Got Blog? Software and Services

[blueyecicle]

Re: Got Blog? Software and Services

Since I use my blog as a sort of diary myspace works well because it's just like a little book w/ pics. I am not serious enough to set up a blog so I just use myspace to vent.

[Linkmeister]

Re: Got Blog? Software and Services

I went and took a good look at the WordPress control panel for my HawaiiStories blog, and guess what. Manage > Backup is right there. D'oh! So much for my keen powers of observation.

Another redundant method which I use: write your entries in Notepad, then copy & paste into your blog entry form. That way you've got two copies in case the blog entries disappear. 'Course, the thought of recreating the blog entry-by-entry for any length of time (in my case, nearly five years) is beyond daunting...

So if you're really worried, do that in addition to making regular backups of the blog from WordPress.

[tutusue]

Re: Got Blog? Software and Services

I have a tribute blog to my dad using blogger.com. I ftp it to my web site. PZ taught me everything I need to know!

[1stwahine]

Re: Got Blog? Software and Services

Hui! Fellow Bloggers!!! I got the following article from Leo Lakio this morning. Something to really think about. Personally, I don't worry about being sued. I write the Truth. Plus, I no moa nuttin to be sued.

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition...over03.art.htm

Auntie Lynn

[Leo Lakio]

Re: Got Blog? Software and Services

Plus, I no moa nuttin to be sued.

You don't have what is referred to by the legal profession as "deep pockets."

[1stwahine]

Re: Got Blog? Software and Services

You don't have what is referred to by the legal profession as "deep pockets."

I no moa "HOT pOCKETS" either. HAHAHAHAHAHA

I love ya!

Auntie Lynn

[pzarquon]

Re: Got Blog? Software and Services

As folks fall in love with Google Reader, which gives you an easy way to track your favorite favorite sites, Christa asked:

ryan do you have any advice on how i can .... make an rss.... for my site?

Well, any modern content management system and blog tool creates syndication feeds automatically: WordPress, Blogger, pMachine/Expression Engine, and all the Six Apart tools (Movable Type, Typepad, LiveJournal, Vox). And, yes, you can find feeds at sites like Flickr, del.icio.us, and (ugh) MySpace, among others.

But if you're still hand-coding your web pages, creating an RSS/XML index of your updates has to be done manually. It's no picnic -- feed syntax is tricky and validators are merciless -- but it's possible. Dear Ian Lind does his by hand -- though his "feed" only contains one post at all times.

Here are a couple of overviews of what's going on and how to "roll your own":

Making An RSS Feed
Headline Syndication Overview (and a utility to give you a head start).

Once you get your basic RSS file coded and validated, updating is relatively simple. You'd just remove the oldest "item" from the bottom and paste a new one at the top, changing the various elements (title, date, summary). But it's just one more manual step along with all the other manual coding you're doing, which can get old very quickly.

Christa, you've got your own domain, and you're trying to get away from MySpace (good idea)... so installing a tool like WordPress seems like the perfect solution for you. You could of course move to a service, or use a service like Blogger to publish the content on your site, but I know the need to run everything yourself. Let me know if you need ideas or help moving in this direction.

[damontucker]

Re: Got Blog? Software and Services

PZ -

When you get a chance can you check out www.yapta.com
It's only in it's Beta Mode...

However, I'm curious about the possibility of this new "Service" that maybe starting soon.

Your thoughts and insights are always good.

YapTA! -- whatever consumer market it is going after -- certainly doesn't lack bravado. A description on the Web site says that the seven-person company "plans on being a major piece" of everyone's life.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/busine...6_yapta30.html

[christa]

Re: Got Blog? Software and Services

This free online service converts any web page to an RSS feed on the fly.


http://feed43.com/

[1stwahine]

Re: Got Blog? Software and Services

Hmmm...I guess I'll put this important information here.

Online Publishers Off the Hook for Libelous Comments, Court Says http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=31

"If you allow comments on your site, breathe easier. On Nov. 20, the Calif. Supreme Court decided that online publishers cannot be sued for posting or distributing libelous material written by others.

"Plaintiffs who contend they were defamed in an Internet posting may only seek recovery from the original source of the statement," wrote Justice Carol Corrigan in the court opinion.

So far, this precedent applies only to lawsuits filed in Calif. -- but that state's Supreme Court is considered highly influential on media law, so it may well carry weight around the US."

Hmmmm....das why only write da TRUTH dat can be backed up with FACTS!

Auntie Lynn

[mel]

Re: Got Blog? Software and Services

I hastily took the plunge this weekend and converted my Hawaii Radio & Television Guide site to Wordpress, and now I am in some kind of apickle.

My webhost had a nice installation feature built in for this but I did not like the Kubrick templates they offered, so I downloaded and installed the template called "Cutline". It looks nice and has the potential to offer plenty of features.

I have some of this stuff figured out like how to swap out the banner photos, but what's getting me is this.

For the sections on the left and right columns called "SEARCH", "ADMIN', "CATERGORIES", "RECENT ENTRIES" and "ARCHIVES", how can I add more sections but have them look the same as those default ones? I'd like to add sections for "PAGES", "LINKS" (replacing the ugly default "Blogroll" which does not fit the rest of the sections and on Firefox shifts to the right to its own column, which makes the damn thing look ugly).... I am surprised the template tool does not offer us to create additional sections and have them look the same as the defaults. Anyone know how to do this easily, or do I have to go to the raw file somewhere and edit with a text editor?

I would like to know before I get too deep with this. The old stuff that used to be on the site is backed-up and if I can't get this Wordpress thing going at least I can dump the old stuff back to where it used to be. As of now, all of it is in a sub-domain of my main domain.

