I was a little concerned at first: was this a new spidering technique to reach deeper into my archives (a good thing) or an investigation of a (spurious!) complaint, preparatory to a blacklisting (a bad thing)? However, I've realised what it is: Chrome. A feature of Google's new browser is an ability to capture individual sites' search boxes, so a user can now directly search the Ministry from his/her browser's address bar.

I have no particular opinion on that, but I'm glad to have worked out what may be happening.

As that sentence suggests, both resources closed down recently, Blogging Brits due to a change in the way web rings work and Britblogs due to spam. You may wish to remove redundant links from your sites.

*: Besides, web rings were so 1999.

The letter states that such services work by scanning ('intercepting' is an emotive term, but seems apt) and analysing the content of traffic between users and the websites they visit, then classifying users to enable advertising to be targeted on their interests.

A key part of Fipr's argument is that "Phorm must not only seek the consent of web users but also of website operators".

In the case of this website (http://www.ministry-of-information.co.uk/ and subsidiary domains) consent is EXPLICITLY WITHHELD.

There. No excuses.

[Update 07/04/08: Having read Richard Clayton's rather technical review of precisely how Phorm's software will work, it might be helpful to issue a further clarification.

When a monitored visitor, er, visits a site for the first time, Phorm checks the site's robots.txt file. If the site owner blocks spidering by search engines, Phorm will – allegedly – honour the policy. However, "we work on the basis that if a site allows spidering of its contents by search engines, then its material is being openly published" i.e. that the site owner implicitly consents to traffic interception by Phorm.
This is not the case. Permission granted to Google, etc. is not extended to Phorm.

If Phorm want to publicise a User-Agent identifier I could use to define a usage policy independent of my policy for search engines, I'll consider implementing it. In the mean time, my search engine policy should not be considered any indication whatsoever of my policy for Phorm.

Which is, clearly and unequivocably, 'no, you may not track visitors to my website'.]

So far, so ordinary; my result is to the right. However, what you won't see is that the code snippet drawing the image from the provider's server came with a concealed link to a film review site – nothing to do with blog readability, it was a blatent advert, invisible to human viewers but intended to fool search engines. Needless to say, I removed that link. I've left the other link in place in case you want to try the widget yourself, but I've put a 'nofollow' on it, so the provider will get no Google juice.

The Guardian discusses whether it's ethical to conceal adverts in web memes; I won't paraphrase it here, simply saying that I don't accept adverts. At all.

The scheme relies on people cut-and-pasting code without actually looking at it (and let's face it, the stereotypical participant in these 'what shoe type are you?' miniquiz things has entry-level tech literacy) – one of the provider's self-justifications is that the advertising link is entirely visible to site owners and they're free to delete it before publication. Many do, but sufficient don't for the scheme to be worthwhile.

... Unless we spread the word.

Coincidentally, this is also the 2,600th blog entry I've posted, whatever the permalink ID might claim.

Why?

Why does it matter who I am? The content should stand alone.

Why would the site have to be "all about" anything in particular?

Why would I wish to 'talk' to a pushy stranger?

This isn't a public sector or commercial website; I owe nothing to 'customers', and visitors, though welcome, don't get to make demands.

I'm reluctant to tempt fate* by saying 'at worst', but at worst, this could temporarily affect your ability to post comments and my ability to post entries. The site as already published should be unaffected.

*: despite not believing in fate.

2,500 entries in a little over four years is 51 per month, 2.2 per day. I don't want to think about the investment of time, but on the whole, I think it's been healthy.

Incidentally, the Comments count would be 4,416 if one counted deleted sp*m.

I'm particularly startled that 300,000 of those visitors were logged within the last ten months.

*: Why Windows Update shouldn't push ancillary software like IE7 and Desktop Search.

[Update 26/10/07: Whilst not addressing that more fundamental issue, El Reg and other tech blogs/fora are similarly complaining about the virtually forced installation of Windows Desktop Search, especially on corporate networks, especially those specifically configured to opt-out of such unsolicited new software.]

The default one is http://www.ministry-of-information.co.uk/blog/index.rdf, whereas the preferred one is http://feeds.feedburner.com/MinistryOfInformation.
Don't worry; I don't have imminent plans to remove the .rdf one, so you don't have to move. It's just that it'd be helpful if you could.

This issue first arose a full year ago, and I nearly posted this request then, but Neil reminded me that it's possible to merge feeds via Bloglines; that you wouldn't need to take any action, as I could redirect those of you subscribed via Bloglines myself.
However, as I mentioned in a follow-up post, there was a teething problem in claiming ownership of my feeds via Bloglines; it recognised the FeedBurner one, but couldn't see the claim codes embedded in the .rdf feed.

A year on, that still hasn't been resolved, and Bloglines support responses are... somewhat unhelpful ("try the support forum", where the 'Claiming My Blog' thread has 51 requests for assistance (read by 1,709 people) but no solutions), so I think I'll have to give up on that one.

Thanks!

Had the 'expert' even heard of the prevalence of 'rel="nofollow"' amongst bloggers? Comments sp*m, even if it is disguised as the real thing (and better disguised than in this instance), isn't merely annoying, it's pointless.

I'd be impressed, if it wasn't for the StumbleUpon effect: May included two brief spikes of mass-referrals to a single page, which masked 'real' visitor activity elsewhere on the site. On the worst day (by far...), that one page accounted for ~4,000 hits (of 6,846), which means ~2,000 of that day's visitors were sent here by referrer software rather than actually choosing to visit.

I presume that means a sp*mbot is accessing the Movable Type trackback script directly, on the server, rather than going through a publicly-visible interface.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter: if I'm not displaying trackback, I'm not displaying the sp*m, so I'm the only one seeing it (and I'm rather unlikely to click the links!). However, since it isn't tied to specific blog entries, I can't delete it, either.

Anyone else experiencing the same thing?

Following my web host's problems a couple of weeks ago, the system has been relatively quick but unstable, not least as the company has revised some of its procedures to prevent a recurrence.

The first major consequence I noticed, belatedly, was that they'd killed my Contact form: my perl script is no longer compatible with their revised security settings. I'd been thinking of removing it anyway, as its very presence was a sp*mbot magnet, so I'm not too bothered. I just wish I'd been told, rather than having to have spotted there was something wrong for myself after receiving no mail via that source for five days.

