TypePad Hacks

Murali has launched a newly redesigned Authorati.com that's so beautiful, it really makes me want to do a new design for the hacks blog! Sadly, my own redesign will have to wait till things slow down here at hacks central, which probably won't happen till winter. Here's a quick list of new Authorati features, cribbed shamelessly from the Authorati blog: Timeline control: You can now view the rated blog posts on the Simile timeline control.... Postoons: Postoons are humorous, satirical titles for imaginary blog posts based on current events and personalities associated with them.... You can also use the richer Authorati widget instead of the badge.

Our architecture conversion work after the BlogBeat acquisition is complete, and our free StandardStats service now enables any of our publishers to track both feed and site audience, all from the comfort of your FeedBurner account.... Clicky is actually a brilliant free stats service if you have only one blog (until they come out of beta, they're only allowing users to track one site).... This initial release of site statistics includes: Visitor summary, detail and trends Page summary, detail and trends Referral and Search trends Inbound referral traffic breakdown, grouped by domain and broken out in detail Outbound click breakdown Visitor city cloud and live geographic visitor detail Percentage inbound traffic from search and the queries that drove the traffic Percentage of visitors that are new to your site today Browser and OS breakdown, with trend indicators Detailed historical traffic by page and by date FeedBurner also has some screen shots of the new stats package if you'd like to look before you sign up.... Towards the bottom of their post you'll see the following paragraph: The First of Many Hacks: Filed under lightweight yet handy, here's a "bookmarklet" hack for quick stats access: drag the Page stats link to your browser's toolbar.... I kind of scanned it and thought, "oh yeah, well, easy stats access, blah, blah blah, whatever…" Then I read it a second time and realized that the bookmarklet doesn't just open your stats dashboard— It takes you directly to the stats for any single page/post on your blog!

I've been tagged by BL Ochman.

He included some great screen shots of a redesign they're working on for the Widget Directory and user interface, generously offering to let me share them with you even though they're still in development.... get a fair bit of insider info these days and I usually don't get to share it until launch day… It's a pleasure to deal with someone who really embodies the ideals of transparency and openness that get so much play in talk about Web 2.0: Consider everything on the record - including the screenshots - though they are a work in progress so to speak so may change a bit.... We will integrate the directory much more closely with the app - and also rebuild the directory so that it previews and links widgets and allows visitors to sign up for widgets from the directory itself. This was the Within the app you will see the introduction of widget sharing between members and outside the app. We are now believers that as widgets get more and more powerful and encompass more and more mashups, a constructed widget will have a lot of value in its own right.... The idea here is that the Snipperoo button is available to any widget producer to integrate without reference to us. We say 'Keep your hands off our widget', i.e. we don't impose any structure or changes on web widgets - they can go into Snipperoo just the way they are built.

If you're using Advanced Templates or Mixed-Media Layouts, you'll need to paste a bit of javascript from widget providers into a Notes style TypeList to run them in your sidebar. That's exactly what makes Snipperoo and Widgetbox so useful… once you've added their code to a TypeList, you can manage your widgets at their site and any changes you make will be instantly reflected on your blog.... There are good clear instructions on the site, and all the widgets can be added to your Widgetbox panels from within the site itself. For some widgets, you may need to have an account with the widget provider, but once you have that set up, you can do everything from within Widgetbox.... In some cases, you can add widgets without having to leave Sniperoo's site, but most of the time you'll go to another site, get a snip of javascript, come back and add it to your panel.

VS There is no safe way to post an email address on the web as text without One of the most useful things I've added to my blogs is a hosted email script that lets me use a form to cut down on spambots finding my email address.

I've been emailing back and forth with Murali Narasimhan (creator of Authorati) all morning and he's done a bunch of great work to improve the service.... You'll notice, for instance, that at the bottom of each of my posts you can now click on a FeedFlare link which allows you to rate this blog at Authorati.... FeedBurner will be adding it to their Flare catalog on the next revision but there's no need to wait if you'd like to get it now. He also made some of the changes I suggested on the home site for Authorati, including a quick bio to tell you who has created the service and a new, improved sidebar widget for your blog. Changes in the works include putting together code so that individual blog posts are available for rating without the need for authors to regularly log in to the website to update the list of articles, updating the MyAuthorati page which displays the ratings breakdown, and some additions to the FAQ to describe the new features.

