Tips and Tricks
04.20.2006
A Quick How-To for Requiring CAPTCHAs
On Tuesday, we added a new tool to help prevent spam comments from being posted to your blog. Using CAPTCHAs to validate commenters as actual humans, and not machines or spambots, is a powerful way to ensure that only legitimate comments are published.
You can enable the CAPTCHA option by going to the "Edit Configuration" link in the Weblogs tab. Click through "Preferences" and scroll down to Comment and TrackBack Preferences. There, check the box for "Require unauthenticated commenters to validate with a CAPTCHA?" and save your changes at the bottom of the page.
After republishing your blog, commenters will be shown a CAPTCHA image to enter before their comment is published.
Note that if you have Comment Authentication set to "Required," the option to require validation with a CAPTCHA will be unavailable. In this case, commenters will be validated with their TypeKey identities.
More information about this, and all of TypePad's other features, can be found in our searchable Knowledge Base.
Posted by Technical Support at 10:43 AM | Permalink
01.06.2006
Dressing Up Your Weblog with a Banner Image
This post is the seventh and last in a series that introduced some great TypePad features and offers tips on finding help with TypePad in general.
Kristine on Dressing Up Your Weblog with a Banner Image.
Q: What can you tell us about yourself?
Hi, I'm Kristine. I've been with Six Apart since April 2004, and before that, I was a volunteer on the Movable Type support forums since not long after it was released! I've been blogging for almost 6 years now at kadyellebee using a combination of Movable Type and TypePad. I love blogging about geeky things, along with entertainment news. Posting about the happenings in my life is also great, especially now with moblogging to add pictures to those events.
Continue reading “Dressing Up Your Weblog with a Banner Image”
Posted by Technical Support at 01:30 PM | Permalink
01.04.2006
Moblogging Options
This post is the sixth in a series that introduces some great TypePad features and offers tips on finding help with TypePad in general.
Colleen on Moblogging Options.
Q: What can you tell us about yourself?
Hi there, I'm Colleen. I've been working in TypePad support since March of 2005 and have been a subscriber since July of 2003. I have two TypePad blogs that I update regularly: Woops!, my primary blog and photos a go-go, where I share pictures of my friends and family. Blogging is a great way for me to keep up to date with friends and share fun tidbits I find around the internet.
Continue reading “Moblogging Options”
Posted by Technical Support at 09:20 AM | Permalink
01.02.2006
Adding a Personalized Icon to your Weblog
This post is the fifth in a series that introduces some great TypePad features and offers tips on finding help with TypePad in general.
Laura on Adding a Personalized Icon to your Weblog.
Q: What can you tell us about yourself?
My name is Laura and I've been working for Six Apart in the Technical Support area for just over a year now. I've been blogging for three and a half years and I have a whole bunch of blogs all over the place, all made using Six Apart products, of course! My primary blog is veiled4allah where I discuss political issues and news of the day.
Continue reading “Adding a Personalized Icon to your Weblog”
Posted by Technical Support at 02:15 PM | Permalink
12.30.2005
About Pages for Sharing Info
This post is the fourth in a series that introduces some great TypePad features and offers tips on finding help with TypePad in general.
Kymberlie on About Pages for Sharing Info.
Q: What can you tell us about yourself?
I'm Kymberlie and I've been working for Six Apart in Technical Services for about a year now. I've been using Movable Type to run my main blog, Neurotic Fishbowl since January 2002. There I talk about all kinds of random things from poker to skydiving to nights out on the town with friends. Blogging has been a great way for me to meet other people and it seems like these days, almost all of my friends are bloggers.
Continue reading “About Pages for Sharing Info”
Posted by Technical Support at 10:42 AM | Permalink
12.27.2005
Adding Sidebar Content with TypeLists
This post is the third in a series that introduces some great TypePad features and offers tips on finding help with TypePad in general.
Melissa on Adding Sidebar Content with TypeLists.
Q: What can you tell us about yourself?
Not much, due to the restrictions of the Witness Protection Program. (Kidding!) My name is Melissa, I live in Detroit and I've been blogging since June 2002. My main blog is powered by Movable Type and available here: anything but ordinary. I also have a TypePad blog and a LiveJournal. :D
Continue reading “Adding Sidebar Content with TypeLists”
Posted by Technical Support at 03:40 PM | Permalink
12.14.2005
Wide Variety of Themes available!
This post is the second in a series that introduces some great TypePad features and offers tips on finding help with TypePad in general.
Carla on Theme Selection.
Q: What can you tell us about yourself?
My name is Carla and I have been working for Six Apart in the Technical Services area for a few months. I've been a blogger for 5 years now and a user of Six Apart products for most of that time so I'm very excited to be working with TypePad now. I can be found at carla.typepad.com blogging about movies, music and everyday life and at Product Girl blogging about my favorite beauty products.
