Some of you may remember the MT Tabs bookmarklet I had created oh so long ago that was quite simply a page that listed all the template tags available for easy reference. The best part of it was that it loaded in your browser's sidebar so it wouldn't interfere with and be separate from your Movable Type installation.

Well that bookmarklet (I'm trying to phase out the name "MT Tabs", it was badly chosen and didn't really reflect what the bookmarklet did) has been updated in a major way. What's new: • Major overhaul of interface so that the tags are now more appropriately grouped and all the tags are now present (including ones I didn't know existed!) • All tags have been...

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In MT, use of the <MTBlogCCLicenseURL> has been hardcoded to the 1.0 licenses, however these have been outdated and v2.0 of the licenses have been released a while ago. So lets hack the files so we can still use the tag.

You'll need two files, lib/MT/Util.pm and php/lib/cc_lib.php. Find in them the following line

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/$code/1.0/

and replace it with

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/$code/2.0/

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In the past few weeks I've managed to make MT Blogroll work on a Windows/IIS environment. I have only tested this plugin on one server so I'm not entirely sure how well this works. So Download MT-Blogroll_2.02.zip and follow the installation instructions. The only difference for you Windows users is that the contents of the lib/ folder in the distribution must go into the extlib/ directory hence you get extlib/Blogroll etc.

The only requirement is that you have MT 3.16 installed as important bugs were fixed.

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UPDATE

Typepad has moblogging built in but what can you do with MT. There are certain scripts you could setup on your servers. Pop2Blog is one such script, and another is pop3-to-blog. However with these scripts you would need to setup cron jobs to scan your emails and then post to MT.

That's when I found Mfop2

Mfop2 allows you to moblog without setting up any special scripts on your own mail server. To use Mfop2, all you have to do is register some of your blog details and you will be able to post to your blog from your mobile by emailing your blog entry with images attached to mfop2@bastish.net.

Another interesting option is mobileMT

mobileMT is a WAP interface for the MovableType...

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The link for the rss feed has now changed. I've finally embraced Feedburner so that I can track stats etc (no ads yet don't worry). The new feed is located here while the sideblog feed can be found here I have put permanent redirects onto the old rss files (both combined and normal) to point to the new Feedburner feed. Most RSS readers will pick this up and update it accordingly. If not then manually change it if you wish to keep up to date. Sorry for the inconvenience. The link to the Planet Movable Type feeds will remain the same as I don't want to mess around with any tracking tools used by the sites that are aggregated!

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A while ago, I had posted about creating a Typelists plugin for MT that would model Typelists in Typepad, I later found out that Tim Appnel was already developing a similar sort of plugin. I had emailed him that day to know where he stood in the scheme of things and got a reply back a few days ago. I've reproduced his reply here with his permission !

I am developing a "TypeLists for MT" app. I got all of the base objects working and tested. I'm also most of the way through the application. What's left is the interface (HTML), testing the application, creating various other lists and documentation. Oh... and a better name. I can't say exactly when I will finish since I have a number of...

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There are nice tools out there to help you optimize your weblog not only for speed but usability. Here are some •

Web Page Analyzer - a tool that will check how long it takes your site to load depending on the connection speeds. It will also show you what objects on your site are the biggest and most expensive. It also provides some useful tips on how to better optimize your site. •

Online CSS Optimizer - a tool that will basically optimize your css by combining a lot of the definitions. •

W3C Link Checker - a validator from W3C that will check all your links and highlight those that need to be changed/removed etc.

If you use Firefox, install the Web Developer Extension that has all of...

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(Cross Posted: Chinwags)

Calling Javascript Writers

I'm struggling, struggling. Let me lay out what I wish to do and you Javascript writers tell me whether it is possible. For browsers that don't support content loading in sidebars (eg Opera or Safari) I have created a frames version of MT/WP Tabs. Now I wish to take it to the next level. When someone clicks the bookmarklet for the frames version, I want the current page to appear in the main (right hand side) content with the MT/WP Tabs appearing in the left "sidebar" If you manage to figure out how to do this I will credit you with it on all files that contain your code also I will give you a GMail Invite. If you manage to figure it...

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I'm quite pleased to announce MT Tabs. MT Tabs is a sidebar with quick links to nearly every MT tag. Clicking on these links will take you to the corresponding section in the MT manual to show you how to use the tag and extra syntax.

A few days ago when I was tinkering around with the design, I heavily used CSS and HTML reference sidebars found here. Then Aine - a friend from IRC - said how nice it would be if there was something similar for Movable Type, well now there is !

MT Tabs is compatible with Internet Explorer 5+ for the PC, The Mozilla/Netscape family - including Firefox ! Suggestions, advice and improvements would be greatly appreciated ! I've only managed to get it to...