I wrote about MajikWidget when they first launched and gave them high marks as a We are pleased to announce our newly renovated MajikWidget website and control panel today.... This renovation will also allow us to streamline future widget development and start working toward our goal of releasing a new useful widget every week.... This feature not only allows for these corrections quickly but enables you to get the most value out of all of your individual widgets.... It allows you to quickly scroll through the widget library and locate new widgets to utilize.... By popular demand you can now dynamically list your upcoming Skypecast within your website or blog using our new Skypecast widget.

It’s over now, the most requested feature is up and running (it actually has been running in hidden mode for a month) so don’t be surprised to find many new comments in your conversations.... Now you can activate coComment on any webpage, and create a comment which will trackable in your conversations on the coComment service.... NEW INTERFACE, SITE STRUCTURE AND NAVIGATION With help of the great usability specialists Namahn, we have reorganized and simplified the site.... TRY THE SERVICE WITHOUT REGISTERINGIf you want to give coComment a spin without signing up, a temporary cookie will be set on your browser - without you having to give any information.... AND TONS OF OTHER FEATURES Five languages available (English, French, German, Italian and Spanish), more capture-compatible platforms (most notably YouTube!), add people or sites as favorites, send coComment invitations, customize your page (try to drag and drop the boxes on the right of the screen!), and much more!

I was able to speed it up somewhat by keeping a text file of the code ready to paste in, but still… It's so much easier to have it integrated into the app. Built-in tagging is one of the three biggest reasons I started writing most of my posts using Ecto.... Technorati Tags are used by Technorati and other blog-oriented search engines to index your posts so people can find them.... The other reason Tags are great is that they allow you to pare the categories you use on your blog down to the essential. If you have too many categories it can be just as bad as having none… there's a limit to how much attention span the averagee reader is going to have, and they aren't likely to scroll down an endless sidebar list of categories to see if you have what they want.... I just did a remake of one of my other blogs and one of the things I was most excited about was revamping the categories so that they made more sense and took up less space.

They're a nifty little mix of CSS and Javascript that allow you to annotate your expanded thoughts in a little box off to the side of a blog post. Footnotes are a drag because they pull you out of the context by making you travel back and forth to the bottom of a page… one of the best things about reading online is that you can actually link to footnotes (and provide a return link) in order to minimize the hassle of navigating to the expanded information.... The box sets them off so that you know what they are, and you can choose to read them (or not) without breaking the flow of concentration.... Because they're styled with CSS you can easily change the appearance, but somehow, it just didn't really move me and shortly thereafter dropped off my radar. The original version required a bit of template modification to include the Javascript (it's possible you could just drop it in a Typelist, but I'm not sure.

Yesterday we added a few new features to TypePad that also came straight off the Most Wanted list. Even if these new features weren't on your personal list, we think you'll find them useful...... You can set comment status (open or closed), TrackBack status (accept or don't accept) or assign categories on multiple posts at once.... Starting a new blog and want to introduce first time readers to your topic?... (And for those of you taking advantage of Custom CSS, we assign a special classname to that post, so that you can style it differently from the rest of your posts...)

Guys, I have a feeling you're busy right now dealing with support issues with the new extension, and that's as it should be, but a quick blog post to let people know that you've solved a major issue is always a good idea. Here's where I learned about it: I clicked on over to the support forums for bugs to see if there was any mention there of the issues I'm having with Firefox slowing down and crashing.... Until we manage to make that annoyance go away, you can retroactively select the text of the comment you posted and click the bookmarklet in order to add it to your coComment conversations.... I spent some more time reading various threads on the forum about issues with the new extension and it sounds like the folks at CoComment are really working hard to get it running smoothly and to answer questions and resolve issues.... But in the mean time, I know what I'm definitely going to do… I'm going to use the bookmarklet to go back and record all the comments I can find via google that I left all over the web before CoComment existed!

I recently blogged about CoComment's new Firefox Extension. I was pretty excited to see it, and really enjoyed not having to use the bookmarklet to track my conversations.

