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Blogger Support
Public Group active 3 months, 2 weeks agoA group dedicated to helping Kootenay Network bloggers and site editors learn more about their blogs and sites, connect with other bloggers and site administrators and get help managing and promoting the blog or site.
If you have not found an answer to your question after consulting this forum, feel free to drop us a line.
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nicole bigg joined the group
Blogger Support 3 months, 2 weeks ago · View -
Rachel Castor joined the group
Blogger Support 4 months, 2 weeks ago · View -
Joel Russ posted an update in the group
Blogger Support: 5 months, 1 week ago · ViewSeems like the ”Groups” function has been dropped, since the site make-over. If I look on My Account, I see the groups I joined maybe eight months or a year ago. But they do not seem to have had any activity in months. Plus, there is no main menu item for groups, and that would seem to leave new bloggers unaware that groups have existed.
Due to the fact that I know a few people at Seed, I do have some idea who I might contact (by message or email) if I’ve got a tech question. But I don’t know what I’d do if I were a new blogger. The ”Blogger Support” group, for one, was a great idea, but…
Hi Joel.
We dropped the groups function for now but will bring them back in the community sites as the demand arises.
I send out a personal message to all new bloggers, telling them about blog.inthekoots.com, a resource blog I maintain. Obviously more established bloggers such as yourself aren’t getting those messages.
Thanks for drawing my attention to that.
Chris
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Becky Litz joined the group
Blogger Support 5 months, 4 weeks ago · View -
Sarah MacCrimmon joined the group
Blogger Support 8 months ago · View -
Robyn joined the group
Blogger Support 8 months ago · View -
Dan Woynillowicz joined the group
Blogger Support 8 months ago · View -
Diana van Eyk posted an update in the group
Blogger Support: 9 months, 1 week ago · ViewI can’t seem to upload a youtube video into my latest post: http://redefiningbeauty.inthekoots.com/2011/08/14/take-a-chance/. I thought I had all the steps down…could it have something to do with having moved to Google Chrome as my browser? Thanks, and please someone let me know what step I might be missing.
Sent you and email. I found the server glitchy this morning and I use Chrome with no issues. It took my 5 attempts to login this morning and I received internal server errors.
Hi Diana.
Has this issue been resolved for you?
Cheers,
Chris
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Ingrid Baetzel joined the group
Blogger Support 10 months ago · View -
Glyn joined the group
Blogger Support 10 months, 1 week ago · View -
Deborah Burnett joined the group
Blogger Support 11 months, 4 weeks ago · View -
Riley joined the group
Blogger Support 1 year ago · View -
Paul Hoepfner-Homme joined the group
Blogger Support 1 year, 2 months ago · View -
Jim Ross posted an update in the group
Blogger Support: 1 year, 3 months ago · ViewCheck out Rik’s blog post on how mobile devices and phones will transform commerce and the internet.
http://rik.inthekoots.com/your-mobile-phone-will-transform-commerce/
At inthekoots, we have a plugin that can make your blog mobile compatible. It completely changes the user experience and makes your blog easily viewable on mobile devices, whatever they may be.
I have enabled it on one of my blogs and will create a video describing how you can do this too when I enable it on my second blog.
If you are skeptical of Rik’s prediction, keep in mind that there are many applications and hardware freely or cheaply available that provide your phone or mobile device the ability to accept debt and credit cards for payment. I can scan bar-codes on mine and get product information. This pace will only accelerate and what used to be the domain of big business will become more accessible to small business everywhere and particularly, in the Koots.
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Amber Hayes posted an update in the group
Blogger Support: 1 year, 3 months ago · ViewFor those bloggers / web developers out there – just want to make you aware of the WebDev showdown by Tech Village. Create a website in 24 hours for a NPO / Charity / start up. Not only good for the community but development teams could win $1000 top prize.
Also recommend signing up for the tech directory.
Pass it on to web developers and NPOs in your neighborhood.
Register by Feb 25th – event runs March 11-12th
For more information and to register goto http://techvillage.com/
Look forward to your feedback! -
Gabor posted an update in the group
Blogger Support: 1 year, 3 months ago · Viewjust set up a blog on hempcrete…… is there a new process of approval?…… check my site out; it has links to tech data on hempcrete and a little description on my site. goranhomes.ca. I would really like to share it via blogging!! cheers
Looks live now: http://hempbuilding.inthekoots.com/
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Jim Ross posted an update in the group
Blogger Support: 1 year, 3 months ago · ViewA BIG shout out to Paul, our Lead Developer here at inthekoots, for digging in the corner and finding the relatively simple solution to my, and several other’s, spam issues. Thanks for making the effort, Paul. I nominate you for team captain.
