Results tagged “Movable Type” from CLICK

I have a certain, not-at-all-new entry in this Movable Type blog that has been attracting its share of spam lately. Frankly I'm not sure how it's making it to Published status. I could "turn up" the spam filter, but that tends to make every comment go into the spam pile, no matter whether it's a "real" comment or not.

One thing I could've don in this particular case, since this is a sign-in only blog in regard to comments, was to ban the specific account that is making the comment.

I decided to take a different tack. Since the entry was old. I went into it in the Movable Type dashboard and, under Feedback, unchecked the "Accept Comments" box.

No "real" readers are going to want to comment on it anyway, and since the spammers are focusing on this one entry for some reason, this should stop their vector into this particular blog.

Later: For good measure, I banned the commenter as well.

Don't let anybody fool you. If you want to do anything in Movable Type, you'll be neck-deep in arcane MT tags and Javascript before you know it. These "instructions" on how to deploy threaded comments are an example of this.

If this works, I'll eat my hat. I'll have to find a hat, which I will then eat.

After Andrew Hurvitz moved Here in Van Nuys from Blogger to WordPress, something I've never done (moving a blog from one platform to another), I decided to do a test.

I made a backup of a Movable Type blog, which generates a giant text file, and then uploaded that file into WordPress.

It took a couple of passes to get all the entries (the operation timed out), but I had a huge WordPress blog in mere minutes.

Since the Movable Type blog was archived in a text file, all of the image links referred back to the old blog, and the images displayed in the WordPress blog were still on the old system.

But as far as entries, categories and tags go, everything moved over perfectly.

The ability to take your blog with you gives the user quite a bit of power. Aside from the problem with hosted images, it's extremely easy to move years' worth of blog entries between platforms like WordPress, Movable Type/Typepad and Blogger.

The whole concept of storing blog entries in database format and using protocols such as XML (I'm guessing) to enable data portability is a truly great thing.

Not that I'm an expert, because I'm far, far from it, but setting up a system to use the Movable Type blogging system ain't easy.

You need a server on which you create a database, configure Web-server software, implement PHP and somehow get all the permissions to work right.

Putting together a Movable Type installation should be easier now than ever, as I read in Matt Asay's Open Road blog, now that Movable Type parent company Six Apart has partnered with Jump Box, a virtual-machine company, to offer a fully virtualized MT bundle.

If I read this correctly, it means that through virtualization, you can have an instant Movable Type setup without having to do all that much configuration on your own.

Seriously, people, I do a lot of work on this Movable Type installation, and I never knew that the archives page for each of the L.A. Daily News blogs features a link to every single post in the blog.

It also features links to every category page, separated by months, as well as author category pages (which most blogs, including this one, really don't need because they're basically one-wo/man shows).

It basically offers a link to every static HTML page generated by Movable Type for this blog. Yep, MT builds a whole lot of pages.

I can hardly believe that I'm composing an entry in Movable Type Open Source 4.1 using Damn Small Linux.

Now that version 4.3 of the low-spec Linux distribution has added Firefox 2 to its software mix, I can use the browser -- here named Bon Echo for reasons that escape me -- for many more things than I could the Firefox 1.06 browser included in previous incarnations of DSL.

And on the $15 Laptop -- a Compaq Armada 7770dmt with a 233 MHz processor and only 64 MB of RAM -- Damn Small Linux remains the best operating system and is that much better with a browser that can do so many things FF 1 couldn't handle.

Like Movable Type.

And Google Docs, where I just had a very pleasant writing experience.

There are a few niggly things that don't work as well in DSL 4.3 as they did in DSL 4.0 on this laptop, among them the desktop background, which for some reason is absent (but shows up when I run DSL 4.3 on other PCs), and I can't for the life of me figure out how to get the menu to show up in Fluxbox. All I get is the DFM menu, not the Fluxbox application menu. Since I'm happy using the JWM window manager, that's not a big deal, but having Firefox 2 instead of 1.06 is a big, huge, game-changing deal that makes Damn Small Linux a must have for hardware at this level.

Thanks to Robert Shingledecker of DSL for continually improving his distribution and saving many an old computer (this one in its ninth year of service) from obscurity.

I burned a DSL 4.4 RC1 CD today, but I couldn't get it to boot on the Compaq. I don't know if it's a bad CD or a bug in the release candidate, but I do plan to try again as the development process continues. I'm also planning to give DSL 4.2 a try to see just where the desktop wallpaper stopped appearing on this laptop. Again, it's not a big deal because the extreme responsiveness and stability and usability of this distribution on a PC with these specs cannot be found in any other Linux distribution -- Puppy and Debian included.

