Acid for Blood

TypePad Connect

For the past few weeks, I had been looking into a new commenting system for my blog because it was difficult to track lengthy conversations.

I'd had good experiences with Disqus as a commenter on a few blogs. Although Disqus advertises that bloggers can use it on TypePad, what they didn't reveal -- until I tried to install it -- is that it only works with the TypePad Pro pricing plan and higher.

Next, I tried IntenseDebate. Whilst not as popular as Disqus, IntenseDebate has many of the same features. I got as far as installing it onto my TypePad blog, but ran into a problem. I was supposed to be able to have all my old comments appear natively in TypePad, and entries posted after I installed IntenseDebate would feature the new commenting system. I wanted to keep my old comments. Unfortunately this didn't work. What happened is that IntenseDebate just appeared over all comments, making it appear as if no one had replied to my old posts. I asked for help at their GetSatisfaction customer support page, however no assistance came. I decided to uninstall it because it wasn't working as advertised. After reading around, I discovered that getting IntenseDebate to install on a TypePad Plus blog was an imperfect hack rather than true integration.

By good fortune, SixApart released TypePad Connect BETA several days ago. TypePad Connect has some of the same features that Disqus and IntenseDebate have, like comment threading, user pictures, and user profiles. SixApart integrated TypeKey profiles into TypePad connect, so if you already have a TypeKey profile, it has evolved into a TypePad profile. Everyone can sign up for a free TypePad profile (here's mine), regardless of your blogging platform and whether you blog or not. This is exactly like IntenseDebate and Disqus, where you can create a commenter profile. Like Disqus and IntenseDebate, bloggers can use TypePad Connect on their blogs to help manage their comments, regardless of whether you have a Movable Type or TypePad blog.

Disqus and IntenseDebate are the more established commenting systems, so they do have more robust basic moderation features as well as flashier bells and whistles that TypePad Connect lacks -- such as comment statistics, reputation systems, comment voting/rating, comment flagging (for appropriateness), video comments (Disqus), widgets that display information about a blog's commenters, and better integration with other social networking platforms. IntenseDebate, in particular, has a ton of moderation features that I would find very useful if TypePad Connect had them. I think that the TypePad profiles could be more aesthetically pleasing. The profiles on Disqus and IntenseDebate just feel more Web 2.0.

I installed TypePad Connect on my blog, and I'm very pleased with it so far. I'm just as pleased that I have a native commenting system that allows me to keep all my old comments and makes conversations easier to follow. TypePad Connect is still in beta, so there are probably a few minor issues, but I've had few problems with it, and the initial problems I did have were quickly solved by the SixApart team.

I hope SixApart takes some cues from Disqus and IntenseDebate and decides to integrate many more features that are essential to commenting systems (IP blacklisting, email blacklisting, word filters), as well as of the more social network-y features.

EDIT - 24 November 2008: So apparently I can ban IP addresses and words in TypePad Connect. However, it doesn't let you ban email addresses. It would also be nice, for those blogs that publish comments without moderation, for there to be an option to hold comments in moderation depending on IP address, number of links, email address, and key words.

Powered By TypePad

My blog is on TypePad now.

The blog lives at "http://www.acidforblood.net", but the domain sans the "www" doesn't seem to work at the moment. I've set my registrar to forward "acidforblood.net" to "www.acidforblood.net" per TypePad's instructions, but the change isn't live yet. The FAQ on my registrar's site informed me that it could take up to 24 hours for it go into effect.

For everyone reading through RSS, apologies for having old posts show up multiple times. The feed should be working properly now.

Longtime readers may remember that this blog theme is the same one as one I used on Blogger just before moving to self-hosting two years ago.

Pardon My Dust

I've decided to move to paid, managed blog hosting. Part of the reason I haven't been writing as much, apart from generally being busy in my personal life, is because I wanted to do some heavy maintenance on my blog, but other things just kept taking priority. Last week I tried to upgrade my WordPress installation. It went awry. I'm not incredibly knowledgable about PHP databases and sorting out what happened was frustrating. More recently, my web hosting service has informed me that I am dangerously close to reaching my disk space usage limit. If I stick with self-hosting, I will have to upgrade my plan, either with my current host or a new one. My current plan is very modest, but my blog is outgrowing it.

I considered moving everything over to WordPress.com because I think they have the best free blog hosting service. However, they randomly show adverts to your readers, and I have no control over this. They don't seem to have an option to exclude ads for a fee. I decided against WordPress.com in the end. I first hosted my blog on Blogger, but was not entirely satisfied with that service, which is why I moved to self-hosting in the first place.

I've been checking out TypePad's 14-day trial, and I like what I see. I've submitted support tickets and requests for help, and their customer service technicians seem on the ball, which is to be expected from a monthly paid service. In the coming weeks, I will be moving everything over to TypePad. As such, the blog may experience some hiccups here and there during the transition.

Job News

I left my job at Xfire last month to work at a company that I couldn't speak of until today. It was my first day on the job as a Community Manager for Guild Wars. How cool is it that I've been writing about the game as a player and now I'm working at ArenaNet? Pretty damn cool, I must say.

I relocated from California to Washington last week, and the move and associated stresses have left me exhausted, a bit sleep-deprived, and not inclined to play games, so I don't have any updates on that front. Oh yeah, I played the hell out of Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords, and I'm looking forward to Puzzle Quest: Galactrix.

