Kelly ran into an error using Ecto:

No ObjectDriver defined at lib/MT/Object.pm line 144

Uploading a new version of XMLRPCServer.pm fixed it:

Movable Type Knowledge Base: No ObjectDriver defined at lib/MT/Object.pm line 144

Elise announces Arvind’s Movable Type Style Generator. You point and click to change the text, color, size of everything on your blog’s style. Pretty fun.

If you build something you want to apply to your own blog, make sure you save it using the button. This will create a stylesheet, and I’ll be glad to help you get it working on your blog.

Learning Movable Type: Movable Type Style Generator

I added a small “Mac.5” link in the upper-right corner of the main page of each blog. This makes it easier to bounce between blogs by returning to the main mac.fiveforks.com index.

Ted and I have noticed in the Awstats web log analysis software that there are two words that bring more people to mac.fiveforks.com by far than any other words. While phrases like “unlock itunes” or “estonian girls” or “harry potter and the half blooded prince” are popular reasons people end up here, they pale in comparison to either of these two words:

trolls
barbies

In October, 252 visitors arrived from search engines looking for “trolls” while 227 visitors arrived because of “barbies”. We quickly figured out it had to do with the story of the Nekid Barbies and Trolls posted with a pretty funny photo. We figured the photo had something to do with it. Or maybe the word “nekid”. But we could not find this blog posting ranking very high in the search engines. Why were so many people finding the posting?

Today Ted figured it out. If you go to www.yahoo.com and click on the “images” tab, you can search for photos. You can type in either the word “trolls” or “barbies” and guess what photo has the #1 position!

I can only imagine that clicking on thumbnails in a Yahoo images search somehow moves a photo up in rank. If a lot of people click on it, then it must be what people are looking for, so move it up. Because our thumbnail (a row of flesh-colored nekid barbies with a troll) is unusual, it must have gotten a lot of clicks over time. It is now #1 and getting even more clicks because of that.

This is called an asset ready to be exploited.

Why has this article not generated more ad revenue? It turns out the link on Yahoo is to an old archive version (using the path and file name /archives/000709.html) instead of the newer archive structure (2004/05/nekid_barbies_a.html.) The older article did not have google ads, and it did not even display correctly because it was in the old template structure that did not work very well with the new css styles.

I’ve now replaced the 000709.html file with a nice new clean copy and added an extra google ad at the top. The money should start rolling in shortly. We could build a barbies / trolls empire off of this thing. Kathy is already checking eBay, looking for a wholesaler of troll dolls.

If Greg can use Star Wars names…

Official Google Blog: We get letters (3)

This anti-spam measure stops the posting of SPAM by robots without real people having to do anything special.

alogblog’s MTy plugins: CCode and TCode for blocking comment/trackback spam for MT 3.2

Update:

Installed as instructed, although I wasn’t sure where to put the tag in the referenced comment templates. At first I put it above the closing /MTIfCommentsActive tag, but this generated an error because I was defining a field outside of the form tags. I then moved as shown below, and that worked. I went ahead and added to the default templates for Individual Archive (individual_entry_archive.tmpl) and Comment Preview (comment_preview_template.tmpl) making it easier to refresh each blog’s templates. Not sure why this was not in instructions, but it matches the recommendation for the site java script (site_javascript.tmpl.)

</div>

<input type=”hidden” name=”entry_id” value=”<$MTEntryID$>” />

<$MTEntryCCode$>

</form>

</MTEntryIfCommentsOpen>

</div>

</MTIfCommentsActive>

After upgrading to 3.2, some key system templates were missing from several of the older blogs that caused errors, specifically ‘Site Javascript’ and ‘Comment Pending Template’. These older blogs never had these templates, and choosing to refresh them at the individual blog level did not add them. And now you can’t add System templates manually as you once could.

Found the answer here. Refreshing templates in the System Overview will create new templates as needed.

Refreshing all templates on a weblog

Go to the Weblog listing screen in the System Overview. Select a weblog and choose “Refresh Template(s)” from the action bar dropdown. All of the templates in that weblog that match default templates will be copied to backups and refreshed with the new code and settings.

This is the preferred way to execute the plugin because it is the only way currently to refresh System plugins and will add crucial templates which did NOT exist in previous versions (e.g. the Site Javascript templates).

This log from refreshing Ted’s Blog shows the templates being created:

Processing templates for weblog ‘Ted’s Blog’

Refreshing template ‘Main Index’.

Refreshing template ‘Dynamic Site Bootstrapper’.

Refreshing template ‘RSD’.

Created template ‘Atom Index’. <——–

Created template 'RSS 2.0 Index'. <———

Refreshing template 'Master Archive Index'.

Refreshing template 'Comment Preview Template'.

Created template 'Comment Pending Template'. <——-

Refreshing template 'Comment Error Template'.

Refreshing template 'Uploaded Image Popup Template'.

Refreshing template 'Comment Listing Template'.

Refreshing template 'Dynamic Pages Error Template'.

Refreshing template 'Stylesheet'.

Refreshing template 'Date-Based Archive'.

Refreshing template 'Category Archive'.

Refreshing (with backup) template 'Individual Entry Archive'.

Refreshing template 'TrackBack Listing Template'.

Created template 'Site JavaScript'. <———

There is a new version of Movable Type available, and I will be upgrading Mac 5 soon.

A lot of it is behind-the-scenes improvements, but the new styles library is fun to shop. Take a peek and let me know if you’d like to change your look.

A tip from Justin Blanton on how to build nested archives. I don’t want to have the monthly archive list to keep growing so long. It gets ridiculous after several years. My goal is to have it be like this where each numeric month is a link. Much more efficient use of space.

2005: 01 02 03 04 05 06 07

2004: 01 02 03 04 07 08 09 10 11 12

mac.fiveforks.com is now running on a different Macintosh. It has moved from our living room to the basement, but that Mac will shortly be moved downtown to live in a data center where it will have much faster access to the internet. (Stuff should come down faster when you visit.)

Call or write if you have any problems posting or commenting. Had to fix UT tonight with one glitch, but I think all is running smoothly.

I want to allow churches (or any group really) to use MovableType for maintaining their websites. This prototype is almost all MovableType postings. Even the photos and side information for the most part are just articles that can be easily edited. Choosing a category like “Main-Side” or “Contact-Top” controls where information will go.

Holy Cross on MT