PROBLEM!

I did see the hiccup, and are we still under attack?

Somehow, I noticed that my entries are being edited by some outside source-hypertext ad links are being added to my posts!

What the...?

How do I stop this?

Hatred

I made the super mistake of trying to find a haircut online. Somehow, now all of my Internet visits bring me a mass of pop-up ads asking if I want to remortgage my house, date a Russian mail order bride, or buy coffee.

None of which I want to do.

Is there a program I can download to stop this agony?

Thanks!

Nobody Saw That, Right?

Right?

All of you were either busy at work or home asleep and so failed to notice that a nasty BGP hiccup took both of Liquidweb's* Class B's off the net entirely** for about three hours... Yesno?

Good.

And since they offer a 99.9% uptime SLA with a 100:1 penalty clause, I expect that my bill will be rather smaller than usual this month. In fact, that should just about pay for the t-shirts.

* MuNu's hosting provider.
** Unless, it seems, you were plugged directly into the Verio backbone - which I, for one, am not.

Thingys & Doodads - IV

In this edition of Thingys & Doodads we'll look at an expanding / collapsing comment script from the Scripty Goddess.

This particular script is an "in-line" script for php sites. It will produce this:

Permalink | Show Comments(3) | Add Comment | Trackback(2)

Installation instructions:

Cut and paste the following code between the tags in every page that you want to utilize the script:

<!-- Begin Scripty Goddess Show/Hide Comments -->
<script type="text/javascript">
function showMoreComments(entryID, entryLink, htmlObj) {
extTextDivID = ('extText' + (entryID));
extLinkDivID = ('extLink' + (entryID));
if( document.getElementById ) {
if( document.getElementById(extTextDivID).style.display ) {
if( entryLink != 0 ) {
document.getElementById(extTextDivID).style.display = "block";
document.getElementById(extLinkDivID).style.display = "none";
htmlObj.blur();
} else {
document.getElementById(extTextDivID).style.display = "none";
document.getElementById(extLinkDivID).style.display = "block";
}
} else {
location.href = entryLink;
return true;
}
} else {
location.href = entryLink;
return true;
}
}
</script>
<!-- Begin Show/Hide Comments -->

Next, in the section of the Main Index Template, cut the code for the "posted by" section and paste the following code in:

<!-- Begin Scripty Goddess Show/Hide Comments -->
<div id="extLink<$MTEntryID$>">
<a href="<$MTEntryPermalink$>">Permalink</a>
<MTEntryIfAllowComments>
<?php if (<$MTEntryCommentCount$> > 0) { ?>
| <a href="<$MTEntryPermalink$>" name="ext<$MTEntryID pad="1"$>" onclick="showMoreComments(<$MTEntryID$>,'<$MTEntryPermalink$>', this);return false;">Show Comments (<$MTEntryCommentCount$>)</a>
<?php } ?>
| <a href="<$MTEntryPermalink$>#comments">Add your comment</a>
</MTEntryIfAllowComments>
<MTEntryIfAllowPings>
| <a href="<$MTCGIPath$><$MTTrackbackScript$>?__mode=view&entry_id=<$MTEntryID$>" onclick="OpenTrackback(this.href); return false">TrackBack (<$MTEntryTrackbackCount$>)</a>
</MTEntryIfAllowPings>
</div>
<div id="extText<$MTEntryID$>" style="display: none">
<a href="<$MTEntryPermalink$>">Permalink</a>
<MTEntryIfAllowComments>
| <a href="#ext<$MTEntryID pad="1"$>" onclick="showMoreComments(<$MTEntryID$>,0, this);return true;">Hide Comments</a>
| <a href="<$MTEntryPermalink$>#comments">Add your comment</a>
</MTEntryIfAllowComments>
<MTEntryIfAllowPings>
| <a href="<$MTCGIPath$><$MTTrackbackScript$>?__mode=view&entry_id=<$MTEntryID$>" onclick="OpenTrackback(this.href); return false">
TrackBack (<$MTEntryTrackbackCount$>)
</a>
</MTEntryIfAllowPings>
<MTEntryIfAllowComments>
<MTComments>
<$MTCommentBody$>
<p>Posted by <$MTCommentAuthorLink show_email="0"$> at <$MTCommentDate$></p><br>
</MTComments>
</MTEntryIfAllowComments>
<a href="<$MTEntryPermalink$>">Permalink</a>
<MTEntryIfAllowComments>
| <a href="#ext<$MTEntryID pad="1"$>" onclick="showMoreComments(<$MTEntryID$>,0, this);return true;">Hide Comments</a>
| <a href="<$MTEntryPermalink$>#comments">Add your comment</a>
</MTEntryIfAllowComments>
<MTEntryIfAllowPings>
| <a href="<$MTCGIPath$><$MTTrackbackScript$>?__mode=view&entry_id=<$MTEntryID$>" onclick="OpenTrackback(this.href); return false">TrackBack (<$MTEntryTrackbackCount$>)</a>
</MTEntryIfAllowPings>
</div>

As usual, you can edit any of the text labels to personalise the site with your own peculiar wit.

I have not tried this particular script so, if you have any problems installing it, go to the Scripty Goddess post and read the post and the following discussion thread.

Posted by Madfish Willie at 10:22 PM | Comments (8)

Quick Opera Question

Due to a recomendation of the fellow who's template serves as Mrs. Frinklin's blog, I have begun weaning myself off of the evil IE and switching to Opera. It looks and works far better than IE did, except for one thing: On my MT Create New Entry page, IE displays a very nice little toolbar allowing me to Bold, Italicize, underline or post a link without going through the trouble of putting in the HTML myself. This is a good thing, since I'm a total newbie when it comes to HTML. This toolbar is nowhere to be seen with Opera. Is it possible to add it?

I just have to explain

I promise you that this guy is not a relation of mine. I am talking about the hamster, not Bill, although Bill is also not a relation of mine.

Thingys & Doodads - III

In this edition of Thingys & Doodads we'll look at an expanding / collapsing comment script from the Scripty Goddess.

One way to make your site more reader-friendly is to provide a show/hide comments script. This script will show or "roll-down" your comments in the current window by clicking on a link displayed between your post text and your byline. Then you can click another link and hide or "roll-up" the comments.

I have modified the original Scripty Goddess code a little by inserting code to display a horizontal line between each comment. This makes separating and reading each somment a little easier.

Installation instructions:

Cut and paste the following code between the tags in every page that you want to utilize the script:

<!-- Begin Scripty Goddess Show/Hide Comments -->
<script language="javascript">
function showMoreComments(varA12, varB12){
var1232 = ('varXYZ2' + (varA12));
varABC2 = ('varP2' + (varA12));
if( document.getElementById ) {
if( document.getElementById(var1232).style.display ) {
if( varB12 != 0 ) {
document.getElementById(var1232).style.display = "block";
document.getElementById(varABC2).style.display = "none";
} else { document.getElementById(var1232).style.display = "none";
document.getElementById(varABC2).style.display = "block"; }
} else { location.href = varB12;
return true; }
} else { location.href = varB12;
return true; }
}
</script>
<!-- Begin Show/Hide Comments -->

Next, in the section of the Main Index Template, cut and paste the following code in above the code that says “Posted By…”:

<!-- Begin Scripty Goddess Show/Hide Comments -->
<MTEntryIfAllowComments>

<span id="varP2<$MTEntryID$>" class="extended">
<a href="<$MTEntryLink$>#<$MTEntryID pad="1"$>" onclick="showMoreComments(<$MTEntryID$>,'<$MTEntryLink$>#<$MTEntryID pad="1"$>');return false;">
<p>
Show Comments »
</p>
</a>
</span>
<div id="varXYZ2<$MTEntryID$>" style="display: none">

<hr width="100%" size="1px" color="#000000" align="left" />

<MTComments>
<$MTCommentBody$>
posted by <$MTCommentAuthorLink$> at <$MTCommentDate$>
<br />

<hr width="100%" size="1px" color="#000000" align="left" />

</MTComments>

<a href="#<$MTEntryID pad="1"$>" onclick="showMoreComments(<$MTEntryID$>,0);return
true;">
<p>
« Hide Comments
</a>
</p>
</div>

</MTEntryIfAllowComments>
<!-- End Goddess Show/Hide Comments -->

[SAVE] and Rebuild indexes only, or whatever archives you decide to install the script in. I would recommend installing it in the all but the Individual Entry Archives.

