by engtech of Internet Duct Tape

As a reader of Lorelle On WordPress you might already know there is more than one type of WordPress blogging software, but most people who know what WordPress is have no idea there are different flavours of it.

1. WordPress
   • also called self-hosted WordPress, or WordPress.org
   • has one blog that you have full control over
   • you have to find somewhere to host it yourself
2. WordPress MU
   • also called WordPress Multi-user, it’s what WordPress.com, edublogs.org, blogsome.com run
   • is a very limited multi-blog platform (more than one person has a blog on it)
   • it’s much easier to sign up for an account, but you have fewer options for customization
3. WordPress.com VIP
   • WordPress blogs hosted on WordPress.com for higher than average hosting fees
   • (Confused yet?)
   • they have the similar customization options to self-hosted WordPress (I think — I’ve never had one )

Creating a plugin for WordPress is usually done with PHP code that gets installed with the blog software. Adding a widget is a matter of inserting some Javascript or an embedded Flash object. I’m one of the very few people who create plugins and widgets that work with WordPress Multi-user blogs and self-hosted WordPress blogs. Creating plugins and widgets that work with WordPress Multi-user sites like WordPress.com is a Hack with a capital H and smart people don’t do it.

This post won’t explain how to do things step by step. My intention is to make people aware of some of the black magic voodoo that is at your disposal if you want to write a custom plugin or widget for WordPress.com. The intended audience is people who already have programming skills, because things can get hairy.

Understanding the Constraints

Creating a plugin or widget for WordPress.com is much different than creating a plugin for self-hosted WordPress because of all of the things that are restricted on WordPress Multi-user blogs.

• Can’t modify blog theme
• Can’t modify PHP code
• Can’t add Javascript code
• Can’t embed other pages using the IFrame tag
• Can’t embed Flash
• Can’t embed CSS styles (need to buy the CSS upgrade)

You’re beginning to see why there aren’t more people writing plugins or widgets for WordPress.com. Any sane person would look at that list of restrictions and realize that all the easy and clean ways of customization are removed. I’m too stubborn to take the easy way out, or else this blog post wouldn’t exist.

Voodoo Trick #1: The RSS Widget and Yahoo Pipes

The only way to put dynamic information into a sidebar widget is using RSS. Building your own application to create an RSS feed can be complicated (plus you’d need your own server — so why are you using WordPress.com?) Thankfully, Yahoo provides a service called Yahoo Pipes that let you merge, mash, filter, and combine other RSS feeds into a new feed. It even has the ability to use XML / JSON responses as inputs so you can use APIs from other sites. The interface is GUI based and it has support for regular expressions.

Here are a few pipes I’ve created that might be of general interest:

• Create a Digest Post
  
• Switch title and description in any RSS feed
• Remove older results from a feed
• Get a list of post titles and links (no description) from a Google Reader shared items feed
• Get your Technorati Rank as an RSS feed with a link to Add to Favorites
  • You will need your Technorati API key
• Filtered Technorati Recent Mentions - shows the blog urls of the recent links to your blog

Here is a complete list of all of my pipes.

This trick can also be used to build a blog maintenance start page on RSS homepage sites like Netvibes.

Voodoo Trick #2: Creating Custom Images

This one only works if you have a webpage where you can host the image files. The image file will dynamically change independently of your WordPress.com blog.

I haven’t tried this myself, but this is how MyBlogLog supports WordPress.com.

Voodoo Trick #3: Firefox and Greasemonkey

Firefox is your best friend if you want to customize web pages on the fly. Greasemonkey is an extension that lets you include any one of thousands of custom scripts people have created for interacting with websites. I’ve written a great guide on how to install a Firefox extension and another guide on why you would want to use Greasemonkey and how to install it. I really recommend reading the Greasemonkey guide — I am quite proud of it.

This is one of the most userfriendly ways to create plugins for WordPress.com because they run in the Firefox web browser. It’s also trivial to create a script that will work with WordPress.com *and* self-hosted WordPress. Knowledge of Javascript, CSS, XPath and Firebug are essential for creating Greasemonkey scripts.