Following Paul’s suggestions, I created a video about two methods he suggested to stop spam dead in its tracks. His advice has saved me a lot of time and if spam issues are a concern for you, I encourage you to watch it.
You can watch it at the link below. Check out the akismet.com spam counter at the right of the post to see how many times I did not have to hit spam in my comment queue.
http://kootenaycomputersupport.inthekoots.com/2011/02/08/kill-spam-on-your-inthekoots-blog/
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Diana van Eyk posted an update in the group
Blogger Support: 1 year, 3 months ago · ViewThanks for the reminder, Paul. Only PDFs can be uploaded using the same technique as you would for uploading an image into your blog. It won’t work for word documents.
If you run into Word/PDF formating issues again, Diana, I use a program called CutePDF which allows you to turn anything into a PDF. It is a virutal printer which means you select print, choose the CutePDF printer and select a location to save the PDF file to. It is free and easy. http://www.cutepdf.com/
It would be handy to upload in a format that is editable, like Word or whatever. Perhaps documents that could be edited in a window similar to how we edit our posts?
Thanks, Jim. That sounds really useful.
Thanks for the tip, Jim, but just to clarify I think that software only applies to Windows folks. Diana happens to use a Mac, and Mac OS X has built-in support for printing to PDFs. Diana, in case you’re not already aware of that, after you click ”Print” (using any program – OpenOffice, MS Office, even your web browser), there’s always a button in the lower-left corner of that window labelled ”PDF”. When you click it, the rest should be straightforward.
Ah yes, the Mac crew. I forgot. Either way, PDFing your documents is easy to do and means you won’t have compatibility issues when end users try and open them regardless of the program they were created with originally.
I agree! Hopefully, sooner or later, most people will realize that their MS Word document with custom fonts is probably NOT going to show up properly on my computer, and that they really ought to send me a PDF instead.
Hi, Paul and Jim.
I forgot to reply earlier, but yes, I realize that about PDFs and know how to make them, but it’s nice to have this info on this site for future reference.It’s nice to know so many Mac users. I had a few PC users I was working with upset with me, my Mac and our eccentricities at one point.
Fortunately, Diana, the Windows and Mac worlds are converging. iPads and iPhones will only accelerate this. The interfaces look more similar with each new operating system and they are even starting to use some of the same hardware. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. I just got an iPhone after years of Blackberry’s and I love it. I want to get a Mac Mini Server to play with next. I want to try and replace my Windows server with it, just for fun. Its a geek thing and they use way less power which is always good. Less dams, less coal burning, less rack space, less air conditioning, etc.
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Diana van Eyk posted an update in the group
Blogger Support: 1 year, 3 months ago · ViewWill someone tell me how to attach a document to a post? I’ve been walked through this before, and keep forgetting, so if we have it on the record, I (and everyone else) can just refer back. Can we upload word documents or do they have to be turned into PDFs (which I know how to do through the print key. Thanks.
This is something I’ve still never tried doing myself, but after looking over our previous e-mails about this I saw that I suggested trying to upload a PDF in the same way as you’d upload an image file. You replied to me and said it had worked for you.
You could try this also with Word documents, but I suspect it may be special to PDFs. See what you discover and let us know!
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Joel Russ posted an update in the group
Blogger Support: 1 year, 3 months ago · ViewSpam recognition issues: When I see a comment on one of my posts that mentions ’get more people to your blog’ (or ’your web site’ or whatever), or some scheme for making quick money, or that mentions xxx or porn, or that kind of blatant cue – no problem, I can instantly make the decision to trash it as spam. Also, when I read ’a comment’ that mentions nothing of the content of the post where the comment has been made, I generally assume it’s not really a comment but some sort of digital-bot spam sent out to blogs in general – sent out en masse. In that case, as well, I usually can safely trash 80% of these.
Okay, I’m getting sh*t ’comments’at about five or six-fold the rate of real comments. I’m willing to accept that fact, because maybe nothing more can be done to screen-out spam than what our KootNet technicians are already doing.