You can customize the lines that say Show Comments and Hide Comments to say whatever you want them to say.

You can also customize the horizontal line width and color and size properties to make your color schemes etc.

If you have any problem installing this script, let me know and I'll give you a hand.

Note: This script sometimes does a funky disappearring text magic trick. It only does it in some sites, not all of them. You will have to install it and test it for yourself. As usual, make a backup copy of your Main Index Template before making modifications.

Tomorrow: In-line Show/Hide script for php sites.

MuNuby Help - Background Images

Today's MuNuby Help lesson deals with background images.

You have already set the background-color property in your ID and Class divs. Now you may want to add a little "texture" or "personality" to your main page background.

Design gurus will tell you not to put text over an image as it will be difficult to read. I would make a few exceptions to that rule for my own personal purposes. One exception would be an image under the sidetitle text. Another design rule to keep in mind is "content is king". If you use tiled background images, make them subtle patterns and use complimentary colors so they don't overwhelm or distract from the content.

Now the process to insert background images.

First, upload the image file that you want to use. Select the Show me the HTML radio button and click the [EMBEDDED IMAGE] button at the bottom. Do not close the window yet, because you will be copying some information from it to paste into your stylesheet.

Next, open you stylesheet. The top div property set is probably for #body. To add an image for your background insert the code in bold as shown below, substituting the path to your image from the file upload window.

#body {
background-color: #000000;
background-image: url(http://munuviana.mu.nu/archives/stars.gif);
}

[SAVE] and [Rebuild Indexes Only].

You can put an image background in any element in your page.

There are several options to display your background images. To learn more about how to make an image fixed, make it scrioll, make it tile the whole page, make it repeat only across the top, make it repeat only along the left side, and more go to W3Schools: CSS Background. There are several examples of code and results and a place to experiment to see how it will look.

Here are a couple of links to some sites for FREE background images and textures:

Absolute Background Textures Archive
Design to a T

All aboard!

Y'all have probably heard of the fundraiser for the Spirit of America by now, right? Don't worry, I'm saving the serious begging for my blog. Here I'm just promoting a fantastic offer from one of the Fighting Fusileers.

To help raise some cash without spending a penny just trackback to this post. The Pudgy Pundit will make a donation for every blog that pings it.

We've got a load of Munuvians now. That would be a very nice chunk of change if y'all gave up a little link love.

Thanks!

Help!

Hi Everyone. I'm new. You might have already visited my site and have seen that it's pretty bare. Well, that's because I want to get things resolved before moving my archives and stuff from Blogger. I have a few questions that are important to me at this time and I'm hoping you can help.

I would like my blockquote to appear in a box, not just indented.

I would like my expanded post to appear on the same page, instead of on a separate page like the permalink. I would also like the code to allow a collapse back to the original view.

I would like to use an unusual font for my banner title and description (DeVinne Orn). I entered it in the font family, but it's not working. Any clues how I can get that to work?

I want to set up additional pages for additional info I currently have parked on another site. Is that possible to do with keeping the current style sheet, and how? :)

When I upload pictures, where do I go to find them again? :)

Mozilla Newbie

Well, my Internet Explorer has been become so corrupted by adware and spyware that it became pretty useless. Rather than uninstall it and reinstall the same super-insecure browser, I've finally decided to give up on IE and go with Mozilla 1.6.

So far, everything works great except for photographs. The pictures in the sidebars of caughtintheXfire and Everyday Stranger look kinda like they were turned into rough watercolors in PhotoShop or something.

So, tell me, Mozilla users... wus up wit dat? And..er..what can I do about it? :)

Last Ping To Nowheresville

There's still something very strange going on with trackbacks. Sometimes they work. Sometimes they don't. I just got an incoming ping; I can see it in the little log file I've set up, but it don't appear on my blog.

Feh.

It's 2am now, and I'm not going to fiddle with this any more tonight. Come the morning, I'm going to try a fresh install of MT 2.661 and see if that fixes anything.

Only A Ping In A Gilded Cage

Ping!

Okay, we seem to have a slight problem with trackbacks.

As in, they don't work.

I'm looking into it now.

Update: Debbye just pinged me, and it worked fine. Weird. Still working on it...

Blah!

Update: I just pinged myself, and it worked - when I used autodiscovery. When I put the URL in the ping box, it didn't work.

Weirder and weirder.

I just pinged Xset, which is running on a separate installation of MT. Autodiscovery worked; manual ping failed.

I can sort of see what's happening, but it doesn't make a lot of sense. It's treating some incoming pings as requests to view the ping page.

Pinged myself again. Buuut... Is this a problem with incoming pings, or with outgoing pings?

Blaaaweeef! Head hurties!

MuNu Pull Down Menu Corrections

I noticed a coupe of minor errors in the pull down list of Munuvians and they have been corrected. Most notably stoooopid is that since I copied the script I set up for my own page - I did not include my own site!!!

I would suggest replacing the entire list section of the script. This will give you all the fixes and the new sites listed here.

<option value="http://minx.mu.nu/">Minx</option>
<option value="http://rishon-rishon.mu.nu/">Rishon Rishon</option>
<option value="http://countermeasures.mu.nu/">Electronic Countermeasures</option>

Update Update Update

We is up!

Everything should have transferred smoothly, but if you do happen to notice anything odd, let me know. The old database is still around, so if any posts got dropped or broken during the move, we can fix it good as new.

And it is faster :)

Update Update

I'll be converting the database this weekend. Starting Sunday 2AM GMT, should be finished around 10AM GMT.

During that time, you will not be able to post, and readers will not be able to leave comments. It's Sunday!* Sleep in! Go fishing! Vacuum the cat!

Oh yes: You won't be able to change your templates, rebuild your blogs, edit existing entries, receive trackbacks, import, export... But your blog will still be readable.

Once it's all over, things should be a lot faster. Probably at least three times, possibly more.

* Possibly Saturday where you are.

Vanity being what it is...

I've been looking for a way to post audio files. I looked at Radio365, and that ain't cheap, which is a requirement at this point. I can't get into my goodie-pile (or even my webmail) because it keeps telling me the link is down, the server is bad, evil has taken over the world, please try again later. I thought there was something in there that would allow for that.

Anyone got any ideas? Doesn't have to be an hours long radio show, updated weekly, or such. Just an ability to post rants, maybe an occaisional song from my friends, etc.

Let me know. I'm a looking.

Overwhelmed

OK, now that I have my super-sexy broadband (it's almost better than sex. No, scratch that-considering some of my exes, it is actually better than sex), I wanted to add the new Munuvians to my sidebar.

Problem is, I hadn't realized that we have gone into the mouse reproductive cycles for new blogs, so I am overwhelmed.

Does anyone have the latest list of the Munu blogs for the sidebar, that I can copy and paste?

And...um...do you have it in alphabetical order, since I am anal retentive?

If anyone needs me, I will be in a fetal position under the table. Or else using a magical whirring toy, thinking about my broadband.

-H.

A Rose By Any Other... Yadda Yadda

A trivial thing, but I'd like to change the name under which I post from LeeAnn to The Cheese. Or maybe the Cheesemistress of Chaos.
Now, my question.... (s)....
Is this possible? How is it done? Will it be retroactive and change all the past entries?
I know that Google and others have caches or whatever, so if someone did want to find evildoings involving this "LeeAnn" person, they most certainly could. However, although I do not blog from work on work time using work equipment, I'd like to continue to blog ABOUT work and make it more difficult, if the powers-that-be so choose, to know it's me.
Plus I just really like that whole Cheesemistress of Chaos tag.
Any suggestions, ye who know all?

