user on the system This is a real problem because most hosting servers are shared between many users To prevent this security hole many providers have installed cgiwrap and or suexec These systems both use the same technique instead of running CGI scripts as the web server they run the CGI scripts as you Because the scripts are running as you the files and directories that they manage do not have to be world writable they need be writable only by you which they will be anyway because you created them When using cgiwrap you usually need to invoke your CGI scripts using a specially formatted URL suexec usage is generally transparent to you Your hosting provider s support pages should have more information on how to use either of these tools When you first run mt check cgi on your system you should be able to determine whether or not your server is running suexec When you invoke the CGI script from your browser the output may contain a line like this Probably Running under cgiwrap or suexec If the output contains this line which will be under the line beginning Perl version you will know that your server is set up to use suexec In this case you should configure Movable so that the files and directories it creates are created with the proper permissions that is so that they are not world writable To do so follow these steps
295. ry attachment to an RSS item such as an MP3 file lt S itemNums gt The unique ID for this blog post paddedItemNum 2 The unique ID for this blog post padded with zeros to make it eight digits long A link to the site that was the source for the item applies only to items posted from the News ccommentrnLinks s A link to open a pop up page where visitors can post comments about your blog posts 7 4 4 Saving Your Customizations When you change your theme remember a theme is a collection of individual templates any changes you ve made to your existing templates are lost For example if you customize the Woodlands theme and then decide to experiment with the Space theme your changes to the Woodlands theme are lost Radio warns you about this but most users are so used to clicking right through warning dialogs that it s very easy to lose your work To save a customized theme go to the Themes page A link in the first paragraph of the Themes page lets you create your own theme Others will be able to download your customized theme if you choose to publish it To share a theme you create please see the Create Theme page accessed from the main Themes page click on the Themes link in the Radio command bar 7 4 5 Enabling Comments UserLand offers a comments service to all Radio users which works even if you publish your blog to your own web server instead of
296. s Additionally if it has been more than 24 hours since you last ran Radio it will automatically update itself when you launch it To update Radio root 1 Make sure that Radio is running and you are connected to the Internet 2 Point your browser at http 127 0 0 1 5385 system pages updateHadioRoot 3 Click the Update Now button and Radio will update the Radio root file Chapter 5 Server Blogging with Movable Type Movable is a web based personal publishing system designed to ease maintenance of regularly updated content This content can consist of but is not limited to entries in a blog or online journal photographs in an online photo gallery news headlines on a newspaper site or articles in an online magazine The system contains features common to many other blog applications template driven site design allowing you to redesign your entire site by editing a set of templates management of multiple blogs or projects with one instance of the application multiple authors posting and editing using a task based permission system and automatic RSS syndication of your content Beyond these fairly standard features Movable Type offers much more What started solely as a blogging tool has grown into a lightweight content management tool that can be used site wide Some of the system s features include Data import Imports your entries and comments fr
297. s Meerkat fetch thousands of feeds and make them available to people and to software agents oyndica8 http www syndic8 com and NewslsFree http www newsisfree com maintain giant master lists of thousands of feeds that can be downloaded and imported into personal aggregators Both sites allow you to submit your own RSS feed for inclusion on the master list 1 5 Blogging Tools While it S possible to generate and maintain a blog by writing and updating each page by hand you d have to be a masochist to do so The remainder of this book is devoted to several tools that automate the administrivia of blogging Blogger Radio UserLand Movable Type and Blosxom This isn t the full spectrum of blogging tools products such as Greymatter Manila LiveJournal and others all have strong user bases The tools we ve chosen to cover in depth though represent various niches in the blogging spectrum some are for gurus some are for novices some require you to install software on your PC some can be run completely from afar some work with your own domain others host your blog for you and so on This section discusses the features of several blog management systems not just the ones we describe in detail in the book Table 1 1 lists the systems covered in this section and their URLs After reading this section you can make an informed decision about which tool is right for
298. s a russian spy tool IPs zhil mace there today The lomo nrezentz a differant way c booking at lite EE cn make the ordinary extraordinary Gr for that matters really crap Tt swallows and bright hgnht IE has a Sard Tazcinatianr with negit habite boo doaznt naed x Hash hut patently waits unbl enough light has reached tifex film then late Fou wind on to fake an ther photo It oten doesnt record the moment az pou set it but az you felt it Photographs is often an exacting art there s schools special film galetes techniques the whole works With a horno you cam forget all about that Lamagraphers make it part of heir cverydas We and just take the poate not erenrying about Trough the wiwfadaer 5 nacting From the hip or above thet head or whatever they fancy really They re yast playing around and having some fun Welcome fo my Lomalag gt lomo Wist returreed Tram thx repair aham oo Di have some nee photos i the mext week or so If you would like to be emailed us dH each time 1 add me photog fill out Wee Torr bo the right F r more zi wich the Lene Acton VWaleimg i random prev pom mast list S MITT a lifeuncommon org ne eae 2002 Mia lireuneemmon er Figure 5 3 News headline blog downloaded from fib ommolfcetab ir downloaded from lib ommolketab ir downloaded from fib ommolfcetab ir eo
299. s babe py in As mh wii bem avidis ad is ij 1 AGG Source Click the Post button and Radio will publish this entry out to the Internet complete with all links and any changes you made See Figure 4 17 for an example Figure 4 17 Blog post from News Aggregator 4 3 1 Writing Original Content From the home page of the Desktop Website type or paste your blog content into the editing window the text box Then hit the Post to Weblog button Your post is stored in Radio s database and the web pages are rebuilt and uploaded to the server where you can view them This is where most Radio users make their first wrong turn Radio is a browser based application This means that the browser does not save your information unless you hit Post to Weblog If you have text typed in the Editing window and you move away from it by using the Back button or any other link that text oaded from lib ommolketab ir just goes away Given that everything that controls Radio is a hyperlink its surprisingly easy to lose content 4 3 2 Reading Your Weblog If you use the provided hosting at http radio weblogs com the URL for your blog is http radio weblogs coM usernum where usernum is your user number padded with leading zeros to make it seven digits long For example http radio weblogs com 0107822 4 4 Routing or Commenting on Conten
