Way back when, I changed my permalink methods so that I would end up with more useful link names. More useful to me, and perhaps to you as well. Over time, this generally worked very well. But as time wore on, I found more and more often I was creating entries for software releases and they all had the very same format that I had to put into the keywords field all the time. Blech.

The problem was that the Movable Type dirify function was dropping the hyphens (-) and the dots (.) from my entry names, when I wanted them to be in the entry link. What was I to do?

Well, I found the dirifyplus plugin not long ago and was using it for something else, so I figured that it must be able to...

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This afternoon I was asked by a friend what I would recommend to an old designer who wants to learn more about web standards, CSS, XML, and XHTML.

This is a perfect example of when an email response is better posted here for a wider audience (and Google). So here's my answer: this is a comprehensive, informal, and somewhat long-winded roadmap for anyone who has heard about web standards, thinks they might want web standards, but doesn't know where to start.

Stop! Before you do anything, the most important thing you can do for your learning process is accept that a) it's going to take time, and b) you will be frustrated along the way.

But you're not alone....

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Movable Type is the premier weblog publishing platform for businesses, organizations, developers, and web designers. Powerful customization gives you control over everything you publish and the elegant interface keeps things simple and clear.

Features

• Unlimited Blogging

Movable Type offers the ability to publish an unlimited number of blogs quickly and easily through a single installation of the application. And the platform supports posting by as many authors as you need, with no limit on the numbers of entries, comments, or TrackBacks the system supports. • Powerful management...

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<MTPerlScript> is tag for Movable Type templates. If you know how to write Perl code, this custom tag gives you remarkable flexibility in producing pages from Movable Type. You can literally do any kind of manipulation you can think of using your Movable Type data.

This tag was written with a 'trust-the-programmer' mentality (or in this case, the template writer). There aren't any restrictions...

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Updated. Originally posted March 29, 2004. Providing printer-friendly versions of your weblog entries can be useful to your weblog readers. For example, my cooking weblog has printer-friendly versions of the recipes like this. Learning Movable Type links to printer-friendly versions at the end of each entry. There are several ways to create printer-friendly versions. I've outlined two methods in this tutorial. The first method is a simple header tag and CSS trick that automatically generates printer-friendly pages whenever someone goes to print a page from your blog. The second method is a bit more involved, creating a printer-friendly archive template with associated...

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Matt Haughey has a great article on how he uses Movable Type to do it all (apparently, Kottke does too… can't wait to see his article).

Anyhow, I wanted to share a tidbit in that vein. I've just set this up recently, and I'm in the process of moving the rest of my static content to use it. What I did: • Created a new Movable Type blog and named it "bradchoate.com: Static Content". • Deleted all the Index templates. • Deleted all the archive templates, except for the Individual archive template. • Made sure individual archives were enabled. • Made the archive path the root...

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MTTrackbackEntry is a Movable Type plugin and hack that enables you to create new entries from the Trackbacks that you receive. In other words, it enables other people to post new entries in your blog, simply by pinging an entry or category on your blog. The title of this plugin/hack could just as easily be called TrackbackCrosspost, since it can act as a trackback-based cross-posting tool.

Currently, entries are created AND pings are received and recorded. This means that TrackbackEntry will receive and record pings the same as usual, but it will also add a new entry. Perhaps a future version will only add new entries, or at least provide an option in this area.

TrackbackEntry is especially...

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Movable Type includes templates for the total number of comments in a blog (MTBlogCommentCount) and the total number of comments on an entry (MTEntryCommentCount). But there is no similar template tag for the total number of comments in a category. This template provides this tag: MTCategoryCommentCount.

Installation

1. Download MTCategoryCommentCount.zip.

2. Start using the <MTCategoryCommentCount> tag in a Category context, to output the total number of comments in a Category.

Example

On my Google Forum page, the tables list both "Topics" and "Replies". Topics are Entries and Replies are Comments. I used the <MTCategoryCommentCount> to generate the number of...

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There are a number of different implementations of Smileys for Movable Type. Here's mine.

The smilieys that I use on most of my sites display in both the entries and comments. The smileys images and javascript are borrowed from phpBB. For comments, the smileys are displayed above the comment form, enabled the comment author to click on a smiley to include with their comments.

Instructions

1. The MTMacro plugin is required for the smileys to work. If you don't already have it, click here to get it.

2. Download the smiley images and templates: mt-smiley.zip

3. Upload the smiley images to a folder called "images". This folder should reside within the local site path of...

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An advanced Movable Type entry search engine powered by Plucene and the MT-XSearch framework.