Quick Questions to Fellow Munuvians

Hi to all the friendly people of Munuvia! This is Dave of Blogo Slovo, the blog dedicated to News, Politics and other Semi-Coherent Ramblings, with an emphasis on things Slavic (coherent or otherwise).

First of all, let me thank Pixy Misa and Jim Peacock for inviting me to join and helping me to get set up. I'm still working on the migration to the MuNu site, I plan to go live on May 1 (May Day and all, you know). And I have a few questions for the crowd:

1> Is there a script for the MuNu blogroll? I want to link to all my new friends.

2> Has anyone worked with blogads or some other such deal? I'd love to make a few pennies (I have no illusions)

3> Is MT enabled for foreign language characters?

4> How useful are aggregators? I'm not sure I see the point, but perhaps I'm missing the point.

5> How do I upload images?

6> Any of ya'll live in/near Chicago? Wanna have a blogger bash and get a few beers?

A Plea in the Wilderness...

..dear, sweet, gentle Munuvians.... I beg upon your tender hearts... please, hear this call from the lonely void... I, having been inducted into your ranks, have found myself adrift in a sea of woes.. it seems that... even though my passport has been stamped, my baggage is being withheld by Munuvian customs...

..so, if any of you have any pull with the immigration Gods, could you slip them twenty American for me?... it worked in Pakistan... so, maybe in Munuvia as well...

... still, my archives, when trying to export them, only work up to various points in March... sometimes the 3rd... sometimes the 17th... sometimes, it is the 23rd.... good lord... the ides of March, indeed.... it looks to me as if the entire Month is out to get me....

..with that said, gentle Munuvians... can any kind Samaritan offer a hand out of this ditch?... my residence in your fair land awaits... but, without my suitcase full of inflatable sheep, Scotch, and vintage tomes of Robert Service verse, home would not seem homey... so, I beg you.. Brothers (and Sistahs)... can ya spare a dime?....

Question for the cow puppy gallery

Every so often I get some adware and spyware gumming up the works and I periodically (like, every other day) run Adaware and spyguide to get rid of them.

However, over the year or so that I've been using this particular PC, strange tasks have been building up in my task scheduler -- right now there are about 12 of them and they really slow down my 'puter. They aren't actually listed in the task scheduler, of course, so I can't stop them from initiating at the boot-up.

I can press ctrl+alt+delete and end them one-by-one, but, each time that I reboot there they are again --- about 12 of 'em.

Does anyone know how in the heck I can get these vermin out of my task scheduler once and for all?

Also, each time I reboot I have to go to the control panel / internet options and re-list my IE homepage (I usually use Drudge), because it's replaced, everytime, with some obscure search engine's home page. That and the task scheduler issue means that I have to spend my first five minutes or so just cleaning up the same ol' mess. grrrrr

He-e-e-e-e-l-l-l-p!!!

Thanks for the hand

I got a bit of comment spam awhile ago and was at an impass as I can't get to every MT console I need through my cable connection. For some reason, when I am on cable, it only recognizes the first one I sign into. So, whoever is responsible for it now being gone, I am muchly appreciative.

Another nit to pick

I know I come up with some of the pettiest things, but really, would it be possible to post the munu roll on Ellis Island so there is some way to navigate elsewhere without backing out of it when you are done looking and voting?

MuNuby ???

Is anyone having problems with the update/trackback/ping thingy?

It keeps expressing irritation with me when I post.

Another stupid question

Do you have to actually have people read stuff on your blog to qualify as a blogger? If so, I guess I might not be a blogging mouse, after all.

Interesting Styling Problem

I'm having an... interesting... styling problem. Take a look at one of my individual entry pages - say, this one. It doesn't look very special, right? In fact, it is pretty ugly.

But the code that I am editing and then posting into the template looks great if I look at it on my own home computer. It looks like how I want it - with some nice styles and everything. I use IE both times and the styling is in the document - not on a separate style sheet. But, hey, what's happening? Don't say its an IE thing, because it does the same with FireFox.

Is it something when MT is converting all of those starting tags?

It's odd. And I'm a little confused.

NEVERMIND - I figured it out. Suffice to say, I'm an idiot. Now you can all just make fun of what I did. I'm still tweaking some though.

I'm just sayin', you know

Not meaning to be mean, as it might dry up the free cheese supply, but me thinks Madfish Willie ought to post some useful help on how to make clickable links with MT.

Just wondering

At work, a big part of my job is system optimization - making things run as quickly and as efficiently as possible (can't always have both at the same time). Sometimes it's necessary to tell the users that although something would be nice to have, it might be impractical.

The last post about time zones made me think of this. Pixy, when you do these magic fixes or patches, how much does it cost in terms of overall system speed? Are there certain kinds of magic that aren't worth the overhead?

I work on mainframes, so this PC stuff is pure curiousness to me.

Miss Kitty Update

Bird Brain has been a bit disappointed at the lack of well wishers for Miss Kitty. I am not all that sure I want to wish her well myself, what with the times that she has come with an inch of taking my life, but still, she is a fellow creature and I am sure it is not all that fun at the Morris the Cat Clinic for Felines with Substance Abuse Problems.

As for myself, thanks to someone having left a very nice wheel of baby Swiss cheese unattended earlier today and having a few days of not worrying about having a cat breathing right on the back of my neck, I am feeling like I am on the top of the world. Bird Brain, Bill Bulldog and myself would love to have as many of you as possible come around for a visit every once in awhile. Of course, we also realize you all probably have a lot more important things than to keep up with what a Parrot, a Bulldog and a Mouse, and maybe our Miss Kitty, once she has kicked that catnip addiction, are up to on occasion.

A special message to Kang. A. Roo: Will you please stop emailing us to death asking if we will let you take Miss Kitty's place. We don't have room in our house for a kangaroo, and besides, our unnamed human benefactor is the one in charge of who or what gets to live here.

A couple of comments and a question

I was on Ms. Apropos blog and saw that her Munuvian list was showing updates and was ecstatic, thinking yeah! and then looked at mine and it was now showing updates. I examined her source to see if maybe there was a new code for the list showing updates that I had missed but found she just had a special blogroll listing for Munuvians. Oh well.

Miss Kitty is going into treatment for her catnip addiction problems and Bird Brain is asking that you flood the comments with well wishing messages for her.

Now to the question: Can anyone explain why updated posts from Beyond the Black Hole show up almost halfway down the listing on the Recent Post listing to the right even though they might have been posted only a couple of seconds ago? Give your answer in mouse speak, preferably.

MuNu Pull Down Additions

New entries coded for the pull down menu

<option value="http://ace.mu.nu/">Ace of Spades HQ</option>
<option value="http://publicola.mu.nu/">Publicola</option>
<option value="http://auterriffic.mu.nu/">Auterriffic</option>
<option value="http://desertraspberry.mu.nu/">Desert Raspberry</option>

UPDATE: The new entries have also been added to the full script - see Madfish Willies list of tech stuff in the side bar. In the future, I will paste new sites there as I update my own template.

UPDATE:The spelling of Auterriffic has been corrected here and in the full script.

Useful Thingies

Thanks to Madfish Willie we now have a list of useful thingies over on the right.

...

No, your other right. Yes, that's it! Click!

YourSQL

Hi-ho everybody!

I ran an experiment yesterday in which I converted the whole MuNu Movable Type database to MySQL to see if it would make a difference in performance.

It does. It makes a big difference.

It seems to be three to five times faster for normal-type stuff, and fourteen times faster in my super-killer stress test.