I only just saw this: coComment has released an extension for FireFox. The extension automatically enables coComment on supported blogs and notifies you if you have new comments in 'Your conversations.' Why does this totally rock? Well, now if you want to keep track of the comments you leave on other blogs, you no longer need to click the bookmarklet to do so! I'm always forgetting to use the bookmarklet before I post comments, so this is a welcome addition for me.

Conventional wisdom holds that if you are going to put ads on a blog you should do it from the very beginning, and not add it later.... I kind of felt like running ads would just be another thing to think about and my brain was pretty full at the time.... Well, two reasons: I'm starting to get a fair number of questions about how to work with various ad programs. In order to answer these, I'm gonna have to try them out myself so that I can have a little first-hand knowledge of how they work. Feedburner invited me to try a new feature they've come up with that uses their feed flare technology to serve ads between posts.

In the duplicate, you'll tinker with the <MTEntries> tag as I outline below, paste in your AdSense code, save the new module, and then swap out the default entry-list module for the new-and-improved module in your Main Index template.... 6) Now press Command + V (Ctrl + V) again to paste a second copy of the original entry-list code directly beneath the first set. The module should now contain two identical sets of <MTEntries> containers.... Step 5: Alter the <MTEntries> tags in the custom entry-list-main module 1) In the first <MTEntries> tag, set the value of the lastn attribute.... In Parent Hacks, I display a single post before my AdSense unit, so my first <MTEntries> tag looks like this: <MTEntries lastn="1"> ...... </MTEntries> (In English: show the next nine entries, starting with the second entry) If, instead of a single AdSense unit between the first and second post, you want to insert AdSense after say, every second post, your entry-list-main module would look something like this: <MTEntries lastn="2"> ...

Darren Rouse has a great series of posts over at Problogger on adding interactivity to your blog using polls. Worth a read, especially if you signed up for an account with MajikWidget after I posted about them the other day. Problogger : Blog Polls - Add Interactivity to Your Blog Problogger: 9 Techniques for Using Polls Effectively on a Blog Problogger: Free Blog Poll Tools Probably the best tip he offers is to use polls as a starting point for discussion and invite readers to comment about why they voted the way they did. I'll definitely have to remember to specifically make that invitation in future polls!

Okay, I'm geeked… I just got my invite to beta test Shopify, the closest thing going to my idea of what a blog store should be. Go check them out and take a look at their blog as well. The only problem I foresee is that I've sold so many fire bowls over my art blog this week that I'm going to be in the studio way more than at the keyboard this week. So it's likely that a full-on review of shopify will take a while.... It sounds like they're pretty close to full launch.

Just stumbled onto an announcment on the Technorati blog announcing two new services: I'm very pleased to announce the technology preview of Technorati microformats search for contacts, events and reviews, and Pingerati, a microformats ping distributor to support and grow the microformats ecosystem. Microformats are the key building block, the lingua franca, that make structured information open and sharable on the Web. Microformats enable any site to easily publish common data types such as tags, licenses, contacts, events, reviews, listings, etc. on any page on the Web, with only minor edits to their HTML. For me personally, this has meant enabling millions of people to take control of their own data, publish and update it wherever they want, whenever they want, and move it freely among services, without having it locked up behind a walled garden or trapped in a "roach motel". Read more about Microformats Search and Pingerati on the Technorati blog.

From what I can see at TechCrunch, it sort of looks like MySpace with better design control and easier function. The main features appear to be: Vox will be a free service supported by ads (making it a great place for new bloggers to get started).... The platform is entirely design wizard based, with no html access at all, which makes it extremely user-friendly but also limited in terms of design. Integration with Flickr, YouTube and Amazon make it easy to post audio, video, book info, etc. Privacy settings on a post by post basis. Enhanced social networking features I won't go on at any length until I can take it for a spin, but I am kind of excited to try it out.

The MajikWidget poll I posted yesterday is now working (Yay!) so do please go cast a vote to let me know how comfortable you are working with template code.

Okay, I'm geeked… I just got my invite to beta test Shopify, the closest thing going to my idea of what a blog store should be. Go check them out and take a look at their blog as well. The only problem I foresee is that I've sold so many fire bowls over my art blog this week that I'm going to be in the studio way more than at the keyboard this week. So it's likely that a full-on review of shopify will take a while.... It sounds like they're pretty close to full launch.

