Bye Bye Trackback

UPDATE: Disabling trackbacks didn’t work for old posts. I just got another 20 or so spambacks since writing this post. Urgh

Well, Akismet has not learnt about the hundreds of near identical trackback spam posts I have had over the past could of days. So I am disabling them all. And yes, I did report every single one of them as spam.

I’m hoping the options setting in my admin pages sets them to OFF for all previous posts made, and not just for new posts.

I reeeeeally REALLY hate spammers. It really depresses my for some reason. Something to do with the sheer f*cking futility of it all. The complete waste of energy. The annoyance. It server NO purpose, expect for the rest of the idiots out there who actually click on there things (or bots, doing the same)

Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

[Just to let you know, I’m swearing very loudly and aggressively in my head]

It has been doing a job job at catching most spam until recently. According to others I read, the same is happening there too. Something’s up, Watson!

Akismet Spam – WAKE UP!!!!

Now, those of us who use the excellent WordPress are lucky to have ‘Akismet’ protecting us from spam through comments and trackback. It usually does a great job.

I don’t know quite how it works and learns how to tell spam from a legitimate post, but recently it’s really been letting me down.

Over the past few weeks I am being hit every day with a trackback from many different (possibly zombie) IP addresses to some Italian site saying:

“I found your entry interesting do I’ve added a Trackback to it on my weblog ”

EVERY time, it has the same text. Surely Akismet should spot that fairly easily. Every day I go through and mark them all as spam to remove them from this blog.

So, please please please, whoever is behind Akismet, could you please tell it to stop this bloody annoying trackback. I’ve had ENOUGH of it!!!

Designing Conversations : slideshow

Here’s a neat little slideshow which Steve Garfield pointed me to after finding it in the Boston Globe. Designer David Armano says “it’s all about experiences that are enhanced by conversations and community, making consumers active participants in the process” which is a great idea.

References within the slideshow include YouTube, Twitter, Dell and BlogHUD! 🙂 Cool!

Click here to view this slideshow at SlideShare – which is a great little tool for sharing presentations. I hope they soon sort out a simple embed code for WordPress.com users.

Apparently, David Armano is giving a virtual seminar over here on Thursday. (Not free)

Using PHP to connect to the new Google Blogger API

Now, I have been battling with this on and off for ages. Soon Google will be moving all ‘old’ Blogger accounts over to their Google Account system. This means that all those people who have third party applications to post to their blogspot Blogger accounts will need to switch over to the Google login and system (and get a Google Account, if they don’t already have one) – rather like Yahoo! will be doing to flickr users on the Ides Of March – Beware! 🙂

All these third party apps will need to be upgraded too. The thing is, we all want security right? So, you really want to go and register your application with Google to remove the big yellow Warning box you might start seeing a lot of soon.

The documentation to do this with PHP has been non-existent, which I found pretty weird as I bet there are plenty of PHP-based systems out there offering the ability to post to Blogger. (BlogHUD is one that I created for Second Life, which is a model system for something bigger and ‘real’ I have planned soon)

So, for those of you out there who are looking to do this for your own PHP systems hop on over to this post of mine on the Google Group for Google Accounts (crossposted to the Blogger Dev Group) and see the link to the source PHP example I have provided down at the bottom of that post.

For those who can’t be arsed reading all the intro and explanation, here is a link to the PHP source example, where there are plenty of comments to explain what is going on, each step of the way.

This example only goes as far as listing a users’ blogs, after obtaining a non-expiring secure token for your users, which itself has to be generated using secure signing methods. You’ll want to use this new-found knowledge to do cool stuff like post to the users’ blogs.

http://kosso.co.uk/PHP/blogger_google_secure_AuthSub.phps

Man, am I glad to get that bug out of my head! It’s been there for months!!! I hope this helps others get the same out of theirs! 🙂

You should be able to use this example to build a connection to any of the Google services. This is just using Blogger.

I will finish by saying that WordPress support for doing the same thing is EASY!! No problems. Ever. Whatsoever. Great job! 🙂 Rockin!