Now, obviously we want to convert to MySQL ASAP. Only problem is, the conversion program itself is abysmally slow - it took about eight hours to run. And any posts or comments made while it's running will be lost.

So, what I propose to do is this: Next weekend (which is a long weekend for me, fortuitously enough) I will turn off posting and commenting (with a nice friendly message) and convert everything. As soon as it's done, I'll turn everything back on, and you can all jump in and do whatever it is you do.

I'll post a more exact time closer to the day. One thing to be aware of - if you start writing a long post, and then I turn posting off, and then you click save, it will go bye-bye. So what I might do is copy the database and leave posting turned on; that way you can save your post but you will have to copy it manually to the new system (cut-and-paste).

Does any of this make sense to anyone?

Thingys & Doodads - II

In this edition of Thingys & Doodads, we'll look at the extended entry thingy and detail a javascript doodad to improve the blog interface, making your site more reader friendly.

Let's discuss the extended entry thingy. Since this post will be fairly lengthy, we can use it for an example. I'll do the main discussion points in the # Entry Body and put the javascript and installation instructions in the # Extended Entry

First, from the Movable Type User Manual: ENTRIES

# Entry Body

# Extended Entry

Collectively these two fields make up the body of your entry. You can use the two fields however you like: you could split up your entry over the two fields, or you could completely ignore the Extended Entry text and enter only the Entry Body text. Movable Type allows you to split up your entry for more flexibility in the display of that entry; for example, if you write very long entries, you may not want your entire entry on your index pages. You can use the two fields to control what gets displayed, and where.

Note that when the text of your entry and extended entry fields are output into your public weblog, paragraphs--blocks of text separated by two line breaks--will be automatically converted using the Text Formatting option you have selected. The default formatting is to enclose paragraphs within <p> and </p>> tags, and to convert line breaks to <br /> tags. If you do not want this formatting to occur, you can select None for the text formatting.

Now you see the MT generated tag Continue reading "Thingys & Doodads - II" This is generated in the this code in the body section of the Main Index Template:

<MTEntryIfExtended>
<span class="extended"><a href="<$MTEntryPermalink$>#more">Continue reading "<$MTEntryTitle$>"</a></span>
</MTEntryIfExtended>

My personal preference is not to be redirected to another window (Individual Entry Archives) in order to read the entire post. Then, after you're finished and perhaps have made a comment, you have to click around to get back to the Main Page so you can read the rest of the material you came there to read in the first place.

I saw this thingy/doodad over at www.MargiLowry.com that made the extended entry "roll-down" into the post on that same page... "WOW... that's too cool... how do you do that?"" I asked. From the best of my recollection, Margi (Which way did she go?) e-mailed me back with a link to the code.

Now, for a little history on the origins and evolution of the code.

The original code for the show/hide script was written by Aarondot. He uses really wild variable names eg coconutsKillMorePeopleThanSharks and noMoreThankYou, which is fine for personal use... but if you are trying to dessimenate your code, it should really comply with more traditional coding practices.

Then, Jennifer the Scripty Goddess revised the variable names. and expanded the code to include a show/hide for comments.

I have tweaked the code with line breaks to see what it going on with the lables so it would be easier to edit with something witty and unique.

So here is the final iteration of the show/hide extended entry code.

Installation instructions:

Cut and paste the following code between the <head> tags in every page that you want to utilize the script:

<!-- Scripty Goddess Show/Hide Extended Entry -->
<script language="javascript">
function showMore(varA1, varB1){
var123 = ('varXYZ' + (varA1));
varABC = ('varP' + (varA1));

if( document.getElementById ) {
if( document.getElementById(var123).style.display ) {
if( varB1 != 0 ) {
document.getElementById(var123).style.display = "block";
document.getElementById(varABC).style.display = "none";
} else { document.getElementById(var123).style.display = "none";
document.getElementById(varABC).style.display = "block"; }
} else { location.href = varB1;
return true; }

} else { location.href = varB1;
return true; }
}
</script>

Next, in the <body> section of the Main Index Template, delete the default MT extended entry code, then cut and paste the following code in it's place:

<!-- Scripty Goddess Show/Hide Exntended Entry -->
<MTEntryIfExtended>
<span id="varP<$MTEntryID$>">
<a href="<$MTEntryLink$>#<$MTEntryID pad="1"$>" onclick="showMore(<$MTEntryID$>,'<$MTEntryLink$>#<$MTEntryID pad="1"$>');return false;">
Read More "<$MTEntryTitle$>" »
</a>
<br />
</span>
<div id="varXYZ<$MTEntryID$>" style="display: none">
<p><$MTEntryMore$></p>
<a href="#<$MTEntryID pad="1"$>" onclick="showMore(<$MTEntryID$>,0);return
true;">
<p>
« Hide "<$MTEntryTitle$>"
</p>
</a>
</div>
</MTEntryIfExtended>

[SAVE] and Rebuild indexes only, or whatever archives you decide to install the script in. I would recommend installing it in the all but the Individual Entry Archives.

You can modify the labels/text for the Show and Hide lines. As the code is written, it will display Read More concantated with the post title.

Easy as pie!

For the next edition of Thingys & Doodads, I'll present the Show/Hide Comment Script and Code that is used in Main Index Templates with the html file extension. (I think Pixy has a Show/Hide Script that he uses for Main Index Templates with php file exstensions, or did he modify this code to work in-line?)

The Scripty Goddess Show/Hide Comment thingy sometimes does a magic disappearing text thing and other weird stuff... I don't know why... but it only happens in some sites and not others. Weird, freaky stuff!!1!

UPDATE: The Scripty Goddess has modified this basic code to Show/Hide anything on your page. I may try it out as a sort of roll-down link list... that might be pretty cool!

Blog Entry Times

Hi. Thought I'd pop over here with what could well be a truly idiotic question: how are the default times set for our blog entries? Is there a way I can use MTto change the posting times on my individual blog (Little Miss Attila) to correlate with Pacific Standard Time in the U.S.?

Let me know. Thanks!

MAC OS X MT Tip

If you are using Safari for blogging - or for very much of anything you need to go to Unsanity and download their nifty little free Safari widgit.

As much as I am a fan of Apple and really love Safari, I can't for the life of me understand why they built in a 60 second timeout. The Unsanity widgit will fix that.

The Prodigal Hound has returned

Yes, it is true. Bill Bulldog has been found and he tells the story of the whole sordid affair for any that would care to hear it.

Lost Dog Notice

Lost, White Bulldog. Answers to the name Bill Bulldog. Keyboards with index claw of left front paw. Last seen at Beyond the Black Hole on April 13, 2004. If found, please contact Mr Mouse or Bird Brain at Beyond the Black Hole. If a cat answers, hang up. Miss Kitty has stated that she refuses to be involved in any way with an recovery efforts pertaining to Bill Bulldog.

A call to arms!

Sir Robert of XSet has taken to the field to defend his honor and the precepts of humor. Those very same precepts that Munuviana itself was formed upon! Help the hamsters of justice defeat the evil forces of form letter spewing PR hacks. Stop by command central to pick up your orders and get a look at the other units in the field.

In other blogwar news, Michele of A Small Victory (a friend of Munuviana for many an age) is raising forces to do battle against Dastardly Dean the Munu Hater. Battle will be joined on Monday. The goal - raising the most support for Spirit of America.

Let Michele know that she has the support of the hamsters of Munu. And maybe a cow puppy or two. I did.

MT ain't the only sheriff in town, it seems (but Blogger ain't never been the deputy)

Wow, Electric Venom abandoned MT for Word Press. Some of the feature of Word Press:

• Instant publishing with no rebuilding
• Full standards compliance
• Integrated blogrolling features
• Password-protected posts
• Dead simple upgrades and installation
• Dozens of styles and templates
• Multiple authors
• Multiple categories
• Sub-categories
• Semantic elegance
• Uses PHP and MySQL

So Pixy, how is Minx coming along? Are we gonna be able to kick Word Press butt?

