Tag Archives: trackbacks

Migration So Far… update 7

It seems to be going very well so far. I think I’ve got everything imported. Feel free to try a test comment (please).

Most entries and categories and dates should be redirecting. Date based pages are not redirecting (need a .htaccess rule or need to rewrite all those pages in MT with a redirect), but that’s okay, you’re only going to find that from a search and if you clock to comment it takes you to the correct page, just a weird interface change.

Categories still need to have hierarchies and descriptions.

All RSS feeds are redirected, so you’ll probably get a full reader by the time you get this post. And as of right now, they’re all redirected to an Atom feed. Does anyone really care/have a preference?

Not thrilled with this blog template but that’s easily changeable later. I’ll break down the steps of the whole migration later for anyone wanting to go from MT to WP.

Any .htaccess people who can help me with a rewrite rule?
I need date formats like /chapters/2008_12.php -> /2008/12/ and the same for /chapters/2008_12_16.php -> /2008/12/16/ . Actually the latter is really the only one that matters since the first was prevented by robots.txt and I don’t think I did any posts linking to a month (maybe a date).

Honestly, I’ve had harder version upgrades with Movable Type, but we’ll see once I start modifying templates for myself.

Disappointments: I wish the categories could have been in the root directory without having to be in another directory (my /topics/ directory). I wish I could have more easily moved the old files in with their old filenames so things didn’t have to be redirected.

I’ve still got to fix “About”, “FAQ”, etc. and I need the date archives to redirect.

Spam filter is working great! I really like the way the tags work, but they need some cleaning up. Ecto really helped me to turn my technorati tags into WP tags.

Fixed the search engine with a smart redirect. Needed that since I do searches in the middle of my posts (I should be tagging but I’ve have 3 years to go back and tag).

Updated the sitemap.xml files too.

These last few things should really help with the search engines reindexing me (I hope!)

Google has already been cruising through indexing pages….

It imported my pings/trackbacks as comments :( But at least they are still linked.

Some drafts became posts. This may have not been an import/export issue, this may have been something I did after the fact when I reposted posts to get my blogging client, Ecto, to convert my Technorati Tags to WordPress tags.

Why Put Your Life on The Internet ?!?

So the idea of putting your life on the internet came up at work today. It was really more about people putting inappropriate things on-line. But the question was asked and I couldn’t come up with a good answer. I had some answers but I didn’t think I could make someone understand if they didn’t get it just a little bit.

I remembered back into the days when Heather was trying to get me to understand blogging and I just didn’t get it. Partially because I always put my life out there so it wasn’t something new, but the (semi)regular posting and using special software to do it I just didn’t understand. Let alone when she tried to explain trackbacks and pings. And if a geek like me didn’t get it, how can I get other people to?

Now here I am 1800+ posts later (and a million spam comments) and I still don’t have a good answer. Continue reading

Spam has been insane lately

In the last 60 days I’ve been averaging about 1,000 spam comments a day, that’s significantly higher than normal. Actually the last few weeks it’s been more like 1,500 a day, the number has just been climbing. Unfortunately, I don’t have a way to check daily stats. A year ago I was only averaging about 300 a day. Hopefully, I haven’t been deleting any real comments….

Update: In the last 23 hours I’ve received/blocked another 4,200 spam comments/trackbacks (and moderated a few hundred)..

Link Love on Valentine’s Day

I’m always disappointed that I used some other web addresses for my blog (GaryLaPointe.com/blog, GaryLaPointe.com/nice, GaryLaPointe.com/mypointe) before I settled on http://GarySaid.com/. The problem is I’ve been linked by all sorts of sites to the old address and it’s impossible to change them*. Many place on your blogs, search engings, listings in Blogrolls, BlogShares, Techortati, etc. You can’t just delete them since they do point towards you but they’re not correct (and some you can’t even delete if you want). I’ve got good redirects so I’m probably okay with links, but it really bothers the obsessive compulsive part of my brain.