Continue reading “Wide Variety of Themes available!”
Posted by Technical Support at 09:06 AM | Permalink | Trackback (0)
12.12.2005
Photo Albums are Easy and Fun!
This post is the first in a series that introduces some great TypePad features and offers tips on finding help with TypePad in general.
Brenna on Photo Albums.
Q: What can you tell us about yourself?
Hi, I'm Brenna and I have been working in TypePad tech support since the beginning. I love working in support and with TypePad every day. Our tech team is fantastic and interacting with the blogging community is rewarding and always interesting.
I enjoy thinking of unique ways to use blogs, and introducing people to blogs. I also like creating layouts and styles for sites. Previous to working in TypePad, I spent most of my time at the Movable Type Community Forums. I hang out with my dog and husband and you can also find me at brenna.typepad.com.
Continue reading “Photo Albums are Easy and Fun!”
Posted by Technical Support at 06:55 PM | Permalink | Trackback (0)
07.26.2005
Manage Comments directly from Your Inbox
Whether you just started your weblog or have been blogging for years, everyone loves the rush of getting feedback from friends, family and “fans” at large. To make this process even more immediate, we enhanced the comment notification email so that you can now edit, approve, or delete a newly submitted comment directly from your Inbox.
To subscribe to comment notification emails, visit your weblog’s Configure tab and...
Many of you also requested a way to subscribe to either HTML or plain text emails. So for those of you that don't like HTML emails (because you use a text based email client, or because you simply don’t like HTML email), you can now choose. Either way, both plain text and HTML comment notification emails contain all the links you need to make it easier to manage your comments directly from your email.
To change your email preferences, visit the Account Overview page located under the Control Panel and select "Plain Text" or “HTML” from the email preferences section in the right hand column of the screen.
Posted by Byrne Reese at 02:41 AM | Permalink
07.19.2005
Managing TypePad Communities
TypePad now makes it possible for your commenters to sign in with the TypeKey service when commenting on your weblog. TypeKey authentication can be a tool to fight comment spam, but while it's one of the surest ways to keep comment spam off of your weblog, we see TypeKey as a tool that can help you build the community around your blog.
Weblogs aren't simply a collection of posts and comments, they're places where people with similar interests gather and where communities form. So, TypeKey gives you a more reliable way to understand who is visiting your blog, while still respecting their privacy.
To turn on Comment Moderation for your blog, visit the Configure > Preferences tab and set comment authentication to either “optional”, “required”, or “off”.
To manage moderation preferences associated with a specific TypeKey commenter, go to the List Comment screen and select “hold for approval” or “automatically publish” from the options associated with that user.
To keep your community happy and healthy, you'll want to encourage good commenting behavior. Most of the time that happens on its own, but sometimes, intervention can be required. If members of the community aren't being constructive, TypePad gives you a way to block them from commenting on your weblog in the future.
Whether you use TypeKey to fight comment spam, or as a way to make community management easier, the combination of TypeKey and TypePad helps everyone to build your community, and easily manage the conversation around your blog.
Posted by Byrne Reese at 03:43 PM | Permalink
07.15.2005
Sneaking a feature in there...
The challenge with putting together a major update to TypePad like we did at the beginning of this month is that little features might not get noticed. And sometimes it's these "little" things that are the coolest features, like the new IM Status content module.
In case this new feature slipped by you, we wanted to let you know that all TypePad subscribers can now use the instant message identities in your TypePad profile to display your IM status on your weblog.
Now your readers can know when you're online or off, and can quickly shoot you an instant message just by clicking your IM screen name from your weblog. And stay tuned to Everything TypePad over the next couple of weeks as we highlight additional features that we've snuck in there and that you may have overlooked.
Posted by Byrne Reese at 02:32 PM | Permalink
04.22.2005
An easier way to upload photos
If you are a Windows user who likes to share a lot of photos with your family and friends, then you will be happy to learn that uploading photos just got a whole lot easier. In a few moments XP users can download and install a simple photo uploading wizard that integrates directly into your XP File Explorer. Just select the photo or photos you wish to upload from any folder and click on the “Publish these items to the Web� link found in your XP sidebar. Doing so will launch a wizard that takes you through the few simple steps necessary to create or choose a photo album and then to upload your selected photos to that album.
Don’t use Windows XP? Check out the list of other alternative download tools we started compiling that you might consider using in our online help documentation.
Posted by Byrne Reese at 09:35 AM | Permalink
12.10.2004
Comment/Trackback Management, and IE Keyboard Shortcuts
Internet Explorer users will be happy to hear this handy little tip: many of the same keyboard shortcuts you take for granted in Microsoft Word, also work when editing a post in TypePad. For example, use Ctrl-b while you are typing to toggle bold font face on and off; and the same is true for Ctrl-i (italics), and Ctrl-u (underline).