Thingys & Doodads - I

Thingys & Doodads, aka javascripts and MT coding, are things that can make your blog more reader friendly.

One of the doodads I like to employ on my site is to list the blogs that link to a particular post under my posted by line. I figger that if they link to my site, the least I can do is to make sure my reader can see who linked what from where without having to open the trackback window. Think about it for a second... how many times do you click through the trackback window to see who linked to a post... none???

Here is a sample of what the code produces:

In the extended entry, I have listed the code and given instructions as to where to insert it into your template. If you have any trouble installing it, let me know and I'll help you out.

This code will list your trackback pings under your by-line:

<MTPings>
<br>
<b>»</b>
<b><$MTPingBlogName$></b> links with: <a href="<$MTPingURL$>"><$MTPingTitle$></a>
</MTPings>

Instructions:

Insert this code in your Body section, after the code for your “Posted By…” line, above the </div> tag. This will give the code the same formatting as the posted by line.

If you want to give it different formatting, put it below the </div> tag, in it's own div class. Then give that div class formatting in your stylesheet under it's own class name.

The memo that no one read

OK, just a quick question? Did any of you read that memo? No, not the memo for the President about the security updates prior to the attack on 9/11 that came out the other day and everyone is blogging about. I am talking about the memo that was supposed to be sent to all of you to tell you to set a cheese plate out for your visitors. I ran through a lot of the munu blogs today, and did not see a cheese plate set out in a single one. Pay attention, you all, otherwise, I might not be as careful as I have been about where I have been leaving all those mouse droppings. OK, you can go back to whatever you were doing now. But don't forget to put out that cheese!

Mac User Help?

There's been a small amount of back-and-forth at my site about how my blog's CSS renders on Internet Explorer for the Mac. I use IE6 on a Windows box, but try to preview any style changes in both Opera and Firefox, too. A day or two ago, Little Miss Attila noted: "Thought you'd want to know that the boxes on your sidebar are migrating a little to the left on my display (Mac/IE) and are obscuring some of the text in your entries."

After I changed the CSS to use floating divs with set margins, Madfish Willie suggested that I use aboslutely-positioned divs.

Hmm. Strange, because that's exactly how I laid out the blog in the first place (to avoid compatibility issues like this!) Here's the original code:

#content{

  position: absolute;

  top: 105px;

  left: 5px;

  background:#FFF;

  border:2px solid #000;

  width:70%;

  }

#links{

  position: absolute;

  top:105px;

  right:5px;

  background-color#b0c4de;

  padding:15px;

  width:25%;			

  }

As you can see, except for the variable width (for which I left a 5% margin of error), I nailed down all of the other margins.

I hope Attila Girl (or another Mac IE user) can let me know whether my new code works. And if there are any CSS users, I would welcome input on what was wrong with the original code. Thanks!

I Zigged When I Should Have Zagged

Well, this is a new one on me. Suddenly, when I open my comments, they also open in the main blog. I more than likely in all the diddling about screwed something up possibly did something erroneous.
Question is, can anyone tell me what that something is? I don't really like it to do that.
Thanks. :)

MuNuby Help - Colors

Thse are some questions we ask when starting on a design for our site. I have compiled some links to answer these questions and presented them by groups in the extended entry.

Design gurus will tell you that content is king and design presentation should not detract from the actual content of your post. I am not presenting this information to discuss the theories of content and presentation. I am presenting it as a set of tools for you to use and decide for yourself how you want to present your content to your corner of the the world.

I tend to favor a more bold approach to using color in my designs, whereas other designers prefer a more subtle approach. I've tried to give you enough information and reference sources so you would be able to make your own decisions and present your content how you want it to look for your readers. After all... it's your site... do what YOU want to do.

Color codes...
W3Schools: CSS Colors

What are they...
There are 4 ways to specify color codes in your HTML and CSS stylesheets:

Where do I find them...
Visibone Webmaster's Color Lab
Visibone Webmaster's Color Card
Madarin Design: Web Color Swatches
ColorMatch 5K
Web Color Reference: Named Colors
Web Color Reference: Proprietary Color Names

How do I use them....
Dmitry's Design Lab: The World of Color
Communicate With Color
Color Matters - Design Art: Color Theory

What about fonts...
Visibone Webdesigner's Font Card

A really neat color code converter...
Southern Twilight RGB to Hex and Hex to RBG Converter

MuNuby Help - Trickle Posting

For all the MuNubies... and some not so MuNubies...

Welcome to the wonderful world of trickle posting.

You ask inquiringly, What is this trickle posting, Madfish?

Simply put, trickle posting is composing a post today, saving it in draft mode, and having it automatically post to your site at another date and time. Trickle posting is a neat way to give yourself a mini-vacation from blogging, while still providing insightful and searing commentary to your multitude of readers.

You exclaim excitedly, Cool, How do I do this... this trickle posting?

Did I mention that you must have Category Archiving enabled to be able to use trickle posting? D'oh! First, enable your Category Archiving. [SAVE] Add new category... Name your new category deferred. [SAVE]

NextFirst, you must compose your soon to be recognized masterpiece. Assign your post a primary category. [SAVE] your post in Post Status: Draft. Assign as many secondary categories as you little bloggy heart desires. One of the secondary categories must be the newly created deferred. Change the Authored On date field to reflect the date and time you wish your post to autmatically appear on your site. [SAVE] your post again in Post Status: Draft. Forget about blogosphere and Go Play!

That's all you have to do... Piece of pie!!

Next, it's trickle's turn to play. The trickle plugin will check the blogs for posts in draft post status that have a deferred category assigned. Per our Great and Wise and Illustrious Leader, Mr Pixy Misa, trickle will check the blogs "every hour, but the blogs are checked one minute apart (so that it doesn't suddenly try to process eleven deferred posts all at once)". Then, just like Magic!, your post appears as readers flock to your site to read the latest from the greatest.

So, you think to yourself, This Madfish is a great guy! Thanks for telling us how to do this trickle posting thingy, Madfish.

Don't mention it.

Madfish Willie's Cyber Saloon Chatroom

I was just poking around in cPanel and installed the code for a chat room over at my site...

It's at the bottom of my sidebar for now. While it's not as pretty as AOL's AIM or MS Messenger interface, it gets the job done. I've found that messenging is very useful when doing blog design... instant discussion and feedback from client side, which facilitates experimenting with different settings and speeds up the process... much better than e-mail messaging.

If anyone wants to come check it out tonight, to see what it looks like and how it works, I'll be around... I'm in Texas so whatever that means as far as day/night/whatever time zone you're in.

Just Wanted to Thank You All

Everyone has been so supportive; it's been terrific learning MT with y'all's help, and I'm thrilled beyond belief to have a grown-up blog now--with comments, title fields, and all the fixins.

You all know how to make a girl feel at home.

The Cool Kids Table

I'd first like to thank everyone for the invitation. I was out Easter-ing with the family today, so I haven't had the chance to start converting. I can almost gurantee there will be some starts and stops: I'm a techno-neophyte. Munuvania sure seems the place to be... or blog depending on your semantics.

One question though: where did the name come from?

The little Munuvian mouse

I spent the better part of the day scurrying about the different neighborhoods here in Munuvia and the place has grown immensely in just a few short days. I only got about half the way through the address list. I had a great time and found a lot of good stuff, but not a shred of cheese. I apologize to some of you for the mouse droppings I might have left in the comments.

MuNu Pull Down Menu

Now updated for automatic updates.

Copy this into the Between <head> and </head>

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
<!--
function which(form)
{
var order=form.jump.selectedIndex
if (form.jump.options[order].value != 0)
{
location=form.jump.options[order].value;
}
}
//-->
</SCRIPT>

Copy this after the <body> tag where you want the menu to appear

<form name=form1>
<select name=jump onchange=which(this.form)>
<option value=0 selected>THE LIST</option>

<?php include "http://blogroll.mu.nu/pulldownd.i"; ?>

</select>
</form>

NOTE: This will give you the list in the date added format. If you want the alphabetical list use pulldown.i

Yay Indeed!

