Blog
Blog is an automatic web logging program which allows you to update your
site easily without the hassles of HTML editing and having to use a separate
program to upload your work. You simply set Blog up with the necessary
information for logging into your site via FTP, define a template to specify
the look for your page and then type in your entries in the main Blog
window and click Publish and Blog does the rest! Blog also handles the
task of generating archival entries for older posts. It is a really convenient
way to keep a site (or multiple sites) updated without going through several
programs to do the job.
Blog can be operated in three different modes - a) Standalone - which
allows a single person to maintain their own site(s) from their desktop
machine b) Server - which allows collaboration between several people
or for the same person to post from multiple locations using the third
mode of Blog which is ... c) Client. The Client and Server modes might
be a bit confusing to set up but do refere to the included Blog.txt file
which is present in all distros of Blog to get some hints as to what you
need to do.
Features
- Everything is self-contained - no need for other programs like an
HTML editor or an FTP client.
- Can handle multiple journals so that you can have more than one site
or more than one page updated on the same server.
- Can handle different templates for each journal so if you have multiple
pages on the same site, you can have a different look for each page.
- You can also have the same journal on several sites - especially useful
for keeping mirror sites in synch with the main site.
- You can have multiple journals/pages on the same site - for instance
a news page and a product update page.
- Creates archival entries for older posts on request and you can specify
a look of your choice (different from that of general posts) for the
archive table of contents.
- Built in spell checker and thesaurus. You can have live spellchecking
as you type.
- The Client and Server modes let several people share the joy/burden
of maintaining a single site by sharing postings - all you need is to
have one machine running Blog in Server mode - this machine need not
even be always connected to the Net since Blog dials out when necessary
to collect posts sent in Client mode.
- The ability to summarize posts with an automatically generated page
which contains the whole post and a link to this page from the main
journal.
- The option to receive posts from a variety of different sources with
e-mail capability such as cellular phones, PDA's, web-based e-mail etc.
in Server mode.
- The ability to assign often used custom HTML tags as menu commands
and toolbar buttons for easy accessibility.
- The ability to have built-in comments without the need for any server-side
scripting. (The comments work via e-mail and so, Blog needs to be running
in Server mode)
- The ability to send a weekly or monthly digest of entries to subscribed
users and built-in basic listserver functionality to handle digest subscription/unsubscription.
- The ability to assign multiple categories to any entry and be able
to display archives by category.
Screen Shots
FAQ/Known Defects
- Is Blog totally free? Yes, Blog is free for any type of use (commercial or personal) and it will continue to be free. However, support for Blog is not free. You can use free resources like the RookSoft mailing list or the RookSoft forums and hope some other Blog user will be kind enough to answer your questions. But if you want support from me, you will have to pay for support. It will be US$ 10 for a full month's support. You can e-mail me at my e-mail address (given at the top of the page) to find out how to set up personal support.
- How do I convert Blogger templates? You can use this handy
conversion guide that Jason
has kindly whipped up.
- I get a DBISAM error in Blog. This usually happens if you make
a journal entry but don't save it and instead go change something -
like a template for instance. So always save your entry before you do
something else (and let me know what sequence of events caused the error
and I'll try to fix it <g>).
- How do I get a PHP comments system set up with Blog? If your
server or ISP supports PHP or if you have access to another server with
PHP installed, you can simply modify the contents of this
archive that I put together of the scripts that I use myself - but
read the readme.txt file first :p
- Where do I get dictionaries besides the US English one included
with Blog? Go to the dictionary
download page of Addictive Software.
- I keep on getting the error "DBSIAM: Engine Error # 8708 Record
has been changed or deleted by another user, session, or table cursor
in table Journal.DAT" even after I quit Blog and restart it. What
do I do? This particular problem should be solved after Blog 5.0
Beta 2 but was caused by starting a new entry, not saving it and trying
to delete it. Go to the ElevateSoft
website and download their DBISAM System
Utilities for DBISAM 2.12 if your Blog version is before Blog 5.0
Beta (otherwise get their latest DBISAM System Utilities - it's a free
download and should be towards the very bottom of their download page
...). Install it and run the Database System Utility, select Utilities-Repair
from the menu and point to the Journal.DAT file in your Blog directory
(you should of course, back up your data before you do this). Once the
repair is done, your Blog installation should be back to normal.
