Hello! Long time no speak!
Well, as my thesis is nearly done I thought I'd possibly start up doing this blogging thing again...
So, the first thing I decided to do was to get up to date with my blogging software. I'm now using Movable Type 4.1 rather than version 2.661 which is what I've been using for ages and ages.
I had worried that upgrading would have been a real pain in the backside - which is why I'd left it ages to do it (missing out version 3 altogether - although that was also because of the licence with MT3 which I wasn't happy with!). I had considered converting to WordPress, however given all my customisations that'd have been a bigger pain to do.
Anyways, hopefully the blog is pretty much as it was in the old days... the major change being commenting... you can still post as before (after entering in the CAPTCHA) but now the post won't appear straight away... I'll have to moderate it. This means I might take it upon myself to not allow through crap comments. Not that my avid readers ever posted crap comments, but have you read the chavs post recently?
The other option is that you authenticate yourself somehow... then you won't have to fill in the CAPTCHA and your post will (currently) be posted 'instantly' without me having to moderate it.
Authentification is très simple. You can sign in with a Typekey account if you've got one - feel free to get one... it's used by many blogs for authentification...
You can also use OpenID to authenticate... OpenID, what's that? Well, there's quite a large chance you already have one without knowing... here's a list of things on the web you could be signed up for that will have already given you an OpenID... now to be honest... I've tried, my AOL, Blogger and Yahoo accounts... and only my AOL (AOL of all things) worked. This is exceptionally poo. I don't think it's an issue at my end as I've tried signing in using the same OpenIDs on the Movable Type website too and it fails... no idea where the problem lies! I'll let you know if the methods miraculasly start to work.
If you're serious about commenting (and don't want me to have to moderate it) I'd go down the TypeKey route at the moment if I were perfectly honest - TypeKey gives you an OpenID too... bonus (at http://profile.typekey.com/username) it's up to you to find another use for it :)
So, there we go... maybe I'll post a diary style entry a bit later!