Thank you so much, Pixy, for letting me join the fun!

And the CPanel Fantastico is pretty fantastico...I installed the Coppermine photo gallery (http://www.shoes.mu.nu/gallery/index.php) with no trouble at all. I did upload a picture of myself, to show that I don't really look like the oyster on my blog...not much, anyway.

And thank all of you for the warm welcomes!

MuNuby Help - Part IV

Here is an excellent link I ran across that does what I was trying to do, only much, much better. If you are having questions after trying to wade through the stuff I did, this might help clear the muddied water.

It's a page at Media Tinker that gives diagrams and explainations of MT templates and CSS stylesheet presentation control.

Good Luck!

I finally got a piece of the pie

Thanks to Madfish Willie and Pam and Pixy :)

Thanks so much for all the help.

FYIFYF

For Your Information Fear Your Future is now open and blogging has started.

Just thought I should announce that somewhere so that people will actually know. And if you don't know, FYF is group blog authored by people ages 15-18ish. And it doesn't really have a theme, its just the random musings of *counts on fingers* 5... no wait, 6... no wait, I lied, 7 (if you count the moderator) people. Hope you'll stop by and leave some comments. If not about the actually subject being discussed you should leave a comment congratulating me on the template (I slaved on that thing). *Grins*

Okay, I'm done being a link/hit-whore. He he.

Munuvia is growing bigger and bigger

Wow, with some many great bloggers immigrating, it takes all day just to go through the munu roll. Any chance we can get it to post in updated form, etc. like the blogroll form. Heck, I know Pixy has a plateful of stuff to do and over which to keep watch. The work around seems to be coming to munuviana and checking the postings here.

Is it me?

I cannot figure this out. I has happened a few times before and I still have no idea why it happens and how to fix it. I cannot get my pages to refresh. I have deleted all the temp files, have restored the system back a few days before, have changed the setting in Internet Options so as to make it check the page against the server every time and still, it is not working. Don't you just hate Windows? So, if anyone finds my site to be fragged, I am sorry about that.

Yay Jim!

From today's Best of the Web:

Zero Tolerance Watch
We started covering "zero tolerance" madness three years ago, but we really ought to pass the torch to Jim Peacock, whose ZeroInteligence.net blog has become the best source on the subject.

Thanks to all

Just wanted to stop by and thank everyone for their help. I've been twiddling with MT off and on all day, making a somewhat successful attempt to modify the layout to what I like. So far, so good. Mostly. I'm certain that there are some minor things that I've overlooked, but it'll work out. Also, I've found good info in the comments to posts written by other recent MuNu immigrants. So thanks to Pixy Misa for all the work in setting up my new palatial blog, and thanks to everyone that's stopped by and posted comments. See y'all around.

Um, Hello?

Hey. I'm up and jogging lightly at my new digs, thanks to Rae and Pixy. I appreciate all the help. I'll be tweaking stuff over the weekend, but at least everything seems functional. Stop by and leave some abuse in the comments!

Nathan

Counters

OK, SiteMeter seems to be having server problems. Does anyone know what is the very best FREE counter service a little mouse might use? Oh, by the way, how does one actually use and access the free munu email accounts?

Blacklist

Not saying this is wrong, mind you, just saying is all.

Though given the number of hits and the short period of time, it looks like either spam or a crapflood... Except that it's from all different IP addresses. So I dunno.

Hello

I just wanted to scurry by here for a moment and thank Pixy Misa for giving me a nice warm munu hole in which to hide. I do hope to be able to meet all of you soon, especially if you have any good cheese.

Mr Mouse - now squeaking from beyond the black hole.

Counters and such

So did we ever get a counter script for use on munu blogs or are we still having to use SiteMeter or some other counters?

I Thought That's What It Was

A bit of tinkering and now I know what the problem is with subdomains.

You see, here at MuNu we not only host a whole bunch of MuNu domains, and MuNu subdomains, and the DNS server for those domains and subdomains, but also the MuNu domain itself, and the DNS for that.

So I can't get away with just setting up everyone's DNS entries; I also need to set up the main MuNu registry.

On the old box which didn't have CPanel I got around this with a single, centralised zone file and a bit of trickery, but CPanel doesn't allow me to make such shortcuts. I'm fixing it now, and by tomorrow everyone will be able to create subdomains to their hearts' delights. Speaking of which, I have Turkish Delight easter eggs. Mmmmmmm....

A quick bit of scriptery saved me from having to manually enter nameserver details for 122 domains. Did you realise that we have 122 domains hosted here? Me neither. Where did they all come from?

Happy! Happy! Happy!

It's Bill Whittle's Birthday. Go and wish him many more and check out the realy cool present he bought for himself.

Rebuild Problem Fixed

Turn off Norton Internet Security! (Or even better, trash it).

I hated to show up in this community sounding like a whiner, but I couldn't get my template or any new posts to rebuild when posting from home. Naturally, I was getting pretty frustrated.

I finally figured out that my software firewall (Norton Internet Security) seems to be interfering with the rebuild process. Turned it off. Voila! Rebuilding is now speedy!

Yay!

Now I can finally start tweaking the template and getting some new material up.

Stoopid Is as Stoopid Does

Thanks to the advice and counsel of Pixie and Jennifer who were both far too polite and kind to name where the stoopidity lies, I copied the SiteMeter scripty thingy into all of the archive template thingies. Now I can see when people visit my site but not necessarily the main page. Can you guess when I made this change?

CSS Style Sheets 'R' not Us Me

How do I make a three Column site? Its for FYF. I would Ideally like to have one side where the various authors can have short bio's and links, and the other side be all the MuNu links and the calender and stuffs. But I can't figure out how to make a third column.

Ellis Island

Hi all.

Things have been a bit busier this week than expected, what with yet more disk drives playing up (at work and at home) and trying to get things finished before I take some time off. New blog creation will resume tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I have created a blog dedicated to nominating, educating, and initiating welcoming new Munuvians. It's called Ellis Island.

April Flowers

April 14* is the first anniversary of the MuNu blogging phenomenon, and we're having a party!

And any party needs guests. So: Bring 'em on! We all know good blogs languishing on Blogspot, or Livejournal, or Blog City, or that "Radio" thingy. We all know that they really want to be here on MuNu, but are too shy to ask.

So, nominate your favourites here. There's no shortage of space here on MuNu - another hundred blogs would be no problem at all.

What sort of blogger are we looking for?

We're looking for bloggers just like us, since the Munuvians are such a coherent group.

Uh...

To join the party, you must meet the following conditions:

Species: You need to be human, or be at least able to converse in English. (Dual-language blogs are welcome, but although I speak 25 computer languages, Ich spreche nur ein bisschen Deutsch and less French and Japanese, so a facility with English is pretty much essential. Rabbits, cats, dogs, fish and so on are welcome as long as they speak a language I understand.)

Sense of Humour: Required. That doesn't mean you have to write a funny blog, just that you know the difference between taking matters seriously and taking yourself seriously.

Politics: Optional. As long as you can distinguish between fact and opinion and paranoid raving, we really don't care where - if anywhere - you lie in Zebriski's Seven-Dimension Polispace™

Technical Skills: Welcome - but not necessary. Every Munuvian is a geek-in-training, and we always welcome more geeks or geeks-to-be.

Subject Matter: Yes.

What you get as a Munuvian:

A Movable Type blog, installed, tested and ready to go

Free hosting

Free email

Free web forum

Free prestige mu.nu domain name**

Access to the Munuviana group blog

24-hour*** tech support by blog or email

The company of the bestest band of bloggers around!