There's also been an intermittent problem with ftp this weekend, which somehow prevented Movable Type rebuilds without generating error messages. In effect, by updating an entry this afternoon I corrupted the blog's front page and the March archive. Everything else was intact, but apologies to anyone who couldn't access the 'front door'.
If there's a benefit to the outage, in hunting through the server's directories I discovered that a similar unnoticed problem ten days ago wiped out most of August 2006; I've rebuilt the rebuild, so I hope everything's okay.

And that this entry posts successfully, without deleting the main page....

I don't know why I haven't checked this before, but the current approximate word count is 535,000 in 36,000 paragraphs, which accounts for 1,689 pages of standard 10pt Arial in Word.

That's just the databased content too, omitting the caption pages accompanying a couple of thousand photos, and not counting the other 'departments' of the Ministry.

It is a known problem, related to my host's MySQL provision, and it is being addressed (allegedly...).

If you find that comment submission times out, feel free to refresh whichever page had stalled. That's probably better than going back and resubmitting, but don't worry if you accidentally post twice, as I can go in and delete duplicates as soon as I spot them. Well, if the server lets me....

I can at least confirm that it's slow, not broken outright – posts do get through eventually.

It seems my provider had major server problems from about 10:50 this morning. Apparently "engineers [were] dispatched to the location to deal with the problem, however due to bad weather conditions on site, progress [was] a little slow." Service had been restored to all but three servers (including mine...) by 17:55, and everything seemed to be working when I checked at 20:40.

What aspect of this site gives the impression that I have any contacts in the catering or entertainment industries, and why would a reference from me mean anything, even if I was prepared to promote a total stranger's CD?

I sometimes wonder whether people even glance at this site before hitting 'Send'.

That's divided between 703,888 unique visit(or)s; the 700,000 passed through last Friday (plus 7,320 between late 1999 and 2001). Er, thanks.

Two million in five years isn't bad, but I'd like to point out that the first million was completed on 11 July last year, after 1321 days, so there's been a slight acceleration (520 days). That was to ~328,400 visitors, so you're also reading more pages each.
There have been 500,000 hits and ~200,000 in the last nine months (to the day).

That's for the entire Ministry, of course, including the Jethro Tull sections, but as that band's career and hence web interest has gradually declined, the blog has certainly become the primary focus. I'm a little confused about the numbers indicated by Movable Type: I'm not exactly sure whether I've published 2,000 blog entries since 3 October, 2003 or merely written that many – I currently have 19 unpublished, whether requiring a rewrite (I sometimes get half way through and lose focus, or quickly note an late-night idea requiring elaboration when I'm more cogent), or pre-written 'insurance' for days when I don't have time/energy/inspiration to write anything more immediate. Anyway; the blog currently contains about 2,000 entries.

Okay; self-congratulation over.

On the whole, I welcome comments, but it has to be acknowledged that this is primarily about my own writing; I participate in online discussion groups and offline conversations for dialogue, but the Ministry is mainly a monologue.

I don't expect everyone to agree with everything I say, of course, and nor do I object to the occasional throwaway flippant remark. Comments don't need to be supportive, and don't always have to be deeply meaningful.

However, if it gets to the stage when every single time I log in I can expect to see a mildly hostile comment or, worse, a trivial one, always from the same person, it's just no fun any more. I'm not looking for a co-author, and I don't need a punchline added to each entry. It's inhibiting to feel one has to second-guess future comments, affecting one's phrasing and even choice of potential topics.

Most regular commenters add genuine value, for which I'm very grateful, but I'm just not interested in the opinions and supposed witticisms of a persistent gatecrasher, and I don't offer a venue for someone else's idle thoughts. That's imposing on my hospitality.
Hence, I have no hesitation in banning such individuals (or rather, one particular individual), for the sake of the site and, quite simply, my own continued enjoyment. It's not for being rude or offensive, and certainly not for contradicting me. It's because, whatever your intentions, you're being a nuisance.

In order to claim my feeds at Bloglines, as Neil suggested, I need to place one identifier code in my blog template and another in a blog post. Both are in comment tags, so aren't visible on the page. Bloglines then checks that the latter code appears in my feeds.
Yet it doesn't. If my feeds ignore commented-out content, that's not going to happen. Confused....

[Update 06/08/06: It seems some blogging software/hosts do omit commented-out code. Having checked with Bloglines, I can confirm that it's possible to omit the '<' and '>' characters (the Bloglines verifier ignores them anyway) i.e. '!-- ckey="[number]" --' instead of '<!-- ckey="[number]" -->' This means the confirmation code will be visible in a posting, and hence should appear in one's feeds.

It worked for one of my feeds but not the other (and half a result is no result, if I'm going to merge feeds). Perhaps it needs a bit more time.

It's great that Bloglines offers this facility, but it'd be even better if it simply worked. Several people have said they had problems claiming their feeds at Bloglines, so at least I'm not alone in struggling!]

If your feed aggregator autodetects, I'm hoping the transition will be seamless, but there is a risk that some utilities will lose the connection.
If so, the best solution would probably be to unsubscribe from the existing feed and resubscribe to the new one (please don't forget to complete the latter part!).
Bloglines users: don't do anything (yet). Once I've sorted-out some teething problems, I should be able to transfer you myself, en masse.
Apologies, and thanks!

If you need it, the new address is: http://feeds.feedburner.com/MinistryOfInformation

If you're not already a subscriber, and read the blog at the Ministry itself, feel free to access the feed via the familiar RSS icon in the sidebar.

Oh, and if anyone thinks this is all a bad idea, please let me know!

I'd better stress that this is all wildly, even childishly, idealistic, and though it might colour my opinions of current affairs, it doesn't determine my daily actions. I don't plan to overthrow government today!

I'm not a democrat. That's not remotely referring to the US party political affiliation. More fundamentally than that, I do not believe democracy is an inherently superior ideology to others, such as totalitarianism or anarchy. Collective consent isn't always, automatically best.
I also believe that democratic nations have no right, and certainly no imperative, to evangelise, or more usually impose (how democratic is that?), their ideology on independent sovereign nations. If 'Country A' doesn't like the way 'Country B' is run, tough; mind your own business.

If I had to endorse a democratic system, it would be something like the Swiss model whereby the entire nation votes in referenda on major issues, not the UK system whereby representatives are elected every 4-5 years and subsequently make decisions without further direct consultation of the people.
If I had to accept such a parliamentary democratic system, I'd want elections to be conducted by proportional representation, not the current 'first past the post' system.

However, no-one's really asking my opinion, and I don't believe private individuals can substantially influence the established system anyway, so I just keep my head down and ignore as much as possible!