MajikWidget creates and hosts a library of widgets that you can use to extend your blog's capabilities. They have an interesting model going… when you sign up, you get an automatic 25 credits to let you try out the service and see if you like it. In addition, if you head over today and sign up for the First Mover Advantage Club, they'll deposit 100 additional free credits into your account.... As explained on their request page: Linkware allows other users who use your suggested widget to setup an automatic link-back to your blog from your widget.... As of today, there are three widgets available for use: Post Rating Widget Polling Widget All Links in New Browser Window I'll be trying out some of the widgets here in the next couple days.

I've been delaying the post until I can get it to work across all browsers… right now, it doesn't display properly in Internet Explorer but seems fine in all the other browsers I've tried.... Actually, what I'm really hoping is that someone cleverer than I am can figure out a better way to add the search field to the CSS menu so that it does work right in IE.... So I enclosed the google code in it's own div tag, used some CSS for alignment and text style and pasted it in just above the menu list as shown below.... <div id="chromemenu"> <div style="float: right; font-weight: bold; color: #494949; padding: 4px; "> <!-- SiteSearch Google --> <form method="get" action="http://www.google.com/search">Search: <input type="text" name="q" size="5" maxlength="150" style="width:150px;" /><input type="hidden" name="domains" value="http://www.typepadhacks.org/" /><input type="hidden" name="sitesearch" value="http://www.typepadhacks.org/" /></form> <!-- SiteSearch Google --></div> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.typepadhacks.org/2006/03/start_the_purpo.html">Manifesto</a></li> When I figure out a better way to do this, I'll replace this post with clearer instructions.... Oh, and if you're using basic templates and want to add google search to a typelist, you can find great instructions for that in this post at Everything TypePad.

Next week, I'll be back with a bevy of high performance Hacks that will knock your blog's socks off, but for now, here's a quick news round up: The Style Contest for Movable Type, TypePad and LiveJournal has extended the Submission Deadline to June 5th.... The contest features over $17,000 in prizes...and the opportunity for winning designs to be featured in Six Apart's products and used by potentially millions of bloggers.... Also in Widget news: if you want to know the minute a new Widget is released, grab the Widget RSS Feed which will keep you updated with images and descriptions of new Widgets and a link to where you can get them.... Skypecasts is a new community feature from Skype that allows you to host live, moderated discussions with up to 100 participants.... There's also a Widget that lets TypePad users promote upcoming Skypecasts (either their own or Skypecasts they're interested in) on their blog.

Navigate to this page in TypePad's Knowledge Base (preferably in a new tab or browser window) and copy the entry-individual template module code.... Scroll down until you see the following line of code: <h3 class="entry-header"><$MTEntryTitle$></h3> Replace that line of code with the following: <h3 class="entry-header"><a href="<$MTEntryPermalink$>"><$MTEntryTitle$></a></h3> Click save. Navigate to this page in TypePad's Knowledge Base and copy the entry-list template module code.... Scroll down until you see the following line of code: <h3 class="entry-header"><$MTEntryTitle$></h3> Replace that line of code with the following: <h3 class="entry-header"><a href="<$MTEntryPermalink$>"><$MTEntryTitle$></a></h3> and click save.... If you created new template modules in the previous steps, follow the next set of instructions: If you created new template modules for entry-individual and entry-list, return to the Design tab.

Not only does this give you an idea of which items your readers are most interested in, it gives you some sense of where they go when they're done reading (assuming they don't just close the tab or window when they move on). My Blog Log stats can be added to Basic and Plus accounts using a Widget, or to Pro accounts by adding a simple bit of javascript into your blog templates.... I've added it into my templates, so you should be able to see how it works by mousing over a few links on this page (if no one has a clicked a link since the last hourly update, it displays no information). You also get a stats report visible only to yourself, and can add a sidebar item that tracks the top outbound links of the day if you desire. When I went to look at my outbound links this morning (after 12 hours of activity), I was aghast to find that 11 of the top 20 outbound links last night were porn links that had been inserted into several of my most popular posts via comment spam.