300. s bos to Usiro am files thraugh FTP Inthe space Exelnw add the usual magic moantations that male FTP work Slashes are raequred at the end of ciractory pacis and URLs Repeat the pereng zo Raio can mabe sure vou entered E correcth Jtr nam Ps OM Rapes Faren ist wer math FL Chad thes Exxs t uz pasiima Doce DPA The valves for Path and URL hove a nelacionctep bo ach other For tha FTP annon bo work cometh the LIFT you enter be the URL vnu d vss in a web Browser tn access the fle uplosded tu the Path you spere z Fill in the values you collected earlier and hit the Submit button If you have any unpublished blog posts or stories Radio will begin publishing them at once If not the best way to force Radio to publish is to add a new post or edit an existing post 4 7 3 Checking Publishing Status with Events Whenever a computer needs to communicate with the outside world there is always the chance for problems Radio handles this by logging all its actions as events This activity record is called the Events Log These events are very helpful in analyzing problems with upstreaming particularly with FTP problems For example if you mistype the FTP password the Events Log tells you there was a password error Access the Events Log by clicking on the Events link in the Radio command bar Figure 4 24 shows a typical Events Log Figure 4 24 Events Log tvert Log
301. s of Movable Type include Enhanced data storage In addition to using Berkeley DB for your data storage the system will support the MySQL and PostgreSQL databases Remote operation Currently Movable Type works best when you run the system on the same server where you host your public web site In the future the system will support automatic distribution of your site to a remote server through FTP or SFTP Posting via email Post to your blog simply by sending email to a specific email address Digital signatures will be used for secure authentication therefore your username and password never need be passed through an email message Peer to peer pinging Track and list posts from other blogs that reference a specific category or post Localization The entire Movable Type application interface is available in multiple languages The application has been restructured so that adding support for a new language is as simple as dropping in a plug in module with the new language support Also in the works an official service that provides turnkey solutions for users who wish to use Movable Type want affordable web hosting and do not want to worry about the hassles of installation or upgrading the system This service will likely be launched by the time of this book s publication so be sure to keep an eye on http www movabletype org for further details Chapter 6 Advanced Blogger Blogger s prim
302. s usual browser based interface NETTE zi x Recent Posts b QaHistory Categories things ji maodeslisk entries amp bloi stuff aen bis Post Ctrl T PGOUT VIEW SITE Sethings 1 About e Quit List amp Edit Entries 1 dit Td n power editing mode HAAG T Filter options ou l DATE DE tbt Select E Select a value LO K RH Slug comes as a self installing Windows msi application with included source code It does require the installation of the Microsoft NET Framework a separate 19 megabyte download downloaded from lib ommolketab ir 2 7 Radio UserLand Radio UserLand can be used to post to another blog system e g Movable Type or Blogger The experimental Manila Blogger Bridge Tool lets you mirror Radio UserLand blog posts via the Blogger API Detailed instructions are available from http radio userland com manilaBloggerBridgeTool Figure 2 8 Manila Blogger Bridge configuration e Da E Manila Blogger Bridge M E es S S tes te Someone s Radio Weblog Manila Blogger Bridge On this page you can configure Radio 8 to automatically mirror posts to your Radio weblog to a news item oriented Manila site a Blogger site or any centralized blogging tool that supports the Blogger API See the docs on the Radio UserLand site for more inform
303. s with a blogging system using a protocol called the Blogger API Many blog systems understand the Blogger API including Blogger Radio UserLand and Movable Type The typical desktop client features a text editing window with buttons to add images mark sections as bold or italic create headings etc Most support two commands Post which sends the post to your blogging system but doesn t make it appear on your blog and Publish which sends the post and makes it visible on your blog This chapter provides a quick survey of six popular blogging applications that make use of the Blogger API While they do vary in completeness compliance and usability they re all simple to install configure and use you should make use of the same handful of settings and sport a range of features designed to take your blogging experience beyond that cramped browser window and into an environment better suited to writing 2 1 The Settings While each sports its own particular preferences all the Blogger API based applications hold certain API specific settings in common usually Username The username with which you identify yourself to your blogging system Password The password associated with your username XML RPC UHRL The URL of your blog system s Blogger API interface the default is often Blogger s http plant blogger com api RPC2 Sometimes this is broken up into Server and Path settings e g Serve
304. se from your web browser when using the Movable Type system to publish to your web site It is not necessarily the same location as your blog though it can be If you are installing Movable Type into a cgi bin directory note that you will need to upload your images docs and styles css files and directories into a directory outside of the cgi bin These are static files and if they are left inside of the cgi bin the web server will try to execute them This renders them unusable through a web interface A typical solution is to create a new directory in your web accessible area called mt static then upload images docs and styles css into that directory Take note of the URL corresponding to the directory that you created because you will need to use it later when configuring Movable Type For example if you created mt static at the root of your web accessible area this value would be mt static 5 2 4 2 The location of the Movable Type database Choose where on your web server you would like to store your Movable Type database files The database holds all the data stored by the system your entries comments templates configuration authors etc If you are installing into a cgi bin directory your database can be located in cgi bin otherwise it is advisable from a security standpoint to create the database directory outside of your web accessible directories For example many hosted accounts have a home directory that is not web
305. serLand installation MacMichael Ryan A www laze net fait MacReporter headlines and macros Radio UserLand 2nd adding to templates custom post listing Mail to Weblog mailing lists services mailto links Main template macros Manila cost desktop clients Radio UserLand comparison McLean Gordon www snowgoon co uk Meerkat Memepool style Merholz Peter message board tools Metafilter modules Perl Movable Type and Movable Type 2nd A Day Late archives 2nd 3rd categories templates authors multiple blog directories blogs configuration configuring Local Site Path multiple categories archives cgi bin directory comments 2nd configuration cost desktop clients downloading distribution entries categories custom editing screen displaying on other pages number of days nioaded from lib ommolketab ir nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie files uploading to web server future of images importing and initialization and installation application location blog directories configuration database location directories file installation troubleshooting listing posts 2nd log in message boards Perl modules Perl scripts posts creating publishing global random entries displaying RSS and security issues private blogs web server security server blogging and Slug desktop client syndication system requirements tags Container tags variable tags templates Archive File templates Archive templates archives