Munuvian Underground 2004 World Domination Tour Tee Shirts will be awarded to the Munuvian with -

Best new blog

Best old blog

Best blog written by Susie

Best blog written by someone under 18

Nomination for best new blog

Nomination for the most new Munuvians

Prettiest blog

Funniest blog

Neatest correct entry

* Or Possibly June 8. Or June 10.
** Offer not available anywhere else.
*** Almost.
**** As soon as I think of something.

Stoopid SiteMeter Question

I have a SiteMeter question and I am willing to accept stoopid as the basic answer even if it is me.

I have gotten a number of recorded visits for which one of my own posts is the referring URL how is this possible?

And another thing, I have gotten comments to the same post without a visitor registering at all. I get pathetically little traffic so I can tell. I tend to attribute this to SiteMeter not working but since it's the same post I can't help but wonder what the F*%# is going on.

UPDATE:This is an old post in Hold the Mayo terms. It is post #6, and in terms of comment volume the 2nd most popular one on the site!

Wee Wee

Okay, folks, here's how it works.

MT is robust and has lots of good features, but it's as slow as a dead dog. For example, on an Athlon XP 2800+, with both the code and the database stored in a ram disk, it takes around 28 seconds of CPU time to add a three-word post to Ambient Irony. I haven't yet had time to profile MT to work out what the hell it's doing with all that time. Part of the problem is MT's insistence on static files and its brute-force approach: Whenever you update a post or add a comment, MT will rebuild not only the individual entry, but also the main index, the archive for whatever categories that post is in, and the archives for that day, week and month, and the archives for the previous day, week and month, and, if they exist, the archives for the following day, week and month.

And MT is slow at just rebuilding a single entry, so when it has to run around rebuilding everything in sight, it's really slow.

Without fixing the code, the only way I can see to cure this is to give it less work to do. One way to do this is to disable any archives you don't use. If you don't use categories, make sure that category archives are turned off.

The next thing you can do is to make the templates simpler. And here's where my little trick comes in.

If you have your blog set up like me, the appearance of the posts in the main index is exactly the same as in the monthly archives and the category archives. You could use a sub-template to keep the common data, but there's an even sneakier thing you can do:

Step 1.

Create a new template. Call it something like "Individual Include Template". Copy the section of your main template that deals with the individual entries into this new template. If you are using the default MT template, the result will be this:

<div class="blogbody">

<a name="<$MTEntryID pad="1"$>"></a>
<h3 class="title"><$MTEntryTitle$></h3>

<$MTEntryBody$>

<MTEntryIfExtended>
<span class="extended"><a href="<$MTEntryPermalink$>#more">Continue reading "<$MTEntryTitle$>"</a></span><br />
</MTEntryIfExtended>

<div class="posted">Posted by <$MTEntryAuthor$> at <a href="<$MTEntryPermalink$>"><$MTEntryDate format="%X"$></a>
<MTEntryIfAllowComments>
| <a href="<$MTCGIPath$><$MTCommentScript$>?entry_id=<$MTEntryID$>" onclick="OpenComments(this.href); return false">Comments (<$MTEntryCommentCount$>)</a>
</MTEntryIfAllowComments>
<MTEntryIfAllowPings>
| <a href="<$MTCGIPath$><$MTTrackbackScript$>?__mode=view&entry_id=<$MTEntryID$>" onclick="OpenTrackback(this.href); return false">TrackBack (<$MTEntryTrackbackCount$>)</a>
</MTEntryIfAllowPings>
</div>

</div>

Save the new template.

Step 2.

Now go into the Archiving page in Weblog Config. Click on the Add New button at the bottom, and create a new Individual Entry archive using the template you just created.

You will need to give the files created by this template a new and unique name. This is what the Archive File Template field is for. You will need to use MT tags here to generate the name. A good, simple name might be

<$MTEntryID>.i

Now, save your archive settings and do a full rebuild of your blog to generate all those little .i files, because in the next step you're going to need them.

Step 3.

Go into your Main Index template and (after making a backup copy), cut out all the code you put into your new "Individual Include Template" and replace it with this:

<?php  include 'archives/<$MTEntryID>.i'; ?>

(Assuming that your archive directory is called "archives", which it probably is.)

Save your changes, but don't rebuild yet. Go into the Preferences page in Weblog Config, and scroll down to where it says File extension for archive files This is probably set to html. You will need to change it to php.

And in the Templates page, select your Main Index template and change the output file to index.php.

Save the changes, and now go and rebuild your main index. If you got it right, it will now rebuild without having to process the details of the individual entries. The entries will instead be read automatically from their individual .i files whenever someone visits your blog.

Repeat step 3 for your daily, weekly, monthly and category archives, whichever ones you may be using, except that for these you will not need to specify the "archives" directory as it will look there automatically.

Step 4. (Optional)

Somewhere near the top of your main index, add the following code:

<?php

$timeparts = explode(' ',microtime());
$starttime = $timeparts[1].substr($timeparts[0],1); ?>

And in a suitable place near the end, add this:

<div class="sidetitle">
Render Time
</div>

<div class="side">
<?php
$timeparts = explode(' ',microtime());
$endtime = $timeparts[1].substr($timeparts[0],1);
echo bcsub($endtime,$starttime,6)?> seconds<br>
</div>

This will show you how long PHP takes to put all the individual entries together to build your page. A fairly typical result for Ambient Irony, which has 25 entries on the main page, is 0.005888 seconds. Which I must say is satisfyingly quick.

Having done all of that, is MT now zoomily fast? Alas, no. It will probably halve the time required to add a post or leave a comment, but it's still dog slow compared to what it should be capable of.

ExpressionEngine is quite a bit faster at processing posts and comments - at least ten times faster - but it's between thirty and a hundred times slower at delivering the pages. That's the main reason I decided not to go down that route.

This is basically how Minx works, except that the Minx template engine is about a hundred times faster than Movable Type's. It's just a pity that it's not finished yet. :(

Update!

I have now disabled the rebuilding of archive and index pages when someone leaves a comment on Ambient Irony. This has reduced the comment processing time down to around 4 seconds. Still slow, but much less slow.

Linking Power

Now that Munu is gathering strength it's time to unite and do some good in the world. There is a push to replace the current anti-semitic top link in the Google search for Jew and replace it with the Wikipedia link to Jew instead (aka Google bombing). Please chip link in and pass it on.

Help?

I'm trying to post at my new blog, but the process seems to freeze in the middle of rebuilding. I've waited several minutes (and I have a high bandwidth connection) but no luck.

I'm trying a post here to see if it's just my blog, or whether it freezes here, too.

Whee

Hi all.

I think I may have figured out a way to dramatically speed up Movable Type. It requires either having the Apache web server (which we do) or PHP (which we also do), but apart from that, it works entirely within MT and doesn't require any external programs. No periodic rebuilds or anything.

Anyway, I'm going to try it tonight on Ambient Irony, and if it works I'll post all the details here. (Actually, I know already that it will work, I just don't know how much faster it will be. We shall see. :))

Another Voice

Hello fellow Munuvians... (that still looks nice when I type it)
So before the new blog smell has even worn off in my little corner of Munu, I'm adding another author... When he'll get around to posting, I don't know, but if you manage to catch a post over at Backstage, from Bob, make him feel welcome as only the Munuvians can...

Help Tracking IP address?

Since I lost my pc I lost my sites that helped me track IP addresses. I need to find out where this one comes from:

66.12.105.132

Can anyone help?

//Helen

Now On To Stage, Um, Three?

The next stage in our tireless quest for World Domination* here at MuNu is - and this is a really brilliant and sneaky idea:

A Mu.Nu website!

Trust me. Oh, you clicked on it? I was right, wasn't I?

Anyway, as well as upgrading the forums and welcoming new blogs and doing a little houskeeping over at Ambient Irony and (where's my list?) oh yes, setting up the MuNu General Store, I will be creating a central MuNu portal site, probably using MX System.