When I make the leap from 64 MB of RAM to 144 MB, things could very well change. I might be able to more successfully run Puppy, Debian or OpenBSD with X, but DSL will also be that much better as well.

I've blogged a bit recently on how hard it is to install Movable Type and have it actually work on your own server. After getting and configuring Apache and MySQL (or PostgreSQL or SQlite), making sure you get the static files in the right place and the CGI/Perl files in the other right place, then making sure everything has the proper permissions ... I found it to be way beyond my capabilities.

And the instructions are rudimentary at best. I think the people at Six Apart pretty much want you to hire time to configure your Movable Type setup. In a way, I don't blame them, but they've also got to think about WordPress breathing down their necks.

To be fair, I haven't yet tried to install WordPress, but I recently found out something very interesting:

There are WordPress packages available in many of the major Linux and BSD distributions, including Debian, Ubuntu and even OpenBSD.

Luckily, the same thing is now happening for Movable Type.

So if you're using the Debian GNU/Linux distribution -- and I strongly suggest you do -- you can now install Movable Type as a Debian package.

Read about it at the Movable Type site, and find out more about the package at the Debian site.

And for those using -- or about to use -- Debian, since the Movable Type package is new, it's not in the Stable distribution, which is named Etch. Instead, you need to install or upgrade to the Testing distribution of Debian, named Lenny. I'm already using Lenny in one of my desktop installs, where it happens to work better than Etch, but my Debian server still runs with Etch, and I'm loathe to change that.

I'm not sure how either of these packages -- WordPress or Movable Type -- handles dependencies as far as Apache and MySQL are concerned (e.g. whether or not you have to install the Web server and database software before you install the blog software), but I plan to find out very soon.

After two unsuccessful attempts at rolling out my own MT installations, I'm cautiously guarded about these packages actually working without a lot of post-installation tweaking (and I hope the man pages provide considerable insight).

Since it looks harder than hell to get PHP, CGI and all that working in the chrooted Apache environment of OpenBSD, I've been looking around for tutorials that will help me roll out a Movable Type installation in the security-conscious operating system.

While it's not "How to install MT in OpenBSD 4.x," I did find this interesting how-to on installing Wordpress in OpenBSD 4.1.

At any rate, it's a starting point in getting all the services going in the locked-down world of OpenBSD. And considering the beating that MT servers take, I think an OpenBSD environment would be a very good one for such a task.

Even on a fast server, it takes a hell of a long time to rebuild a huge Movable Type blog. The more entries and the more categories it has, the longer it will take.

I just did a 3,600-entry blog, with tons of categories, and while I rebuilt indexes first, the full rebuild was taking so long, I thought it wasn't working.

Except it was. It was just taking a long time -- something I'm not used to on our new, improved-and-all-that server.

So if you're rebuilding a really big blog in Movable Type 4, do the indexes first, and when you do "All files," be prepared to wait.

It's been a week and a bit since I turned comments back on -- this time without anonymous comments allowed due to the massive volume of spam that entails -- and I've been very encouraged to see people making comments.

If you do wish to comment on an entry, once you go to an individual entry and see the "sign-in" link, clicking on that takes you to a login screen.

There you can sign up for a Movable Type account, confirm it via e-mail and then begin commenting immediately.

But we have a lot of choices as to how you sign in. You can also create and/or use an existing Typekey account. There is also the provision to use OpenID, LiveJournal or Vox accounts.

That's a lot of choices. I give the Movable Type people a lot of credit. Giving blog administrators such control over comment authentication is a great thing, and if something like OpenID ever really takes off, MT is covered.

But however you sign in, thanks again for being a part of this blog. Special thanks go out to all those who come here from LXer.

We traced most of our Movable Type woes for the Insidesocal.con blogs to a bad plug-in. Now that we've obliterated all reference to the plug-in (Feeds.app, if you must know), our new Movable Type Open Source 4.1 system is really flying.

The servers are extremely fast, it's quicker than ever to write and publish an entry (mostly due to use of MT's publishing queue option), and it's less frustrating than ever to redesign and rebuild a blog. I did one yesterday -- Inside the Kings, and the process verged on pleasant.

The best part of all this is that for the moment, I'm not pining for the trouble-free worlds of Blogger and Wordpress. Movable Type is chugging along quite nicely, and now our bloggers can concentrate on feeding the beast and building their audiences in the process.

It's a great moment. I will bask in it, if you don't mind.

I started over again with a clean Debian Etch install on my test box, with the goal being a working Movable Type-enabled Web server on the local network.