306. sh your blog The caveat is that users will not be able to leave comments on your site because comment functionality requires that the server where you host your site have CGI script access To do this you will need to set up your home computer as a web server enable CGI scripting and install the Movable application on your own system Installing a web server on your home computer is beyond the scope of this tutorial but note that for almost every platform that you may be running the Apache web server is available to install on your computer In fact on many systems OS X and Linux Unix systems it may already be installed If you are on a Windows system you can use either IIS or the Windows version of Apache Once you have installed your web server install Movable Type as usual see Chapter 5 Then use the system as you would if it were installed on your public web server When you publish your blog however you will need to manually copy the files over to your public web server You can do this by using an FTP client to upload the files Or if you have the rsync tool installed on both your home computer and on your public server you can use rsync to copy the files For example rsync a v essh source username hostname destination This command looks complicated but it is actually fairly straightfoward a tells rsync to run in archive mode meaning that it should try to preserve all the file metadata between the source and t
307. sitors Incl Excl Reloads Geo Tracking System Tracking Referrer Tracking 1 Referrer racking 2 Home i boingboing nel 17539559 11 05 Totals and Averages Day Week Month Hours of the Day Days of the Week Day Week Month Domain Country Continent Browsers Operating Systems Screen Resolutions Screen Colors Last 20 Unsorted Email Searchengines Queries Usenet Harddisk Totals Sources Searchengines All Keywords All Website Referrers Frequently these trackers have a pay version that includes better and deeper reporting as well as privacy the free versions let anyone examine your site statistics Publicly available statistics are an interesting phenomenon as they make it possible for you to compare how much traffic your favorite bloggers enjoy and where these visitors come from Watching your statistics can be addictive In particular the lists of URLs from which your visitors linked called Referrer logs are the best way to discover who s been linking to your blog as shown in Figure 1 9 Figure 1 9 Referrer log UserLand a popular blogging tool covered later in this book includes its own log analysis tool whose statistics can be made public or kept private ee nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie 1 3 Anatomy of a Blog Post The blog post is the atomic unit of a blog B
308. ssign them to the new category 7 2 3 4 Advanced categories Although additional information on categories is beyond the scope of this chapter you should be aware that Categories is a very powerful very extensible feature Categories are how you make multiple blogs from Radio Each blog can be represented by a category and postings can be routed to different blogs just by selecting the category that represents the destination blog This is a powerful content management feature built into every copy of Radio 7 2 4 Using the Blogger API in Radio Radio fully supports the Blogger API standard so you can take advantage of any tool that supports it Not only can you post to other blogs from Radio see the Manila Blogger Bridge tool describe in Chapter 2 but you can also use any of the desktop blogging clients in Chapter 2 to post to your Radio UserLand blog To use the Blogger API in Radio click on the Prefs link in Radio s command bar Under Internet and server Settings choose the Blogger API in Radio option Turn on the checkbox to enable the Blogger and click Submit This allows your copy of Radio to accept data from a Blogger API compatible tool When you are using such a tool you have to tell it where your blog is located on your local machine Here are the normal settings httpz 127 0 0 1 5335 RPCZ2 the destination to which the tool should post blog entries your username and password and a blog ID of home no quotes this is requ
309. st to your blog more easily than your blogging system may otherwise allow Chapter 3 shows you how to create a Blogger blog create and manage posts change your archives adjust the look of your blog and start a group blog as well as show to use Blogger to create a blog on your own web site Chapter 4 covers downloading and installing Radio UserLand creating posts and stories adding titles and images to posts and adjusting your preferences Chapter 5 shows you how to install and configure Movable Type configure your blog add authors and entries and add images and comments Chapter 6 discusses the advanced features of subscription based Blogger Pro as well as Blogger template and archive customization blogrolls statistics syndication and more Chapter 7 covers shortcuts and categories backing up Radio customizing the appearance with Themes and Macros Upstreaming and explains a little about the software behind Radio UserLand Chapter 8 goes into detail on templates archives security and gives a cookbook of such tricks as displaying random entries Chapter 9 shows you how to install configure and use the Blosxom blogging system including the Blagg HSS aggregator Chapter 10 is a collection of advice and experience from seasoned bloggers Conventions Used in This Book The following typographic conventions are used in this book Italic Used for file and directory names
310. stomize your blog s appearance syndicate stories with other blogs and customize and manage your archive of old posts Generally it takes two chapters to explain all the functions of each tool Some products might have very simple posting maintenance but complex templates or have simple installation but complex syndication For this reason the division of material between the introductory and the advanced chapters isn t consistent from product to product Finally we end with advice from experienced bloggers what to do what not to do and how blogging has changed people We don t provide much information on the philosophy and sociology of blogging we don t address the question Is Blogging Journalism nor do we try to define just what a warblogger is Our main objective is to help you select a blog system and get it up and running as soon as possible Audience for This Book If you want to know how to start and run a blog this book is for you You can quickly learn which blogging system is right for you and then you can soon run your first blog If you already run a blog you may still be able to learn about desktop clients in Chapter 2 or learn more about your chosen blogging system from the later chapters We ve tried to provide you with the information you d have otherwise spent a year learning We do not cover every feature of every blogging tool exhaustively so if you ve been using and customiz
