Another type of comment spam

I'm glad I chose to put my blog on comment moderation - now it appears that companies are paying people to pretend to be bloggers. The post read something like "That recipe looks really good, I'm in a rut as to types of pasta dishes to fix in addition to my go to pasta recipes." The italicized words "go to pasta recipes" was a link - to a Disney Family recipe page. The name of the person leaving the comment was also a link, but to a person who doesn't even have a blog but registered with Blogger so she could post as if she did. If I hadn't clicked on her name, I wouldn't have seen that. My guess is that she is paid by Disney to put their links on people's blogs.


This Post was written by Cyndi from Cookin' With Cyndi

upgrading wordpress to latest version - a cautionary tale

Having put it off long enough, I have just upgraded my wordpress installation from the legacy 2.0.11 (which was stable and officially supported until very recently) to 2.8.4. What prompted this? The following on the wordpress website:

Right now there is a worm making its way around old, unpatched versions of WordPress. This particular worm [...] makes itself an admin, then uses JavaScript to hide itself when you look at users page, attempts to clean up after itself, then goes quiet so you never notice while it inserts hidden spam and malware into your old posts. [...] Upgrading is a known quantity of work [...] Fixing a hacked blog, on the other hand, is quite hard. Upgrading is taking your vitamins; fixing a hack is open heart surgery. (This is true of cost, as well.)

2.8.4, the current version of WordPress, is immune to this worm. (So was the release before this one.) If you've been thinking about upgrading but haven't gotten around to it yet, now would be a really good time.

- excerpt from http://wordpress.org/development/2009/09/keep-wordpress-secure/

I did the upgrade to 2.8.4 in one fell swoop by following the steps in the wordpress codex. There appeared to be only a few glitches that were relatively quickly ironed out and everything seemed to be running fine.

Until I noticed several stray Âs in some of the older posts. And ûs instead of üs, és instead of és, âs instead of âs, etc. etc. It turns out that I SHOULD have disregarded the detailed instructions and googled to find others' recommendations about upgrading the Legacy Wordpress. Thank goodness for backups!! (Please read more about my wordpress upgrade woes. )

When you are upgrading your older version of wordpress (don't put it off!!), take a look Pixelita Designs; they put together a handy (if only I'd seen it!!) step by step guide:

1. Backup your database! If you have the WP Backup plugin, just use that to capture the latest MySQL dump. Otherwise, go through your web host's control panel and PHPAdmin to export the *.sql file to your hard drive.

[...]

4. Chart your upgrade path. Since you are upgrading from 2.0.11, you should upgrade incrementally, like this: 2.0.11 > 2.1 > 2.2 > 2.3 > 2.5 > 2.6 > 2.7 > [2.8.4]
5. Make sure you have downloaded and unzipped to folders all of the WP versions you'll need to complete your upgrade. You can find them in the download archive.
6. Using your favorite FTP program, upload WordPress, starting with 2.1, from the folder you downloaded and unzipped. DO NOT UPLOAD any .htaccess or wp-config.php files from any of the distros! You will want to retain your own versions of .htaccess and wp-config.php already on your server.
7. Once the first new version is uploaded, point your browser to the /wp-admin folder and upgrade.php. For example, if your WordPress install is at www.yourserver.com, you would go to: http://www.yourserver.com/wp-admin/upgrade.php.
8. Proceed to upgrade the database when prompted.
9. Repeat steps 6, 7, and 8 above (uploading the incremental versions, invoking upgrade.php and updating the database) until you've upgraded all the way to [the most recent] WordPress

- excerpt from http://blog.pixelita.com/78/upgrading-your-legacy-wordpress-site/

Obviously, if you are upgrading from Wordpress 2.2, you would upgrade 2.2 > 2.3 > 2.5 > 2.6 > 2.7 > 2.8.4 And please remember to start with making a full backup of your wordpress!!

Also, while you are doing the upgrade, you can upload a temporary index file to your wordpress folder. Make a page that looks like your site and put something like "server currently undergoing maintenance - please come back later" on the page. Save it as index.html and upload it to your wordpress folder. Once the upgrade is done, you can remove that temporary index file and get back to blogging.

All wordpress releases are here: http://wordpress.org/download/release-archive/

Hope this helps.


This post was written by Elizabeth from blog from OUR kitchen

Screen Capture

Can someone explain to me in words of not many syllables how to take a screen capture of a web page and reproduce it in Blogger?

Thanks and pardon my ignorance please!


This Post was written by Ian from The Yorkshire Foodie (formerly Yorkshire Deli)

Trouble with Sidebars

I desperately need help. I seem to be having certain issues with my blog design. My homepage seems to be displaying everything as it should - sidebars are there, post footers with labels social bookmarking icon etc. all there. Now if one clicks through into any of the posts or into "recipes", "about" etc. you will see that the sidebars and the post footers have disappeared. I have no idea why? Yesterday everything was fine and I have not been fiddling around with the template/code. Today it seems to have gone crazy on me.