- When I try to publish my blog, I get an FTP error regarding a SYST
command failure. What should I do? This problem seems to be caused
by having an FTP proxy installed (maybe if you are at work?) Other than
disabling the FTP proxy or talking to your systems administrator to
find a way around it, I can't recommend anything. Sorry :-(
- I am confused about how to setup Blog. Can you give me step-by-step
instructions? This information is slightly out of date since
it was originally for Blog 4.0 but most of the instructions are still
valid. So take a look at this
AT&T WorldNet users page which gives you instructions on how
to set up Blog.
- Is there a web ring for Blog users? Yes, SilverLining
has set one up. The join-the-ring link is:
http://home.earthlink.net/~sigmar01/blogusers/
- How do I send new entries to Blog in Server mode from a normal
email client like Outlook, rather than using Blog in Client mode?
Simply send an e-mail to the address that Blog Server checks with the
subject line formatted thus:
[Blog]<$BlogName={name}>{title}
In the above, [Blog] should be changed to whatever you use as the subject
header if you change the default value and {name} should be the name
of the journal, exactly as it appears in Blog Server. {title} is optional
and is simply any title you may want to assign to your entry.
- Can I use my own "Powered by Blog" button rather
than the ones you've provided? Sure, go ahead! As long as you
acknowledge the fact that your site uses Blog and link back to my site,
I don't mind what you use :-)
- Is there a location from which I can get new templates for
Blog? Yes, try the Blog
Skins site which has templates compatible with Blogger.com and Moveable
Type. It shouldn't take too long for you to convert them to be used
with Blog. Refer to Jason's conversion guide (referred to in the very
first FAQ point) if you are stuck.
- I just upgraded Blog to a newer version and got an Access
Violation error but everything seems to work fine. Should I reinstall?
Just quit and restart Blog. If the Access Violation is gone, then it
was probably some toolbar related error due to changes in the toolbar.
If not, quit Blog, delete the Blog.cfg file in the Blog directory and
see if that works. If even that doesn't work, then quit Blog, delete
the Blog.cfg file, restart Blog and then right-click on the edit toolbar
(not the main toolbar) on the Blog main screen, select customize and
drag any button from the selection on to the edit toolbar. Close the
customize menu and then close and restart Blog. If it works, you can
simply go back to customizing the toolbars and drag the button you created
off the Blog window to remove it. If none of the above works, let me
know but do not do a full install at any cost since that will delete
all your existing entries.
- Why won't my comments/digest feature work? Blog needs
to be running in Server mode for both comments and digest to work. Please
ensure that you change the Blog mode to Server and fill in the POP and
SMTP server information and the To: email address field if you want
comments and digests to work properly.
- I just installed and configured Blog but when I publish my
entry, I have the message "Cee is not installed! Fortune Cookies
not available!" on my page. What am I doing wrong? This
is not something you've done wrong but rather it's due to the fact that
I used all the Blog tags in the default template that comes with Blog
and so also used the <$BlogCookie> tag which needs another of
my programs, Cee, to be installed in the same directory as Blog.
If you don't want to install Cee, then simply remove the <$BlogCookie>
tag from the default template and republish and you will not get the
error message.
- I formatted my hard drive and didn't backup Blog. I still have my entries on my web server. Is there a way to import those entries back into Blog? No you can't import back web pages into Blog even if they had been originally created by Blog. The only way to get the entries back is to manually copy each entry from the web pages and paste into Blog - very time consuming. However, Blog does not overwrite all of your existing pages on the server - only the page for the last month or the last week (depending on your archive scheme). So you can still simply leave all the old entries on the server, link to them statically and go on with new entries if that would be easier. However, this does not not ensure that the old category archives will remain in place or that comments will work fine if you use the built-in Blog commenting system. The category archives will get overwritten the next time you create category archives since the file naming convention used by the category archiving is such that the old archives are overwritten - this problem is not there with the monthly/weekly archives.