(they are plugins for the user’s web browser, not for the blog server software)

Examples of WordPress.com “plugins” using Greasemonkey:

• Akismet Auntie Spam
• WordPress Comment Ninja
• WordPress Category Resizer
• WordPress.com Stats for Pages
• Random WordPress.com Blogs

A complete list of all of my Greasemonkey scripts

Voodoo Trick #4: XML-RPC

WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress both have an interface for creating blog posts called XML-RPC. As a matter of fact, XML-RPC even works with other blog platforms like MoveableType. Blog editing programs like Windows Live Writer use XML-RPC to interact with your blog.

I have used XML-RPC to do things like turn off comments on all posts older than two months. If you do write XML-RPC based programs, be sure to created a copy of your blog for development since they usually involve editing posts.

• More information on XML-RPC on Wikipedia
• XML-RPC docs for MovableType (best API docs I could find)
• Using Perl to post to a WordPress blog via XML-RPC
• XPL-RPC API for Blogger

Voodoo Trick #5: Webscraping

Now that you know that you can use RSS feeds as a widget, and you can automatically post to your blog using the XML-RPC interface, I hope you begin to see the possibilities. The next technique in your bag of tricks is webscraping. The idea is that you can write a script that retrieves a web page, pulls information out of it, and then puts that information up on your blog using XML-RPC or RSS.

I like to use Perl with WWW::Mechanize for web scraping. I’ve written a few programs using it for interacting with web sites:

• Tag Cloud Generator - build tag clouds or heat maps (this was before there was a tag cloud sidebar widget)
• Technorati Favorite Your Fans - Add everyone who has favorited you on Technorati to your list of favorites

Instead of being a program that runs on the server, these are programs people run on their computers.

Summary

Writing plugins and widgets for WordPress.com can be more trouble than it is worth because you have both hands tied behind your back, you are blindfolded and there’s someone standing in front of your getting ready to trip you. But there are ways to do it with Greasemonkey, RSS and XML-RPC. What I hope you take from this post is that it is possible. Then maybe there will be another crazy sucker out there doing it.

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by engtech of Internet Duct Tape

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.

Technique #1: Search the Spam Folder

• Go to Dashboard >> Comments >> Akismet Spam
• Type your name into the search box
• Click search
• Repeat with your blog url to catch trackbacks

You will have to repeat this every couple of days until Akismet gets it’s head straight.

Technique #2: Moderate Your Own Comments

• Go to Dashboard >> Options >> Discussion
• Add your blog url to the moderation list to catch trackbacks
• Add your name, email address, and IP addresses to catch comments [1]

• Go to Dashboard >> Comments >> Awaiting Moderation to catch your trackbacks

[1] Fun gotcha: Even though it says “when a comment contains any of these words in its content, name, URL, e-mail, or IP, it will be held in the moderation queue” my testing shows that it only scans the content. This means that you’ll always have to use technique #1 to search the spam folder for your own comments and that technique #2 is only useful for catching trackbacks. I’ve submitted a bug report and hopefully this will be fixed.

Official Recommendation

From the comments.

The best and only recommended way to get yourself “out” of Akismet is to mark yourself as not spam and if the problem persists for more than a day contact support here:

http://akismet.com/contact/

Please do not contact Automattic or WordPress.com support, they’re different systems.

I hope this helps anyone who finds themselves in the same situation, and I really understand your pain. This situation of Akismet spamming my own comments has been a reoccurring thorn in my side — especially since Akismet is so prevalent that it prevents me from commenting on other blogs.

Related Posts

• Fighting Comment Spam: WordPress Comments Mass Edit Mode
• Checking WordPress for Comment Spam That Slips By You
• Comment Spammers Never Stop, Even When Your Blog is Down

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by engtech of Internet Duct Tape

Sometimes blogging applications like WordPress and Blogger are too much for what you want — they really are content management systems. Writing long-form content might not be your goal: perhaps you want to communicate with friends, or share links? Blogging has evolved into a culture of long-form articles. Sometimes all you want to do is put something on the web with the least amount of effort as possible. Here are a few sites that will help you do that: Facebook, Tumblr, StumbleUpon and Twitter.

What The?

• Microblogging refers to publishing very short status messages or updates of two to three sentences (etymology).
• Tumblelogging refers to publishing short-form, mixed media posts that can incorporate photos and videos.