One of my biggest sets of incorrect links are on other sites where I’ve left comments or trackbacks** to my old URL, well it wasn’t old then, but it doesn’t link back to here (but most times will redirect you to the correct page). I know some of you have changed your address by switching from Blogger to Typepad to your own website, etc. and the old links just go to a redirect, a note that says you moved or sometimes (the worst) an error page. I also know some of you have deleted them on purpose and started over but maybe you’d like that insightful comment you left here 3 years ago to link to your new site…

Here’s my offer for you: I’ll replace your old comment links on my site with your new site. This will help with people reading the archives and who click on your link so you may get a few new readers since your old dead links will now work (and it’ll probably help with some search engine stats as I get reindexed). Leave me a comment and list some old blog addresses you have posted comments here with (make clear which is the new one) and I’ll see if I can do a search and replace to fix the links. It probably won’t help with any specific page links or trackbacks but at least they’ll point to the correct site (if I see broken ones as such I can redirect to the front page). I’ll fix your blogroll link if I’ve got one too (be sure to point that out). I’ll even fix things like remove/add the WWW if you’ve since settled on one or the other. Continue reading

3 Years of Blog Stats

So as I mentioned a few days ago it’s been 3 years I’ve been blogging. But here and the last few days I’ve been jotting down some odd stats:

  • 1379 posts so far (counting this one).
  • 1.25 posts a day is my average. Although, lately I certainly haven’t been keeping up with that. But usually it’s more like 2 or 3 a day and then I skip a day or two…
  • 1563 comments! I love comments!!! I’m averaging a little more than one per each post (but most posts get none). I should see which ones get the most, I haven’t noticed a pattern/trend but there may be.
  • 101 trackbacks. Actually, I accidentally deleted all the trackbacks a while back (which was 23) so I currently only have 78. This is unfortunate since trackbacks are so incredibly useful (although spammers have pretty much ruined them for everyone). A chunk of those are probably me making trackbacks to my previous posts, but that’s sort of what they’re there for…
  • 8,800 spam messages per month is what I’ve averaged per month lately. That’s almost 300 a day! The last time I reset my spam filter was May 21, 2005 and since then I’ve have 169,500 comment / trackback spams blocked. I still use MT-Blacklist in addition to to SpamLookup (included with Movable Type). More on this at the end of this post.

    These numbers are huge at least to me), I can’t believe I’ve been doing it this long. It’s a joy to blog, but I do always feel that if I let it go for a while it’ll just kinda die. I hate to blog just for the sake of blogging but I do always try to keep it up-to-date with a few details of life (or tech or TV or something) even if I’m not in an extra blogging mode. I’ve got some other points that make the blogging extra geeky/interesting for me but the list started to get too long, so I’ll finish and post that at a later day. I’m starving right now and need to get something to eat!

    Continue reading

  • Too many trackbacks (update)

    So the spam comments and pings/trackbacks have gone cRaZy again, they aren’t getting posted but they get shunted over for approval (in case they are real) so you haven’t seen them but I sure have. I had to make a few changes, I’m not sure if it’ll really help. If you have any problems leaving a comment please let me know via e-mail. The thing is it’s not really spam, it points to other sites (not generally spam sites) like they are just trying to annoy me or wear me down (or poison my filters)…

    You know, I haven’t gotten many “real” comments at all lately so feel free to leave a comment on a recent post.

    LATER: So I’ve changed the MovableType filenames for the CommentScript and TrackbackScript in mt.cfg and it didn’t see to put a dent in it at all. They’re still flooding me with comment spam (yesterday it was trackback spam). Any suggestions on some other file I should change the name of? I’m wondering if they’re routing it through some other procedure or are they just scraping it from my pages…?

    S-x and Drugs

    I’m glad I don’t feel the need to talk about sex or drugs much because I get so much spam (comments/pings/trackbacks) related to it I’ve had to block any words related to such topics and no one would be able to comment on such things. It’s gotten worse lately (the last 4 weeks) and I’m not sure why…

    Two Years Blogging

    So it’s been two years that I’ve been blogging!!! I’m still short three posts from 1,000 but maybe I’ll have something more introspective to post in a few days. I just couldn’t let the day go without a post. Besides, I have a few questions for you…

    Blogging facts from Gary Said…

  • This is really my third permutation of my web site title and my fourth URL, but it’s the only dedicated one so I’m thinking I’ll be sticking to it for good (I hope). I got the distinct address to separate it from (more professional?) non-blogging activities. I’ll probably only switch if I got something better, like gary.com.
  • I get block about 500 comment/trackbacks spam hits a day which is about 15,000 hits a month! Thank you MT-Blacklist and SpamLookUp! Blogging would be no fun without both of these tools (details on these tools below).
  • I’m still averaging about 3 posts every two days. And a few memes that I never got to finishing each week.

    My questions to you:

  • How often do you read my blog?
  • Why don’t you comment more?
  • Where are you from?
  • Have you seen The Daily Meme, my index of memes? (These aren’t my memes, just my index. Just a little self/cross-promotion…)

    Continue reading