Dave, I’ve just started a weblog of my own and am finding that I need to learn a few HTML tags to make my entries as attractive as possible. I’d also like to learn how to link to other sites and other Weblogs, but really haven’t much of a clue other than that HTML has < and > around different letters. Can you give me a quick primer?
Dave, I notice that whenever you mention any products on Amazon, your links always go straight to the recommended product (rather than their annoying intermediate landing page where they try to sell you on other products) and neatly tuck your affiliate link in too. So, do tell, what’s your secret technique?
Dave, Help! My weblog is drowning in these seemingly nonsensical postings from people that have nothing to do with my discussion, yet don’t actually point to any sort of existing Web site or even a valid email address. On the assumption that they’re not doing it just to annoy me, why would they bother to spam my weblog with this kind of stuff?
My sister and I have been engaged in a dialog about the merits of weblogs versus traditional Web sites and it’s evolved into a quite interesting discussion. She asks: “I still don’t see how a blog would be better for me
than a web site. I don’t see why a person would want to come to my site
often to see what I’m up to.”
A pal of mine who is a prolific writer but not so much of a techie asked me the following question: “I’ve just heard that feedster added a feature where I can automatically ping them when I have new entries for my Weblog. I use Movable Type daily, but I’m darned if I know how to add a new ping host to my blog configuration. Help!”
A technical wizard pal of mine asks: “I have all sorts of challenge/response barriers to comment spam on my Movable Type weblog, but occasionally someone goes through the work of identifying themselves and still leaves some silly spam comment. I want to delete it, but right now I get the email notification of the new comment, then have to log in to the administrative interface, find the comment, and delete it by hand. Quite a hassle. Isn’t there a better solution to this?”
More than once, readers have written to me, asking if it was possible to track an RSS feed from a Weblog or news site with a shell script. Sounds kinda wacky, but in fact, it’s a very good use of a shell script, as the following rather extensive entry — including source code! — demonstrates. If you’re a bit confused by the following, you might want to consider picking up a copy of my best-selling Wicked Cool Shell Scripts.