Facebook - Microblogging and Tumblelogging

• Sign-up: http://www.facebook.com/r.php?r=102
• Example: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=831360579

Facebook - Pros

• Friends list — see updates from your friends
• Import friends from your email address book
• If your friends use Facebook then blogging on Facebook is the easiest way to write a blog they will read.
• It has one of the best systems I’ve ever seen for sharing photos between friends and identifying people in photos.
• Post messages using notes and tag friends so that they know you want them to read this.
• Shared links and video support. Facebook will automatically import a picture and description for the shared link and configure YouTube videos to play properly.
• Imports RSS feeds — as notes.
• Facebook applications — there are a million and one widgets to add to your Facebook page.
• Excellent private message support that even lets you email people from inside Facebook.
• Post by phone
• Surf by phone — the site is optimized for mobile phones, especially the iPhone

Facebook - Cons

• Walled garden — if your friends aren’t on Facebook then they won’t be able to read your blog, Conversely, it might be the simplest way to get non-bloggy friends to read your blog since they’re more likely to use Facebook than an RSS reader.
• Limited reach — you can’t reach people who aren’t your friend already
• Too many privacy settings confuse the user
• Facebook applications — there are a million and one widgets to add to your Facebook page, and a lot of them suck.
• No custom domain name support — you don’t own your URL

Tumblr - Microblogging and Tumblelogging

• Sign-up: http://www.tumblr.com/register
• Example: http://engtech.tumblr.com

Tumblr - Pros

• Best looking microblog tool — they hired one of the best web designers to design all of their templates and it looks amazing
• Photo / Video support — it understands how to style posts differently for photos, links, videos, quotes and conversations.
• Import RSS feeds — which means you can automatically integrate content from any other sites you use (photos, messages, book reviews, etc)
• Custom domain name support — if you own a domain name then you can map it to the service
• Full theme customization — there is a simple wizard for changing colours on existing themes, but you can get to the nitty gritty and change anything
• Friends list — show updated tumbles from other people who also use the site
• Import friends from your email address book
• Post by email
• Post by phone
• Surf by phone — the site is optimized for mobile phones
• Very simple and elegant.

Tumblr - Cons

• No way to send public or private messages to other users.
• No way to contact other users
• No email address book import of contacts

StumbleUpon - Tumblelogging

• Sign-up: http://www.stumbleupon.com/getstumble.php
• Example: http://ninetimessix.stumbleupon.com

StumbleUpon - Pros

• Truly excellent toolbar that integrates with Firefox or Internet Explorer
• It is very good at discovering new sites you’ll find interesting
• Very simple to share things you have “stumbled upon” with other people
• Potential to reach a huge audience — it is common for sites you share to reach 100s of other people
• Private messages between users
• Photo / Video support — but photos are limited in size
• Friends list — show updated stumbles from other people who also use the site
• Import friends from your email address book

StumbleUpon - Cons

• No mobile phone support (not that it would work well with the concept)
• Limited customization/template options
• No RSS import from other sites you use
• No custom domain name support — you don’t own your URL

Twitter - Microblogging

• Sign-up: http://twitter.com/signup
• Example: http://twitter.com/engtech and http://twitter.com/et

Twitter - Pros

• Friends list — updated messages from other people who also use the site
• Import friends from your email address book
• Private messages between users
• Post by phone
• Surf by phone — the site is optimized for mobile phones
• VERY simple to use
• 3rd party utilities — there are a million and one applications you can use to access Twitter other than the official web site.
• 3rd party import RSS feeds — through TwitterFeed.com

Twitter - Cons

• Short length — only allows for 140 character length messages, about two sentences.
• Design is ugly and inconsistent
• No embedded video or photo support
• Shared links are usually hidden by a URL shortener, and that makes it hard for people to know what you’re linking to ahead of time
• Not very many customization options
• No custom domain name support — you don’t own your URLlore

Jaiku and Pownce are a lot like Twitter but with more features. I won’t go into them in depth about them.

Summary

If blogging looks like too much work, then I’d seriously consider using Facebook or Tumblr as try as a microblogging service. They might satisfy your desire to communicate without adding as much overhead as traditional services like Blogger or WordPress. If you are looking at sharing your ideas and “finds” on the web then StumbleUpon is the best choice because it easily reaches a wider audience than even traditional blogging services. Twitter has its place as a public instant messaging service, but it doesn’t have enough gristle to satisfy in the long term.