This can be decoded as:

• I've been blogging for 2.5-3 years.
• I own one domain and keep my blog and any other content I produce on the same site.
• I manage my blog with Greymatter, Movable Type, or other management system running on my own web host.
• I link only to sites I like to read (and sites that I have time to read) on a regular basis.
• I usually check my stats about once a day but I don't keep any records or running tallies. [The software records running totals; I have some awareness of the monthly & annual ones.]
• I don't link to, nor read, any of the standard A-list blogs (Megnut, Kottke, Robot Wisdom, etc.). In fact, I've never heard of 'em. [I've heard of Kottke, but never visited]
• I post at least once a day. I can't remember the last day I haven't blogged. [Except when I'm away from home & work – I take holidays from my computer]
• I blog from either home or work, but only after my work is done and when I get some free time. [Er... the first clause is accurate....]
• I blog some original material with the occasional web link with accompanying personal commentary about the link.
• Some people like to get it on with other bloggers, but for me, the last thing I need is to get sexually involved with one of these neurotic blogging pinheads. [That phrasing's a little harsh!]
• I haven't posted, and don't plan on posting, any photos of myself on my blog.
• I usually check out most of the surveys I run across, but I only blog the results if I find them interesting or favorable.
• Only a few people I know outside of blog circles knows about my blog.

Understandably, quite a few Jethro Tull CDs and DVDs are sold via the Ministry's Tull Tour History, and some non-linked items make some thematic sense (i.e. those I didn't recommend, but would), but an out-of-date Cliff Richard calendar? An Outlook 2003 beginner's manual? A history of shipping on the River Medway? Six copies of it?

[Via Aardvark.]

Thankfully, it's been a long time since anything got past MT-Blacklist, but I frequently receive the usual style of comments sp*m via the blog's search form, or via the main (totally unrelated to Movable Type) 'Contact' form. Obviously neither of those routes will get sp*m published, but the sp*mbots don't seem to 'realise' that.

I've also been wondering whether the apparent decline in sp*m (properly-directed, anyway) is related to the fact I'm still using MT2.661 – are sp*mmers ignoring 'older' blogs nowadays?

Last night, within about 15 minutes, I'd:

My visitor stats have been unusual: consistently, 15-20% of today's traffic has been from web searches on that topic, typically leading here (and almost invariably from UK-based ISPs), but very few people have followed links to directly related pages. It's as if they've been looking for one fact, or to confirm a guess, then have moved on to the next question.

I'm not quite self-obsessed enough to spend $18 + p&p on such a shirt, and certainly not self-obsessed enough to wear one, but I can at least use the ordering software to generate a word cloud for this site (or is it just the index page?).

better, bike, blog, book, books, car, case, cinema, count, cycle, cycling, days, design, different, end, fact, film, form, four, full, good, graphics, hence, high, history, home, hours, house, idea, important, information, interesting, internet, lancaster, least, life, like, little, mail, miles, ministry, minutes, months, morning, mother, mph, music, night, note, nrt, office, one, original, page, pages, palpable, passion, people, person, photos, play, plot, point, porcupine, pretty, problem, queries, rain, random, read, reason, remember, ride, right, road, route, seemed, slightly, spam, story, tech, think, thought, three, time, tour, trading, tree, tull, two, university, url, walking, water, web, whilst, words, work, world, years

Of course, one could use any website, or even drop any chosen text into a web page and point the mapping software at it, so one could make fairly novel uses of the facility. Perhaps a privacy activist could wear a T-shirt featuring a word cloud of the ID Cards Bill, or a fan of Terry Gilliam's 'Brazil' might like to wear a word cloud of the screenplay.

I've received 583 comments since Oct. 2003 (that I've kept; counting sp*m which evaded the blacklist, it's ~3460 comments). In contrast, I've received less than 50 legitimate trackbacks, and in recent months 90% of them were from one person (thanks, Tim!).

Commenting is well-used, and is easily worth the minor chore of blocking or occasionally cleaning-up sp*m; I truly value comments. However, if trackback isn't used, except by spammers, why keep it?

I can see how CC might be seductive to some: "Freedom! Community! Sharing! Love!". However, on a legal level, it means very, very little, and anyway, I don't remotely share those ideals.

Long-term readers of this blog will be aware that my priorities are the rights of the provider, not of the recipient. For example, I object to Google AutoLink and greasemonkey scripts which attempt to modify my content. If I'd intended additional links, I'd have put them in myself: my rights as author extend to what I choose not to say.

In as much as I'm aware of an audience at all, I publish text and graphics/photos for readers and viewers i.e. their (your) role, so far as I'm concerned, is mostly passive, and the relationship is primarily one-way.
Nothing personal, folks, and in my wish to be unambiguous, I suspect the previous sentence might come across as aggressive and overstating my true views. I hope visits to the Ministry are enjoyable, and welcome comments; I merely withhold permission for visitors to redecorate or wander off with the teaspoons!

So; to be absolutely clear:
all material, textual and graphical, published at the Ministry is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. Nothing is placed in the public domain, and I do not offer Creative Commons rights.

As anyone who can see beyond CC-evangelist propaganda will understand, that's far from a blanket ban on usage (fair use, remember?), merely being a clarification that this is my property, and remains such unless I specifically say otherwise, on a case-by-case basis (and I'm actually quite approachable).

Point is, I use the same trick right here, especially in the Tull Tour History.

[Via Lifehacker]

Update 4/1/06: This entry hasn't been sp*mmed, and I'm about to close comments as usual after two mcalendar months, so I suppose that might indicate a success.

By default, search results are by relevance (presumable not based on PageRank), though it's also possible to display results in reverse date order (like a blog, oddly enough).
Searching is by the content of feed extracts, seemingly favouring entry titles (not great for me, as I deliberately avoid especially descriptive titles), but blog names matching the search term appear in a separate block, which amounts to a 'search by title' feature.

A couple of limitations:
The service isn't indexing complete entries by crawling sites, but by reading RSS feeds of sites pinging weblogs.com or similar.
Consequently, entries posted before Google started reading the feeds (in June) aren't included at all.

I wonder whether the introduction of a dedicated blog search will mean blogs are to be removed from the main, overall Google index of all sites. I certainly hope not.

A few of my blog entries have been quoted or linked to by single-issue blogs on, for example, taxation, tricycles, freemasons and cycling resources. Those blogs have no unique content, just links and extracts from 'real' blogs, and the density of repeated keywords (and links to commercial sites – presumably those of their clients) strongly implies some sort of search engine ranking scam. The latter three use identical Blogger templates, were all launched on 26 August, and have odd, slightly randomised urls, so seem to be the products of the same automatic 'trawl-and-republish' software.

