Blog Struggles: Surviving the When Blogging Goes Bad Blues

It’s been a hell of a day. I’m sure you’ve had them. When every other word out of your mouth should have started with F or S but didn’t because you “grinned and bared it” for the grace of others. Okay, let’s be honest, you didn’t grin, you bit the bullet. We all have these […]

Weekly Digest: End of Year Rush, Lorraine is Bad, Awards, and Kicking Blogging But – As Usual

I had last week’s Weekly Digest of “Lorelle World” ready to go, but life stepped in with a lot of snow and too many distractions. My apologies. So this week, you get three-for-one. I decided to have a little fun these past few weeks with the types of articles I published here and on the […]

When Akismet Goes Bad: What to do when Akismet starts spamming your own comments

The reason why I created Akismet Auntie Spam helper script was because I seem to have a problem few other people do — every couple of months Akismet decides that my own comments and trackbacks are spam. This is unforgivable and a fatal usability flaw in Akismet’s design. Comments and trackbacks from the blog admin should skip the spam check process. I challenge anyone who argues differently to have to deal with always having to double check if their own comments are marked as spam. The delay between posting a comment and it appearing in Akismet almost always assures that you will miss one or there will be an inordinate delay in responding to your commenters.

But enough of the ranting about my problems with Akismet. Here are two things you can do to help when Akismet is marking your own comments as spam.

Bad-Behavior Continues to Give the Finger to Comment Spammers

The brilliant brain behind Bad Behavior, the comment spam fighter that “gives the finger to comment spammers” before they gain access to your blog, is Michael Hampton. Before I get more to bragging on my buddy, Michael, I’d like to announce that the latest update to Bad Behavior, version 2.09, has been released and version […]

Stop Content Theft Buttons and Badges

During the recent Bitacle Battle of Blogs, the Stopbitacle.org was started and Stop Bitacle buttons showed up on blogs all over the web. Unfortunately, stopping bitacle, a splog that scrapes your blog’s feed content without permission, is just the top of the splog ice berg. To scrape the whole ice berg of content theft, I’ve […]

Creating a “Bad Code Day” Error Message for Your Blog

I am a fan of fun 404 Page Error pages. I also like entertaining messages for readers when blogs or websites take a “bad day off”. I’ve created such a page for my main site to put up when things go bork in the code to let people know what is happening. It also acts […]

Nadgouda’s IFace – WordPress: The Goods and The Bads

Abhijit Nadgouda @ iface’s article, “WordPress: The Goods and The Bads”, is a well written and clear look at the good, bad, and the ugly of WordPress. A lot has been written about the niceties of WordPress and its capabilities; its tweaks and extending its limits. Particularly Lorelle On WordPress site and the post websites […]

Buttons, Bows and Badges for Your Blog

I used to have a sidebar overloaded with a ton of buttons, badges, icons, and bows, linking to feeds, feed readers, site submission services, links, social networking services, translations, and other goodies. Want some buttons and bows, and a few icons and badges associated with blogging and online social social networking? I’ve uncovered a wide […]

Bad Behavior – Latest Update

I’m a huge fan of IOERROR’s Bad Behavior, a WordPress Plugin that literally “gives the finger” to comment spammers and site abusers. There is a new update out at Bad Behavior 1.2.3 with the download site located on Download Bad Behavior WordPress Plugin. Just unzip the file and copy the entire folder into your wp-content/plugins […]

Bad Behavior – Updated New Release

If you are a fan of the wonderful comment spam plugin Bad Behavior, the WordPress Plugin with “gives the finger to spammers and bots not on good behavior”, then get excited because ioerror has released a new version! As a paranoid website administrator, I am constantly on the alert for comment spam, and I’m a […]

Blog Exercises: What Are You Missing?

Frogs redefine my thoughts about amphibians annually. As a child, spring was for tadpoles and summers were for frogs in the swamps, ponds, and ditches around my country ranch in the Pacific Northwest. Moving to Oregon’s Coastal Mountain range west of Portland, my winters are spent driving up the foothills like a crazy person, avoiding […]

Blog Exercises: Dissecting Post Categories

In a recent article, Noah Weiss shared his struggle to figure out categories and tags on his personal site. I know many of you following these Blog Exercises have also struggled to figure out your categories, so I thought Noah’s site would be a perfect example, He has gratefully given me permission to rip his […]

WordPress Anniversary: Comment Spam Lessons

It’s hard to believe that I’ve learned much from comment spammers over the years. I’ve learned that they are among the most hated folks in the world, yet you have to respect them as well. As I look back on ten years of blogging with WordPress on this 10th Anniversary year, I realized that comment […]

Blog Exercises: Own Your Site and Protect Yourself

I hear it every day. A webmaster, developer, or designer does the site owner wrong and the site owner is victimized, helpless, and frustrated with what to do next. I’ve gotten calls in the middle of the night from people around the world trying to get help recovering their WordPress password because their “web guy” […]

Blog Exercises: Stand Up For Freedom of Speech

There are 400,000 words in the English language, and there are seven you can’t say on television. What a ratio that is! 399,993 to 7. They must really be baaaad. They must be OUTRAGEOUS to be separated from a group that large. “All of you words over here, you seven…baaaad words.” That’s what they told […]