What Other People Think

• WisDump compares Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, and Tumblr
• LifeHacker is a huge fan of Tumblr and thinks highly of StumbleUpon
• Web Worker Daily posts 10 things I hate about you, Facebook
• Why the Lucky Stiff recommends tumblelogs over blogs
• Dosh Dosh explains how to use microblogging to build traffic for your blog

Internet Duct Tape on Microblogging and Tumblelogging

• How to configure privacy settings on Facebook
• How to configure the privacy settings on Facebook applications
• How to fix StumbleUpon when you can’t submit new pages
• Exporting your Facebook status updates into Twitter

engtech blogs regularly at Internet Duct Tape. His latest post was Revolutionizing the Web with Firefox and Greasemonkey and The 3 Step Success Plan. Subscribe to Internet Duct Tape by RSS or by email.

by engtech of Internet Duct Tape

I never have trouble finding something to write about. A bigger problem for me is finding something inspiring enough that I’ll make the time to write about it. When my muse is hiding she’s often found:

• In my morning shower
• In my first cup of coffee
• In my morning commute
• Or running through my head before I go to sleep at night

Write It Down

One of the best blogging techniques is to keep a notebook for writing down ideas. I prefer a pen and a notebook over an electronic means because it is more portable. The problem I find with keeping electronic notes is that they lead to more time on the computer, they can get lost, and half the time I get completely sidetracked with something else on that bright shiny Internet instead of writing down my ideas.

To Feed or Not To Feed

RSS is a blogger’s best friend because it lets you easily keep track of reading other blogs, and any blog worth it’s salt has an RSS feed. Unfortunately, it can be almost too easy to subscribe to blogs (depending on your web browser). Reading other blogs can be a great inspiration but they’re also a great distraction. It’s important to realize the difference and accept the fact that it’s a rare day that you get to the bottom of your feed reader.

To Comment or Not to Comment

Commenting on other blogs builds up a relationship between you and the other blogger, but it also can be a huge time sink. I’ve found myself in ruts where I’m not posting, but I’m commenting on other blogs (and sometimes not even taking the time to respond to comments on my own blog!) Like with all things, the secret is to find balance between conflicting goals. Many of those comments can easily turn into posts of their own with a little elbow grease. Use RSS, a bookmarking site like del.icio.us, or a service like co.comment to track the comments you are leaving elsewhere and expand them into posts of their own.

Google as a Muse

One of the simplest indicators that something could make for a great post is if I have trouble finding information about it on the Internet. If the top ten search results in Google don’t provide much info, and there isn’t a Wikipedia article about it, then I know I might have a breakaway hit on my hands like my post on how to synchronize Google Calendar to anything that has a garnered over 100 trackbacks or a list of favorite romantic movies that I wrote with the help of my girlfriend that has managed to stay in the top five search results for “romantic movies” for over six months.

Finding Your Point of View

You have a hidden weapon of mass communication in your blogging arsenal: no one else is living your life and the unique point of view that it gives you. Having multiple interests lets you see something common in an entirely different light. One of my favorite blogs about programming is written by Giles Bowkett. As well as programming he is interested in acting and screenwriting and he has had some great posts like why geeks should study acting, why geeks should study acting: lie detection, geeks need agents, great hackers / great actors, and talking about how having a foot in each of these worlds is one of his strongest assets.

The Yard Sale

One of the side effects from blogging is the great number of ideas that don’t go anywhere. They could be snippets of posts, or small handfuls of links and research. They’re easily lost, quickly forgotten about, and end up cluttering the corners of whatever organization system we use. If this was in your house you’d organize a yard sale or donate to goodwill, and that’s exactly what I’m suggesting you do with these blog snippets that aren’t going anywhere — dust them off and put them out there instead of saving them for a rainy day.

Ship It Now

This is another area where programming and blogging intersect. It’s all well and good to learn new things, polish old skills and fiddle with your blog design — but ultimately the only thing that is going to reach other people, building incoming links and attract new readers is to finish writing your blog post. Finding inspiration is much easier than finding the time to write, so it’s important to not let yourself become distracted from the task at hand. Researching, learning and communicating are the most enjoyable parts of blogging, but you don’t have a blog unless you write that post and hit publish.

engtech blogs regularly at Internet Duct Tape. His latest post was What is your Opportunity Cost? Subscribe to Internet Duct Tape by RSS or by email.

by engtech of Internet Duct Tape

Having a background in computer engineering has been a great boon to me when it comes to blogging. While I might not be the best at writing, web design, or being on top of the breaking news, I have had an edge from being genuinely interested in the technology behind how things work and finding ways to get them to work for me. But it can be very hard to try to explain how technology works to other people. That’s why I’m such a big fan of the “in plain english” series of instructional videos on YouTube by Common Craft.