That renders Technorati profiles useless if listed linking blogs are fakes like these, and it might muddy the results of major search engines until those companies take action, but my main concern is whether this can have any negative ranking implications for my blog. If those metablogs are downranked or blacklisted, could the fact that they link to the Ministry damage this site too?

More casually, it's mildly interesting that spammers, having failed to place their adverts amongst comments in genuine blogs, have almost reversed the relationship by taking content from the genuine blogs to legitimise advertising blogs.

Not that it particularly affects many visitors, as the front-end, published site is being displayed as promptly as usual. Just expect rather ragged updates (yesterday's were finally published this morning) and an occasional inability to post comments (sorry about that).

It'd be far from ideal, but if you'd particularly like to post, and find the normal procedure unresponsive, please feel free to use the Ministry's main 'Contact' form, which is unaffected by the blog problem, and I'll publish your comment (unless it's offensive or spam!) whenever I can get into the MT admin section.

I'm having to consider my options. I'm very tempted to upgrade this installation of MT2.661 to MT3.1, as I understand the latter handles rebuilds and the mySQL database differently, which could be significant; the current problem is in the interaction between MT and mySQL. However, I know that Neil, already using 3.1, had problems too, and I have very low confidence in the perl/PHP services offered by my web host. There's a high probability that the problem would remain, and worse, the blog might fall over completely.
That's the main disincentive to try anything at all: at least the existing content is currently being displayed as if nothing was wrong.

At the time of writing, my host is running Perl v.5.00503 and DBD::mysql v.2.9003; I don't know about DBI::mysql. Now I know this, I'm rather more worried, as these are far earlier than the versions known to cause problems, which implies the issue is unrelated to the known one.

Unless anyone can suggest anything else, I think I'd better just continue to 'wait and see', rather than risk killing the blog outright.

*: This isn't the reason I've failed to post on two days this week. I've simply been too busy, helping to organise Bowland College's Graduation day on Wednesday and helping A&A move house yesterday.

Probably not coincidentally, Neil is experiencing similar-sounding problems, which have been identified as being an incompatibility between Movable Type and the latest version of a perl module. A replacement version of the module is being distributed, so hopefully my web hosts will install it shortly, and more hopefully that is the problem I'm experiencing rather than some totally different and potentially longer-lasting issue....

In the mean time, if it's any help, I do know that the fault is only intermittent. Most comments should go through okay, but if you find yourself unable to post a comment at, say, 20:00, you might like to try again at 21:00.
In fact, I think the comments are being accepted; they're just not being incorporated into the published pages until I can go in later and perform a manual rebuild.

Firstly, I'm more proactive with blacklisting.
Rather than waiting for spam then adding the enclosed URLs to MT-Blacklist, I've identified common words/phrases and blocked them in advance, using regular expressions. I've been careful to avoid combinations of letters which might be used justifiably (feel free to mention Middlesex), but various topics, particularly involving pornography, gambling and pharmaceuticals are unlikely to arise in genuine contexts here, so they seem safe to bar.
A side-effect has been to reduce the number of individually-blocked URLs by about a third.

A second approach is probably less well-known.
I've noticed that spammers (or their software) tend to target low-numbered entries in MT-based blogs (no. 250 will receive more spam than no. 850). Presumably, more blogs last as far as the 250th entry than reach 850, so automated spam engines are more likely to succeed by guessing comments-form URLs in the lower range.
I've put this to practical use by reserving one low-numbered entry to be kept on permanent 'draft' status, never to be published but with commenting open. This means a robot can hit the comments script directly, but humans and search engines won't see the result. Hence, 80-90% of spam evading the filters appears on that one entry, which is only visible to me. I can then blacklist the advertised sites or incorporate them into regular expressions at my leisure.

Incidentally, I'm using MT 2.661 – users of later versions might still find these ideas useful, if not their direct application.

That's 422 comments that I've permitted to be published, not counting the dozen or so objectionable ones I've deleted, nor the literally thousands of spam comments that (briefly) evaded MT-Blacklist. The most recent retained comment was actually no. 3222.

Understandably, one only gains a benefit if one browses other members' sites (for every two other sites one visits, one person is directed to one's own site). That's fine in principle, but there are far too many evangelical christians and frothing right-wing bigots at BE (I don't want to seem biased: I genuinely feel other religions are less frequently represented (and aren't evangelical) and that there are fewer left-wing extremists in the network). I have no interest in paying them any attention, and don't wish to send them extra traffic.
Apart from those offensive sites, many more are just poorly conceived, designed and/or written; simply not worth visiting.

As I said when I first joined, I don't actually need the contribution to traffic volume, as I'm already doing quite nicely, thanks. As it happens, average daily traffic has doubled since November, though I haven't browsed via BE since February. I joined to discover new, quality sites. I found a few, but they're a minority, which I can just as easily read outside BE.

So far as I can tell, BE's moment has passed anyway. Usage is declining (remember the way banner display ratios dropped as membership increased? That trend reversed a couple of months ago), and promotions are becoming more desperate (yet less enticing). This rat isn't going to wait for the ship to sink.
Actually, that's an overstatement. I'm not unsubscribing, just no longer visiting, nor recommending that others sign up.
It amounts to the same thing, though.

It's this:
Does Rion Vernon really allow people to 'acquire' his wonderful, gothy 'pin-up' cartoons for uncredited use as blog template graphics?

I ask because I see this done rather frequently, and it annoys me, irrespective of whether it's okay with Mr. Vernon. It's particularly insulting when the image is the only noteworthy content on the entire site (not in the case of Acerbia; I mean generally!).

Maybe I'm misunderstanding Mr. Vernon's desired level of control over his artwork, but if it's unauthorised, that's theft, and 'not cool'. Even if it is permitted (and, having done a little quick research, I suspect it might be), it'd be only polite to credit the original artist (and, in the case of that particular licencing scheme, it's required). Besides, this usage of his images is becoming a bit of a cliché.

As I said, I'd prefer Google to develop this themselves, potentially using location metadata provided by sites in the vast Google database rather than only the tiny subset registered with a specific directory like Blogwise. Credit's due to Blogwise for what they have managed, though. Very well done!

Site Search
Primarily available on the overall home page and the main page of the Tour History but not from the blog, this is provided by Google Site Search (not Desktop Search), and indexes the entire Ministry – all pages of all departments.