I tried to troubleshoot my computer yesterday to no avail. I'm going to try one more thing this week and if that doesn't work, I'll have to reinstall Windows. I'm irked that I'll be losing all those Guild Wars screen shots that I haven't saved somewhere on the web yet. Also, my save game files for Portal and The Longest Journey. Doh. Must back up more often.

Right now I am not sure whether I will continue to write about Guild Wars here or not.

Still Alive

If it wasn't already obvious from the lack of content, I've been too busy to post. Blogging will be sparse for at least a month, possibly more. More on why later. Watch this space.

My gaming computer's been broken for a couple of weeks and I haven't had time to deal with it yet.

I have not finished Portal or anything else I said (a few months ago) I would finish. I've been playing Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords on the DS lately. I finished it the other day, so I suppose that is an accomplishment because I suck at completing games. I'm trying to get to level 50 so I can PvP without getting owned during every single match.

Bad Behaviour Behaving Badly

Yesterday visitors to my blog, including me, discovered that we were unable to leave comments. I also discovered that I was unable to execute any administrative functions. We were greeted with the following message:

Error 403

We're sorry, but we could not fulfill your request for /wp-comments-post.php on this server.

Your Internet Protocol address is listed on a blacklist of addresses involved in malicious or illegal activity. See the listing below for more details on specific blacklists and removal procedures.

I did not have any idea of where this block was coming from, so I contacted my web hosting company to see if they knew anything. After checking the server, they reported that it was fine and that the problem came from my WordPress installation. So, I began checking my plugins' web pages for updates, starting at the top with Bad Behaviour. What do you know? Bad Behaviour was the culprit:

All users should update to Bad Behavior 2.0.11 immediately to prevent being blocked from your own site.

Within the past two days users have found themselves blocked from their own sites while using recent versions of Bad Behavior. A third party blacklist which Bad Behavior queries recently began sending false positives for any IP address queried, causing everyone using Bad Behavior to be blocked. This issue is fixed in Bad Behavior 2.0.11.

After updating the Bad Behaviour plugin, everything is fine.

Happy November 1

Hallow's End has come and gone in Guild Wars. The two masks this year are much better than last year's offerings, the Wicked Hat and the Furious Pumpkin Crown. I disliked the Furious Pumpkin Crown so much that I simply destroyed mine without showing it to the festival hat maker. In other words, I cannot acquire the Furious Pumpkin Crown through any means except time travel.

The Scarecrow Mask:

The Mummy Mask:

It was a productive evening for minipet trading, as I acquired a Miniature Juggernaut from Bish in exchange for my spare Fire Imp, and from Toktic a Harpy Ranger in exchange for a spare Jade Armour that my Paragon had just received for his first birthday present. My neglected Dervish also celebrated her first birthday and she received a Kirin. One of my storage tabs is becoming very crowded with my minipet collection.

In other news, I'll be pretty busy this November, so blogging here will be light.

[Guild Wars Hallowe'en 2007 Photoset]

EDIT: One of the new events for Hallowe'en this year was the Costume Brawl. I didn't have time to participate, but Clamatius has all the details. Meanwhile, Van Hemlock has an account of his Hallowe'en experience in Guild Wars.

Ads

I've been asked to consider displaying graphical advertising on this blog, on the sidebar. Any thoughts? I suppose this doesn't matter for people reading through RSS, but I'd still like your opinions.

After-PAX Travel and Rest Period

PAX is over. It was largely awesome. I will not go into detail now, because once I start writing I won't be able to stop. Plus, I really need to go to sleep. I will write about the ArenaNet panel at PAX, the Guild Wars party, my conversations with people from the Guild Wars development team, and my overall PAX experience on Tuesday.

I will be driving back from Seattle, Washington to Northern California later today (Monday), and it's going to take a while. I learned to drive a manual transmission (two training sessions) vehicle this weekend, so wish me luck on my journey home!

I'll be too tired to write when I get back, so I'll sleep, wake up on Tuesday, eat, run some errands, and then blog. I'd do this sooner, but I need rest.

Anyway, I had a fantastic time at PAX, and I will probably attend next year.

Illness, PAX, and Other Things

A few things:

1) I have been ill recently. I had to go into Urgent Care on Friday, and now I am on some nice medication, which should fix what's wrong. There are a couple of other health problems that have been slowing me down, too, but medication isn't the best route for those problems.

2) I have been very busy at work recently. This contributes to increased stress levels and worsens some of the problems in point #1. I have also been busy during my non-working time.

3) I am in dire need of a holiday.

4) I have decided to go to the Penny Arcade Expo. No, I will not be working at this convention, though I have seriously considered it. Right now, I only work at anime conventions, though sadly I will be missing Otakon.

I will be visiting the ArenaNet/Guild Wars booth at PAX, and of course I will be blogging about it. I am very excited. This is like the ultimate mini-holiday destination for me. I plan on attending as many Guild Wars related events at PAX as possible. I don't care too much about anything else there right now (I rarely even read Penny Arcade). I'm going to PAX for ArenaNet and for Guild Wars.

If anyone is going to PAX and would like to meet up, send me an email and we'll sort it out. I'm really nice, as long as you don't draw me into a Guild Wars vs. World of Warcraft "debate".

5) Due to point #2, my main computer for everything (especially gaming) is still down.

6) I won something because I commented on things at sk*rt. I am not sure what a "Guided Memory Book" is, but I'm sure I will figure it out. Maybe I could use it for #4.

7) I think I need to finally get a digital camera.