Please click through to article to see them.

RSS in Plain English

Social Bookmarking in Plain English (del.icio.us)

Social Networks in Plain English

Wikis in Plain English

You can keep track of when new videos are available at commoncraft.com/blog or through their RSS feed.

engtech blogs regularly at Internet Duct Tape. His latest post was Broadcasting your Facebook Status Using RSS. Subscribe to Internet Duct Tape by RSS or by email.

This is a guest post from engtech of Internet Duct Tape.

As a follow up to my post last Thursday, the Sandbox Design competition has completed and all the designs are available for download in one file (7 MB) or can be viewed on the live preview site.

Congratulations to the winners!

1. SandPress
2. Moo Point
3. Prima
4. Essay
5. Tiffany Blue
6. Shades of Gray
7. Diurnal
8. Milkia
9. Oriole
10. MIX

But don’t stop at checking out only those designs. That’s only one fifth of all the designs that were submitted for the competition. As I’ve browsed through the designs I’ve seen so many examples that left me thinking “wow, I didn’t know you could do that with Sandbox!”

Much like CSS Zen Garden, the Sandbox designs are a testament to the power of CSS and how content and design can be separated so that new designs can refresh old archives.

engtech blogs regularly at Internet Duct Tape. His latest post was How do people use Google Reader with Internet Explorer? Subscribe to Internet Duct Tape by RSS or by email.

This is a guest post from engtech of Internet Duct Tape.

The Sandbox WordPress Design Competition has come to a close after two months. It was a resounding success. Live previews of the 46 new Sandbox designs will be available on August 5th, 2007. Over 31 people who participated in the competition. Some designers were introduced to Sandbox for the first time, while I recognized other familiar faces from WordPress.com forum regulars That Girl and Sunburntkamel. I participated in the contest and submitted my two first attempts at designing themes for WordPress.

But Why Sandbox?

Sandbox is different from other WordPress themes. It is a strong, barebones foundation that lets you design the look without worrying about the layout. Sandbox handles displaying and organizing your blog content in a logical manner while a CSS stylesheet hooks into the powerful selectors Sandbox offers and handles all of the exterior decorations. Lorelle on WordPress uses Sandbox with a custom stylesheet, as does my blog, Internet Duct Tape.

Sandbox is ideal for multi-user environments like WordPress.com as it lets users customize their theme without potentially introducing security vulnerabilities through Javascript or embedded objects from other sites. Note: uploading custom stylesheets is a $15 upgrade at WordPress.com,

The Sandbox Community

The most successful part of the Sandbox Design Competition is the community that is emerging around it. There are many talented theme designers who are coming together to learn from each other and put out great designs that are interchangeable with a click of the mouse because they all use Sandbox underneath. The official Sandbox blog has been bumping with information about the contest, but the real gem is the Sandbox forums. Registration is required to post, but it’s the best resource on the net you’ll find for learning about the Sandbox theme. Some highlights:

• Why use Sandbox?
  • Very detailed discussion of the strengths of using Sandbox as the core for your next WordPress theme
• Screenshots of the contest entries
• Technical discussion on design and development tools
  • The one universal tip is to use Firebug for Firefox
• List of Sandbox tutorials
  • Add yours if you’ve written a tutorial about Sandbox
• Sandbox release notes

Meeting the Other Designers

One of the things I’ve enjoyed most about the competition is poking around the websites of the other participants and see what they’ve done with Sandbox. I always find it amazing that so many different looks can be accomplished with the same underlying theme. These are some of my favorite Sandbox designs from the contest participants that inspire me to learn more about CSS design. Listed in no order of preference, and as far as I know these designs were not used as part of the competition.

• Upper Fort Stewart
• ArchGFX
• BAM Inc
• Not That Ugly
• JD Harper
• BoltPress
• Oranges
• Krusty Ruffle Babbles

I’m excited to see what will come out of the Sandbox community in the future. The contest was a resounding success. I’m glad they went with the contest idea instead of my suggestion to do a viral Youtube video called “Sand in a Box.”

It’s for the best, because I do a horrible Justin Timberlake impression.

RSS

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Copyright engtech and originally posted to Lorelle on WordPress.