Blog Search
The blog has its own search facility, an integral part of Movable Type (the underlying publishing software), available on every page of the blog. It's important to note that it searches all MT-published blog entries, but only blog entries. Content in other departments is ignored, as are the blog's image galleries (static pages, published outside MT); it is not a Site Search facility.

To restate: using the blog's internal search facility to find material in other departments will not work – try the main search form instead.

It's good to see GeoURL reactivated, but the problem is that the inherited database is almost as bad as it ever was. Having checked my own area, I see that mine and that of an automated weather station are the only live sites – the rest are long-abandoned blogs. I think this'd be a good opportunity for a clear out, maybe even a fresh start with a blank database.

I wonder if it'd be possible to associate a 'last updated' date with each member site. That would be an interesting feature for users, but could also eliminate dead sites if GeoURL was configured to only display those updated (and which have 'pinged' GeoURL) within the most recent, say, three months i.e. exhibiting a bare minimum of activity.

Beyond the slightly trivial novelty of discovering blogs near one's own, it's a little difficult to find practical uses for GeoURL (not that any are necessary!), but I've just thought of one: if something noteworthy happens in, say, the Bemowo district of Warszawa, Poland, knowing the lat/longitude (easily available on the web), one could find local sites potentially giving eyewitness accounts.

It's no surprise that comments spammers exploit unsecured proxies i.e. redirect attacks via underprotected servers, so their true IP addresses are masked. No surprise, but hopefully a reminder that online security is important beyond just protecting against viruses. As I've said earlier, I'd support the idea of network administrators banning unsecured computers from all internet connectivity. Cars without adequate brakes or exhaust systems (see the pollution analogy?) wouldn't be allowed on the public highway, so why allow computers to jeopardise others?

One of the spammers' tricks is to identify the folder and script names associated with blogging packages, which firstly assists in identifying targets and secondly provides routes to comment 'by the back door' i.e. avoiding the usual user interface to post comments straight to the database. This can be avoided by renaming key files/folders (I've done that to some extent, but I should have done it at installation - some can't change now), which set me thinking.
Would it be technically possible for publishing packages to generate unique names for each installation, at first installation? For example, rather than every single installation of Movable Type calling its comments script 'aardvark.pl', a given installation might call it '5j3e5p.pl'.

Incidentally, MT-Blacklist has stopped 147 spam attempts within the last 75 minutes.

Not as good as The Guardian's system, whereby the URLs of current stories are permalinks, and there's free access to archived articles, but this might help restore the NY Times' reputation as the US 'paper of record'.

[Via Boing Boing]

Unfortunately, the initially-released MT plugin doesn't permit that. I've just tested it: it inserts the 'nofollow' attribute, but as blog owner, I'm unable to go in afterwards and remove the attribute.

Hence, on the basis that I don't regard it as ready for use, I am removing the plugin for now. I approve of the concept, but the implementation needs work.

The main objection to the initiative seems to be that it discourages genuine bloggers who were commenting in order to be crawled or to build PageRank. Good. If anyone really is only commenting here for that reason (and, to be fair, I don't think that's ever been the case), you're unwelcome.
As the eminent ;) Anil Dash says:

The search engines support it, and the software manufacturers have released plugins/patches to make the blogging packages insert 'nofollow' automatically (fellow MT users will find further information and the plugin here). All that's needed now is for individual blog owners to implement the change. This is a measure which could virtually eliminate blog spam - if everyone participates.

That last part is the key, and the failing. It's important to note that this approach won't block the receipt of comments spam, at all. Blogs which don't use other preventative techniques such as MT-Blacklist will still be swamped by spam; it'll just be as useless to the senders as it is annoying to blog owners.
However, many attacks are automated, sending hundreds of messages to each of thousands of blogs. If even a small percentage of spam is exhibited on blogs which don't use 'nofollow', the attack succeeds.

This new measure reduces the effectiveness of mass-mailing attacks, and probably eliminates small-scale, manual campaigns, but it'll only stop comments spam outright if uptake of 'nofollow' is sufficient to leave so few unprotected blogs as to render automated attacks unprofitable. Given the number of abandoned blogs which still have commenting turned on, that's just not going to happen.

Let's not be too pessimistic, though; centrally-administered services such as Typepad and LiveJournal have just rendered all account-holders (including abandoned but still active ones) useless targets for spam, so rational spammers will stop attacking them. Much the same applies to Movable Type blogs which, one would assume, tend to be maintained by technically-literate users who implement essential updates.

Mildly irritated, I've recreated some of the searches, and checked the page in the Google cache, in case that was the cause. It wasn't, but that did reveal that in each instance, Google says that "These terms only appear in links pointing to this page".
I don't really understand, but I interpret that as saying my page doesn't contain the questionable content, but another site either does contain that content and happens to link to my page, or links to my page as an alleged source of the content.
It seems Google (and hence other search engines) has given me a high ranking for certain search terms because of someone else's website. Does that make sense? Should it?

I've renumbered that entry, anyway, so searchers will see this posting instead. If you're one of them: GO AWAY. Incidentally, I have your IP address....

The best metaphor for this approach might be the cover of a mass-market paperback book, which seeks to capture a potential buyer's attention with a compelling image. Unfortunately, there's a better metaphor for blogs: daily newspapers. In this model, the aim is to attract the potential readers' attention by presenting content - current text and perhaps associated images. However pretty the masthead, graphics merely diminish the space available for fresh material.

This is an old concept, and a daily consideration for newspaper designers/editors (especially for large-format broadsheets). A key objective is to get as much important information above the fold i.e. in the top half of the page, where it'll be seen immediately by those walking past the news stand. Anything below the fold won't be seen until the reader has already committed to the purchase.

Exactly the same principle applies to blogs, especially in the crowded 'news stand' of Blog Explosion. People are fundamentally lazy. If there's something good 'above the scroll', they might investigate further, but in the absence of that 'hook', one can't rely on a willingness to scroll for content.
Blog owners also only have thirty seconds to grab a BE visitor before they click on to the next site - don't waste that on loading images. There have been some occasions, particularly when browsing via narrowband at home, when a page's graphics haven't even loaded within thirty seconds.

An attractive layout and masthead obviously matter, but try to retain some balance. 'Content-led' consistently outperforms '(graphic) design-led' and, after all, top-heavy things do tend to fall over.

*: Or rather, a large number of sites, the designs of which are drawn from a depressingly small pool, once one gets past the most superficial aspects.