But I’m wondering what finer-level cues others here are using to discern real versus phony comments to your blog posts (?)
Let’s consider situations when: a) there is no specific hook to the content of your posts, b) the rather general comment SEEMS like it might apply, and c) in addition, the poster’s name and URL do not suggest a slime-bucket identity… What, then, would constitute reasonable criteria for deciding to trash or approve?
Interested in your thoughts & habits around this issue.
Hi Joel,
You’re doing better than me. I am only finding the odd legitimate comment and deleted 100 spam comments yesterday. I have not posted a lot in the last 6 weeks so sorting out the crap has been easy.
For me the big clue is whether I recognize that person. If it is not an obvious spam, i go to the users profile and check them out. Another clue for me are the small avatars that appear at the top left of the post. Any comments on old posts are also suspect.
Like everyone else, the level of spam I am getting has risen dramatically. I know that Wordpress has many plugins available to help filter and fight spam. I am uncertain what inthekoots admins are using for this purpose. Perhaps Rik could enlighten us on this.
It is worth mentioning that when you find spam, mark it as spam. Don’t delete it as most anit-spam measures will learn to sort spam, in part, by the items you mark as spam. Also, spam is the scourge of the internet and spammers spend a lot of time trying to get around anti-spam measures. As a server administrator, I often see spam levels of 80-90%. It is a cat and mouse game and no solution will be perfect or last in perpetuity.
It is a maddening issue as nobody wants to spam a legitimate poster but taking the time to make a good decision can be very time consuming when you have 50 spam comments in your queue.
Jim
Jim, you wrote: ”You’re doing better than me. I am only finding the odd legitimate comment and deleted 100 spam comments yesterday.”
I’d said that I was getting about five or six junk ”comments” for every one legitimate one… I must have tied into a jinx with that observation! After your comment, the ratio has probably gone up to about 12:1. What gives?? LOL
Thanks, Jim.
Yeah, I’m getting a LOT more spam now – forget the old 6:1 ratio! I’m assuming ourtechnicians are on the ball with this… I guess there’s no way to techno-screen ”commenter” names like qkztrixustz ?
Another thing: on my browser at least, the activity notices with my subscribed Groups (telling you when the group last had some activity) are not accurate. They’re not updating properly.
I suppose this is a different issue from a Blog – and I realize Blogs is the area you signed up to assist with, Jim. But maybe you could pass this on to Rik or someone.
Hey Joel,
After some discussion with other inthekoots staff it occurred to me that your blog doesn’t have any spam screening enabled on it. There are two things you can do in your blog’s administration area to screen spam:
1. If you don’t mind limiting your commenters to members of inthekoots (rather than the public at large), then you can enable the option ”Users must be registered and logged in to comment” under Settings > Discussion in your blog’s administration area. This will really cut down on the spam. However, it also makes it harder for the general public to post feedback. If that’s a concern for you then you should definitely consider the alternative screening method…
2. Enable the ”Akismet” plugin on your blog. Akismet is a system for filtering out comment spam. For some reason I had assumed that all blogs had this enabled by default, but I learned that this isn’t necessarily the case, as your blog, Mountain-Toes Gardening, does not have it enabled. After enabling it you need to supply it with an API Key, which you can get by signing up to the service on http://akismet.com/
Hope this helps! I’d be happy to hear if this helps cut down your spam.
Regards,
Paul
Lead Developer
inthekoots.comAnd by the way – regarding Akismet. I found it to be a little hard to figure out how to sign up for the service without having to pay. You just have to say you’re setting it up on your personal blog, and then adjust the ”Yearly contribution” slider down to $0. They say that service is better if you bring the slider up, but I’m sure a free subscription will be quite sufficient for your purposes.
Cool. Thanks for that. I opted for the Akismet plugin and so far I have not received any spam. I’ll produce a short video on installing and configuring it. Cheers.
Wow, that’s going all the way! Thanks Jim!
Thanks for the help, Paul (also to Julia and the others you may have consulted with).
Rather than ”trash” the spam comments, mark them instead as ”spam”. this helps the system detect the spammers and block them from further comment.
Thanks, Julia. Yeah, Jim clued me on that… so I stopped trashing and started marking the comments as ”spam” – I think I’ve trashed about 100 since then.
Good advice.
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