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Movable Type 3.1 is the feature upgrade that everyone was looking for in 3.0D. There are three main new features, dynamic templating, post scheduling and subcategories. Lets take a tour around these new features. These are some screenshots from the first beta, so the final product may not be exactly the same.

Dynamic Templating

The first thing you notice is when you go to the manage templates page. A new build options section has been created and gives you the following three options: • Build All Templates Statically • Build Only Archive Templates Dynamically • Set Each Template's Build Options Separately

The options do what they say, if you chose the last option then a check box...

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Upgrading or installing Movable Type can be rather intimidating. There are few things I have screwed up so badly attempting, even when they say it is super easy, idiot-proof. I always seem to be the idiot who still can't make it work. I have now upgraded two separate MT installs to MT 3.2 and thought I would share my notes with you. Please note that Jay Allen (Product Manager of Movable Type), Chad Everett (of Don't Back Down and Everitz Consulting), and Arvind Satyanarayan ( Movalog) have all helped me at various stages in upgrading, and if I didn't have friends who knew what they were doing, honestly I just wouldn't attempt this on my own. But that's me, and I have over 20 blogs...

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Update April 9, 2005: Brad Choate has released a new anti-spam plugin called SpamLookup. Jay Allen, the creator of MT-Blacklist recommends SpamLookup over MT-Blacklist.

Spammers have discovered Trackback and have recently been leaving their trail of unwelcome links all over the blogosphere. To get a sense of what we are up against, read The Register's interview with a link spammer. Listed here are some defensive measures you can take.

MT-Blacklist

As with comment spam, your first recourse is Jay Allen's MT-Blacklist. The blacklist will help you delete the trackbacks and ban the URLs the spammers leave. Note that if you are using MT2.661 and MT-Blacklist 1.65, Jay has special instructions for deleting trackback spam pings....

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Sometimes you would like to display the age of an entry as compared to a specific date. In the case, of my daughter's blog, I've displayed her actual age at the time of each post, based on her birth date and the authored-on date of the entry.

Updated to support time difference too.

Updated to correct date_delta function's accuracy.

This is a Movable Type/PHP tip. I haven't...

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Movable Type templates aren't too difficult to write, but they can be difficult to read. So I've whipped up another plugin to fix that. Simple Template is a plugin that provides an alternative syntax for Movable Type templates 1.

Availability

You can download this plugin here: mtsimpletemplate-1_21.zip

Installation

To install, place the ‘simpletemplate.pl' file in your Movable...

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The Touch of Hope web site is powered by Movable Type. It's more than your average blog site though. Don't let it's blogging slant fool you-- MT is a budding CMS!

The architecture is like this: • 1 blog for the site's basic content: welcome page, about page, Art for Hope page, request a site page, make a donation page, contact us page and the news and updates content. All of this is in...

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•

01: Installation and Upgrade

• Introduction • Choosing the Right Weblog Platform • Finding Perl on your Server...

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Ok, my games index is now live. It's a fairly complete list, although I know there are a bunch of DOS games that aren't on there just because I don't have them with me anymore (they're at home with Mom and Dad collecting dust). Anyway have a peek. If you're geographically nearby let me know if you'd like to borrow something. (While I'm at it, I might as well make this a Movable Type tip-- click the 'more' link for the goods.)

...

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Well, it looks like this weblog is becoming just a Movable Type how-to blog. Well, in keeping with that theme, here's a little "part two" companion piece for Doing your whole site with MT (one of my worst blog titles, ever).

Now that you've got your whole site MT-powered, what about your RSS feed? Chances are you, have one for your weblog, but what about one for everything? I've created one for my site, called sitewide.rss. It lets folks keep track of every update that happens to my site, whether it be part of my weblog or not.

To get it to work, you have to do a little bit of...

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<MTOnThisDay> Movable Type Plugin

The plugin support for Movable Type 2.2 is fantastic! And now we can develop the stuff that Ben just hasn't gotten around to yet. Here's one-- I've created a container tag that lets you pull entries that match the current system/entry month and day.

If you want to read more about it, visit the MT Plugin support forum page I've set up for this plugin.

To download the plugin, click here.

Updated on July 5. See included readme.txt file for details.

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If you are putting hours into writing content for your blog, you may want to make a few bucks (or more) to help pay for hosting charges and other costs associated with running it. Some bloggers find that they can make more than just small change, but most not enough to quit their day job. In any case, here are a few of the more popular methods.

Several ways by which you can make money with your weblog include Google Adsense, Amazon Associates, various other affiliate programs, advertising, and donations. Keep in mind that the success of these programs is highly dependent upon your content and the level of traffic you get to your site.

Google Adsense

Since its launch in the spring...

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