I just finished upgrading to Movabletype 3.2. I’ve been looking forward to this version of the software as it allows some important new functionality. At the top of the list is trackback moderation, a feature that was sorely needed. It allows me to restore the list of trackbacks to the sidebar (a feature that I quite like but had to disable because of all the trackback spam I receive). The new Movabletype also allows some new plugins that I quite like.

Here are a couple of the issues that have been overlooked that are sorely needed:

• WYSIWYG interface. Or something beyond only the bold, italic, underline offered now.
• Media Management. I upload graphics all the time but MT offers absolutely no way of managing these after they have been uploaded.
• Future Publishing. As far as I know this has not been adequately addressed. Amazingly enough there is still no way of changing the publication date of an unpublished post to “now.” Thankfully there is a plugin that addresses this.

Anyways, that is the new MT.

As part of my testing I’d love it if you could send me a trackback from your blog. I want to test out the new trackback spam filtering capabilities. So please, ping me!

I’m doing it now.

So if you get errors, just hang tight.

As early as this week.

Movabletype 3.2 may be released as early as this week. Six Apart was hoping to release it last week, but opted instead to go with one final beta release (Beta 5) which is available right now. They warn that the beta should not be used on a live site. I am looking forward to the new software as it provides some new tools which will be most helpful. Primarily I am looking forward to the new Spam protection which will allow me to moderate trackbacks, which in turn will allow the trackback feature to return to the sidebar. I am a tad nervous that it will tamper with some of the plugins I use, and most notably the forum integration plugin.

As a way of supporting the growing costs of this site, I am now offering web hosting through an affiliate program with the company that hosts my sites. Prices for a feature-laden hosting package begin as low as $6.95 per month! But to make the deal all that much sweeter, I am offering a $20 Amazon gift certificate to anyone who signs up through my site. And as an added bonus, I’ll even install your choice of WordPress or Movabletype to this site (if you intend to use the site for blogging).

Here are just a few of the features included in the package:

• 3 GB (3000 MB) of storage space (increased from 2 GB)
  
• Free domain name
  
• 50 GB monthly transfer limit
  
• 500 Email accounts
  
• Full CGI-BIN access
  
• PHP
  
• MYSQL Database
  
• Full Web statistics package

If you would like to see the complete list of features and find out more information, click here.

One more reason to hate spammers.

I get vast quantities of trackback spam. I have installed a couple of tools to try to deal with it, which is especially important with the links I now have in the sidebar. It seems my measures are either too loose or too tight - I can’t quite seem to get the balance. If anyone out there knows anything about SpamLookup, the Movabletype plugin, I’d love to hear from you!

As you may have noticed, unless you’re on of those people who only reads the site via RSS, I have done a fairly major revision to the layout of the site. While leaving the design much the same (if it ain’t broke…) I added a new sidebar which contains all sorts of good information.

Most important is the SideBlog. I have often lamented (though only to myself) that the format of my blog is not conducive to post multiple short entries to the blog. The site is created for articles more than for news-bytes. The SideBlog gives me the ability to post tidbits: links to other sites, nearly-insignificant thoughts, and so on. It also allows people using RSS if they’d like to subscribe to that blog or only the main one.

I also added a list of recent Trackbacks. These are links to other bloggers who have recently referenced a post on my site. They may be talking about me or about you (the people having the discussion). It is fun to watch how discussions filter across the Internet and I thought this would be a good way of keeping tabs on that.

Finally, I added a list of books I am currently reading. I may remove this in favor of something else if and when I think of it.

Despite the use of some reasonably complex CSS (code) I trust most browsers will be able to cope with the changes. Those of you using 800x600 resolution (which appears to be only about 16% of users) now have another good reason to upgrade to a bigger monitor or a higher resolution. The site will still look fine, but the SideBlog will be off the screen to the right.

Feel free to let me know your thoughts, especially if you have other ideas about what I might do with that space.

Justin Taylor points the way to RSSxl.

Justin Taylor points the way to RSSxl. I had never heard of this service before but it looks excellent. Bookmark it for when you just need to receive an update when a page changes. This is just one more good use for RSS!

Update (5:43 AM) - I am experiencing occasional issues with phpbb errors. If you get one of these please let me know. I think if you refresh your screen it will go away.

As you may have noticed, the web server that hosts this site crashed last night somewhere around 6 PM EST. It was still down when I turned in at around 10 (early to bed, early to rise, don’t you know). As of 5 AM this morning it was alive, but showing all sorts of errors. A quick call to technical support resolved it, so I think as of 5:25 AM things are back to normal. Looks like they had to restore a backup from the night before which means that the server probably lost a hard drive. So, if you posted comments of any sort yesterday, they are lost forever. I do apologize, but it truly isn’t my fault! Hopefully things remain stable today.