After a rather long absence, once again we are here with yet another edition of the JT Evening News (published whenever I feel like it) covering what kind of nonsense I’ve been up to with the site. So without further ado…
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MyBlogLog Gets a New Widget and so do I
MyBlogLog has a new "Recent Readers" widget and a new widget code to go with it. You can see what the end results look like by checking it out in my sidebar. For those of you using the original MyBlogLog plugin in your custom Wordpress install ("mybloglog_wp_2"–available from your MyBlogLog account page under "Get Widgets") all you have to do is head to your account page at MyBlogLog and get the new widget code and replace the old code in the MyBlogLog widget located your WP admin’s widget page. You can even choose from 7 different colors.
Hmmm, looks okay to me. I kinda’ like the fly-out feature when you hover over somebody’s picture even though some work could be done with the rather nasty looking text in the fly-out window. Perhaps it’s still a work in progress–like myself.
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Best Day Ever 2008 (and 2007 and 2006)
My best day ever this year as far as visitors go is a whopping 391 unique’s and they all came on Groundhog Day and 95% of ‘em hit last year’s Groundhog Day post and most of those came just to download Phil’s photo. In fact that’s the best day I’ve had since this I first launched this blog and it was all due to a fat, furry (alright…rather cute looking) rodent. Guess I can’t complain much since my bounce rate has gone down by about 20% since then. Blessings come in strange forms indeed don’t they?
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I Hate Spam!
On the other hand my daily spam intake has tripled since then so I went off and installed the updated version of Bad Behavior plugin again. It immediately blocked Windows Live Writer from accessing my blog of course and also blocked my host’s cron jobs as well just like it did last time. It also has "wordpress" listed in it’s blacklist file as malicious software for some reason and WordPress trackbacks were being blocked. So I trundled off to my FTP client and stuck my IP address into Bad Behavior’s white list file which fixed Windows Live Writer as well as my host’s IP for the cron jobs, removed "wordpress" from the black list file and all was well after that…I think. Either way the amount of spam caught in Aksimet’s net went from somewhere between 300 and 400 a day to around 60. Bad Behavior does work really well once you get it fiddled around properly. Now if I only could learn enough code to work up a Bad Behavior log reader and table purging type plugin that worked right from the admin it would be perfect. Maybe even an enhanced options page that included the white and black list entries so you could deal with them there instead. I won’t ask Michael (see first link) about it though, he has enough work to do.
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No Resolution for 800 X 600
My apologizes to those visitors still using 800 X 600 resolution on their displays. You’ll most likely have to scroll down to the bottom of screen to see my sidebar because that’s where it’ll be. I knew I would have to do it sooner or later and it finally came down to choosing between having to utilize a too small content area and a skinny sidebar or eliminating proper site rendering for the lowest resolution and widening things out to a more presentable and readable size. Guess which choice won out? Of course the easiest solution to the problem is to upgrade your monitor to the next larger size (and ease the strain on your eyesight as well) or you can just assume I’m using a single column theme with a really looong footer. 
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And that’s all she wrote for another edition of the JT Evening News and as always, thank you for dropping by.
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Tags: bad behavior, JT News, spam, spam protection, windows live writer
February 16th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
I like the new widget for Bloglog and the fly out feature. Humm, not seeing in your sidebar. I have a 17″ screen, love the broad look easier on the eyes for sure.
I also just started using WLW and a few bumps but not so bad. I like it as well. Spell checker at blogger was down, maybe still is, but that’s what got me over to WLW. I need to start playing with my wordpress photo blog I started. I haven’t taken more than a dozen or so shots in over a month.
I’ll be back at it soon.
Signing off of JT news!
February 16th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Hi Janet,
I think you’ll find Windows Live Writer just the thing for your photo blog as well as your Blogger blog. Nothing can hold a candle to WLW as a blog editor especially any online editor such as Blogger and WordPress offers and once you become familiar with the ins and outs of the writer the imaging features alone are worth it. I still have a few beefs about the lack of a standard toolbar though. I keep looking for the alignment buttons (text justification) and font type and color buttons as well. Should have been put in long ago. Still, it’s the tool of choice as far as editors go.
The new widget depends on your browser having Java and Java script enabled. Also if you’re using an Internet security suite that utilizes it’s own ad blocker that might keep you from seeing the widget. Funny, I can see the widget using Firefox 3 (nightly builds) with AdBlock Plus installed and in IE 7.0 with the IE7Pro add on installed (adds an ad blocker to IE among other things…love it. Makes the few times I actually use IE bearable).
Thank you for visiting JT News!
February 17th, 2008 at 12:07 am
Yes I see it in IE. Will check again in Firefox, haven’t done the upgrade yet in Firefox.
February 17th, 2008 at 10:27 am
What I’ve figured out is I need to be on your home page to see all the wonderful things in your sidebar.
Just one more thing I don’t quite understand, but there will always be things I don’t understand and the list is getting longer….
February 17th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Hi Janet,
Don’t worry about this one. The different sidebar you see when you’re viewing a single post is something my theme does on it’s own. Most themes use the same sidebar for the main page and single posts but the “Blog.Txt” theme is different.
I could muddle with the code a bit so I could have the same sidebar for both like other themes but I kinda’ like all the post info in the sidebar where folks can easily read it rather than having it all crammed above or below the post itself (or split both top and bottom as happens sometimes) where it’s a lot harder to even notice. The only drawback is that I have to hard code my Google Adsense into the single post sidebar instead of using widgets like I do for the main page.