Category: Technology

Categories
XHTML/HTML

BLINK is back!

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Phil pointed to a weblog entry that mentions adding an HTML element just for marking untrusted content in a page. With this, Google would then know not to use any links within that section for page ranking.

The concept behind this new addition is that without getting the page rank boosts, the bad mans would give up spamming weblogs and email lists, and the rest of us could go back to exchanging pleasant civilities with one another.

What an interesting idea. Sort of a page rank BLINK element. I can see it now*:

You can also check some helpful info dedicated to…

*BLINK*

Please check out the sites about…

*BLINK*

You may find it interesting to check out some information in the field …

*BLINK*

But why stop at comment spammers? For instance, I’m really pissed that Dave Winer drove right by my state and didn’t offer to stop in and say hi. Mortally wounded. So I think I’ll just enclose any links to his posts within page rank BLINK tags, because I no longer trust him.

In fact, my job here isn’t to promote other people’s writing and sites– my job here is to promote ME. It is all about ME. So why don’t I just wrap all my posts in BLINK tags, and then I don’t have to worry about doing it individually?

After all, this isn’t generating harm to a site, like Vote Links. We’re not taking away a person’s positive link juice; we’re just denying the person positive link juice. No harm in that.

And there are so many other new elements that we could add to HTML to help Google do its job:

The BUTTHOLE tag. This can be used when linking to a butthole. Then when the person’s page shows up in Google, a disclaimer can be attached to the results saying something like, “Someone somewhere thinks this person is a butthole. Proceed accordingly”.

(Of course, we could also call this the WEBLOG tag — most of us are buttholes to someone at some time or another, or we’re not trying hard enough.)

The SICKOPERVERTPREVENTION tag. This can be used to surround content that contains words that will most likely end up in some sick Google search phrase–words like porn, whip, sex, balls, breasts, and sheep.

The DISCLAIMER tag. This can be used to surround libelous content. Then when you’re sued, you can point to the page and say, “See? I used the DISCLAIMER tag. This means I was only joshin’ when I published the content.”

The SUCKUP tag. This is my personal favorite. Use this when referencing a specific individual who you want to suck up to. It could be anyone, from a rock star to a weblogger who has more link juice then you (that is, if they still have link juice with the use of BLINK). We all know that some folks suck up to other folks, but there’s nothing in the writing to prove it. Now we can remove any doubt that sucking up is happening.

Best of all, when the individual searches in Google for people who are sucking up to them, they’ll get back your page. Think of the miscommunications this can prevent?

HTML could get a bit messy with all these BLINK, SICKOPERVERTPREVENTION, DISCLAIMER, SUCKUP, and so on elements — but we just helped eliminate FONT through the use of CSS. Plenty of room for new growth.

Of course, there’s always spoil sports in any grand idea. You know who I’m talking about: they’re the ones who think that adding to the underlying specification in order to accomodate one specific application could lead to markup bloat. Yeah, and they probably also think that the bad guys could route around these new elements anyway. No f**cking fun. (We also need a CONTAINSBADWORDS element, too, now that I think on it.)

Personally, I think we should just BLINK away these naysayers.

*All text examples are from actual comment spams filtered by my absurdly simple and amazingly effective comment spam moderation technique. Patent pending. For licensing, inquire within and bring money. Lots and lots of money.

Categories
Social Media Technology Weblogging

Exit door

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I wanted to to thank those (Steve, Loren, Liza, Tim) who have volunteered their weblogs for conversion for my upcoming tutorials on weblog tool independence. This is in addition to those who are offering space and installation of MT 3.1.

I’ve been asked if because of this series I’m thinking of switching back to Movable Type; what I’m going to do with this weblog moving forward, I’d prefer to leave for the denouement. (Sorry Marc – no peeking at the end.) The purpose of the series isn’t to sell one weblogging tool or another, as much as it is to sell the idea of weblog tool independence.

Sam Ruby once said, and I can’t find where, that the first thing to look for when evaluating a weblogging tool is the exit. Most tools provide an import utility and instructions, but very few provide an easy to use method to export entries into a format consumable by other tools. In fact, Movable Type is one of the best in this regard, though it’s also relatively easy to export from Blogger.

Weblogging tool lock-in serves no one, not even the tool makers. If a person feels they can’t easily move their weblog to a different tool, but they’re also not happy with the one they’re using, they’re going to be vocal in their criticism of the tool; this is the only outlet they have for their frustration. A better approach would be to give them an easy out, so they don’t feel ‘trapped’.

Moving the data is only part of the battle, though. The tough part is handling the differences in tags, functions, and plugins. But there’s a method to the madness, and the tools are more alike than unalike when it comes to processing that data they all hold in common.

