update 2005.10.24

As you can see, there is a slight improvement in the readability of the blog now - this is a temporary solution until I can build a new skin or set-of-skins that I like.

More to read now, too - over a year's worth of archive imported now, only 12 months left to import. It's slow going, but I'm getting there. Hey, you never know! I might even throw in a real entry soon!

Some control over spam

The new MT-Blacklist Plugin has been installed and tested.

Initial testing worked well. Successfully blocked a comment containing an undesirable URL. Thank you, Jay. Thank you very much.

alt.rec.comment.spammers.die.die.die

I have no idea of that newsgroup really exists. If not, it should. SquidBlog just received a flurry of 6 new comment spams. Complete with URLs to sites that, if the link text in the spam was accurate, provide viewing of content that is illegal in most civilized countries, and many uncivilized countries as well. I won't be more specific because I have no wish to attract hits from idiots who actively look for such content.

Arcterex has several entries concerning this: a rant, some solutions, and the new MT-Blacklist Plugin.

I removed the offending comments and added the spammers IPs to the Banned IP list. I shall install MT-Blacklist Plugin when I get home after work. These are the IPs currently in my banlist:

209.210.
61.181.5.84
213.206.5.89

Someone in the blogosphere has apparently posted this <expletive deleted>'s home contact information to their blog. I don't believe in doing that. YMMV.

Happy Blogiversary, Bill

Bill over at Bloviating Inanitites is celebrating his first Blogiversary. He wants everyone to link to him and lavish him with praise. And link to him. And tell him he's pretty, and funny, and crude and disgusting and a perverted numbskull and - er.. actually a fun guy.

He had to resort to sweet talk to get Michele of A Small Victory to link to him and say almost nice things about him. He practically begged Rachel Lucas to link to him. Amazingly, they did!

Again, Happy Blogiversary, Bill. Keep up the crappy good work!

General malaise...

I know I'm not the most prolific blogger. Most of the time, I seem to be able to find something to write about at least 3 days a week, but lately, not so much. I don't know what it is, but I just can't seem to write anything. My visits and page views are down, and I've dropped back to Lowly Insect in the Ecosystem.

Part of the problem, I think, is that unlike some of my favorite bloggers, I self-censor. Michele at A Small Victory and Laurence Simon over at Amish Tech Support have no problem in this regard - if it bugs them, they blog about it. If it amuses them, they write about it. If it makes them proud, they rave about it. I can't seem to get past the "I can't say that publicly" bit, sometimes.

My blog is a hodgepodge of stuff - ranging from frivolous memes like Friday Five and This-or-That entries to rants about a variety of things. No politics, though. That brings in readers, but I just can't seem to write about politics.

I was going to try to make this a kind of techie blog, but that never materialized - I've got two entries on scripting: How to skin using Javascript, a tutorial on adding skins to your blog without having to use php, and More is Less, a tutorial on using Javascript to hide and unhide portions of your blog. Two entries. Two entries does not a techie journal make.

Ah, well. I shall keep blogging, and you, my FiveFaithfulFollowers (you know who you are) will keep reading, and maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to "kick it up a notch" (oh, no! I hate that guy! how'd he get into my blog?!?) and make things interesting enough to attract a few more of FaithfulFollowers. And if not? *shrug* Life will go on.

Oh yes, I almost forgot: <beg>put me in your blogroll and Join the Ecosystem, and help me claw my way back up to Slimy Mollusc!</beg>

More is less

Another Script Entry is long overdue. It is time to show you how to hide and show bits of stuff on your blog pages, using only Javascript. You know - "Show comments here", or "more", for an extended entry.

Other bloggers use php to accomplish this, but if you don't have access to php, or if you don't want to learn php, then you can do it with just Javascript. Strictly speaking, if you can use php or some other server-side scripting language, it is probably better, because if you get lots of comments, your index or archive pages can become quite large using the Javascript method, because *all* of your comments for all entries are on the page, you just can't see them unless you open them. With php, you can prevent them from being sent to the browser at all, until you request them.

Much of the code is adapted from php code found at ScriptyGoddess. If you have php, and want to use it, go there for loads of php Scripty Goodness™!

Please note, this is a loooong entry:

First, you need the javascript routine to show and hide. Rightclick and download blogtricks.js and copy it to your server. Please do not connect to the copy on our server, as this will strain our bandwidth, and is a serious breach of etiquette. In your header block, insert this line:

<script src="http://yourserver/path/blogtricks.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

To show extended entries in your blog, replace your <MTEntryIfExtended></MTEntryIfExtended> pair with:

<MTEntryIfExtended>
<span class="extended">
<span id="click<MTEntryID>"><a href="#jsenabled=no"
onclick="showMoreAnything(<MTEntryID>,'#?jsenabled=no');return false;">
<b>more...</b><!-- replace this with whatever text you want -->
</a><br /></span>
<div id="hide<MTEntryID>" style="display: none" >
<$MTEntryMore$><!-- this is the actual extended entry -->
<a href="#" onclick="showMoreAnything(<MTEntryID>,0);return false;">
<b>less...</b><!-- replace this with whatever text you want -->
</a><br />
</div>
<br />
</span>
</MTEntryIfExtended>

The <MTEntryIfExtended> tag is important. If you don't put this around this code, then you'll have "more" and "less" controls even on entries that do not have extended entries.