Can any tech savvy person help me resolve this issue if they can find the glitch? Please.


This Post was written by Meeta from What's For Lunch, Honey?

Calendar Widget

I got rid of a lot of junk in my side bar with my most recent redesign. But I'm thinking one thing I'd like to add would be a calendar widget so I could post local food events. It would NOT be a calendar of blog posts.

I've tried playing with the Google calendar but when I attempt to embed it, it doesn't work very well when it's in a very small format (less than 300 pixels wide).

Can anyone recommend a better calendar widget to use in a sidebar on a Blogger blog?

This Post was written by Amy from Cooking with Amy

Another Photo "Borrower"

Hi all,

I just wanted to make you all aware of another photo "borrower" out there. Her blog is at keepcalmandcarryonblog_dot_com. The owner used a photo from my blog in a recent post called "Pet Project". It was a photo of mac & cheese. She did not ask permission, of course, or I wouldn't be posting this. No, instead, she just cropped off the copyright info on my photo.

I asked her to remove it, and I pointed out that she should know to ask first since she also has an "all rights reserved" copyright on her blog. She didn't respond, but she did replace my photo with one from someone else's blog.

There's at least one other photo in that post alone where she cropped off copyright data so she could use it. That's the part that irritates me the most. If she'd left it on, at least viewers would know whose work it was!

So, maybe take a look and see if any of your photos are on her site.

This Post was written by Dawn from Dawn's Recipes

Amazing--NY Mag Online wanted Free Photos

I was contacted by someone from NY Magazine online because they're featuring a Keralan restaurant in London I'd written about for a travel piece. They wanted to know if they could use my food photos "with credit, of course." I replied that I'd be happy for them to use the photos for whatever token fee is standard but that I couldn't give permission without at least an honorarium. I got a reply that they don't do payment for such things. Does everybody think everything is free?


This Post was written by Peter Cherches from Word of Mouth

Adding a small google map to a post?

Hi all, I've started another blog that I really enjoy covering places to eat in my town (Chengdu, Sichuan). At the end of each post I give the adresses in Chinese but am getting feedback from readers, especially those who don't read Chinese or those unfamiliar with the city, who are having a hard time figuring out where places are. So I am trying to figure out how to add a link to a google map on the post instead.

I can copy the link from the google map and insert it in the post, but the map is really big (almost another picture) and it makes the post look strange. Does anyone know how I could make the map smaller, or an obvious link to a map?


This Post was written by Pepper from Frugal Cuisine.

Love Her or Hate Her: Julie Powell

Hi Everyone,

I'm writing a piece for ABC News on the blogging community's split of Julie Powell lovers and haters. Do you feel strongly one way or another? Please respond in the comments or if you wish you can email me at monasapple@gmail.com or monica.nista@abc.com. Thanks ahead of time for your help. I will hyperlink directly back to your blog if I use your quote and this story is sure to be a clicker today. The more the merrier. Don't be shy!

Thanks ahead of time for any and all input you may have,

Mona of Mona's Apple

Support a fellow food-blogger

Hey all. I'm sure you know Sarah, of the Delicious Life. Well...she is in a contest to be the spokeswoman for a wine company and she needs your vote (and about 4,000 additional votes.)

Let's rally behind our girl and get her this gig! Vote at http://bit.ly/diFdW

(It's a super cute video from a super cool girl. Now just go vote. xoxo)


This Post was written by Rechael from Fresh Approach Cooking

MegaNom

Has anyone heard of MegaNom? (meganom.tumblr.com)

One of my recipe photos appeared on their site. It does link back to the recipe on my blog, so I guess it's not a bad thing. I'm just always leery about sites like that. I can't decide if I want them to take down my photo or not.


This Post was written by Dawn from Dawn's Recipes

IReallyLikeFood.com

Has anyone heard of them?

That got in touch with me saying that they'd like to feature my blog and we'd mutually discuss what would go up. I asked them to let me know what they'd like to cover to which they didn't reply in detail but only said that they appreciate my responding. Just today I found that they've copied the content of all my posts and posted it verbatim as a sub domain (http://purplefoodie.ireallylikefood.com/)

Really wanted to know if any of you have been contacted by them and what has your response been like. For now I've sent them a mail asking them to pull down the content. I'm getting anxious about having my content there. I should have been more careful. :(

This Post was written by Shaheen from The Purple Foodie

Header-Image problem

I have finally got round to changing my blog to the (no longer new) 'elements' template/layout version of Blogger and it's causing me a bit of a headache regarding my header.

I am using an image which incorporates my blog name as my header, and have selected the elements option 'have instead of title & description' as otherwise they appear in stark black font over the top of my image - regardless of what font colour I select for them! I don't want them to show at all, but this option I have taken at the moment means there is no text for search engines to utilise, so my ranking is lousy and if you search for my site the description text is a rather useless "skip to main | skip to sidebar. Souperior" etc, rather than my own description.

Can anyone tell me how I can keep my title & description visible to search engines but not have it showing up through my lovely header image?

This Post was written by Fahara from Souperior

Split Posts - Why?

