Platform angst

I'm seriously thinking of switching to WordPress.org so that I can bring my various Web sites under one roof — Media Nation, "Little People" and DanKennedy.net.

Pros:

• WordPress has nicer templates than Blogger, so I should easily be able to come up with a better look than I've got now.
• I'll be able to use my own domain name.
• I can set up static pages so that each of my different online projects will be in one spot.

Cons:

• I'll have to pay $6 to $10 a month for Web hosting. Not bad, but free is free. (I can't use the free WordPress.com service because it forbids advertising.)
• I can use dankennedy.net or media-nation.org as my main domain name, but the one I really want — medianation.org — is already taken.
  
• I'll need to put in some time getting up to speed technologically, and I really could put that time to better use.

So I don't know. If you were me, what would you do?

Opening the spam door a crack

The spambots usually attack at night. Since I'm going to be on the road, I'll remove moderation for the day and see what happens.

Attack of the comment spam

I have turned on comment moderation, as Media Nation was hit with comment spam overnight. Unfortunately, I'm going to be offline a good part of the day. Will try to approve comments later, as well as take down the spam.

Tracing Blogger links

Recently I turned on the Blogger feature "Links to this post." You can see it at the bottom, right next to comments.

It would be a whole lot more useful, though, if I could somehow be notified every time something pops up there. Any thoughts?

Template quirk

A reader pointed out an odd quirk with the new design — if you narrow the window too much, the right-hand column slides off and disappears to the bottom. My correspondent said the problem appeared to be with Firefox for Windows 2.0.0.16, and he didn't mention the window width. But I've been able to reproduce the problem with the Mac version of Firefox and Safari.

Ideally, the window would hold steady as you narrow it, as it does with the site I recently put together for our church using WordPress.com. If you narrow the window there, you'll see that the page holds steady.

I don't know what to do about this; it must be inherent in the template, and not amenable to a quick CSS tweak. All the more reason to think that, someday, Media Nation will move to WordPress.com.

It's been an interesting day — Blogger's been more up than down, and both my Gmail and Northeastern e-mail accounts have been acting up. So there you have it.

Fixed. Again, thanks to Steve. By the time we're done, he ought to be able to sell a modified version of this template.

Better and better

Media National Steve figured out how I could make the type size in the sidebars smaller than what's in the center well. I've asked him about another possible tweak or two.

Calling all code warriors

Now that I've got a template I like, I was wondering if anyone out there in Media Nation could help me with a small tweak. I would like to change the template so that content in the center well doesn't actually touch the line separating it from the right-hand column. I want a margin of a few pixels on the right, matching the margin on the left. (You can really see what I mean in my second Dylan post.)

The template I'm using is called Sand Dollar, and you'll find it here.

Sunday morning update: Problem solved. Thanks, Steve. And thanks to Jess as well.

Much better

I think I've found a redesign I can live with. Hope you like it. And yes, I've restored links, this time in the left-hand column.

Redesign hits a snag

For the moment, at least, I've decided to revert to the old design. The problem is that Blogger provides very few templates, and they're all two-column.

The three-column template I tried last night was of uncertain provenance, and there were some things that just didn't work properly. In addition, Mrs. Media Nation informed me that though it allowed me to try some new ideas, it was pretty much unreadable. I knew she was right, but tried to tell myself otherwise.

So I tried a different three-column template tonight, and it was pretty clear that I'd chosen something with even more problems.

I'm sick of this design, but it's relatively easy on the eyes. So, for now at least, it stays.

If WordPress.com didn't ban advertising, I'd switch. It has many more options and, in general, is a more robust blogging platform than Blogger. It even works as a pretty decent content-management system. Check out the site I put together for our church.

Links will return

I've gotten a couple of inquiries, so I want to make it clear that I'm going to unveil a new blogroll as soon as I'm able. I want to try Blogger's "live links" feature, but it's going to take a little time.

Tweak, tweak

I changed the typeface from Arial to Verdana, which is a little wider, and replaced the impenetrable NewsTrust widget with a feed instead — more cryptic, but at least you can read it.

Piece of cake

I can't believe how easy it was to switch to a new template. I think it's a huge improvement, and I haven't even added a photo to the header, which I plan to do soon. I'm going to hold off on the HaloScan comments — let's just see how it goes for a while.

What do you think of the NewsTrust widget on the left? I think it's a neat idea, but I'm curious to see whether it slows down loading to an unacceptable degree.

