Maria’s Guides

One drawback to a WordPress plugin.

Back in November, I wrote a post about a new plugin I’d installed on my two main blog-based sites: Maria’s Guides and An Eclectic Mind. The plugin is called CommentLuv and it automatically retrieves and displays a link for the last post a commenter added to his or her blog. Here are some examples from the post I wrote about CommentLuv, where I invited people to try it out.

The idea behind CommentLuv is to encourage people to comment by automatically linking back to their blog. I think it’s a great idea — when used by people who have real content to contribute in comments.

On the surface, CommentLuv is extremely attractive to spammers who keep blogs. Not only can they include a relatively normal looking comment with a link to their blog when they enter it in the Web site field of the comment form, but they also have an automatic link to their most recent work. Two links for the time it takes to post one, right? And that second link can give readers an idea of what their blog is all about by including the title of the most recent post.

What these people don’t seem to realize is that the CommentLuv link is created with a “nofollow” attribute. So if they think they can improve search engine optimization (SEO) by adding links to their sites on the sites they comment on, they’re wasting their time. The links are not recognized by Google or any other search engine or automated tool.

But what I’ve seen lately is a number of the same people coming back, again and again, to post comments like “Great post! I’ll keep checking in.” These comments usually appear on recent posts and, with some commenters, they appear several times a week. This gets past my spam prevention software and ends up on my blog.

While most people wouldn’t mind the added comments with their apparently complementary content, this isn’t content. It’s spam. There’s nothing being contributed to the site other than two free links for the commenter. So I delete these comments regularly.

Now I’m not suggesting that you avoid CommentLuv. I still think it’s a great plugin. But I do want users to be aware of its attraction for spammers. On a popular blog, installing CommentLuv could add about 10 minutes a week to your spam maintenance routine — after all, you have to manually decide whether a comment is legitimate or posted solely to attract hits for the commenter’s blog. Adding a regular abuser to your blacklist might be a good course of action.

Want to learn more about WordPress? Check out WordPress 2: Visual QuickStart Guide by Maria Langer and Miraz Jordan, published by Peachpit Press. It’s available from Amazon.com and in all major bookstores.

WordPress update info.

WordPress server version 2.3.2 is now available. You can download it from the WordPress.org Download page and learn more about upgrading on the Upgrading WordPress page.

Information from Software Update.

This update addresses a responsiveness issue on MacBook and MacBook Pro notebook computers. Some MacBook and MacBook Pro systems may occasionally experience a temporary suspension of keyboard input which can last a minute or longer. The Mac OS X 10.5.1 update is required before installing the MacBook, MacBook Pro Software Update 1.1.

Information from Software Update.

Security Update 2007-009 is recommended for all users and improves the security of the following components:

• Core Foundation
• CUPS
• Flash Player Plug-in
• Launch Services
• perl
• python
• Quick Look
• ruby
• Safari
• Samba
• Shockwave Plug-in
• Spin Tracer

For detailed information on this update, visit http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61798.

It doesn’t have to be Mail.

By default, Mac OS X is pre-configured with Mail, Apple’s e-mail application, set as the default e-mail client. That means clicking a link to an e-mail address or accessing your e-mail program from within another application will automatically launch Mail.

But you can easily change it to an e-mail client you prefer. Here’s how:

1. Open Mail.
2. Choose Mail > Preferences to open the preferences window.
3. If necessary, click the General button in the preferences window’s toolbar to display General options.
4. Choose the mail client you prefer from the Default email reader pop-up menu. If the application is not listed by name, you can choose Select from the menu and use the dialog that appears to locate and select the e-mail client you want. (Obviously, the application must be installed on your computer to select it.)
5. Click the window’s close button to dismiss it.
6. Choose Mail > Quit Mail to quit Mail.

Changes take affect as soon as you quit Mail.

Note that the preferences window shown here is for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. These steps also work in Tiger, although the preferences window may look different.

Chapter and Page References

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: Visual QuickStart Guide includes more information about related topics:

• Connecting to the Internet, Chapter 18
• Mac OS X’s Internet Applications, page 419
• Using Mail, pages 421-435

A bit geeky but effective.

My little home-based office has a lot of computer equipment in it. And since there’s always so much on my mind, I often forget to turn off certain peripherals when I’m finished using them or simply done for the day. These include two laser printers and the external hard disk I use with Time Machine.

Although I could leave them on all the time, it really isn’t a good idea. My main printer, which is about 5 years old now, seems to develop toner cartridge problems when it’s left on all the time. The darn cartridges cost $95 each. And it simply can’t be a good idea to leave a hard disk spinning all the time.

And then there’s the power. It’s not cost as much as the idea of it. Leaving devices turned on when you’re not using them is wasteful, plain and simple.

So I’ve come up with a solution: a light timer.

By light timer, I’m referring to a device you might use to turn lights on and off while you’re away on vacation to make it look like you’re home. I bought one with a three-prong outlet on it. I set it to turn on every morning at 5 AM, which is when my computer turns on for the day, and turn off every evening at 8 PM, which is when I’m usually done working for the day. I plugged a surge suppressor power strip into it and plugged the two printers and hard disk into it. Then I turned them all on.

Now those of you who know Mac OS know what happens when you turn off power to a connected and mounted hard disk. Your Mac displays a message telling you that the device was improperly disconnected and that file errors may result. So it’s not a good idea to simply turn off an external hard disk while the computer it’s connected to is still on and the disk is still mounted.

The solution to that is to make sure the disk is unmounted before it is powered down. But if I can’t remember to flip a few power switches at day’s end, what makes you think I can remember to unmount a hard disk? Obviously, I can’t.

Enter Automator. I wrote a very simple Automator Action that unmounts the disk. As shown here, it has only two steps:

1. Get Specified Finder Items identifies the disk.
2. Eject Disk unmounts the disk.

Then I used the iCal alarm trick to run the action every day at 6 PM.

So here’s how it all works. My computer is set to automatically start at 5 AM each morning. At about the same time, the light timer turns on the 3 peripherals, including an external hard disk connected to the computer. I come to work. I work. I wander out sometime late in the afternoon. At 6 PM, the hard disk unmounts using the Automator action triggered by iCal. I might wander back in, but I don’t need that external hard disk so I don’t even notice it’s gone. Or I might not wander in at all. At 8 PM the peripherals turn off, thanks to the light timer. Around the same time, computer shuts down automatically. Or maybe I shut down the computer earlier or later, depending on what I’m doing with it.

The point is, all this electronic stuff is turned off at night so I’m not wasting electricity on it.

Would it be easier to do it all manually? I don’t think so.

And one of these days I might get brave enough to explain how I set up iCal to remind me to drink a glass of water every hour all day every day. (And no, I don’t need it to remind me to head to the loo.)

Chapter References

You can learn more about automating tasks with Automator and AppleScript in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: Visual QuickStart Guide. I introduce them both in Chapter 25.