Getting a working Apache Web server in Debian is as easy as checking the Web Server box during the tasksel portion of the install. The default settings in Apache 2.2 have the static-files directory at /var/www/apache2-default/ and the cgi-bin directory at /usr/lib/cgi-bin. I previously succeeded at changing the static files directory so I didn't need to have apache2-default as part of my path, but this time I wasn't even going to screw with that.

I also selected SQL Server during tasksel. I thought I might try PostgreSQL instead of MySQL, since the former is the default in the Debian installer.

Again, doing the Debian install, and getting Apache and PostgreSQL on the box is easy. Just let the install run. I even let Debian partition the drive for me. I chose separate partitions for everything and let the installer handle the sizes.

Once I had the system installed, I needed to set up the database. With PostgreSQL, I couldn't even create a user. Yeah, I didn't do a lot of reading, but the feeble instructions at the Movable Type site were of no help. I couldn't even figure it out from the docs at the PostgreSQL site.

I admit that I have no experience with database software. None. I don't know what made me think that PostgreSQL had better documentation than MySQL, but at first glance I was pretty disappointed.

So I went back to MySQL. I also installed SQLite, which also works with Movable Type, just in case.

The last time I configured a MySQL database, I used phpMyAdmin, but this time I wanted to do it all at the command line.

Database software is very complicated. Did I say that already?

I managed to create passwords for the root accounts in MySQL, to create a new database user and to create the database for Movable Type. That's all I needed to do, and I did it.

So I had Apache and MySQL. Now I needed Movable Type.

Most of the MT installs I've read about have been done over FTP. I did have an FTP server on the Debian box (pro-ftpd), but I just wanted to install Movable Type from the local machine.

So I downloaded the software, extracted it and started trying to figure out what goes where.

It went OK. Not great. I had some trouble with permissions. One thing I'd like to see from Six Apart -- the company that produces Movable Type -- is a detailed list of what the permissions need to be on each and every file in the application. I know that different sysadmins like to do things their own way, but I'd like somewhere to start.

Anyhow, I did manage to get Movable Type 4.1 Open Source installed, but I think my configuration was a bit screwed up. I initially thought I had some bad permissions on the .css files, but my problem instead stemmed from some confusion in the Movable Type configuration that gave half my blog elements a numerical address on the local network (right) or a localhost address on the box itself (wrong).

I only figured this out after changing permissions on a ton of files and directories -- something it turns out that I didn't need to do.

I want to start over again ... with the Movable Type portion of the install, anyway. I took care not to screw with Apache, so I already have a working Apache 2.2 installation, with all the configurations in their default state, which means I have the Debian-set directories for static files and CGI scripts.

Just to see if I could do it, I also deleted the Movable Type database from MySQL. Have I mentioned recently how foreign and difficult database management is? I'd sure like to figure it out. I really need to get deep into some books.

I need a big, thick Apache book (O'Reilly's newish "Apache Cookbook"?

I also need a book or three on SQL databases, specifically MySQL and PostgreSQL. I like "PHP 6 and MySQL 5 for Dynamic Web Sites," but am at a loss mostly.

Who am I kidding? I really need "PHP & MySQL for Dummies." Those "Dummies" books are better than you think. I really like "C for Dummies"

So now I've made my first FTP connection to the server from my Windows box, and I'm already managing the server over SSH (remember, this is all on the local network).

I'll start again. My mantra will be "backup all configuration files before breaking them." I might try Wordpress first. It can't be as hard as Movable Type. And the instructions have to be better. Or so you'd think ...

I hosed yet another Apache2 install before I remembered that in Debian, cgi scripts execute in /usr/lib/cgi-bin, but regular html documents live in /var/www/apache2-default/ and therefore I don't have to monkey around with /etc/apache2/apache2.conf to make the damn CGI thing work.

Before I screwed the whole thing up, I even used phpmyadmin to create the MySQL database for Movable Type. To configure Apache, I tried Webmin, but it was more confusing than not. I might use PostrgreSQL this next time.

So I'm going to do a fresh Debian Etch install and try not to mess it up this time. I will have my own Movable Type server running before 2009.

Gotta remember to add sshd and ftpd ...

Click, and the rest of the insidesocal.com blogs that are part of the Los Angeles Daily News and the Los Angeles Newspaper Group, are getting a new server, with the transition happening some time during the morning of Monday, April 28.

We've been having more than one problem or another for quite some time -- from the comments being creaky (I just turned them off when the spam got out of hand the and sign-in scripts weren't working) to publishing of entries (and the dozens of category, index and archive pages that go with them) timing out.

Aside from the comments, you, the reader, might not have been all that aware of the pain we as bloggers have experienced. If you've tried to leave a comment and had your screen frozen for an age, you have an inkling of what we're talking about.

