Blogger Logo

Self Hosted WordPress is all the rage these days, in fact this is what we run here at Almost Geek. However there are other options for hosting a blog on your own domain, Blogger is one of them. WordPress and Blogger are two of the largest blogging platforms on the internet. What many people don’t realize is they’re able to run a Blogger blog on their website should they desire which is great for business sites as your not sending your traffic offsite to a blog hosted on a blogger sub-domain.

There are some distinct advantages to using self hosted Blogger over WordPress they are:

1. Blogger requires little technical knowledge there are no upgrades to preform as there is with WordPress.
2. Blogger can hosted pretty much anywhere as it doesn’t require PHP or a database.

With advantages of course comes disadvantages:

1. Blogger has no add-ons to change the functionality of your site. WordPress has an entire site of plugins.
2. Your pretty much limited to Blogger’s default templates unless you know how to edit CSS which more than likely out of your realm of expertise if your considering Blogger.

The decision is yours;  Blogger is simple and easy to use set and forget. WordPress has a bit of a learning curve and requires regular security pataches but is infinitely customizable.

For the scope of this tutorial we’re going to work cPanel with putting your blog on a subdomain. A subdomain is simply something.yourdomain.com, you probably want your blog to be blog.mydomain.com The reason for this is to future proof the blog, should you decide to use mod_rewrite  in the future or you already are we don’t want your blog in a sub directory of your main site as it will cause conflicts. Most hosts allow your to make sub-domains, if you don’t see the add sub-domain option in cPanel email your host’s support.

Login to your domain’s control panel @ yourdomain.com/cpanel and click on subdomains. You may want to add the sub-domain then go to bed and setup the rest of blogger in the morning, this way the new sub-domain has time to register with the DNS system (this doesn’t cost you a dime).

Add Subdomain on cPanel 1

Next your want to name your subdomain, I choose blogger.almostgeek.com. After choosing the name you want to change the Document Root to /blog or whatever you feel is best. Be careful here as by default cPanel adds /public_html/, you have to change it and remove the /public_html section. As mentioned above in order to future proof you don’t want it under your current website’s directory, public_html.

Now we head on over to Blogger and register @ Blogger.com if you already have a Google or Gmail account sign in with that. The process is pretty self-explanatory here are some screenshots to follow along with.

Blogger Signup 1

Blogger Signup 2

Blogger Signup 3

In the following screenshot you will want to click “Advanced Setup Options” drop down and choose setup a custom domain.

Blogger Signup 4

Here on middle of the page, you will want to click ‘Already Own A Domain? Switch to advanced settings’

Blogger Signup 5

On this screen you need to put in the sub-domain you made in cPanel, ex. blog.yourdomain.com. This is where waiting overnight to complete this process will pay off, if you do it too soon you will get an error.

Blogger Sign Up 6

<rest of the sign up process including FTP information>

I’m simply picturing messaging myself but instead of sending it to phone number I put my email address in the To: field of the picture message. When the new phone is activated I’ll just forward the messages back to that phone. Easy peasy.

If you’re lucky enough to have run your owner server or have ssh access on your shared account this thread over on Admin Extra is right up your alley. My buddy Mike asked about updating sites faster by downloading and unzipping the files right on the server. Michael Biddle replied with a concise tutorial so check out the thread: http://adminextra.com/threads/since-were-talking-about-ssh-clients.5079/

The cavets only are the method mention will overwrite everything so if have a custom favicon or file they will be overwritten. Mike suggested downloading the package to your computer first, removing any files you don’t want changed, and re-zipping everything, then uploading the ZIP to your sever and following Michael’s tutorial. Sounds like a good plan to me. Why I didn’t think of that, I don’t know but I frequently use Michael’s method when installing new sites.

For those of you unfamiliar with SSH (secure shell) check out this other thread on Admin Extra for an introduction and brief primer: http://adminextra.com/threads/ssh-clients.5051/

My new habit was taking a daily multivitamin. The bottle had been sitting on my dresser for over a year and had expired. I threw the old bottle out and made a New Year’s resolution to take one daily. I had bought the vitamins with the best of intentions but since I don’t take medication aside from the occasional antibiotic I never remembered it.

Enter Google Calendar. I set up taking the pill  as a daily recurring appointment at 7am with a text reminder an hour before. When I wake up the text is there to remind me. It took me about 3 weeks to get into the habit and not need the text in the morning.

I also use this feature for reminders when I’m out and about. Say I’m going to the laundromat and need to stop for groceries on the way home. I’ll set it as an event with a text reminder 2 hours from now. No more shopping lists for me on short trips.