For those of you who have really active and talkative audiences visiting your blogs, you can always view a list of comments and trackbacks on a post-by-post basis by navigating to the "Edit Post" page. However, for those of you looking for an easier way to see all the comments and trackbacks coming into your blog, navigate to Weblogs > Manage > List Comments or List Trackbacks. From those screens you can more easily manage all of the comments and trackbacks coming into a blog you administer.
Posted by Byrne Reese at 10:24 AM | Permalink
04.16.2004
Using a Nickname on Your Site
If you’d rather not display your full name, to preserve your anonymity or for any other reason, you can choose to display a Nickname on your TypePad site instead of your first and last name.
First, while Editing Your Author Profile, fill in the Nickname you would like to use and save your profile.
Then, in the setup for Customizing Your About Page, check the box to display your Nickname (uncheck the box for Name) and click the “Save and Publish” button.
This will update your About Page to use your Nickname as the title of the page and also sets it so the rest of your site will display your Nickname wherever your author information is displayed.
After changing the Nickname setting, you can use the Publish button on the Design tab for the weblog to update your pages and feeds to use your Nickname.
Posted by Brenna Koch at 02:17 PM | Permalink
03.11.2004
Domain Mapping FAQ
Domain mapping is a popular feature in TypePad, available with a Plus or Pro subscription. It can seem confusing if you do not have experience with setting up a domain name. We’ve gathered the frequently asked questions about domain mapping to help with this.
Continue reading “Domain Mapping FAQ”
Posted by Brenna Koch at 09:16 AM | Permalink
11.26.2003
Adding a Banner Image
With TypePad's template builder you can easily display custom content on your weblog. Additionally, Plus and Pro members have the ability to create custom template styles to change the columns, individual fonts and colors, and add a banner image.
Custom styles are configured on the Design > Style page for the template set. Using the Page Banner Element there, you can upload the image to use for your banner. Check the box to "Use this banner image instead of a text title" and use the image uploader to upload your banner image. Your banner should a .jpg, .gif, or .png file.
Before this, when creating your banner, you'll need to decide the size that you should use for the image.
Continue reading “Adding a Banner Image”
Posted by Brenna Koch at 02:55 PM | Permalink
09.04.2003
Using Categories to Organize Posts
Categories are useful for grouping weblog posts that have similar topics. In TypePad a post can be assigned to a single category or multiple categories. Using a basic template set, you can configure your template to display the categories for your posts and list the categories in your weblog sidebar.
Continue reading “Using Categories to Organize Posts”
Posted by Brenna Koch at 03:01 PM | Permalink
08.29.2003
Adding Google Search to your TypePad weblog
Matt Haughey of PVRblog writes in a great tip about adding a Google search to your TypePad weblog. Once you add the search to your weblog, your readers will be able to search your site for specific keywords.
Continue reading “Adding Google Search to your TypePad weblog”
Posted by Mena Trott at 05:26 PM | Permalink
08.27.2003
Using QuickPost with Media TypeLists
Did you know that if you're visiting Amazon.com and you want to quickly post a Reading or Music TypeList item, all you have to do is use QuickPost and the ASIN will automatically be filled in on the QuickPost bookmarklet? Just click on the QuickPost bookmarklet link when you're on the product's page, click to either the Reading or Music TypeList tab, and then click the add button next to the field with the ASIN number.
Posted by Mena Trott at 08:51 PM | Permalink
08.25.2003
Adding a TypeList to your Weblog
If you create TypeLists often, you're probably a bit wary of going back to your weblog's design section to add the list.
Here's a tip on how to add a TypeList to your weblogs after its initial creation.
After you create the list for the first time, you'll see a link that prompts you to add the TypeList to your weblog:
Click on it, select the weblogs you wish to add your TypeList to and then save. Your TypeLists automatically appear in your weblog.
Note that if you want to change the order of your sidebar (and where the TypeList appears), you'll have to go into the Weblog's design and edit the "Order."
Posted by Mena Trott at 06:01 PM | Permalink
08.15.2003
TypePad Buttons and TypeList trick
We've had two frequently-asked requests from our users. One, do we have any TypePad buttons that they can add to their sidebar (or replace the "powered by" text). And two, what's the easiest way to add a button or badge to their TypePad sidebar.
As a response to the button question, we've created a number of buttons for you to download and add to your own site. In this tip, we walk you through the process of adding a button to your TypeList and you will then be able to apply this trick to additional buttons, badges and small images you'd like to add to your site.
And because we've seen the demand for images in sidebar, we're working on creating an Image TypeList so that you can add graphics to your sidebar even more easily.
Continue reading “TypePad Buttons and TypeList trick”
Posted by Mena Trott at 04:09 PM | Permalink