So any of you Wordpress experts have instructions?

[pzarquon]

Re: Got Blog? Software and Services

Sounds like you're working with "Widgets," which are the movable modules you manage via drag-and-drop under the "Presentations" tab in WordPress. I'm surprised they don't match the rest of the site. "Cutline" is a great theme, by the same folks who did the theme for my current blog, so I wouldn't have expected such prominent formatting quirks.

How exactly are these elements not matching? Wrong fonts? Alignment? Overlapping text or other glitches? I thought that if I wanted my "Archives" on the left or right, I'd just drag it over and click save and pau. Hmm.

Have you experimented with a couple of other themes? They're a snap to switch between, and it could be one way to troubleshoot your "Widgets."

[mel]

Re: Got Blog? Software and Services

Thanks Ryan. It seems for me the options offered in the PRESENTATION tab are limited to only three: THEMES, THEME EDITOR and CUTLINES OPTIONS. The themes tab makes it easy just to switch between the 3 themes I have available... Classic and Kubrick and Cutline 3 column, the first 2 installed by default by my webhost and the last installed by me.

Cutlines opiton only offers me the option to activate the ARCHIVE page which I did but still get an Error 404 when I click ARCHIVE at the top navigation area of my blog. I guess I have to create and archive page (though I have an Archive sub-domain that has all of the older pages from my site).....

Theme Editor presents me with editing options for various aspects of the blog, but all are command line with a note at the bottom of the so-called editing window that states, "If this file were writable you could edit it." Duh?

Why offer this option if I have to go back and manually hack every page in HTML and re-upload them by FTP to the right directory? I'm not that great at writing code and I am afraid I'll probably mess something up big time. And that it won't work when you want to easy to use GUI at the front end to work. Arrgh!

You mention drag and drop widgets. Where do I drag and drop the widgets? Sounds easy but I don't see an obvious page in that PRESENTATION TAB to do that. I do see the left column and right column page codes that exist as separate files to manually hack offline and make it the same as the default.

When I used the LINKS option from the dashboard, the links and title worked but they were thrown to another column to the right of the right hand sidebar. Needless to say it made the page look ugly and I deleted it.

So right now I have kind of a half functional blog thing but not with all of the features that I had up front for the old pages. Plus I want to put my Google ad blocks back in too. That helps pay for the hosting.

I guess I need to read the many docs that are online for Cutline as well as their extensive message board there and hope there is an answer.

I like the look of Cutline from all of the themes offered by Word Press. I utlimately want to get it running right and then just spend time worrying about updating only the content and not worrying about layout and the look of the thing... Trying to get away from doing this stuff in the old fashioned HTML banging way.

[pzarquon]

Re: Got Blog? Software and Services

Thanks Ryan. It seems for me the options offered in the PRESENTATION tab are limited to only three: THEMES, THEME EDITOR and CUTLINES OPTIONS.

Interesting. There should be a 'Widgets' selection between 'Themes' and 'Theme Editor.' Perhaps 'Cutline' doesn't support the WordPress widgets standard? Er, wait. I'm using Cutline for Hawaii Blog. And I definitely see 'Widgets' in there. What version of WordPress and Cutline are you using? Have you verified they're the latest versions available?

Cutlines opiton only offers me the option to activate the ARCHIVE page which I did but still get an Error 404 when I click ARCHIVE at the top navigation area of my blog.

Yes, the way 'Archives' are managed with the Cutline theme specifically is unusual. There is another step or two that mixes management of archive links using the 'Pages' framework. You'll want to read the documentation for this one.

Theme Editor presents me with editing options for various aspects of the blog, but all are command line with a note at the bottom of the so-called editing window that states, "If this file were writable you could edit it." Duh?

This is a permissions issue. When properly configured, WordPress as a script should have the same rights of your web server user, and all the files and folders in areas managable by the script should have the correct permissions. I think the command in shell is 'CHMOD 755' or something like that.

When correctly configured, you can edit the HTML and PHP of almost every part of your site inside the WordPress editor. If not, though, WordPress can't change files, just show them to you. In which case, yes, you'd need to go in via shell or update via FTP.

When I used the LINKS option from the dashboard, the links and title worked but they were thrown to another column to the right of the right hand sidebar. Needless to say it made the page look ugly and I deleted it.

Interesting indeed. These all sound like unusual quirks of your install or version. I should note that the 'core' version of Cutline is two columns. The three column version -- with two sidebars -- is definitely fussier. I set it up to have both sidebars on the right of the main content column, though I see you're putting the sidebars on either side instead.

I guess I need to read the many docs that are online for Cutline as well as their extensive message board there and hope there is an answer.

Yeah, that's a good plan. Some WordPress themes are just thrown out there and the developers are never heard from again. The folks behind Cutline are pretty active, as are its many users.

Switching to a CMS is definitely the way to go, and will save you lots of time and get you writing more often in the end. Getting everything set up, though, definitely brings some short-term pain!

[mel]

Re: Got Blog? Software and Services

Yes, I agree CMS is the way to go. It's the getting there in this instance that is the hard part.

For example I just put in one link from the LINKS option that is offered and now that link is in its own column on the right side... in Firefox. However in Safari it is place in the same column. However the title text and link itself do not match the content above it for that column as well as the column to the left.

I am now thinking about using Cutline with the single sidebar. I think there is one somewhere. Hopefully if I change to that what little I already did with this one won't be lost (like banner picture, the first 2 posts and the new static page).....

Oh well have to go to work today and then jet off to the Big Island tonight. I'll hopefully have some time this week when I am there to mess around more with this stuff.

For the few of you who still access the Hawaii Radio & Television Guide site, please bear with me while I work this stuff out. Mahalo!