Warning: Bumps ahead

I'm going to spend the evening changing the template for Media Nation. Unfortunately, I have to do it live. We may be down for a while, and I presume it will take a miracle for this to work as quickly as I'd like. But if it proves to be unexpectedly simple, I might switch to HaloScan comments while I'm at it.

Comment trouble?

I received an e-mail a little while ago telling me that some of the comments to this post had disappeared. My correspondent wondered whether it was deliberate. It was not. Among the comments that are now gone was one I wrote to frequent Media Nation commenter O-Fish-L. Not sure what's going on.

Perhaps the time has come to chuck the whole thing and turn comments over to HaloScan.

Cracking down on hit-and-run attacks

Well, I've done it. I just changed the settings of Media Nation so that you now have to register in order to leave a comment. What pushed me to flip the switch were some of the truly ugly comments made about Robert Novak's brain tumor, as well as the news that Universal Hub's Adam Gaffin is going to require registration. A terrific "On the Media" story about commenting on news sites was a goad as well.

The last time I considered this, I was talked out of it by a few smart people who explained the downside of registering with Google, Blogger's corporate owner. (I've given my life to Google, but that's my choice.) But those days are now long gone. In addition to Google/Blogger, you've got five options: OpenID, WordPress, LiveJournal, TypePad and AIM. With all those choices, registration should be a burden to no one.

Nor have I eliminated anonymity. I don't mind pseudonyms. I think someone who adopts a consistent persona, like Mike B1, can be as valuable a contributor as someone who uses his or her real name. It's the totally anonymous hit-and-run attacks I'm trying to eliminate.

There's something in it for you, too. I've also changed the settings so that as long as you are commenting on a post less than two weeks old, it will go up immediately, without my having to moderate it first. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't. We'll see how it goes.

More: I'm not going to be around much today. But if you run into any problems posting comments, send me an e-mail at da {dot} kennedy {at} neu {dot} edu.

Spyware versus spyware

Hmmm ... within the last 20 minutes, I started getting a message that my Mac has either a virus or a spyware problem whenever I try to access a Blogspot blog. The message, from Google (which owns Blogspot), begins:

We're sorry ... but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now.

It happens with both Firefox and Safari, but I have no problem accessing non-Blogspot sites. I could install a spyware-wiping program, but this review says wiping out all my private data, including cookies, should accomplish the same thing. Which I just did. No go.

Interestingly enough, I can't even view Media Nation, although I can get into Blogger in order to post, edit and moderate comments.

Thoughts?

11:25 a.m. update: Shhh! I just switched to a neighbor's WiFi connection, and everything works fine. I'll try rebooting our network later today.

1:15 p.m. update: Seems to be OK now, without rebooting.

On the plus side

The Weekly Dig's Web site loads a lot faster than it used to.

You know, guys, there's this thing called Blogger. It's free, and you can set it up in about two minutes. You could use it to get some of your content online while you continue with the endless redesign. What do you think?

Adam Gaffin points out that it's not July anymore. But what I want to know is this: Isn't it kind of pushing things to run a vodka ad, complete with audio, on an "under construction" page?

Blogger labels versus Technorati tags

Are Blogger labels good for anything? I'm thinking of just dumping them and going with Technorati tags instead. Thoughts?

Google Documents and Blogger

For some time now, I've been looking for a way to post to Media Nation without having to do it from directly within Blogger. Well, I just read in MacWorld that Google Documents has a publish-to-blog feature, so I'm giving that a try.

What are the advantages? First, it's got a roomier, easier-to-work-with window than Blogger. second, it has more features, like strikethrough. It's not ideal; unlike Ecto, I have to be connected to the Internet to use Google Documents. But I could never seem to get the settings right for Ecto.

Sticking with Blogger (or not)

Recently I made a promise: As soon as the semester was over, I'd start looking into switching Media Nation from Blogger to WordPress. Now I'm not so sure.

Being more interested in blogging than fiddling, I naturally signed up with WordPress.com rather than trying to install the full version of WordPress on a server somewhere. I experimented a little — you can see the very minimal results here.

But the documentation seemed practically non-existent, and, in poking around, I found this: "You cannot edit any template directly.... You cannot add or remove any html to any theme. This is for security reasons."

Well, now. So much for making the type a little bigger, switching from justified to ragged-right or, for that matter, adding the code that makes Media Nation part of the Boston Blogs network.

Maybe I'm missing something. Right now, though, my inclination is to try to deal with what I don't like about Blogger — especially the comments system — without switching. If anyone has some hand-holding advice, that would be appreciated as well.