Mom decided their blog site should be called “Tucker”. I used a new template style based on the look from TypePad, which is the commercial blog site run by the makers of MovableType.

Ted pointed out I forgot to add the password field and tip, so comments did not work. I have to remember when setting up a new blog to change the four default comment-related templates to, instead, point to the modified template files I created. That is now fixed.

Ted also thought Mom and Dad’s blog should be called Livsey, but that really is up to the author. Kelly changed hers to K-11 a while back.

I asked Kelly if she was going to change her blog name from K-11 to K-12 when she turns 12 in August. She says she thought about that, but K-11 is a pretty cool name, and she may just leave it that way. I told her I agreed. K-12 might get confused by Kindergarten through 12th grade.

A review of blog software options.

Blog Software Breakdown

I feel SixApart has deceived us in a HUGE way. I have 8 family members maintaining 10 blogs on an iMac running MovableType. MT’s new license would require me to “turn pro” and pay upwards to $700. Good grief! It’s just a family blog.

C A R T H I K . N E T ?? Moving from movable type to WordPress

This website is a collection of tutorials on using Movable Type:

Learning Movable Type

Brad Choate describes using Smarty to generate his blogs.

To build photo galleries I’ve used three methods: iPhoto’s built-in web export, an iPhoto add-on called BetterHTMLExport, and Image Rodeo.

I’m looking at Gallery as a way for any mac.fiver to publish photo galleries:

Gallery :: your photos on your website

We’re getting spammed by blog-spammers. Today an offensive couple of spams were posted. Greg called me to let me know so I could quickly delete them.

I’ll be introducing a counter measure shortly. This one seems reasonable.

Free Moby

Added to /mt/lib/mt/app/comments.pm just above ip ban:

my $entry_password = uc $q->param(‘password’)

or return $app->handle_error($app->translate(

“Password is required.”));

if ( $entry_password ne “PASSWORD1” && $entry_password ne “PASSWORD2”) {

return $app->handle_error($app->translate(

“Password is incorrect.”));

}

I wanted to add the most recent comments across all blogs on the mac.fiveforks.com page. (Normally you can only list the recent comments inside a single blog.)

Installed this plug in: MT Extensions: Global Listings 2.0.2

Many people use off-line blogging tools like w.bloggar (Windows) or Kung-Log (Mac) to compose articles. It can make a number of steps easier like adding links, doing spell checking, formatting text, and adding images.

Safari now has built in spell checking, so we at Stonegate tend to just use that. However, it means we have to learn how to build links and bolds by hand, since the little link/bold shortcuts are only available in Explorer for Windows (as in the snapshot below.)

The site Movable Style is dedicated to showing off different style templates for Movable Type. Change the “Styles” drop down menu to instantly change the look of the site.

You can download the style sheets and put them in your own blog. If you want to change your blog to one of these looks, let me know.

When you log into MovableType there is a help button at the top that explains how many things work.

Kelly went in and changed a lot of the colors in her style sheet. I helped her clean up her changes, so her blog is unique looking. I think she did a good job.

This article explains how your Main Index template is made and how your style sheet controls the look.