311. t A brief summary of your entry Category To assign categories to your entry Post Status Determines whether or not this entry will be published to your public blog Entries marked Publish will be published while entries marked Draft will be saved in the system but not published to your blog Allow Comments Determines whether you will allow readers of your site to post public comments Convert Line Breaks Controls the appearance of the entry s text You do not have to fill in the Additional Entry Text and Excerpt boxes And in fact if you do not want them to appear on this page you can make them disappear See Chapter 8 for more details Fill in the Main Entry Text with the body of the entry type in an appropriate title into the Title box and select Publish from the Post Status Then click the Save button The system should now tell you that your entry has been saved successfully Figure 5 1 7 Figure 5 17 Successfully saved entry eee MOVABLE TYPE Personal Publishing System MIRVABLE wen mewan emn a a ia m a P If instead you see an error message you should check the paths that you entered as your Local Site Path and Local Archive Path To view your new entry click the View Site button After doing so you see the entry that you posted is styled using the default templates that come with the system Figure 5 18 For information on modifying the default te
312. t Radio s News Aggregator is a feature in Radio that regularly receives news updates based on RSS news feeds to which you subscribe These can be other blogs web sites such as News com or Slashdot com or even real media such as the New York Times or CNN Once you ve subscribed to a news feed Radio automatically receives those feeds and then lets you add them to a blog posting with just one mouse click A very useful feature of the News Aggregator that Radio newcomers overlook is that you can use it to simply read your personal news from multiple web sites all condensed into one easy to view web page 4 4 1 RSS in Radio It s important to understand that Radio has very powerful RSS features beyond the News Aggregator In addition to accepting RSS input Radio automatically creates an RSS feed for your blog This lets anyone in the world subscribe to your blog and read it through a News Aggregator And because Radio feeds are always in the same relative place in every blog it s easy to susbscribe to any Radio blog Unless you configure it differently your Radio blog automatically has an RSS feed containing your current posts located at BLOGUHL rss xml If your blog was located at http radio weblogs com 0103807 then its RSS feed would be located at http radio weblogs comv 0 10380 7 rss xml Going beyond basic RSS Radio s extensible tools architecture even lets other products written by independent developers interface with its RS
313. t www malleron com www meryl net blog www phrogger com kaiser www sieyin com www snowgoon co uk www thatgrrl com www thereisnocat com www tssadicts com nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie aded from fib ommolfcetab ir SYMBOL A B C D E F EG H 1 K L EM N O EP Q R S T U V W X Y Z XML eXtensible Markup Language Blogger RSS and XML RPC Movable Type and Radio UserLand and XML RPC API Movable Type and XML RPC URL setting Blogger API DE SYMBOL A B C D E F G EH 1 K L M IN O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z YACCS comment system Yahoo Groups T EEFAITI LE ENIM SYMBOL A B C D E F G H 1 EK L M N O P Q R S ET U V W X Y Z Zope cost desktop clients RSS and Team LIES
314. t you create one on the front page and one on a permanent sequential archive page It s up to you how much material you want on each archive page At Boing Boing we put a month s worth of links 300 400 on each archive page This keeps the number of archive pages to a minimum but it does mean that digging through the archives can take a long time as each archive page has to load and render in your browser Some bloggers archive a week at a time especially wordy bloggers may opt to generate a new archive for every day Figure 1 19 Permanent link Your blogging tool will generate a permanent link to the archive copy of each new post automatically It s up to you to choose where that link goes and what it looks like As you can see on Boing Boing we put permanent links underneath each post Some other suggestions e A small icon next to the title see Figure 1 20 e A special typographic character f at the end of the post see Figure 1 21 e An abbreviation permalink at the end of the post see Figure 1 22 We like the Boing Boing approach because it makes it very clear where the permanent link is Other bloggers who want to link to my posts can quickly and easily locate our permalinks even if they ve never been to Boing Boing before Figure 1 20 An icon used to indicate a permanent link in Doc Searls s Radio blog downloaded from lib ommolketab ir From the Duh Dept Okay on the outside chance that any
315. t Your Profile You will see the screen in Figure 5 13 Change the username and password then click Save Figure 5 13 Edit Your Profile screen eon MOVABLE TYPE Personal Publishing System MIFFY ABLE 5 3 2 Configuring Your Blog The next thing to do is configure your first blog A blog called First Blog already exists in the system This blog gives you a head start in setting up your first blog in Movable First Blog ships with default templates which can be edited customized or deleted from the system They provide a good starting point for blog customization and will give you a sense of familiarity with the Movable template tags and structure To configure the blog for your own purposes click on the link to First Blog under Your Existing Blogs You now see the main Editing menu for First Blog Figure 5 14 Figure 5 14 Editing menu MOVABLE TYPE Personal Publishing System MEI To start configuring your blog click on Blog Config from the left navigation bar In the blog configuration screen Figure 5 15 name your blog in the Blog Name field Then fill in the path and URL information Local Site Path Site URL Local Archive Path and Archive URL Values for Local site Path and Site URL are provided by default to give you a sense of what the paths should look like All four of these fields must be filled in Figure 5 15 Configura
316. tegories for Work and Play then assign each blog post to one category or the other Radio then automatically creates separate index pages which can be separately themed for each category Although you can create your own categories Radio includes several predefined categories Home Page My Hobbies My Organization My Friends My Interests and My Profession By default everything is tagged for Home Page You can turn it off if you want but the custom for categorized blogs is to have the home page include everything If you are trying to blog information that you don t want most people to see turn off the Home Page category and send people that need the contents the URL of the category These are some example category UHLs http www fuzzyblog com categories httpz www fuzzyblog com categories marketing 10 1 7 2 3 1 Enabling categories By default categories are turned off in Radio The Prefs screen lets you turn them back on Click on Prefs in the Radio command bar Under the Blog grouping click on Categories then check the box for categories Click Submit then reload the new blog entry page At the bottom of the editing area above the Post to Weblog button are six checkboxes that when selected assign something to one or more categories You will also see that the Home Page category is selected by default This is shown in Figure 7 3 Figure 7 3 Categories for new blog entries download led from lib ommotketa