This is confirmed by the terms of use:

Other criticism, regarding the site's blatent disregard for web standards and unaccountable censorship of 'naughty' words, seem rather less important - the ownership issue should more than enough reason to avoid it.

What have you written that's commentworthy?

So you've signed up with Blogger, chosen one of the default templates, installed an applet telling the world the weather in Spink County, S.Dakota/current phase of the moon, posted a couple of 'What type of bra are you?' quizlets and a photo of your cat/baby/miniature beadwork basque, registered with BlogExplosion, and seen people visit.
That's great. The foregoing sentence might sound mocking, but it isn't, really. I'm sure that sort of blog is interesting to some, and is an excellent base from which to develop. The problem is that there's very little for visitors to comment on. Direct appeals for comments might draw a dozen or so, but they'll rarely be more than "Hi! I arrived via BlogExplosion!" - a bit of human contact, but otherwise, well, utterly meaningless.

The trick is to say something; not to merely repost the same old material as everyone else, but to add something of your own.
What does your blog have that no-one else can reproduce? You. Write about yourself and your interests; your life and topics that matter to you.
It's fine to republish links to other sites of interest - that's what the very name 'web log' implies - but express opinions on the links: why are you linking; what do you think about the linked item; what else can you say on the same subject?
In short, add value; something with which people can engage and discuss.

An unexpected consequence has been that that people have expressed surprise that my own blog isn't directly relevant to the topics I comment on elsewhere. I don't see a contradiction - I have numerous interests, and don't regard it as entirely healthy to be an obsessive expert on only a very narrow range of topics. I also find it relatively easy to take inspiration from small aspects of other people's postings and make brief comments which mightn't warrant development into full entries here.
In the last 24 hours or so, I've dropped into conversations about tap water vs. bottled water, suspenders (the UK definition, not US), favourite words which ought to exist, sexual stereotyping of the under 8s, tact vs. honesty, why people rarely comment on link-only blogs, BlogExplosion itself, and probably a couple of others I don't even remember.

Conversely, if anyone would like me to elaborate on anything I have touched on in earlier entries here, you only need to ask!

[30/11/04: 23....]
[01/12/04: 20....]
[01/12/04: 22...?]
[02/12/04: 23....]
[03/12/04: 25....]
[06/12/04: 28. I presumed click ratios were worsening as BE's membership/traffic increased i.e. the same total number of banner impressions spread thinner, amongst more people. If that's correct, the reversed trend doesn't look good for BE. Are people leaving?]
[28/01/05: 18. I haven't been keeping count recently, but it's been at this level for at least a fortnight.]
[30/05/05: 25. Unhealthy?]

Ostensibly, the scheme increases a blog's audience, introducing it to people who mightn't otherwise see it. That's great, but the only blogs which would gain full benefit are the populist (and almost by definition, American) ones. I certainly don't deny the authors a right to write whatever they want (though I do resent tacitly assisting the 12-15% which disseminate xenophobia, politics or religion, or usually all three), but they're rarely ones I'd choose to read, and I doubt they'd be especially interested by mine.

Yet the ostensible motivation seems secondary to an unstated objective: to merely increase the absolute number of visitors. The quickest means of promoting one's own blog is to click on to the next site after 30 seconds, then the next, then the next, without taking the time to even look at each blog. One could even open BE in a separate tag (or window, for IE users) and browse elsewhere 'for real' at the same time. Fine for those interested in raw hit counts, but I don't see the point. The Ministry as a whole (Tull departments, trading lists and blog combined) receives 525 visitors per day, on average, who view 1,654 pages per day because they want to, not through an artificial obligation. The extra 54 hits received since about 20:00 yesterday - which don't necessary equate to people even looking at the site - somehow feel like empty numbers, not true visits.

Since I set it up last night and allocated a few credits to it, my banner has been shown 111 times. However, there's no particular impetus for someone to click through. I have to confess I haven't clicked on any myself, and only six people followed up those 111 opportunities, a rate of 5.41%.

There has been some true value to the exercise, as I've discovered & bookmarked about five blogs for repeat viewing (outside BE, I mean). However, according to my account stats I've viewed 108 blogs, some very briefly. In summary, I've visited a lot of sites I wouldn't otherwise choose to see, in return for an empty numerical boost I don't really value. I will continue use BE to find new, interesting blogs, but I don't see it becoming an important part of my browsing routine.

• The flood attack occurred some time on 30 Oct; I didn't note the time.
• My visitor logs show an atypical increase in traffic on 2 Nov., so it seems obvious Google had indexed the site and large numbers of people were er, 'researching' a wide variety of sexual fetishes.
• I returned on 3 Nov. and removed all the spam comments by about 14:00.
• From periodic checks of my referrer logs, I'm fairly sure the last erroneous visitor left disappointed by about midday on 5 Nov.

Incidentally, after the clean-up, I received two aggrieved e-mails from people complaining that there were too few (i.e. none) stories about, well, practices distinctly illegal in the UK. It ought to be instantly obvious that the blog does not - and will not - provide such material, so accusations of false advertising (as if I'd posted the comment spam myself!) are treated with the contempt they deserve.
Actually, I have the e-mail and IP addresses of potentially dodgy people now. I wonder what I can do with them....

No, I don't have a problem with sexual fantasies (so long as the extreme ones are never acted upon) or fetishes; everyone has them to some extent, and careful readers might even catch a few vague allusions in this blog, but that's all you're getting. Anyone looking for 'exotic' material (and some search terms were truly bizarre) needn't bother.

At some point, I'll need to upgrade the blog from MT2.661 to MT3.1, adopting the associated improvements to comments management, but I have doubts about whether my extremely basic (but extremely cheap) web host offers the necessary level of cgi/PHP access, and I simply don't have time to struggle with coding at present.

In the mean time, the anniversary is probably a good milestone at which to adopt a new policy: commenting will be turned off for any posting more than two calendar months old. This reduces the absolute number of opportunities for spammers.
Comments on those 'old' entries are still very welcome (so long as they don't include Aviv Geffen lyrics, as one ****wit keeps trying to post); just send them via the Ministry's 'Contact Us' page.

Use MT-Blacklist. That really should go without saying.

Rename 'mt-comments.cgi'. A quick Google search for that filename will identify MT sites, and hence potential spam targets. A customised name won't show up, so spammers won't find your blog so easily.
I suspect this needs to be done when one is first setting up a MT installation, as trying to change the filename in my existing installation didn't seem to work, so whilst in principle I support Elise's recommendation, I haven't applied it myself.