Of course, none of us wants to have to spend time moving to different weblogging tools; we’re here to put deathless prose and pithy comments online, not spend time fiddling with technology. Still, it’s hard to be creative when your software crashes, your writing disappears, your post takes forever to publish, your host shuts your weblog service down in a hissy fit, or you’re fighting off hordes of comment spammers who clutter up your space (not to mention taking down your server with the force of their attacks).

Categories
Technology Weblogging

MT and WP: There and back again

Both Movable Type and WordPress should be having new releases in the upcoming weeks. Movable Type is scheduled to release August 31 (I can’t find this in writing–can someone point this out?); No announced date for WP 1.3, but forum talk has it that the current nightly builds are getting progressively stable.

With both releases, there is bound to be a movement between these two products. I imagine since MT has a larger installed base, there will be more movement from MT to WordPress. However,announcements about stronger comment spam prevention and dynamic PHP pages in MT 3.1 could be luring some old MT users back to MT from WordPress.

Currently I’m working on a WP to MT export script that will export WordPress entries into Movable Type format for import into MT. WP supports an RSS/Atom export, but that won’t work with MT 3.1 (or will it?) Before I can release it, though, I need to test it with MT 3.1. If anyone has a working beta of this product, and wouldn’t mind letting me create a weblog for testing, I’d be appreciative.

When 3.1 releases, I’ll port one of my WordPress weblogs to MT 3.1 and then write up the process as a tutorial here in Burningbird. I’ll cover how to export the data, import it into MT, and how to move the weblog’s distinctive look by converting between tool template elements. This will include merging stylesheets; taking WordPress’ single template and porting it into MT’s multi-template environment; how the commenting structure differs; and covering differences between the tools for functions to list categories, recent comments, and so on.

To do this, I again need access to a working version of 3.1 and someone willing to let me create a weblog in their environment, for demonstration purposes (we can get rid of it when I’m done with writeup, and taking screenshots.) I could download 3.1 myself, but I don’t have – and won’t have– a TypeKey.

When 1.3 releases, my hope is to port 2-4 current Movable Type weblogs into WordPress 1.3, writing up the process just as with the WP to MT 3.1 port: how to move the distinctive look, covering functional differences, what functions to use for sidebar information, and so on. By covering multiple weblogs, I should hit most of the major challenges people would face. I’ll also add any of my customizations that the individual want, such as per-comment moderation or fullpage preview, comment editing, and so on.

(I’ll first be upgrading Burningbird from 1.2 to 1.3, which means upgrading my modifications and plugins. When finished, I’ll do another code documentation generation and post links.)

For this, I need volunteers from among Movable Type users who are interested either in moving to WordPress completely, or seeing what their weblog will look like in WordPress. They’ll need to have both the space and extra MySQL database for me to create the new WP weblog, and to provide me access to their system. They’re welcome to follow along with the effort, but they can’t hover. Hovering people make me twitchy.

Finally, I need non-techs to read the tutorials as I write them and let me know when the writing leaves them lost, or my instructions aren’t clear. I know that techs will let me know when I’ve done something wrong, technically.

Hopefully, when I’m done, people–whether technical or not–can use these tutorials to move from WordPress to Movable Type, and from Movable Type to WordPress–not just moving the data, but all covering all aspects of the move, including look and feel. This will be the last time I cover moving between tools, and I won’t be following Movable Type after 3.1.

Disclosure: I don’t work for Six Apart, I’m not part of the WordPress team, and have closed my ‘port-a-bloggy’ business. I won’t be getting either a Six Apart t-shirt, or a WordPress thong (I have been offered a JournURL t-shirt). I am not writing this up for a major publication. No one will be sending me flowers or chocolates, and telling me they love me for this. I may or may not get extra links for this for a time, but it won’t make an overall difference in my popularity. I would need to talk about sex, become a man or Dooce, or switch to being a warblogger to do this.

All of which means that I’m not financially or emotionally dependent on either product, which one you use, or whether you move or not.

I am doing this because it should be fun, and probably more helpful than talking about politics (though I will continue talking about politics, sex discrimination, hikes, photography, and whatever else it is I talk about here). Also because my version of ‘open source’ support is to use and/or tweak software and then write about it so others can do the same. I also believe people should be able to move freely between tools, even if they aren’t technically inclined.

(My final reason is that if people continue to have problems with comment spam in MT 3.1 I don’t want to hear them bitching about it!)

(Just joking on that latter.)

(Sorta.)

Categories
Internet

Blacklists are evil

I have said it before and will say it again – blacklists are evil.