317. ternet zone If you would rather not allow visitors to your site to leave comments you can set the default for the Allow Comments checkbox in your blog configuration Or if you generally allow comments but wish to disable comments for a particular entry uncheck the Allow Comments box for that entry When you disable comments on an entry the Comments link will disappear from your public page Figure 5 22 Figure 5 22 Entries with and without Comments links If a visitor leaves an offensive comment on your site you may want to edit or delete the comment To do SO go to the entry editing screen for the entry on which the comment was made and scroll down to the Edit Comments section Figure 5 23 Figure 5 23 Edit comments list downloaded from lib ommolketab ir 666 4 MOWABLE TYPE Personal Publishing System C Ka sues LAT RL EMT Post Status 3 authored on Publish hija 20 02 31 92 cs comments Ti Geum HTE PREVIEW savE BELETEENTRY Advanced Options Edit Commentz Author Crake Cirkaii Cate r3 cipem bm khe author pus 20020520 02 35 11 to mdi Us mI comment To delata check the bas ba iba mghk mn HF m rere tns 1 m tam sane i E iion mazzaga jecur greup of a ntur the arna at 1 l oa um thie I n 3 m liar ipio P p a PII Chace entire e
318. th it great flexibility Customize your weblog s look and feel with any HTML stylesheets and the like you re accustomed to using Incorporate Blosxom output into your existing template or web development framework Blosxom is simple straightforward minimalist Perl affording even the dabbler an opportunity for experimentation and customization And last but not least Blosxom is open source and free for the taking and altering 9 1 Requirements Designed for use all operating systems and web servers Blosxom has little in the way of requirements You need e web server running either on your local desktop or an account at your local service provider e he ability to run CGI scripts e Perl e Command line or FTP access to the server e To aggregate RSS feeds using Blagg you also need a command line application capable of fetching a remote resource over the Internet typically available are Curl Lynx or Wget Any Internet service or web hosting provider worth its salt makes this base level of functionality available to users 9 2 Downloading Blosxom lives at http www raelity org lang perl blosxom the Blosxom home page you ll find the latest happenings on the Blosxom front release notes links to related projects and Blosxom based blogs of particul interest The latest version of the script itself is always available for download at
319. the URL of the picture not the picture itself Once the URL is copied go to the blog story or post where you want the picture If you want to create a link to the picture you need to enter the HTML code for a hyperlink This is entered in this format lt A HREF PASTE PICTURE URL HERE Link Anchor lt A gt If you want to insert the picture itself into the blog post or story enter the HTML for an image This is entered in this format lt IMG SRC PASTE PICTURE URL HERE Of course any standard HTML code for formatting pictures can also be specified borders alignment etc 4 9 3 Notes on Upstreaming Files This approach of dragging a picture file into a folder within the www folder can be used to upload any type of file to your blog except for avi files Radio uploads all files not just picture files You can also create any folders you need beneath the www directory to organize your uploaded files and those folders with their contents will be uploaded to the server You can use the same linking method discussed above to create links to any uploaded files For a very powerful picture gallery for Radio see http www fuzzygroup com go radioGallery 4 9 4 Limitations on Upstreaming Files Radio operates differently when upstreaming files to a web site via FTP than it does when upstreaming files to radio weblogs com usernumv When your files go to a blog located at radio weblogs com they always remain in the
320. the macro or its arguments If you just don t see a change your changed post probably hasn t been upstreamed yet wait a few seconds and try again If it still doesn t work check your network connectivity and look at the Events log in Radio 7 4 7 Additional Macros There are many different macros for Radio templates some from UserLand some from individual developers and some from third parties Different types of macros include the very popular GoogleBox picture galleries image uploaders and more Locate these macros via these directories http radio userland com directory 6742 http ruminations weblogger com directory 143 7 4 8 Creating and Downloading Themes Although adding macros to an existing Radio template is relatively easy if you are comfortable with HTML it is actually quite difficult to create an entire theme A third party product for Radio themeTool lets you create your own themes using standard web development tools such as DreamWeaver or FrontPage More information is available from http radiotools evectors it http radio userland com stories storyReader 7024 downloaded from lib ommolketab ir downloaded from fib ommolfcetab ir im im 7 5 Understanding How Radio Works At its core Radio is a very sophisticated piece of software as sophisticated as you can purchase from any vendor today including Microsoft IBM and Sun Here are som
321. this 8 to write its just that there hava been other tions of ete Various things will be camer in ean May than 111 disappear again Por a week in New w York and Virginia But am thinking of you honest 2 Tha Fewer Tool Drag Race ware terrific Bryan so up Flavernill which har grast HY eunt Hitings it coming to SF z Jaukwr Ma merc I roma good rastrg 3 back again 5 Things vou Houk know about me part 258 2 My hair longar as deliciously striped as it was about a month ago New stripes are Forthcpmmg Until Last weak 170 never been ro Los Ampelas axcapt to change planes in LAX Now I ve bean though ve seen anb the insida of an office building the insides of mens 419 and amp 42 of tha Marriot Courtyard and the few blocks in between Someday very possibly will lean that compliments should ba accepted with a gracious thank you instead af the a you are delirious you know L 2 9 Figure 1 3 shows Camworld http www camworld com Figure 1 3 Camworld downloaded from fib ommolfcetab ir downloaded from lib ommolketab ir C PL CamWorld Thinking Outside the Box A Weblog gt RelrgsF i Prini Mel a L9 Traeabria Meat Seceet interest Arche 9 eden ab dei Arche mene D eters Doce Cam List aune Exxags Aben 5 Celar Oogoooom z Search
322. tion nloaded from fib ommolfcetab ie nioaded from lib ommolketab ir nan MOVABLE TYPE Personal Publishing System You should have already created the directories for your blog in Installation Directories earlier in this chapter Fill in the local paths site and archive with the full paths to those directories and enter the URLs corresponding to those directories Finally select your timezone from the Timezone pulldown menu Click Save to save the configuration changes Note that there are many configuration options that can be set for each blog in the system First Blog contains sensible defaults for all of these options Chapter 8 contains more details on the preferences supported by the system 5 4 Creating New Entry Now that your blog is configured you are ready to post an entry In the lefthand navigation bar click New Entry The New Entry screen Figure 5 16 that pops up lets you create a new entry Figure 5 16 New entry page 3 MOVABLE Personal Publishing System 7 Lite Fi Wiary LETE y Main Entry Text 4 THTETE Efi t g T Ewi i i nebnenbkre Ehe display of this pans Create New Entry There are several fields on the screen Title The title of your entry Main Entry Text The main body text of your entry Additional Entry Text An extended piece of your text Excerp