Stop the bots prevents spammers from registering by timing how long it takes to fill out the registration form. If it takes less than 15 seconds from page load to submission you can be 99% sure the form was filled out by automated means versus someone typing it in. Filled by automated means usually means it’s a bot. There are some exceptions form fillers such as Roboform, LastPass, and even the browser’s auto-complete can fill fields in the blink of an eye. I’ve edited the registration template to include a warning not to use form fillers.  Stop the bots denies registration if it is submitted too quickly. As an administrator you can modify the threshold. My boards are set to 15 seconds which has served me well.

vB Stop Forum Spam is another great tool. This checks the registrants information against the Stop Forum Spam database. If the username, email address, or IP is listed in the database registration on your board is denied. You can pick and choose what checks you want. I only check IPs and email addresses as if a common name such as Mike ends up in the database it can prevent legitimate registrations.

We’ve now done every thing to prevent bots and known spammers from registering. Even with these mods in place there will still be some that get past these checks as some spammers are just regular people. Other types of spam are profile spam, private message spam, signature spam, social group spam and visitor message spam.

• Profile spam: Registering confirming your email address, never posting put putting a spammy link as your home page URL.
• Private message spam: Just like email spam. Registering and trying to PM every member with your link or sales pitch.
• Signature spam: A member signing up and posting generic messages whilst having a signature filled with spammy links.
• Social Group Spam: Registering and either creating a new social group or posting spam in existing groups. This is troublesome because social groups are tucked away in the corner and on most boards not paid much attention to by the moderators.
• Visitor message spam: Posting spam as a visitor message. This happen two ways:  One is simply spamming other members profiles just like PM spam. The second way is more troublesome the spammer posts spam and links on their profile as a visitor message. Visitor message spam like social group spam goes mostly unnoticed as how often do we view the profiles of member who don’t post?

Luckily these spam types are easily thwarted by user group controls. Once a member confirms their email address they’re automatically placed in the Registered Users group. You simply lock down the registered users group permissions (ACP > Usergroups > Usergroup Manager > Edit Registered Users) and create an automatic promotion to another group with less controls for member with more than 5, 10, or what ever number you feel comfortable with mine is 25 posts. 10 is a good starting point as within 10 posts they’ll present themselves as legitimate members or not.

First we lock down General Permissions:

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Set “Can Edit Own Profile” to No. This thwarts profile spam and signature spam. By disallowing the member to edit their profile information, add a spam link as their homepage, and disallowing them from editing their signature. It also restricts avatars, profile pictures, and options. I suggest only using this option if you have a short post requirement before promoting them.

Next we lock down Private Messages:

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Set Maximum Stored Messages to 1. In combination with setting save sent PMs as the default registration option the member can only send one message. Normally I would say completely disable it but this leaves the option of the new member contacting me or another moderator for help with something if they are unfamiliar with forums.

Next up Visitor Messages:

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Here we set both Can Post Visitor Message to Own Profile and Can Post Visitor Messages to Others’ Profile to No. This prevents both types of visitor message spam outlined above.

Last up is Social Groups:

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Here we set Can Join Social Groups and Can Create Own Social Groups to No. This prevents all social group spam. I would go so far as suggestion disable social groups all together as I haven’t seen much use for them even among regular members but that’s your decision.

These settings will prevent the vast majority of spam. The down side of it is once in a while a legitimate new member will complain about restricted permissions. If someone complains, I manually drop them into the promoted users group. Problem solved. I’ve been barely affected by the uptick in spam since the New Year (2011). Stop the Bots is denying registration to 20-30 people per day on  most days. Of course determined spammers will get through. Be it salesman who markets to your niche or the rare non-bot that signs up and spams manually.  vB Stop Forum Spam stops known spammers by blacklisting IPs and email addresses. On the whole my forum deals with maybe 3 or 4 spammers per month since implementing these measures. That’s a number you won’t hear me gripe about anytime soon.

What about you? There’s a million ways to skin a cat. How do you prevent spam on your forums? Any tips and tricks for me? Sound off in the comments.

So far it’s worked without issue on my Mac and Linux machines. Have you tried selective sync yet?

Check it out: http://www.emailquestions.com/general/2802-cpanel-addon-domains-mod_rewrite.html

Firefox Advanced Settings

From now on whenever your on a web page and start typing a quick find box will come up and the cursor will automatically jump to the word you’re looking for. There is no navigation in the quick find box though so it’s not full featured as regular find. There’s a workaround for this: http://mozillalinks.org/wp/2006/10/firefox-quick-search-as-it-should-and-used-to-be/, it’s just a quick edit to your userchrome.css file in order to setup the navigation buttons in quick find. I’ve tested it out and it works great!