Blog24

Like everyone else, I hate spam, whether it be email, via SMS or through the post — but most of all I hate comment spam on blogs. Luckily there is help with filtering out most of the spam when blogging, as a WordPress user I make use of the Akismet plugin.

Since using Akismet it has caught all the spam on this blog and only one legit comment (ham).

Once a fortnight, sometimes weekly, I quickly look through the comments that have been filtered out at spam by Akismet. Using the spacebar I can scroll and scan the list of junk-filled comments with ease. I do this just to make sure that there are no worthwhile, legitimate comments that have been filtered as spam. Comments that contain lots of URLs soon whizz past, whereas the shorter ones may actually be permissible, so those are read.

Very occasionally there are those that amuse:

• Interesting web page is, i’ll see you later one more timed
• Your guestbook is example of middle-class guestbooks. Congratulation!
• Just serfed in. Great site, guys!

Personally I like the way that there is a single ‘congratulation’ in the second comment.

Strangely the following religiously themed comments have been posted on Blog24 recently.

• These prayers help me to keep God in my life, especially with the many distractions I encounter.
• I have always wanted a compendium of novena prayers. Thank you for sharing all these prayers with us. It brings joy and happiness to everyone. I know, I do feel that way.
• I can find the prayer I want. I thank God for this website.

Please do not thank God — thank me, via the comments perhaps.

To conclude, I highly recommend using the Akismet plugin for WordPress, and other blogging platforms. Alternatively use a service such as Disqus to manage and publish comments on your blog. Disqus also uses Akismet to filter spam from comments.

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I have yet to update and test the latest incarnation of WordPress but there are some features that look promising.

Post Revisions allow WordPress users to track changes to posts with ease and restore earlier versions. (Mac users — we’ve got Time Machine for WordPress!)

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WordPress 2.5.1 is now available so I will be upgrading tonight at 21:30 BST. Hopefully WordPress 2.5.1 will put an end to security risk that prevents blogs being added to Technorati.

The upgrade should not take too long but the site will be put into ‘Maintenance Mode’ while the upgrade is made and plugins tested.

Sorry for an inconvenience — Blog24 will be back as quickly as possible.

Regards,
Chris

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There is a lot of discussion about the ultimate title for webpages. Of course much of this discussion is about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Having read Mark Jaquith’s WordPress tip on the subject I thought that I would add my own tip via the comments.

Here’s what I wrote;

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Some of you may have noticed a few quirks in Blog24 layout and design. These are caused by plugins that are being used to improve the site but their output has not been styled yet.

Sorry for any vexation caused by irksome layout. Be assured that these little oddments will be fixed as soon as possible.

I suppose that there is a lesson or two to be learnt here:

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