Blogging Blog

PostMapper.com

Today's guest blogger is Wade Sonenberg. You can learn more about Wade at the end of this post.

Just released, is a new blogging API and mashup that allows bloggers from across the web to plot their posts on a Google map.  It's called PostMapper.com, and it works by geocoding a blog post's location, and displaying the post's title, link, and excerpt on a searchable map.  PostMapper visitors can then find a participating blog's post about that location, and follow the link to the full post on the member's blog. 

It sounds complicated, but there is a downloadable Wordpress plugin that does all the work, and they hope to have a simple solution for both TypePad and Blogspot users early next year.  You can see the map in action on the PostMapper.com website, or download the plugin here.

As for me, my name is Wade Sonenberg, I live in Atlanta.  I sell and lease office space as my day job, but aspire to write & fish full time if I can ever figure out how to make it work.  My personal blog is The Great Outsmores.

WordPress Spam

My WordPress blog has been getting hit hard by spam lately. I've had some rudimentary tools in place (moderating comments with more than two links in them), but even that has become tiresome. It also hasn't solved the problem with trackback spam. Every day I've been getting at leat 10 comments or trackbacks to either moderate or delete.

WordPress has a system called Akismet that checks comments against a centralized spam database, but those services never work as well as intended, in my opinion. I just wanted something to nuke the spam on the spot while leaving legit comments and trackbacks in place.

For trackbacks, I chose the Trackback Validator Plugin, which, simply enough, checks to make sure the trackback actually links to your site. (Most trackback spam does not.)

For comments, I wanted some sort of "Captcha." A Captcha is one of those computer-generated warped images that requires the user to type in the text. I personally hate dealing with them as an end-user, but they are quite useful when it comes to spam.

Problem is, in order to run an image-based Captcha, your server needs to have certain programming libraries installed. So I looked for other options.

WordPress - Hashcash looked really interesting - it uses JavaScript to validate the post, with no need for extra effort on the part of the end-user. Problem is, the plug-in choked when I installed it. Never mind.

I had the same install problem with WP-Gatekeeper - that was supposed to work by having the end-user answer an obvious question before posting the comment. Oh well.

Finally, I settled for Did You Pass Math? This handy little plug-in was a snap to install and requires your user to add two single digit numbers to pass spam muster. I did choose to modify how the input field showed up on my blog to make it more obvious that it was a required anti-spam measure, but that was as simple as adding a few words to the code. Even someone who doesn't program should be able to find out where they can do this, if so desired.

As a bonus, I'm also now filtering out dumb-ass people who can't add two and two together!

You can see what this plug-in looks like by checking out the comments section on my blog.

I'll post an update on the spam blocking in a few weeks. Cross your fingers!

Calling all geeks...

It would be really cool to have a widget to put on blog sidebars (especially, of course, TypePad blogs) that would let a reader click through to posts on that date from previous years.

Of course, I don't know if you folks would click that link -- but I would.

UPDATE Saturday 20 May: A response from TypePad Support --

. . . There is a Movable Type plugin that can do this but we're unable to use these with TypePad. Thanks for the suggestion though. We will keep this in mind as a possible future feature for the system.

Wanted: TypePad Partner

TypePad is repeating last year's offer to renew for one year, and get a one-year gift subscription for free. Last year I shared this offer with another blogger, and am looking for someone interested in sharing it this year. We split the cost of one renewal ($67.28 each for TypePad Pro); one takes the renewal and the other the gift subscription.

Please email me if you are interested.

Notifying Readers of Updates

Boglet is a lovely little tool, offering an easy interface for readers to subscribe to your blog for update notifications. This is very nice for readers who do not use something like Bloglines. It is automatic once set up, and works with private, passworded blogs as well as public sites. Unfortunately, it is also extremely unreliable, down for weeks or months at a time without explanation; and, as Easy Bake Weblogs notes, the owner is impossible to contact. So what are our alternatives?

Search Box

I've added a Google search box to this site, for practice; and to Watermark, for all those folks who get there via internet searches. This should shorten the time it takes them to discover that I don't have what they are looking for.

I followed the TypePad instructions, here. At first it didn't work; then I realized that I needed to add the "www" for this blog.

There are several other search engines available: FreeFind, Picosearch, and Bravenet are just a few. Let me know if there are others out there that you like, and I will add them to this list.