Contents 1 Blog@Case Info 1.1 What plugins are installed 1.2 Why aren't comments showing up 1.3 Why don't comments appear on older entries 1.4 What protection from weblog spam do I have 1.5 Where are my weblog web server statistics 1.6 What happens to my blog after I graduate 1.7 Why didn't you use WordPress 1.8 Who do I contact about problems, questions, or praise

[edit] Blog@Case Info

[edit] What plugins are installed

1. MT-Blacklist -- URL blocking utility to prevent comment and trackback spam.
2. SpamLookup -- Real time blacklist checker, HTTP header analysis, reverse IP lookup check trackback and comment spam protection mechanism.
3. MTRSSFeed -- Include content from any RSS on your weblog.
4. MT-Gravatar -- Little avatars (picture) that can follow you around as you leave comments.
5. ifempty -- Check return values of MT related tags for lack of a value.
6. MTLJPost -- Crosspost your Blog@Case entries to a LiveJournal weblog.
7. MT-Notifier -- subscribe to a person's weblog, a particular category of a person's weblog, or a specific entry; and receive email notifications when updates occur.
8. MT-Workflow -- simple and easy workflow.
9. Compare -- implements a set of template tags for displaying a portion of a template conditionally, depending on the results of a comparison between values.
10. MT-Enclosures -- automatically include the appropriate syndicated elements for podcasting when posting an entry to your blog that includes audio or video files.
11. MTCategoryOfArchive -- plugin that can be used in a Category Archive template to give you access to the archive’s category tags
12. DateTags -- implements a set of template tags related to calendar dates.
13. Regex Plugin -- This plugin allows you to define search and replace parameters for elements you produce from Movable Type templates.
14. Key Values Plugin -- This plugin allows you to associate other bits of data with your entries which can be extracted conveniently in your templates.
15. Filter Categories -- Implements a pair of template tags that allow you to filter a listing of categories by specifying the categories either to include in or to exclude from the listing.
16. Exclude Categories -- creates a new container tag called MTEntriesExCat, which behaves exactly as MTEntries does, except that it reverses the functionality of the category attribute, excluding posts that fall under the listed categories.

[edit] Why aren't comments showing up

99% of the time, this is a browser caching problem. If you have just submitted a comment on an entry and the comment did not display after you hit "submit," try hitting the "F5" key or holding down the "Ctrl" key while pressing "F5." This will force the browser to not cache the page. Your comment will most likely appear after the page refreshes.

In most other cases, it is because the entry being commented upon is old and comments default to being moderated on older entries see below for more information. In other cases, it may be because the comment had questionable content and was flagged as being possibly spam. Or, it may be that your weblog is configured to set all comments as moderated.

To approve the comment, log into the system, select the weblog that was commented upon, click on the "Comments" button in the navigational menu on the right. At that point, you should see a list of all of your comments; approve and/or delete them accordingly.

[edit] Why don't comments appear on older entries

This is a mechanism to prevent spam. Spammers will, often, target old blog entries and fill them with comments. To prevent this, old entries that have not been commented on in over two days have comments set to moderate. To approve the comment, merely log in to your blog and approve the comment. All it takes is one approved comment and additional comments will go through with no problems until the entry goes inactive again for another two days.

[edit] What protection from weblog spam do I have

SpamLookup, MT-Moderate, and MT-Blacklist. Ummm... this probably needs a bit better explaining...

[edit] Where are my weblog web server statistics

If you have a top-level personal blog i.e. your blog's URL is just one path off of the root of the web site like http://blog.case.edu/jms18 or http://blog.case.edu/mxs24, your web server stats are located at http://blog.case.edu/stats/jms18 (<-- substitute your blog path in).

If your blog is a group blog or an organizational blog i.e. it is deeper into the directory hierarchy like http://blog.case.edu/orgs/ksl/reference or http://blog.case.edu/colleges/ArtSci, the URL to your statistics is slightly more complicated. In the example of the KSL Reference weblog, take the URL http://blog.case.edu/orgs/ksl/reference and excerpt out the path component leaving you with orgs/ksl/reference. Take those forward slashes and convert them to dots -- orgs.ksl.reference. Append .blog.case.edu to the string giving you orgs.ksl.reference.blog.case.edu. Now, append that string to the following URL:

 http://blog.case.edu/stats/awstats.pl?config=orgs.ksl.reference.blog.case.edu

If you have any trouble, email the Blog Administrators; and they can assist you.

Additionally, you can access the raw server logs for your website via WebDAV (see How do I access my blog via WebDAV for information on accessing your WebDAV-enabled blog root). They should be located in the /stats directory underneath your blog root. For example, the statistics for the blog http://blog.case.edu/jms18 are located at http://blog.case.edu/jms18/stats (note, you will probably have to use WebDAV enabled client and not a browser to access most blog's log files).

[edit] What happens to my blog after I graduate

Nothing. Alumni have access to the blog system, and as an alum, your blog will stay right where it is.

[edit] Why didn't you use WordPress

A question often asked about the Case Blog System is why Movable Type was chosen over other highly qualified blogging engines. Many times, that question is put into the context of why wasn't the popular open source blogging engine WordPress used.

The answer was that we wanted the blogging engine to serve "baked" not "fried" pages. There were architectural reasons for this, but in addition to those, a good reason was security. WordPress pages are served via the popular and useful scripting language PHP. That means that every user on the system has the ability to execute code on the server. (And some of our students here at Case love to be able to execute code.) Even in a chroot'ed and locked down Apache environment, a particulary focused student could write an extremely processor-intensive bit of PHP, embed it in their weblog, and make requests for that page again and again and again effectively performing a Denial-of-Service attack disenfranchising all of the other users of the system and making the administrators of the system wake up at un-Godly hours of the night to fix it.

[edit] Who do I contact about problems, questions, or praise

Send us an email! We welcome all feedback, questions, comments, and concerns. Case Blog Administrators

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This page was last modified 10:24, October 18, 2007 by Robert Kinsey.
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