Each day on this portal I'd like to post some of the best of your blog entries. Actually, what I'll probably be doing is posting short excepts with a link back to your blog for people to read the whole article. Once things are up and running, I'll have a link available for you to submit things that you'd like to appear there. Think of it as a sort of everyday Carnival** of the Vanities.

No one is obliged to submit anything, of course. But if you've written something that you think is good, this will be the place to get it some wider attention.

Munuviana will continue as our meeting place; the new site is intended as our collective public site.

One other thing: Once it's up and running and (hopefully) has a few readers, I'll be running ads. Probably Blogads. Only there, and nowhere else; though you are all free to run ads on your individual blogs if you like. (Just try not to turn into The Netflix Marketing Board.) If a reasonable percentage of the overall readers of MuNu come to the main site, those ads will not only cover the cost of the server but free t-shirts for all the Munuvians too! And since the revenue will scale with readership, we'll be able to move to a bigger faster server if it should become necessary. (Right now, we're doing fine, except that MT is always a bit slow. We're now using twice as much bandwidth as at the start of the year, but we still have room to grow fivefold before it starts to become a worry.)

I'll post more details here as things progress. I expect to have it up and running within the next two weeks... Since I have most of the next two weeks off. :)

* Black leather outfits optional.
** Not Bonfire.

Hello...

Hi everybody. Pixy just set up my site, and I'll be joining you now.

I hope that There's One Only! will be able to maintain the low standards it has been setting for weeks.

Humble Servant

I hearby proclaim myself prostrate at the feet of MadfishWillie. Since I cannot thank him enough, I have decided to go public. Thank you for fixing my blog. You are my knight in shining armor. And I am really hoping that this medicine has not made me so loopy that I accidentally type 'prostate'. I am forever indebted.

Wonder Mu Powers Activate!

Form of a serious post!

Shape of an online petition!

Should any other Wonder Mu's be so kind as to link to one or the other of those I'd be terribly grateful. It's about the perceived silence of the conservative muslim community and one way to possibly correct what's causing that perception.

Radio Blog

I think those of you that know me know that I love my music. And nothing is funner than to share your tunage with others (so they can point, laugh and comment on what a freak you are, but I digress).

In another :: coughcough :: blog :: coughcough :: I would provide a weekly (monthly?) song for download. Well, since I'm now a member of a larger bunch of loverly bloggers, I don't want to do anything that might get me canned. . .or caned. . .so I have to ask:

What about this Radio.Blog? Is this kosher? Can we install it?

I want to be a right and proper Mu.Nu Citizen, yanno.

:: who is suddenly embarrassed and will now sit down and shaddup ::

Expression Engine

ExpressionEngine is a new high-end blogging package from the folk who wrote pMachine. It looks like it does most of the things I'm planning for Minx.

I'm going to download the beta and give it a whirl. It's commercial software, but it's priced per-installation rather than per-blog, so one copy would do for all of Mu.Nu.

If it looks good to me I'll ask a couple of you guys to give it a try as well.

Meanwhile, I'm doing some performance tests on MT to see if I can work out why it is so darn slow. 'Cause that's really the only problem I have with it. Some tests I ran last night, importing all of Ambient Irony on my home mail server (a little Celeron box) showed absurd levels of I/O activity. That might be MT, or it mught be related to using Berkeley DB as the storage system. I'm going to try it again this weekend with PostgreSQL.

Apart from that, I have... Seven? Eight? Nine? Ten? More blogs to set up, and I need to dig out my Blog-city -> MT file converter that I wrote long ago.

Next week won't be too busy, and after that I'm off work for ten days, so some concentrated MuNuing is coming up!

MuNuby Help - Template Backup

For all the new MuNuvians, and the old ones too, don't forget to backup your templates before you start editing them.

Here is what I do to protect myself from myself:

Open your Main Index file, select all, copy. On your List Template page, at the very bottom, is a section called Template Modules. Click Create new template module. Paste the Main Index information into the proper place. Name your file something like... OriginalMainIndex! Do the same thing with your Stylesheet.

Now, when you totally destroy your templates, you can just go back in and copy from the Template Modules into your Master Template.

When you are satisfied with your changes, don't forget to backup the new template.

That's what I do anyway... Hope that helps out some.

Whaoh!

I go away for a week, and we have a much larger family.

Welcome new munuvians. BTW, I am upgrading to Panther later today, so wish me luck.

~~~~~
I'm what Willis was talking 'bout

Public Apology

Here here, Pixy. I couldn't agree more. As I am responsible for bringing the trolls to Jen, I feel awful about it. The problem, of course, with supporting any side in any political debate is that there are always weirdos and trolls and irrational people who refuse to have a civilized discussion about something.

I should have predicted what my actions would have done, but I did not. And for that I am terribly sorry. I do not typically read the comments at political sites for the sole reason that they are typically filled with vitriolic words.
As anyone knows, we've always had a special brand of kindredship here at Munuvia and that has always made it a special joy blogging here. Some of the attacks made on Jen were needless and, well, just full of hate that, as you point out Pixy, is not conducive to any proper discourse.

At any rate, I apologize for my role in bringing this sort of thing into our home here. I sincerely hope that it was not what caused this. Jen has been one of my favorite bloggers from a while back - heck, she's the one who brought me here. She is a good friend now and her truly positive and humorous outlook on life will be missed. I understand that personal life must take precendent over blogging and blogging is least fun when it is stressful, but our little (but growing) community here will truly be less without JenLars. Indeed, the entire blogging community is less because of it.

Sigh

When I said

As long as you can distinguish between fact and opinion and paranoid raving, we really don't care where - if anywhere - you lie in Zebriski's Seven-Dimension Polispace™

I'm not a partisan to any particular political grouping, and certainly not to either of the major American political parties, given that I'm (a) a centrist and (b) Australian.

What I do believe in, though, is basing arguments on fact and building them through logic. Because, well, because that works.

Which is not to say that when someone ticks you off, you can't rant a little. Not to say that everyone has to be 100% rational every minute of the day. Not to say that you have to know everything about the subject before you can hold an opinion.

Jennifer is one of the smartest, most level-headed (and craziest) members of our particularly smart, level-headed, and crazy group. The trolls that attacked her recently for not finding amusement in a not-particularly-funny joke were way, way off base.

But launching an attack on the entire political right because of the behaviour those trolls isn't exactly helpful either. (To make it clear, it was not Jen who did this.)

I've never censured, much less censored, any Munuvian for anything they've said (though sometimes I have politely disagreed, and where possible pointed out references to relevant material). And I never want to. I just want people to remember what Daniel Patrick Moynihan said:

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts.

I'll have to dig up that article on the difference between Type C and Type M arguments again.

Maybe I'm just too touchy these days. Maybe I need some chocolate. Yes, that seems likely.

Hmm.

To make it clear, it's not an existing Munuvian who elicited this response. But of of the people suggested so far, those I thought might not fit in were those who had difficulty with this rule. Except one who was just grouchy.

MuNuby Help - Part III

MuNuby Help - Part III is an annotated image showing which div ID and div Class in the Stylesheet control which elements of the Main Index template.

The first image is the main site showing the banner, all or parts of two posts, and a partial sidebar or links column.

The second image shows and annotates the calendar. Also annotated is the output of MT specific tags for monthly archives, category archives, and the site search funtion.

The third image shows and annotates the .syndicate and .powered div classes.

The fourth image shows and annotates a comment pop-up window.

The fifth image show and annotates a trackback pop-up window.

Click on the embedded image for a full-size pop-up image.

First Image:

Second Image:

Third Image:

Fourth Image:

Fifth Image:

Happy Birthday Helen!

Okay, so it's not quite your birthday yet but if I post this tomorrow half of the folks will think it's an April Fools joke. Besides, it's only 7 hours early in England.

Welcome to decade number 3!