323. tion Section 1 5 Blogging Tools Chapter 2 Desktop Clients Section 2 1 The Settings Section 2 2 BlogScript Section 2 3 BlogApp Section 2 4 blogBuddy Section 2 5 w bloggar Section 2 6 Slug Section 2 7 Radio UserLand Chapter 3 Hosted Blogging with Blogger Section 3 1 How Blogger Works Section 3 2 Requirements Section 3 3 Your Blog Quick Start nioaded from fib ommolfcetab ie nioaded from lib ommolketab ir Section 3 4 Section 3 5 Section 3 6 Section 3 7 Section 3 8 Section 3 9 Section 3 10 Section 3 11 Section 3 12 Section 3 13 Section 3 14 Basic Blogger Settings Managing Your Posts Archiving in Detail Changing Your Account Profile Basic Use of Templates Self Hosting Browser Shortcuts Blogger Buzz Group Blogs Removing a Blogger Blog Support Chapter 4 Desktop Blogging withRadio UserLand Section 4 1 Section 4 2 Section 4 3 Section 4 4 Section 4 5 Section 4 6 Section 4 7 Section 4 8 Section 4 9 Section 4 10 Installing Radio UserLand Welcome to Radio A Visual Tour of Using Radio Routing or Commenting on Content The Radio Menu Setting Your Radio Preferences Publishing Your Blog Stories Instead of Posts Adding Pictures to Your Posts Source Editing Your Radio Entry Chapter 5 Server Blogging with Movable Type Section 5 1 Section 5 2 Section 5 3 Section 5 4 Section 5 5 Section 5 6 Section 5 7 Section 5 8 Section 5 9 Why Us
324. to access Movable Type You should see the login prompt as shown in Figure 5 11 If you get an Internal Server error check the permissions on mt cgi and check that you uploaded the CGI scripts using ASCII mode If you see a login prompt but the images do not appear you may need to either move your images docs and styles css out of your cgi bin or if you have already done that adjust the Static Web Path setting in mt cfg See Section 5 2 5 earlier in this chapter Figure 5 11 Login screen Log in with the author name Melody and the password Nelson Case is important The author name melody does not work After a successful login you see the screen in Figure 5 12 This is the Main Menu On the left of the screen is a list of the blogs to which you have access on the right is a list of system wide options Figure 5 12 Main menu nloaded from fib ommolfcetab ie nioaded from lib ommolketab ir AAA MOVABLE TYPE Personal Publishing System LDID EDIT BLOG ALITHORS HEST BLOG i i E 1 i ET LE m I Vds H n il PDLIE Bp 1 L ik i a 1 PE VIT i y i LH E i I EE iE i8 REL y SET UP BOOKMARKLET P Currently the default username and password can still be used to log in to Movable Type For the sake of security the first thing you should is to change your author name and password do so click Edi
325. to customize the title and description for your blog These are preference settings or Prefs Click the Prefs link at the top righthand side of your Radio window first return to the Desktop Website with the Back button in your browser Figure 4 9 shows the Prefs page Figure 4 9 The Prefs page The Prefs page shows the different preferences you can set Click on Title and Description in the second grouping Figure 4 10 shows the Title and Description preferences led from fib ommolfcetab ie nioaded from lib ommolketab ir Figure 4 10 Title and Description preferences E Lus rey Tolle and Greer Hirom internet Eopker Be 08 Vea xk bp duh DR A Dh luem ee 0 JM 2c E n n 8 sco reme pague pac pages 2 1 Title and Description Fade Linpri arid ic s umpe pet zwertutzm tor eng s edd 5 pero heaton that x on sized giei p anf ba Cee ried We Les rhe Tie and Cecio bere m the ranking of sitas when ncotsing Vieh izgs L pm of ange and wien Ege BML feet For your weblog Jof scon s Fusco amp Gapang 002 Seem heer Lais Lucho EDA BIZWLAE BER Change the Title and Description as you need to and then click the Submit button Radio will make these changes and then return you to the Prefs page so you can make additional changes if needed The next change you probably want to make will be to upgrade the look and feel of your blog
326. to use this immediately Alternatively you can use any web hosting account with FTP support to serve your Radio UserLand blog Radio provides many options for connecting to other servers including acting as an upstream server itself thus Radio power users can control every stage of blog publishing from their own desktop Radio provides an integrated News Aggregator see Chapter 1 This is a powerful tool for monitoring web sites of interest to you Radio can automatically capture news from subscribed to sites as it is published add it to your blog with one mouse click and publish your own RSS feed to which other bloggers can subscribe Overall Radio provides exceptionally powerful RSS capabilities both for reading blogs and publishing your own blog Given Radio s powerful RSS capabilities people tend to use Radio in two different ways for blogging You can create original content in your blog this is referred to as a writer blog Or you can comment on existing content in your blog this is referred to as a router blog because it usually ends up sending or routing people to other places on the Web Because Radio can be used both online and offline it is an ideal tool for writers they can work wherever they are And for people who are commenting on content the News Aggregator is a tremendous convenience Although you download and run your own copy of the Radio application you don t have to reinstall this when Radio is enhanced o
327. ts stale Still haven t totally abandoned it A blog is fun too You can do so much with them You only have to please yourself really so design away Add those fantasy graphics you wouldn t want to use on your personal site Add that font you love even though no one else has it downloaded Go wild find a jungle cat skin background and make that the focus of your blog ThatGrrl http www thatgrrl com Some essential blogging tips In order to keep your blogs really fresh invite a group of your friends colleagues and give them blogging access That way you ll have several reporters blogging information and you won t end up killing yourself trying to keep your blog populated with good information If you use Blogger upgrade to Blogger Pro You can have your team post to the blog from email create and syndicate your blog as an RSS feed and a whole lot more Adding the ability to post comments on your blog extends interactivity and usefulness to the blog itself Blogs are about community and information and commenting is a real way to gauge your viewer s blogging efforts Blogging is one of the quickest ways to update your site Syndicating others blogs into your own site is another There is a wealth of information out there tap into it Eric E Dolecki http www ericd net While rode into the bloggiing community on the coattails of my son www theonetruebix com who was blogging before there were officia
328. ul additional information is provided including a link to an FTP file For instance if you get the following error Transfer Error 550 usr local somepath index html No such file or directory chances are the location you specified doesn t exist or you don t have permissions to FTP to this location Get more information by clicking the View FTP Log link opening the transcript of the FTP attempt as shown in Figure 3 16 Figure 3 16 Viewing FTP transcript when FTP error occurs dede voor biiy Intberset Explorer E xil Fle yea Helo Hish g J meh arer 4 L 2 wh eder mx F Pig open core bog arae pri Links gie hme Daemon C moa EB settings tecate C CR E n BLOGGER Post to Essential Blogger WM f bret Partami 228 TrzansZsr completa a I 2D Type get TD I GS el Loe fT 875 55 S00 FRET comEmsTE E szuccezszul STIR Some ae oe net ore lly bel 152 Zpening ELHAPE mode dara coniecztios Foc Juss dleel www rhlzrtz arzantialz blI injgbird zato Jarasarailly chiva 226 TransZ amp r complere 1 ans Tyre get to I FORT a mL lam fl T OFS 2 100 PORT command successful STOR Soe doce few Pe oe ed inde his 55 wes tstdfdsfdss Lrnoew Emelr Ho meh file direit
