Just a quick note… in the process of working with Alex on the test install of the new blog server version, I thought of a solution to the bug that was dumping people back to the login screen when trying to post a blog entry. I just tried it, and it works!

Well, I guess that joke kind of dates me. I’m still amazed, though; I just ran the mass blog creation script, and our server created 5102 blogs in only 25 seconds. Do we have fast hardware or what?

So now everybody at WOU has a blog. Yes, this means you, too. You can start it up by going to https://wou.edu/blogadmin; use your normal username, but for now the password is the last four digits of your ID number (unless you already had a blog, in which case the password is still whatever it was before.) Hopefully within a few days we’ll set up password synchronization so that when you change your main password via the account lookup page it will also set your blog password.

For help getting going on your blog, take a look at the general blogging FAQ, and the WOU blog server FAQ (Part 1, Part 2)

I think I’m finally turning the corner on all the trackback spam I’ve been getting; banning IP addresses seems to help.

I found a nice little shortcut that makes this stuff easier to manage. In the trackback list, just click on the IP address in the Source column. (In the comment list, you can click the little magnifying glass icon in the IP column for the same effect.) This gives you a filtered list of all the trackback pings (or comments) posted from that address; it makes it easy to just click the “check all” button to select them all, then “Delete” to send them all to the bit-bucket.

Furthermore, when you have this kind of filtered view of trackbacks or comments from a single address, the blog server also gives you a button to “Ban this IP”, so you can do that without having to copy the address and enter it separately on the banning screen.

Just thought I’d share that little tip.

I’m getting tired of all this trackback spam I’ve been getting; it’s averaged about sixty a week, usually in one or two big chunks. I’ve tried banning an IP address or two; let’s see if that helps.

How do I ban an IP address, you might ask? Well, it’s pretty easy.

Here’s how it works: first, of course, you need to know the IP address you want to ban. Then on your blog admin page, click on Configuration. Near the upper right of that page, you should see an “IP Banning” link. Click it and you will see a simple form with one input. Enter the IP address to ban and click the Add button; you should then see the newly banned IP address in a list below the form.
If you realize you’ve made a mistake or you want to un-ban the address for any other reason, go to that list and click the checkbox next to the address(es) you want to un-ban. Then click the Delete button below to delete the address(es) from your ban list.
When an address is banned, no computer using that address can leave a comment or a trackback ping. This isn’t foolproof, of course; there are ways for someone to get a new IP. If they are on a large ISP such as AOL, it may well be just a matter of signing off, waiting a few minutes, then signing on again.
For more about IP addresses, check out Wikipedia’s entry.

We’ve had lots of people start blogs since I last posted a list of new ones, and four of them have made at least two entries so far.

Here they are:

Dale Goodell’s Blog – Dale used to work for Library and Media Services, and now works with UCS on library-related projects.
Joan Guralnick – Joan is a UCS tech support manager and Monmouth resident.
Laura Dunn’s Blog – Laura is a recent graduate of WOU. (Congratulations!)
Mike Soukup’s Blog – Mike is a UCS Banner programmer.

If you want your blog mentioned here, just make at least two entries in it! If you want me to say anything specific about you, please email me.

Oops, I spoke too soon. It turns out that the Nofollow plugin also applies to TrackBack links. Good thing, too, since I just got six more trackback spams in the last two days.

Well, it looks like that nofollow plugin to defeat comment spam is effective; now I’m getting TrackBack spam instead.

I want to allow TrackBack pings, so I can see if any other blogs are linking to my blog; but man, there was some disgusting looking spam in those TrackBacks. Since each TrackBack creates a link on my blog to the blog that supposedly mentioned my post, TrackBack spammers can create links to their spam sites by sending TrackBack pings. This is really annoying, and to my knowledge there’s no way to stop it, at least not yet.

Luckily, on your blog control panel, you can view and delete TrackBacks; just click the “TRACKBACKS” button in the left-side toolbar.

By the way, I’m going to be off campus tomorrow, Thursday the 28th, but will be back in on Friday, normally my day off.

I haven’t been posting these for a couple of weeks, so there’s a bunch to catch up on!

• Troy’s Blog – by Troy Knabe, assistant sysadmin
• Nathan’s Blog – by Nathan Sauer, Classroom Support manager
• Rick’s Blog – by Rick Thompson, computer lab manager
• MikeE’s Blog – by Mike Ellis, manager of Residential Computing
• Terry Manning’s Blog – A student’s blog.

By the way, I am working on a public page to list the blogs on our server. A question for anyone who is paying attention; should I automatically include everyone, or only include people who don’t ask to be removed, or only include people who specifically say it’s OK to be listed? Or any other ideas?

Well, I was wondering when this was going to start happening. Looks like someone comment-spammed my blog.

What’s comment spam, you may ask?

Basically it’s when some money-grubber ads a comment to a blog entry that has nothing to do with the entry, but just includes a lot of links to spam sites. The idea is that when google scans the blog, it will see all those links, and thus rank those sites as more important. (The number of links to a site is one criterion Google and other search engines use to determine how a page ranks in their search results.)
Needless to say, I deleted the comment. I doubt I was the only one hit, either, but since most people who blog at WOU have comment moderation turned on, it’s unlikely that any of the others got through.
We need to get the Nofollow plugin configured on our blog server; it adds a special flag to all links in comments telling the Google scan to ignore them, thus denying their benefit to spammers. Hopefully that will make them stop showing up.
It’s hard to describe how much spammers annoy me without language I don’t want to use in public. It’s also annoying that some people actually buy stuff that’s advertised in spam. That’s why the spammers keep doing what they do; because it makes them money. I hope none of you have ever sent money to a spammer, because if you have, you’ve helped make the lives of everyone on the ‘Net just a bit more annoying.
Anyway, I’m on vacation and don’t want to get all riled up, so I’ll end here.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation recently published an online Legal Guide for Bloggers that some of you may find interesting. Just thought I’d mention it; it covers topics like liability, privacy, defamation, and the differences between the legal rights of bloggers and the legal rights of print journalists.