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This is a hack I began using recently, in an emergency situation. Blog comment spam was creating a huge CPU load on my web server, to the point that it was causing server crashes and CPU restrcitions from my (now former) web host. I have heard increasing report of web hosting banning the use of Movable Type on their hosting plans for the same reason.

This an MT-Blacklist hack that automatically blocks the IP address of someone trying to post commnent that matches your blacklist. It does this using htaccess, so repeated POSTs from that IP will never reach the MT scripts, thus saving your CPU.

First, let me be clear that I agree with Jay Allen and Adam Kalsey's comments about the...

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The MTObfuscate tag and obfuscate filter allow you to encode portions of your webpage into a quasi-random string that is emitted using Javascript. Obfuscated content should be safe from spam harvesters and search engines, but will appear as regular HTML on Javascript enabled browsers.

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Yesterday, Google announced Google Sitemaps, a simple XML file that describes the contents of your site along with straightforward instructions for how the site should be spidered by the search engine.

Today, Niall Kennedy's already released a Movable Type template for generating a sitemap for your Movable Type-powered site.

Like Niall's earlier work on a template for Amazon's A9 OpenSearch format, or the templates for publishing Microsoft Word XML files from Movable Type, these new output options really show off the power of having a simple but powerful system that can output any XML or HTML format just by copying and pasting a template into the application.

Trackbacks:

...

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1. Start with one of your blogs (any blog, it doesn't matter)

2. Create a new Template Module.

3. In the "Link this template to a file" field, enter a file system path and file name to save the template text. For shared template modules, I save them all to a "shared" directory and give each file a "txt" extension.

4. Save the template module.

5. Go to another blog that you also want to use the shared template and create a new template module.

6. Don't put anything in the body of the template module.

7. Give the template module a name and specifiy the *same* path and file name in the "Link this template to a file" field.

8. Save the template. You will see the template...

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Setting Comment Policy

Problem

You want to set commenting policy for your weblog.

Solution

Use the controls under the Feedback tab of the weblog's Settings screen.

Discussion

When Movable Type Version 3.0 was released, its most significant enhancements came in the area of comment and TrackBack management and moderation, providing publishers numerous means of controlling the community elements of MT-powered sites.

While the Comments and Commenters Listing screens provide the ability to manually tend to comments in a more efficient manner than previous versions, MT also added...

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The Technorati team has launched Blog Finder, a new service for discovering the blogs around specific topics. Grouped by tags, blogs can be discovered by the service if they've followed the provided instructions on how to describe a site.

The service hasn't been out long, but it's already inspired some detailed analysis from the user community, which should help refine and improve Blog Finder in the future.

Trackbacks:

Previous Entry: 2005 Black Weblog Awards winners announced

Next Entry: WSJ on Blog Search Engines

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Metaforix President Lois C. Ambash has some advice for those afraid of business blogging. It's a solid set of guidelines, but we also loved the praise for TypePad:

As a novice blogger, I chose TypePad for my own blog, and I couldn't be happier. The email technical support is prompt and friendly and has actually improved over time.

(For the newbie, it's hard to overestimate the importance of accurate, genuinely supportive tech support. Brenna, who responds to most of my help tickets, is the very model of a modern support technician. I've threatened to clone her and send her twin to my cell phone company.)

Trackbacks:

Previous Entry: Improving search engine positioning with blogs...

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A while ago, google launched their sitemap protocol. A sitemap is an XML file which points at all the pages on the site and helps google to index the site efficiently.

It indicates to google which pages are updated frequently, how important pages are (within the site) and so forth.

If you're running movabletype as I am, you won't get a sitemap template by default, even if you're using MT3.2. Never fear! You can 'borrow' my sitemap index template.

You may need to modify it if you're using different types of archive to me. Be aware that the priority tag is only important in the context of your site, you can't improve your ranking by giving things a silly...

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Stardock, best known for its WindowsBlinds application for theming Windows systems, has officially released Blog Navigator, which lets you easily track XML syndication feeds and is available as a free download. They've also made a Pro version of Blog Navigator available, which lets you easily create posts on your TypePad or Movable Type weblog right from within your feed-reading application.

Trackbacks:

Previous Entry: The New York Times loves blogging

Next Entry: Improving search engine positioning with blogs

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This plugin uses Javascript to hide the true location of you comments script, making it difficult for spammers to find it in order to bombard you with spam.

It is important to note that if you use this plugin, commenters must be using a Javascript-enabled brower in order to post comments.

I have been testing this plugin on one of my blogs for about 12 hours, and I have received zero spam in that time period on that blog. I will be installing it on all my blogs today.

Installation:

1. Download DisguiseCommentURL.zip

2. Extract and upload MTDisguiseCommentURL.pl to your 'plugins' directory within your 'mt' directory.

3. Open your Individual Entry Archive template and find the...

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