329. until you see the field labeled Show Title Field Change this to Yes if you want to use the field as shown in Figure 6 10 Figure 6 10 Enabling support for post titles FEL your bimg Peet ial 4 LI x 2l we Fgedes dep d Gases ijPeekes 043 oh d amp Sores betel gree beeper cer eds ee De 625 1068 Pa Links gt Google Cem e i Posts E settings O template tem my blogs Econ Bagger 0 nout BLOGGER PRU nas Show Tithe Field Yaa Past Template After returning to the Edit view edit the existing post and add the following title What this weblog is all about Publish the page and open it for viewing The new title won t show on the page even though you ve added it because the template you re using doesn t implement the title tag To add the title into the display you ll need to add the lt sBlogitemSubject gt template tag within its containing lt PostSubject gt elements for the title to show with each post Example 6 2 shows the blog s Blogger template area after the new title tag has been added the change is highlighted Example 6 2 Blog s template after adding in posting title template tag Blogger lt BlogDateHeader gt lt div class date SBlogDateHeaderDateS 5 div lt BlogDateHeader gt lt div class posts gt
330. ur next story or bit of wisdom Even after all is said and done your readership may never grow big No worries You have to do this for yourself first All that other junk is for if you want to put on a good show for the little window you re opening into your life Myself put up an online journal to record and share my thoughts It s interesting and embarrassing to see my mentality just a few months before the stretches of days of whining moping etc Aside from the memories think it s helped to improve my writing a bit A handful of folks have also taken interest in what have to say to their credit think they re just bored Kaiser Shahid http www phrogger com kaiser My genealogy blog has provided some neat experiences I ve found a number of cousins wouldn t have normally found through the blog By publishing the names of my ancestors and the villages they came from l ve made contact with relatives all over America and in Poland as well One woman in Poznan Poland searched the Web for the name of the small village she came from found it on my blog realized that she knew my grandmother s late sister who had moved to the village after World War 1 and contacted me with a note from that sister s daughters my mother s first cousins who the family had lost contact with some years ago The blog makes fantastic search engine fodder Ralph Brandi http www thereisnocat com After reading and reading about weblogs
331. ur weblog Youll that the Blogger z is very ir ta that of Microsoft s spellehecker Change to lacknowleds e e Pow ered By SpellChecker net Finish Checking Cancel acknowledge 6 1 2 Posting via Email You don t always have access to a browser or to Blogger but with the advent of PDAs and web enabled cell phones you almost always have access to email Because of this almost universal access to email blogging tools have been adding support for posting by email Posting by email is a new feature in Blogger The delivery isn t always timely or consistent but this should improve over time To enable posting by email access the Settings viewpoint and then click the Email tab Within the page that opens is a field for adding a secret word that verifies that the email is legitimate and allows the email posting to take place Because anyone deducing this word could post to your blog take the time to make this a hard to guess word Once you ve added the secret word any email sent to the derived email address is posted to your blog For demonstration purposes we used a secret word of tomatoe misspelled deliberately The email address then became burningbird tomatoe blogger com burningbird being our username The secret keyword was changed after this was written in case you were thinking of having a little fun with the demonstration blog The email content will only be posted to Blogger
332. ust about anything needing a simple lightweight RSS reader aggregator Indeed this is already the case via plugins Blaggplugs Blagg is able to push aggregated RSS to email recipients instant messenger buddies and to weblog software such as of MovableType and Blogger Blagg has two modes interactive and automatic Interactive mode occurs when Blagg is run from the command line It picks up displays and prompts you for inclusion of individual stories from elsewhere into your weblog The automatic mode is designed to be run untended on a regular basis from a service such as cron The aggregator simply drops new stories from your favorite feeds into your weblog One use of automatic aggregation is to create a daily dose of your favorite feeds in one place to be read at your leisure A group of like minded individuals could produce a weblog composed of entries from their individual weblogs An author can have her main weblog reflect the writing she does across various sites and weblogs 9 11 1 Requirements Blagg doesn t need much not even an XML parser for those of you who know what that means It has only a single requirement on top of Blosxom a command line application capable of fetching a remote resource over the Internet CURL Lynx and wget are good good choices Check for the availability of one or more of these applications if you re running Mac OS X or some form of Unix by typing which for each in turn on the command li
333. what everyone else does on their blog Do what you want It s your blog it should reflect you Keep the front page down to 7 days or 50 KB whichever is smaller Don t bother writing your own blogging tool unless you re in it for the long haul After writing my own tool and using it for a few months still had a long list of features to implement Instead of taking another month to implement all of them got then in about 15 minutes by installing Movable Type Dan Hersam http dan hersam com Since Movable Type lets you set up multiple blogs from the same installation set up a second one in a password protected part of my web site Combined with the Post to MT bookmarklet it s a very convenient way for me to record and organize personal bookmarks and notes as I m surfing along on one of the 4 different computers use daily can go back later to review and format the information for my public site Laura Blalock http www imaginaryworld net Do not blog unless you are ready for your details to be unleashed to the world Hemember that your readers are other bloggers who link quote forward gossip and more about every word you write it generally but hours after you have published it yourself Also Google catches stuff for quite a while so once it s published it s difficult to get rid of Blogging enables you to easily publish and release your stream of consciousness thoughts essentially giving you instant gratification
334. whose ingredients and cooking Instructions can bg daacribed in sentence Vgal makes excallent quick weeknight rng Veal Puocata alea fexiblg entree wel Suited ta exparimantatlan with ttle risk of altaring tha basic nature of the dish Common additsans to the bas c recipe inctudg Capers ganic Shallots sage chicken Groin also seen Taw racipes thet call for prosciutto and aven bacon and pirig Acs For me the forceful nature of lamon juice and wine dating Veal Piccata so prefer to add only ingredients that complemant it mot enhance those favors The official Simmer Stock recipe es Go Sains same and Fer See Tenn ae airtel bore FLAT subscribe Ta Simmer Stock be rextified ete rew oat has been ely air eta amp in te foe belp ars clickion the surils button subscribe Pertorming SRREELHT oe Hii Fried Twinkies Linguimi Sphagetti With Clam Sauce Teaching Denmark And Italy How To Cook Since 2001 2007 James Beard Awards Scripts ER REL AT S86 Weal Piccata Pan Seared Scallops With Sauce And Cumin Salted Iortia Chips Mambo Kings Pork Chops Spaghetti A La Carbonara Rehearsing EVERETT ae HIE James Heard 5 American Cookery infiltrating The CIA Pr sec nO Figure 5 6 Project site downloaded from lib ommolketab ir 3 Sew Wrong Proj