In an effort to reduce the serious spammer problems we’ve been having (specifically my domain and some others are being targetted), Hosting Matters is now blocking SMTP access based on IP addresses from some kind of ‘list’. Well, Charter cable is on that list, which means I can’t send email. HM put back the block of IP addresses I was in when I couldn’t send before–but my cable company just now changed my IP address, and I am, again, blocked from responding to an email.

(Update: and HM is again whitelisting the block holding my IP address – Annette and the gang respond faster than any other ISP I’ve ever had.)

I wish people would remember that the bad guys can route around blocks and blacklists faster than the rest of us can.

In the meantime, please direct all email to me – and I mean all – to my gmail account (in the sidebar). I’m a bit worried about the reliability of gmail, too, but at least I can respond back in this system.

I think Hosting Matters is the best ISP there is, and appreciate their interest in keeping us up and running, and bug and collapse free (they’re obsessed with this–I like this in an ISP).

But blacklists are evil.

Categories
Technology Weblogging

Unscheduled downtime

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

The server hosting my domains has been under attack from the spammers, and ended up going down yesterday afternoon and today. Downtime wasn’t long – long enough to eliminate the problem; but I’m concerned this is the start of a persistent problem when I heard what caused the shutdowns: yesterday’s attack was a Movable Type comment spammer attack, and today’s problem was a copy of mt-blacklist that spiraled out of control.

Hosting Matters, my hosting company, was on the problem immediately, and solved it quickly – but there is only so much they can do. The problem is installations of Movable Type that are wide open, or only partially protected. And it seems like part of the problem could be inproper installations of mt-blacklist.

Those of you with Movable Type are going to have to put whatever measures you can into place, not only to protext yourself, but also to protect others on your servers. I imagine that if enough hosts run into this problem with Movable Type, they may restrict its use.

No, let’s be a bit stronger with this statement: they will start to restrict its use.

If you’re running Movable Type, you really need to upgrade to whatever installation is the most secure, and you’re going to have to install mt-blacklist for that installation. At this time, this is the only known comment spam application that seems to help with the problems. I believe that the most recent release of Movable Type is 3.0, a developer’s release; Jay Allen has put out an emergency release for this version.

However, I can’t recommend that people go to a developer’s release unless they’re comfortable working with a version of the software that is intended primarily for developers. Not unless Six Apart comes out with some form of official recommendation that Movable Type users go this route. I’ve sent an email to the folks there, telling them that I’m getting emails from folks asking help, and what course they should follow. When I hear back, I’ll post an update.

If the official word is to go to 3.0 and the emergency release of mt-blacklist, and you’re having problems with the upgrade or installation, I’ll volunteer to help those who need help, either with upgrading to 3.0, installing mt-blacklist, or both. I’ll also help Movable Type users to close down older comments – older comments are the ones being attacked–using direct SQL statements, as long as they’re willing to give me temporary database access. Knowing webloggers, I’m sure that others with experience with Movable Type will also offer their help.

In addition, those with the 2.6x installations that have followed these comment spam protection steps that I outlined long ago have said that they haven’t had comment spam problems since. I don’t know for sure if this is still true or not. If true, and you don’t want to go to 3.x, you might want to consider checking out these steps. Again, holler if you need help.

You might be thinking of jumping to WordPress right now just to escape the comment problem. I can understand your wanting to do this–the comment spam problem is out of control. However, if you’re happy with the tool and Six Apart and the only reason you would do this is comment moderation, you might want to hold on making a switch until you see what the 3.1 release has; then if you decide you want to make a move to WordPress, or Textpattern, or any other tools, and need help, holler.

Regardless, you can’t leave your Movable Type installations unprotected, with open comments. You’re going to get yourself kicked off your server.

As a note unrelated to Movable Type, email spammers have been running ‘dictionary listing’ spam attacks against my domain and others. What this means is that the spammers randomly generate names, attach these to domain addresses and send them out. If a name doesn’t bounce back from the email server as not belonging to a person, the spammers then know that they’ve most likely found a valid email address.

Hosting Matters is going through some extraordinary efforts to try and stop these attacks, and there is a chance that emails to me have been bounced, or will be bounced. If so, send me an email to my gmail account, listed in the sidebar, and I’ll see about getting you back in.

Update

Since Hosting Matters isn’t comfortable specifically saying that MT was the problem this week (because there were the spambots, too), and since the folks that asked for help haven’t said anything online, I do come across as alarmist.

Perhaps I am. I’ve been told that MT 3.1 should be out by month end of so. Since there is little outward indication of problems with MT other than this post, I withdraw my statements in this post.

Best of luck to the Movable Type users moving forward.