In my estimation, the problems up until now have been, in various proportions, server overload, limitations of the Movable Type system that runs these blogs, and generally poor configuration of both Movable Type and the server apps themselves. (Historical note: I believe that insidesocal.com began on a Windows server and subsequently made the transition to Linux.) Until now, the server has been run by an outside company. Hopefully we will address all of the previously mentioned problems with our new server cluster, which is being run by parent company MediaNews in Denver.

Thus far, my far-away assessment of the new setup -- and those who run it -- is very high. We hope to fix a lot of broken things and make all of the insidesocal.com blogs better than they have ever been.

Cliches, I know, but as far as Movable Type setups go, I'm not aware of any that are as complicated as ours. We have hundreds of blogs spread over many different newspaper properties, with lots of add-ons to tie the blogs to our many Web properties. We're also serving ads and trying to actually make this whole damn thing pay.

I'll be spending a lot of time on Monday helping users get acclimated to Movable Type Open Source 4.1. It's a bit different than Movable Type 4.01 (the non-free version), with added features, some things that work better but, thus far, a few new bugs. I think our setup can handle the open-source version, which gets new features and improvements. If I understand the process correctly (and I aim to understand much, much more about Movable Type), the open-source version is a kind of test bed for the non-free version. I'm OK with that.

Actually, if our many-dozen bloggers can manage to get their entries published, their comments moderated, and the whole thing doesn't sink into the ocean, I'll be happy.

Just yesterday I was extolling the virtues of using Rich Text Format in Movable Type.

Well after a day of using it, the slight bit of slowness it adds to an already-slow application (i.e. Movable Type in general) is more than I can take. So I turned it off.

Now that I'm back in "convert line breaks" mode, things are still a bit slow, so it's more a reflection of my system than anything else. But after having problems putting the cursor where I want it to be, and then dealing with all the extra tags that Rich Text Format mode inserts into my entries, I think I'll stick with the code-heavy mode I know when using Movable Type.

If I want to use Rich Text Format now, I can always use the drop-down menu on the entry box to invoke it at any time. I'll continue to experiment with it, but for now I don't want it as the default.

Now that I'm building new blogs in Movable Type as part of my job at the Daily News, I've been able to peer under the proverbial hood and learn a thing or two.

One thing I did pick up was the option to use Rich Text Format to compose blog entries. You can select RTF in the little format drop-down window at the upper right corner of your entry box while writing the post, or you can go into Preferences -- Blog Settings -- Entry and, in our case, change from "convert line breaks" to "rich text format."

And the best thing is that you can always switch back, either for a single post or for all of your blogging.

And when you're in Rich Text Format, bold looks like bold, italic like italic, and you can actually see the art you drop into your blog without previewing the entry.

There are a couple of buttons on the Create Entry box below the Format drop-down -- with the letters A and <A>. Click on A for WYSWYG, and <A> for HTML mode to see the code in your post.

WYSWYG -- it's the one thing that I thought was missing from Movable Type, the biggest thing that separates it from Wordpress and Blogger as a blogging platform. But with Rich Text Format turned on, you can compose a blog entry in all the WYSWYG splendor of Movable Type's competitors.

You know what they say: Once you go WYSWYG, you never go back. They do say that, don't they?

I've been on vacation for the past week and a bit, and I've been through some of the unpublished comments, 99.9 percent of which are usually spam. But everything's still sitting on the Movable Type server, and I'll comb through it by the end of this coming week.

I'm sure we'll be changing the comments programming at some point in the near future, but if you want your comments to appear immediately, sign up for a Typekey account and leave a comment while signed in to Typekey. Where last I left the most recent insidesocal.com blog redesign, the sign-in was broken, so you pretty much have to sign in through the Typekey site, after which the Insidesocal server will recognize your sign-in. I do plan to fix the lack of a sign-in when I return and figure out how to do it.

Anyway ... if you do get a Typekey account and sign-in and subsequently leave a comment on this blog, I will register you as a "trusted" commenter, after which your comments will publish immediately.

For those who want to know: I get maybe 500 spam comments a day, none of which are automatically published. Unfortunately, the spam filter in Movable Type 4 is pretty awful, and it pretty much marks everything as spam ... or not. I wonder how some of these spam comments get through (although I have nothing but trusted Typekey comments set to publish automatically), since I can't seem to write a comment in this system that gets past the spam filter. In other words, the thing is pretty well broken.

But again, for the time being, sign up for Typekey, log in from there (and eventually from here), post a comment and I'll set you to publish automatically.

Thanks for playing.