Don't use pop-up comments forms. It's easy for spammers to scan for the associated code, so as with the previous tip, don't use what they're looking for.
By default, when one clicks on the 'Add Comment' (or however it's worded) link of an entry on the main page of a MT blog, or from the Category/Date-based Archive pages, a pop-up comment form is launched.
Instead, redirect those 'Add Comment' links to the inline version of the form, as already used on each Individual Entry Archive page.
This has the extra advantage of removing direct links to the comment scripts from the front page and main category/date-based index pages of your site, somewhat masking them from spammers.

Force commentators to 'Preview' before finally submitting their comments, simply by removing the 'Post' button from the 'Individual Entry Archive' and 'Comment Listing' templates. Apart from improving proofreading, this will add a barrier to automatic spam bots. Humans will be able to check their text and hit the 'Post' button on the 'Comment Preview' page, whereas most bots will be defeated.

See Elise's posting for precise details on applying these modifications, plus other useful tips.

One feature I'd never used is the ability to overlay the locations of schools, restaurants, etc. onto maps as clickable links to websites/directories and hence further information. Richard Rutter, one of the site's developers, has just added a new category to this functionality: weblogs.
Submit a blog's location (as a button or in a blog entry) and it will be added to the database within 24 hours. Richard only announced it today (see that announcement for further details), which might explain why I can't find any working examples yet, but this posting is both to inform people and to submit the location of The Ministry.

[Via Neil]

A full fortnight later, still with no Storable, I received 22 instances of comments spam overnight. I couldn't be bothered deleting them one by one and rebuilding the archive just to do it all again when the spammers returned - and they will, now they've found an unprotected installation of MT.
I've just gone down 'The Less Easy Path' documented by Jay Allen, using the YAML approach. It wasn't too bad, and I only had one problem configuring file paths to the vagaries of my server space, so protection is now fully back in place, no thanks to my web host, which I'm not going to promote by naming.

The 22 spam comments were removed within a minute, and the spammer's clients (i.e. the websites being promoted) added to a permanent blacklist which is shared amongst all other MT users, so not only am I (virtually) immune to further instances from the same sources, so are other users.

If you publish a blog using Movable Type v.2.661 or earlier (i.e. not MT3), I can't recommend Jay's MT-Blacklist highly enough. Install it TODAY. Unless you have a substandard web host like mine, installation couldn't be easier, and the 'Less Easy' approach is still much easier than installing MT 2.661 itself.

Of course, MT runs as a cgi script i.e. perl, so shouldn't have been affected by changes to PHP. Having consulted the excellent MT Support Forums, largely to have the error message translated, I was advised that there must have been an unannounced change to the server. A quick inventory of the available, required perl modules proved that this was correct: the DBD::mysql module (and DBI) was suddenly missing. This was a critical omission, which rendered the blog totally unusable.

I sent an e-mail to my host's tech support immediately. Within 24 hours, they sent me the exact text of the announcement already on their website. I repeated that I'd already seen that, and explained precisely what I needed (for the DBD::mysql module, which I'd already been using for seven months, to be restored). They responded that they couldn't make further changes, and that I should consider separate hosting i.e. my own server.

At that point I started shopping around for an alternative host (thanks for the advice, Neil!), but decided to have one more go at tech support - the earlier refusal seemed extraordinarily peremptory, and felt as if it had come from a customer support rep rather than a tech who understood what I was asking. The result of my verification enquiry:

That was Tuesday, mid-afternoon. It wasn't until this morning, Thursday, that my interrogation of the server found that the module was back, and I was able to get back into the blog admin. So far as I can tell, everything is functional, with the exception of MT-Blacklist; I'll play with that when I have more time.

Since you're reading this, I'm apparently able to post messages again. As the dates of this item and the foregoing one indicate, it's been an enforced absence of five days, all due to an undocumented change to my web hosting arrangement, implemented with no prior warning. That's bad enough, but if I'd been less technically-proficient (not that I'm a techie, but perhaps a little more so than the average user, and I know more experienced people!) and less persistent, this could have totally killed the blog.

Extremely poor service. At a more convenient time, I might still change host, but I'm extremely pleased that I don't have to do so as an emergency measure.
I probably shouldn't have tempted fate by saying that....

[Update immediately after posting: I don't seem able to ping the usual blog directories.]

I was initially sceptical (who, me?) about the near-evangelism of Mozilla supporters, but having tried Firefox for myself, that's the browser I recommend. The selling point, for me, was that the transition was seamless: the user interface and initial browsing experience were near-identical to that in IE, so there was no learning curve. The immediate benefits are unseen, in protection against popups, ad- and spyware, plus reliable, standards-compliant processing of web pages. In that respect, Firefox is IE's better-performing twin. If you're happy with IE, there's no reason not to try Firefox.
I didn't 'get' tabbed browsing for a while, and it's entirely possible to continue opening pages in new windows, as in IE, if one prefers, yet I've certainly taken to the new technique, and when I have to use IE occasionally, I find the experience clumsy.

It's worth mentioning that though I personally consider IE obsolete, I'm certainly not going to exclude visitors because of their choice of browser. IE users should not receive a lesser browsing experience at the Ministry than those using real browsers. My criticism of Ben Goodger (one of the lead developers of Firefox) for deliberately blocking IE access to his personal site stands: that is not a reasonable way to proceed. See this earlier post, and the associated comments, which also provide further arguments for making the switch to Firefox.

Again emulating Neil, I encourage other website owners to pass on the same message to their visitors; "Let's get together and encourage people to adopt better browsers." The code used to generate the message at the top of the blog's index page uses a javascript browser detection function, so is only displayed in IE. I'd gladly offer a copy to anyone wishing to use it, but it's customised to the 'house style' and omits links to alternative browsers I don't recommend personally (Opera and Safari). It would probably be more appropriate to visit Neil's site and download his version of the script, as he suggests.

The file requiring amendment is "[MTPath]/tmpl/cms/edit_entry.tmpl" i.e. from the root directory of your MT installation, navigate to the /tmpl/ subdirectory, and the /cms/ subdirectory within that, then open file 'edit-entry.tmpl' in an editor (e.g. Notepad). Remember to make a backup copy of the unmodified file first!

