The folks over at SixApart have been looking at the performance of MovableType and have some recomendations for those of you that upgrade to the latest version 3.34. Those that have their own servers or that are on hosting accounts can install FastCGI to get as much as a 15x increase in performance in their existing installations.
I will be adding the FastCGI support here, and we will see how much it helps when the site is under a comment spam attack. [www.sixapart.com]
If you look at the bottom of this post you will see at section on the entry that says Tags: yet there are no entries in the Tags section. You may scratch your head and ask why. Well it is quite simple I am writing this post with an external editor and although the application has the ability to add its own tags listing it does not support MovableTypes “Tag” feature.
If I were posting this entry via the web based interface I would simply enter this articles tag entries in the form and when I would save the posting the tag data would be written to a database entry that would collect and organize all tags.
I am beyond shocked that no plugin has been written to support this new feature with any of the external editors like BlogJet, Ecto or Qumana. What is really concerning is that the feature has been out for a long time and yet no external editing support for the feature.
So here is the deal I would be willing to pay a bounty of $100.00 for a programmer that will write a plugin that will do the following. When entries are submitted from a external editor the plugin would detect a set of Tags placed in the main body of a post
Example: <tags>MovableType, Blog, Feature, Plugin</tags>
Once the plugin saw this marker it would extract and strip the Tags from the posting and place the entries in the MovableType Tags section. This would allow those of us using external editors to continue to utilize the feature. First person to put together a working plugin gets a $100.00 from me.
When I set my mom’s blog up at CherieCast.com I used the standard WordPress install for a few days without any plugins. I was able to get her RSS feed setup and once her first podcast was published I submitted the listing to iTunes. The listing came up on iTunes within 24 hours, and we were smooth sailing.
About a week later I found out about a plugin that podcasters have been talking about called PodPress, it looked like a pretty good podcasting plugin. I installed it and customized the existing RSS feed so that she would garner all the benefits of the iTunes tags.
But little did I know that this plugin adds a element to the RSS feed that should only ever be used when a RSS feed is being relocated to a new location. Mind you this is a new blog that I had setup a couple of weeks earlier that had already been listed in iTunes. To my suprise after the PodPress plugin install my mom’s iTunes listing quit updating.
I inspected the feed and figured out what had happened and was about as mad as one can get at a developer. Apparently the plugin was programmed by someone who did not take the time to read the Applie tag specs.
It turns out that this plugin for malformed reason added the itunes:new-feed-url element to the RSS feed. Which is only supposed to be used when a podcaster wants to change the URL location of feed.
So when Apple polled my moms site they recorded what was in that element and updated their directory to point at a RSS feed that was not meant to be polled. Luckily after some investigation the Apple folks were able to fix my moms feed location.
Turns out this plugin is causing a lot of havoc for podcasters some find out weeks later that their iTunes listing is no longer updating. Today I was queried by a podcaster looking for help who was having similar iTunes directory updating troubles, and it turns out this plugin caused his listing to be misdirected as well. Apple seems to have identified this plugin as causing a lot of tech support request lets hope the author fixes this.
For all of you using Podpress check your iTunes listing to make sure it is updating this is critical for those of you that have just started using the plugin, also examine your RSS feed and if you see the new-url element you need to start asking the author why it is being utilized and is not a selectable option. Most of the people that have been having the problem including me are not sure how it happened only that it did.
I can only assume though that this plugin is now causing the url link of a feed to be updated at Apple everytime Apple polls the site which is a waste of their resources as well.
Some very interesting trends in the Blog space, as David Sifry releases his now famous report on the State of the Blogsphere. What I find really disturbing is the ongoing creation of Splogs by 100’s of thousands that are cluttering up the Web. With all of the free blogging services, it is almost impossible to stop the activity. Let’s just hop folks like Technorati and others can keep up with the proliferation. [Technorati]
Quietly released yesterday.
Microsoft Issues Blogging Application Beta
Rainbowfly
That’s right, when you are sitting in traffic, you can blog, when you are sitting in the doctors office, you can blog. Add pictures, take it anywhere. I realize that other blogging services already have mobile blogging where you can text your messages and or pictures to your blogs, but I think this will be the first of many that builds the application right into your PDA.
[Six Apart Introduce TypePad Mobile Client for Blogging]
-Rainbowfly
It comes as no surprise to me that companies are finally figuring out that blogs are very powerful information vehicles when it comes to product launches. By giving a new product to a bloggers and allowing them to test the products, then allowing them to provide feedback to the company and then blogging about the product is resulting in very successful product launches.
The trick that most companies will have, is finding bloggers that are reputable that can do good reviews and provide constructive feedback. [WashingtonPost.com]