- I set up Blog, published and everything seemed to go fine. But I can't see my posts on the server! What's up? This is usually because you didn't set the Full Path setting properly on the Sites tab of the Journal Management Dialog. If you don't specify anything for Full Path, Blog publishes your entries to teh root FTP folder of your site. The root FTP folder can be different from the root folder that you see when you access your web site and quite a few web hosts these days seem to require you to have your site content in a folder named "public_html". Log into your FTP server using an FTP client (if you don't have one, SmartFTP is quite good and is free) and see if you can see the files created by Blog in your root folder - the root folder will be the folder you will first end up in when you FTP to your site. If the files are there and you can't see them on the web site when you browse to the site, then the files probably have to go in a sub folder. See if there is a folder named "www" or "public_html" (sometimes you'll find both, in which case, go with "public_html"). If there is such a folder, then put /public_html as the entry for the Full Path setting and publish again. This should solve your problem.
- I tried the remote template feature and uploaded my template to the server. Nothings works? The remote template feature does not mean that your template will be on a remote server - just that the template will be remote for Blog. This feature allows you to point Blog to an external file (on your local hard disk) to be used as a template. This allows you to have a template which can be modified in FrontPage or DreamWeaver but which can still be accessed by Blog.
- When I try to publish with Blog I get an error message saying "'10060 Connection' is not a valid integer value." What's wrong? This problem usually occurrs when your connection times out and usually indicates that you have Internet connection problems. This is usually not a problem with Blog itself. Check your Internet connection to see if it is working. If it is, then check the remote server to see if it is accessible (via a separate FTP program like SmartFTP). Usually, the problem is one of these two. However, it could also be a firewall problem. If you have a firewall installed, check whether your firewall allows Blog to connect to the Internet.
- I created an account with the remote commenting system at Enetation/HaloScan etc. They want a unique ID for the commenting system to identify each post. What do I do? First of all, read the Blog Readme.txt file (which is accessible via the Help - Read Me option) from top to bottom since if you'd read it, you would know the answer already. If you still haven't found the answer, check the description for the <$BlogID> tag.
- I encounter problems when publishing in Server mode - Blog returns an error message saying <" is not a valid integer value>. What should I do? This problem usually occurs if you have enabled the digest feature under the Journals tab of the Journal Management dialog but have not specified a valid digest template under the Sites tab of the Journal Management dialog. Please ensure that you have all relevant templates set up, if you are using a particular feature.
User Testimonials
- I love this concept of having a quick program that I can make quick
changes or additions to a web page in a text area and then upload it
to my server and be done with it. Awesome. I already have two friends
in mind that could benefit from such a great program. (Raven - 11 Apr
2001)
- You may or may not remember me, but I emailed you a couple months
back (Novemberish) about the BLOG program. I ranted about being unable
to allow other users to upload to the same blog! But now I see you've
implemented it and this proggy is AWESOME! The best blog program by
far!! (Phillip Chiu - 5 Aug 2002)
- I love this program, I downloaded it yesterday after many failed attempts
with GreyMatter. This is so easy to configure, anyone could do it. You
make the online diary experience so great. Geeze I am just soooo happy.
(CamBratJenny - 20 Aug 2002)
- I was looking to start a journal, but I didn't want to rely on a web-based
solution and I didn't want to get into CGI until I was sure I was going
to persist with it, so Blog was perfect for me. (Stephen Horgan - 7
Sep 2002)
- You can chalk me up on the list of satisfied users just two days after
I dowloadad Blog. (kraz - 9 Sep 2002)
Linking and Acknowledgements
If you use Blog, please be kind enough to use one of the following great
looking buttons created by sinesolis on your page and link back to this
site. I have provided the HTML code that you can use as well so that it
would be a simple copy-and-paste operation :-) (Of course, you'll have
to save the appropriate button and upload it to your site - but you knew
that, right?)
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<a href="http://www.farook.org"><img src=
"Blogbutton.gif"></a> |
<a href="http://www.farook.org"><img src=
"Blogbutton2.gif"></a> |
<a href="http://www.farook.org"><img src=
"Blogbutton3.gif"></a> |
This is a list of sites that use Blog (that I know of ... if I've missed
any, please let me know):
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