I've seen more and more blogs lately with split posts - the kind where you have to click on a link to read the rest of the post. I guess I'm in a minority here, but this really bugs me. I want to sit and relax and read the posts, and to have to navigate to and from the main page is a pain. Can someone please tell my why this is considered a good thing to do? I've seen it encouraged - so I'm just wondering why.

Thanks!


This Post was written by Cyndi from Cookin' with Cyndi

Recipe Search Engine

Hi all,

I read about a new recipe search engine on lifehacker.com today. It's called Food.com. It's still in beta, but it looks pretty good. Search results show an image thumbnail ( if available), ingredients, ratings, etc., but still require the viewer to click through to the original site for the full recipe. Seems like a decent site to me, and I've requested they index my blog. Thought I'd pass on the info.


This Post was written by Dawn from Dawn's Recipes

Help! Stats on subscribers?

Hi all. I know, it's been a (long) while...

Words to Eat By went a little dormant once my son, Harry, came along, but now that he's practically in college I'm ready to revitalize it and make a new push. Someone asked me the other day how many subscribers I have--I'm working on a book proposal and it could be a valuable thing to cite--but I have no idea. I've done a little investigating, but with the myriad ways readers can find our content it seems almost impossible to aggregate a total number. Bloglines, Feedburner, Google Reader, etc... Does anyone have any suggestions?

This Post was written by Debbie from Words to Eat By.

Blogger 'Layouts' - help!

I have just (and very belatedly) switched to the 'new' Layouts version of blogger, which replaced the old format aaaages ago. So far I have yet to find a useful function of it in all honesty, and am having to replace lots of old coding done by a friend of mine who is no longer around to help. I have two problems:

1) On my sidebar, any content which comes from blogger itself refuses to be centralised, unlike the rest of the sidebar content. Examples are the links to subscribe and my archive list - does anyone have an idea how to solve this?

2) I no longer have the function of expandable post summaries - the links I put on longer posts so I didn't take up a full front page with long posts. The blogger helpdesk says to add this coding:

< b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == " item" '>
span.fullpost {display:inline;}
< b:else / >
span.fullpost {display:none;}
< /b:if >

But it is very unclear as to where, and I have tried multiple options, all of which fail miserably and do very odd things to my site overall. Where do I put this code?!

Any help much appreciated! :)

This Post was written by Fahara from Souperior

Moving on

Some of you will remember me from when I was an active food blogger - about two years ago on back for another at least three years. And I still keep up with my food blog reading. But anyone visiting Tomatilla! in the past two years will have been disappointed since I haven't been keeping up with it since I started working as editorial director for a startup. Well, I got laid off a couple of months ago and will be revitalizing Tomatilla! soon. But I also have to pay the bills, so I launched a coffee site that is somewhere between a blog, and a news magazine. It is very early days yet, but I would LOVE if you came and looked and gave me some feedback. By the way, for Wordpress users, the theme I used for the coffee site is atahualpa and it is the most customizable theme I have ever seeen and totally free.


www.getin2coffee.com


This Post was written by Owen from Tomatilla

Google Followers

In case anyone using Google Blogger was wondering why their followers total has fallen today...

...it's probably not because your readers are deserting you. There's been a change as a result of something to do with Google, Twitter and information disclosure that has caused Google to set the status of all followed blogs to "Anonymous". Once everyone has changed their followed blog status entries back to "Public", the links will be restored and follower numbers will rise back to previous levels. Well, that's the theory.

This Post was written by Trig from Aidan Brooks: Trainee Chef.

A really good conclusion to a plagiarism case

My last couple of posts here were about someone who seems to have no sense of wrong about copying recipes and so on, even after receiving complaints. That person is still posting copied recipes, though greatly stripped down now, and still getting tons of Twitter followers thanking her for her great recipes and so on. Really a downer. But today I had a very positive experience with another person, so I thought I'd relate it to show that sometimes these exchanges can end on a positive note.

So, someone had copied 4 of my posts and a couple of the photos that accompanied them, back in October or so. I didn't realize it because the person who copied them was smart enough to not link to me directly, but a reader alerted me to the copies yesterday. Not the first time this has happened by any means. Last night I pulled out the standard 'please stop that, copyright, etc.' email and sent it off, not expecting a response anytime soon.

This morning, I got a contrite message from that person, who apologized and said he had taken down the offending posts. But he also said this (edited a bit to protect his identity)

Your message has given me a new perspective [on my blog]. You see, I copied [the articles] back when I was in my gangster stage of life; I was lazy and if i could trick the people around me it was all fine, but now I'm different. I found [programming], which allows me to make things without copying from others. What I did before was bad, but now I'm different, and your message has given me the idea to completely redesign my site! All the suspect articles have been removed and I am in the process of rebuilding [my site].

I am guessing that he's pretty young...and if this incident has really helped to change his thinking, it's a really great! (And yes his site is indeed down at the moment.)

Anyway, his response really made my day, and it made up for all the other, less positive similar situations.