1. Place the following code into the script section of the <head> tag; I made it the very last item, immediately before the closing:
   //-->
</script>
</head>
   
   
   <TMPL_IF NAME=AGENT_MOZILLA>
function getSelectStart(s) {
  return s.selectionStart;
}
function getSelectEnd(s) {
  return s.selectionEnd;
}
function getTextLength(s) {
  return s.textLength;
}
function getMozSelection(s) {
  return (s.value).substring(getSelectStart(s), getSelectEnd(s))
}
function setMozSelection(a,z) {
  s.selectionStart = a;
  s.selectionEnd = z;
}
function wrapSelection(v) {
  var s = document.forms['entry_form'].text
  var s1 = (s.value).substring(0,getSelectStart(s))
  var s2 = (s.value).substring(getSelectEnd(s),getTextLength(s))
  s.value = s1 + '<' + v + '>' + getMozSelection(s) + '</' + v + '>' + s2
}
function insertMozLink() {
  var s = document.forms['entry_form'].text
  var s1 = (s.value).substring(0,getSelectStart(s))
  var s2 = (s.value).substring(getSelectEnd(s),getTextLength(s))
  var my_link = prompt('Enter URL:', 'http://')
  if (my_link != null)
    s.value = s1 + '<a href="' + my_link + '" target="_blank">' + getMozSelection(s) + '</a>' + s2
}
</TMPL_IF>

   Note that this incorporates a secondary modification of standard MT code, causing all inserted URLs to open in new windows (as described earlier). If you don't want this to happen, replace the last line of the final function with:

       s.value = s1 + '<a href="' + my_link + '">' + getMozSelection(s) + '</a>' + s2
   
   
2. Secondly, find the following line in the body of the file; it should be somewhere around line 410:
   
   
   <script language="javascript">
if (document.selection) {

   This is the section which generates the buttons in the IE version, so the Mozilla equivalent goes in at the same place. Immediately after the closing </script> of that section, insert:

   <TMPL_IF NAME=AGENT_MOZILLA>
<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="107">
<tr>
<td width="24"><a href="javascript:wrapSelection('b')">
<img src="<TMPL_VAR NAME=STATIC_URI>images/bold-button.gif" alt="bold" width="24" height="18" border="0"></a></td>
<td width="24"><a href="javascript:wrapSelection('i')">
<img src="<TMPL_VAR NAME=STATIC_URI>images/italic-button.gif" alt="italic" width="24" height="18" border="0"></a></td>
<td width="24"><a href="javascript:wrapSelection('u')">
<img src="<TMPL_VAR NAME=STATIC_URI>images/underline-button.gif" alt="underline" width="24" height="18" border="0"></a></td>
<td width="26"><a href="javascript:insertMozLink()">
<img src="<TMPL_VAR NAME=STATIC_URI>images/url-button.gif" alt="link" width="26" height="18" border="0"></a></td>
</tr>
</table>
</TMPL_IF>


   To be absolutely clear: this follows the code for IE buttons, it doesn't replace it!

   This is slightly different to the Kurcula.com version, as that code didn't work for me.

In case you were concerned, this includes a browser detection feature, so will still work in IE too.

As one of those comments mentions:

[Update: the entry editing issue has been resolved by MT users]

The always useful the girlie matters offers a fuller explanation and further advice, but I wanted to repeat the part I actually used (as much for my own reference as anything else!)

The recommended technique uses a specific plugin, but those who, like me, don't have it, a straightforward alternative is to hack the insertLink function in tmpl/cms/edit_entry.tmpl, replacing the 'function insertLink' section with the following:

i.e. simply adding the 'target' attribute into the 'document.selection.createRange().text' line.

From now on, URLs inserted by the standard 'URL' button in the 'Create New Entry' section of MT will automatically include the required attribute. Yay!

Whilst searching for this info, I found a blog where the owner and comments regulars criticised 'target=_blank'; someone asked exactly my question, to be told there's no easy way to do it, and if there was, the author "wouldn't help someone shoot themself in the foot" . Evidently I disagree, both personally and as a pro web developer, so for those who dislike links opening in new windows: tough.

The choice of Movable Type software was straightforward; it's a market-leader with excellent features, user support and a fine logo ;)
Digression: yes, the logo matters - when browsing through the various blogging packages on the web, the Movable Type logo stood out and immediately predisposed me to favour that publishing system.

I knew almost nothing about perl and MySql when I started (and still know little), but the documentation included in the MT download allowed me to follow line-by-line instructions. The instructions did seem to be written for someone with a little more experience, and I struggled in some places, but the problems were almost all with the specific settings of my server space rather than MT itself, which the MT instructions can't realistically be expected to have covered.

I was doing rather well initially; I downloaded MT on Friday evening, 21 November, configured and uploaded it to the server space, then tried to run the installation script. Nothing happened, apart from error messages claiming I was using the wrong password for my MySql database, though the ISP's website (no, I'm not going to promote them with a link) claimed the MySQL password was the same as my usual server login password - I was successfully accessing the server space, so the password was obviously correct. I couldn't see the problem, so contacted the ISP's tech support. The reply was prompt (within 24 hours), but seemed to totally miss the point. Several e-mail exchanges (with a 24 hour delay each time) involved my telling the anonymous support person my login password (very reluctantly - one should never have to reveal a password), to be told they couldn't tell me my password. Eh? I didn't request that - he/she had asked me for it. Confusion ensued, and I finally had to reveal my password again. I was told it was correct - which I'd known from the start - and tech support stopped answering my e-mails. Very poor.
Meanwhile, I'd scoured the MT support fora and studied the documentation, then started to just experiment - it was looking like I'd be unable to use MT unless I changed ISP, so I wasn't too worried about ruining the installation. Luckily, I found that the MySql database was on a different server than my ordinary web space, so I'd been using the wrong address. Okay, an experienced user might have realised that earlier, and would be able to guess the alternative address, but it still should have been documented somewhere.

Once that was sorted, everything else was straightforward - I ran the installation script on 29 Nov (i.e. Day 9 of the process!) and spent much of that weekend configuring the blog settings and CSS/html page templates. Migration of the content from Blogger to MT took a couple of evenings in the week, and I've been tweaking details since then. I still need to learn and implement a few features - pinging blog directories still somewhat evades me as I don't fully understand how it works, nor the specific server addresses I need to ping.

Any thoughts/suggestions about work to date?

As the blog is staying at blog*spot for now, the images have to be loaded from the Ministry server; not ideal, but we'd have to pay for image hosting at blog*spot. Blogger allows hosting at our own domain (which would also eliminate the layout-ruining advert!), but server access issues at our end prevent that. I'll have to consider our options.

Please let us know if anything looks odd or doesn't work in your browser.

[Needless to say, this post is no longer relevant, but has been copied across to the MT-based blog for archiving purposes.]