335. word blog is also a verb meaning to maintain a blog Yah blog from time to time or to post something to a blog Oh that is so cool l m gonna blog it as soon as get home Most people use software to automate the maintenance of their blogs rather than edit the raw HTML themselves Chapter 2 through Chapter 9 explore some of the most popular blogging tools 1 1 1 Can Blog short answer yes There are bloggers of all types equipped with all levels of technical skill From Octavia Philips s personal blog at http www tavie com to Charlie Stross s auctorial blog at http www antipope org charlie blosxom cgi bloggers approach their sites with as much variety and passion as the general Net public approaches the Web itself 1 1 2 What Would Talk About Creating a taxonomy of the blogiverse is a fruitless task There s no good central directory of blogs that puts each one in its own pigeonhole because even the most topical blogger will stray from the subject from time to time to celebrate some personal victory or warn his readers off a terrible movie Blogs are rich tapestries of something or other mind croggling crazy quilts of opinion fact community humor bile and lust Cult figures such as Neil Gaiman an award winning writer best known for the Sandman comics http www neilgaiman com journal journal asp and Wil Wheaton geek hero best known for his role as Ensign Wesley Crusher on Star Trek The Next Generation http
336. you Table 1 1 Blog management systems System Home page Blogger http www blogger com Blogger Pro http pro blogger com Blosxom http www raelity org lang per l blosxom Greymatter http www noahgrey com greysoft LiveJournal http www livejournal com Manila http manila userland com Movable Type http www movabletype org Radio UserLand http radio userland com Slash http www slashcode org Zope http www zope org 1 5 1 Hosting A blog takes up disk space and must be served from a web server If you already own or pay for space on a web server you probably want to host your blog there For example Neil Gaiman s web site contains a biography a bibliography FAQs a message board and much more so it s the logical place to keep his blog oome tools for example Greymatter Movable Type Blosxom Slash Zope and Manila can be installed on your server Others for example Blogger and Radio UserLand can publish your blog to your site by uploading files via FTP FTPing your blog files can become very time consuming though for blogs with many entries Installing software on your web server requires some know how logging into Unix or adding software to Windows or Macintosh server where are the CGI programs kept and so on that may eliminate some choices for the less tech savvy If you don t already have web hosting or you re just getting started online or even if you re an old hand but simp
337. you to FTP pages from Blogger 3 9 2 Configuration To self host your Blogger generated pages you need a web account with an ISP that provides FTP access We re not aware of any ISP that doesn t provide this so you shouldn t have any trouble finding one The only decisions that exist then are what environment you want Windows or Unix web server such as IIS or Apache and the cost Because you don t have any requirements for specialized technology you only need the ability to host HTML pages you don t have to sign up for an account that provides specialized application support Once you have your account the next step is to FTP your files to their new home After logging into Blogger access the Settings view In the drop down menu labeled Publish change from on BlogSpot com to via FTP The form changes and new text boxes display for entering your FTP information Here are the fields you ll need to add values for are below Blog URL The URL of your new blog e g http essentials burningbird net FIP server The hostname of the FTP server to which your blog will be uploaded e g essentials burningbird net FTP path The filesystem location and path where blog pages will be placed e g vhosts essentials docs Check with your ISP if you re unsure of what your published page path is Blog filename You probably want to keep this as index html FTP username and password Leave blank for security
338. your Perl interpreter This will be the same as it was in Section 9 3 Blagg needs to know the location of your Blosxom install s data directory Copy the sdatadir line from blosxom cgi and paste it in place of the default my Sdatadir Library WebServer Documents blosxom opecify which command line application you d like Blagg to use the one you found in Section 9 1 to retrieve remote RSS documents by changing as appropriate my prog curl Mac OS X users can leave the line as it is my prog curl Unix users should find either ynx or wget close at hand my prog source Or my Sget_prog wget quiet O Windows users if you grabbed a precompiled version of wget should use my prog wget quiet O save the blagg script You won t want to put the blagg script anywhere beneath your web server s directory it should live in your home directory or wherever you would usually put executables a bin directory under your home directory is always a good place Ensure that the b agg script is executable with chmod 700 blagg 9 11 4 Configuring First you need to tell Blagg about your favorite RSS feeds Fire up your favorite text editor and create an RSS datafile rss dat consisting of one line per feed like so nickname URL interactive or automatic These are broken down as follows Nickname A short alphanumeric nickname for the feed e g raclityb
339. your blog At this point you can add or edit material in the window as shown in Figure 3 17 Figure 3 17 Blogger Pro BlogThis window nloaded from fib ommolfcetab ie nioaded from lib ommolketab ir BLOGGER Blog This Microsoft Internet O BLOGGER PRO Post to Blog Sisters Options Zh Post Publish Tide Burninghird a href http weblag bumingbird net Bumingbirdc a Pelicans are my favonte bird They look as if they couldnt fly more than a few feet but ve seen them fly inta gale force winds with barely a struggle And their landing They circle lower and lower than quick crashing dwe bomb into the water splashing water high into the air absolutely no subtlety in their movements Fearless b Chapter BlogThis b Done a Internet The Blogger Pro version of BlogThis allows you to use the Edit view features from Blogger Pro See Chapter 6 for more on Blogger Pro lf you keep several blogs use caution with the Blogger Pro BlogThis functionality It s easy to forget to change the blog you re posting to and end up posting to the wrong blog TEFAmL IE 3 11 Blogger Buzz Up until now you haven t been promoting your blog to the public as you ve been trying out new features When you re to the point where you want to attract visitors to your blog you ll introduce your blog to the world invitin
340. ytes This nickname is prepended to the filenames of all aggregated entries e g raelitybytes a title txt URL The URL of the RSS feed to aggregate e g http www raelity org flav rss interactive or automatic Whether this feed should be aggregated interactively on the command line story by story or automatically on a regular basis blogging each and every story Example 9 6 shows a sample rss dat file that automatically blogs anything it finds on the Reality Bytes weblog yet prompts interactively for particular stories to blog from the Boing Boing weblog Example 9 6 A sample rss dat file raelitybytes http www raelity org flav rss automatic boingboing http www newsisfree com HPE xml feeds 33 2733 xml interactive Save the RSS datafile as rss dat in your main Blosxom sdat adir or subdirectory of the weblog into which you d like to aggregate these feeds You can add edit or remove feed entries at any time simply be reediting the rss dat file 9 12 Running Blagg Blagg may be run in either interactive or automatic mode aggregating only feeds of the same mode in your rss dat file When run in interactive mode Blagg ignores all feeds marked as automatic and vice versa 9 12 1 Interactive Blagging To run Blagg interactively on the Mac OS X or Unix command line type blagg mode interactive Under Windows type perl blagg mode interactive Blagg starts up fetches e

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