The governor decided to ask all public schools in the state to voluntarily close yesterday and today. Therefore, I had the last two days off--snow days, without the snow, as it were. I took the opportunity to transition my blog to a new server and upgraded my MovableType installation to 3.2. I had been using the free 2.6x version, which had become such a huge target for spam attacks, I was forced to shut off commenting.
Well, with the implementation of the newer version, I have opened up comments again. However, to prevent spam attack, the commenter has to register for a free TypeKey account. Comments have always been welcomed on my blog, I just refuse to advertise for the pharmaceutical, gambling, and sex toy industry. If you haven't set up a free account at TypeKey, it's really easy. I encourage you to do so by clicking here.
A little tidbit for those of you thinking about moving to MT 3.2 who also use ecto, my favorite blogging GUI: a new, little-documented issue you will have to resolve. I've done the legwork for you. In your MT dashboard, under your author settings, you will need to put in an API password. This password has to match the password you use when you set up your ecto blog in ecto accounts. ecto is an API-based application. If you upgrade and don't set them to be the same, you will suddenly no longer be able to connect to your blog's mt.cgi file through ecto.
The migration to MT 3.2 was only problematic because I also changed servers and my blog's file structure. The propagation of the new dns server information created some issues, but all seems to be fine now. (I never knew that one would be able to get to the new dns at times and not at others until propagation was completed. It makes sense to me now; I just never anticipated it.)
I liked the awstats from the previous server, but it was much too slow, and I never exactly understood how the server account was set up on the server. With the new server, which I have been using on a variety of other sites I manage, I have a greater understanding of the server, more bandwidth, have easy access to Jabber, Mambo, Wiki and a variety of other server-based site features I enjoy. I just don't care for the stats provisions as much.
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