If you don't use Movable Type, simply replace the Movable Type tags with the appropriate tags for your content management system.

To show your comments on the page, the code is as follows:

<MTEntryIfAllowComments>
| <a href="<$MTCGIPath$>mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=<$MTEntryID$>" onclick="OpenComments(this.href); return false">Comments (<$MTEntryCommentCount$>)</a><br />
<MTEntryIfComments>

<span id="click<MTEntryID>.1"><a href="#jsenabled=no" onclick="showMoreAnything(<MTEntryID>.1,'#?jsenabled=no');return false;">

<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
// this prevents a link for opening, if there are no comments
if (<$MTEntryCommentCount$> > 0) {
document.write("<b>Show comments here...</b>"); //replace with appropriate text for you
}
//-->
</script>

</a><br />
</span>

<div id="hide<MTEntryID>.1" style="display: none" >

<!-- ********* start of actual comment display ********* -->
<MTComments>
<div class="comments-body">
<$MTCommentBody$>
<span class="comments-post">Posted by <$MTCommentAuthorLink spam_protect="1"$> at <$MTCommentDate$></span>
</div>
</MTComments>
<!-- ********* end of actual comment display ********* -->

<a href="#" onclick="showMoreAnything(<MTEntryID>.1,0);return false;">

<b>Hide comments...</b> <!-- replace with appropriate text -->

</a><br />
</div>
<br>

</MTEntryIfComments>
</MTEntryIfAllowComments>

You can do the same for any block of text you want to be able to hide and show:

<span id="clickArchives">
<div class="sidetitle">
Archives <a href="#jsenabled=no" onclick="showMoreAnything('Archives','#?jsenabled=no');return false;"><b>(show)</b></a></div>
</span>
<div id="hideArchives" style="display: none" >
<div class="sidetitle">
Archives <a href="#" onclick="showMoreAnything('Archives',0);return false;"><b>(hide)</b></a>
</div>
<div class="side">
<MTArchiveList archive_type="Monthly">
<a href="<$MTArchiveLink$>"><$MTArchiveTitle$></a><br />
</MTArchiveList>
</div>
</div>

This is a slight variation on the previous examples, in that it puts the both "(show)" and "(hide)" controls at the top of the section. Simply replace the word "Archives" everywhere with a unique word that identifies that block of text. I have used this basic technique for showing and hiding archives, categories, and recent entries, in the column at right.

NOTE: whenever you play around, save your old code before embarking on significant change. You can always put back your old (working) code if you need to.

As always, please let me know if this is helpful, and if you have problems, feel free to ask, either in comments or by emailing me at squiddy AT programmer DOT net.

And please, ping my trackback, or leave a comment if you use this!

Have fun!

Molluscs a-slimin'

It just occurred to me today that 10 years ago this week, my life as a student officially came to an end. I wrote my final final exam in the last week of August, 1993. Sure, I've taken a few employer-sponsored courses since then, but that's not the same as being a Poor Starving Student™.

So, what have I been doing since then? Let me take stock:

1 beautiful, funny, smart, talented wife (met 1996, married 1998)
1 wonderful, smart, mischievous son (born 2000).
1 adorable cat (born 1995, adopted 1997).
2 cars - current vehicle acquired in 1994.
2 provinces.
4 cities.
8 moves.
12 jobs (note to self: no more startups!).
120 months.
520 weeks.
3652 days.
10000+ meals (no, I don't always eat 3 meals every day).
87600 hours.
5256000 minutes.
315360000 seconds.

Update: Darren has taken stock, too...

Welcome back to the Ecosystem

It would appear that N.Z.Bear over at Truth Laid Bear has fixed his scripts, and hopefully his hosting company will now allow them to run. So why don't you head over to the Ecosystem, and help SquidBlog reach the lofty heights of Slimy Molluscs, from our current Lowly Insects. All you have to do is join the Ecosystem, then make sure you have a link to me!

And hey! Maybe I'll link back to you, so it's mutual! :)

The Blogosphere Ecosystem

I added SquidBlog to N.Z.Bear's Blogosphere Ecosystem yesterday. Yesterday SquidBlog was an Insignificant Microbe, with a rank of 3617. Today, SquidBlog has jumped up the evolutionary ladder, to become a Crunchy Crustacean with a rank of 2657!

So... in a blatant attempt at self-promotion - join the Ecosystem, and link to my stuff. SquidBlog must evolve. Doesn't have to go all the way up - I'd be happy if SquidBlog makes it all the way up to Slimy Molluscs, as befits a cephalopod mollusc.

Upgradia

There. Successful upgrade to MT 2.64. No problems. None at all. Well, other than the loss of "clickable smilies" on my wife's blog. Oops. That's ok, she'll fix it.

So, apparently, our blogs are now more secure...

Misteraitch and the Giornale Nuovo

Tonight I discovered this outstanding online journal: Giornale Nuovo. Very impressive. You'll notice it in my Blogroll, on the right side of the page...

There, that's better...

A redesign that looks similar, but is better laid out, I think...

And looks almost exactly the same in Opera, Mozilla, Netscape 7, and IE5+

Of course, it looks like crap in Netscape 4.7, but there comes a time when you just have to let go...

Oooo, and look! A pretty picture, too!

Now, it's personal!

SquidBlog Lives!!

Yes, as amazing as this may seem, the SquidBlog is here!

Why would you care? I don't know... but... you do.

Test the Additional Entry portion...