I’ll also add that I don’t do this sort of thing much – and by that I mean posting my code up online. But I have learned SO MUCH (if not all foundation knowledge) on the web, that doing stuff like this makes me feel good. I can feel the Karma restoring – step by step 😉

New Embed Options

I see that WordPress.com blogs now have more ‘code’ options to go with the ability to embed YouTube and Google videos. They have added SplashCast and DailyMotion. (I’ve only heard of one of those, and then only recently)

I’m eager to find out what the process is for getting on that list, as I have some podcast widgets on the horizon 😉

Was it financial?

Where my blip.tv option? 🙂

A Question Of Tagging

OK. So I have recently built a new tagging system for podcast.com (which is inches away from a big overhaul) and a few other sites I build, and I wanted to ask you a question:

Which would be the preferable ‘delimeter’ to post multiple tags?

Spaces (with quotes to enclose multiple words)? Eg: cat furry “my pet” “eats mice” – As seen in flickr

or

Commas : Eg: cat, furry, my pet, eats mice  – As seen in WordPress?

I personally think commas is easier, but how about you?

Embedding Flash in WordPress.com Blogs?

Hi. Is there anyone out there who knows if it’s possible at all to embed a flash movie in a WordPress.com blog post? I see that not so long ago they added a ‘way’ to post YouTube flash to a post, but that would have had to been done like a ‘deal’ due to demand, and the plugin arrived. Is there no simple Flash plugin for WP.com users? Or am I missing something? Credits?

[WHOA! As I wrote this, my whole template seems to have borked. Hmmm others too. I wonder if the recent WP version is being rolled in? I didn’t touch nuffin – honest! HMMM: Seems back OK now. What could have caused that? Snap.com’s Javascript?]

I really need a way to post my flash mp3 player and movie player, as I am working on a solution to crosspost audio and video posts to my system via XML-RPC. It seems however, that WordPress does not like to accept the OBJECT/EMBED code required.

I could have done a JavaScript file back on my server to write it – given a ‘slugtype’ url in the post, but alas, no JS either (though possibly for good reason) – but why no Flash?

If any one has any ideas, please let me know – as I’m trying to add value to WordPress blogging from mobiles, as opposed to being forced to use another blog platform vendor – ie: Typepad/Vox

Do I need millions of users before I can make this happen? ;p

I do hope not.

OK! Self-hosted WordPress support has been added!

When you log into bloghud.com and access your member profile (by clicking your name at the top of page) and go to add your external blogs, you will be asked for the url to your WordPress blog, when you select the WordPress type.

No need to add http:// when you enter the url. And please enter the full url to your WP blog, even if it is not in your webroot folder. eg: http://www.myhostedblog.com/myblog/

Please let me know by commenting on this post if you have any issues.

Once this is fixed up, it will be Movable Type for the HUD! yay!

posted by Koz Farina on Nooribeom using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

WordPress test from SL via blogHUD meta test system

By jove it works!! 🙂 I nearly have the old blogger API verison running too. Need to build the UI on bloghud.com for people to manage their blog accounts. I already have a system for people to set a password here for bloghud.

The cool thing is, is that I can use the Second Life user name, as they are unique – so all someone has to do to manage their details on bloghud.com is to set a password using the blogHUD in-world. 🙂 Cool eh? And if you forget your password, you can simply set another – we know it’s you changing it, by the very nature you’re logged in.

NEVER EVER give your SL username and password to anyone else – and also, when I activate the blogHUD user profile stuff, when you’ll need to set a password, DO NOT use your normal SL password!!

blogHUD coverage!

Woo! While my back has been turned away from my blogHUD system, which lets people post blog posts and publish rss feeds to bloghud.com, I found these articles on it. Cool! And thanks! 🙂
Wonderland: Social software for managing Second Lives

Social Sim: Two thumbs up for the BlogHUD

Second Life Insider: BlogHUD : SLI Bloggers say ‘We’re Doomed’

Also, just to say that I’m very close to having a version which posts to any WordPress blog soon – and possibly blogger/blogspot if I get the time to do the extra code.