To add a hyperlink to your blogger-based blog you need to do the following:

1) login to blogger at http://www.blogger.com/
2) choose your blog in the menu. You’ll goto a screen with 4 tabs, and you need to choose the (third) tab that says “Template” This will take you to the main template and this is where you add the link.
3) Look for the section in the template HTML code labeled “< !– sidebar –>” and then you’ll see the links section beneath there. If one doesn’t exist then you could pick a new template and it would erase the existing template and provide you with a new template along with stylesheet.

On my blogger-based blog: http://gmailtalk.blogspot.com/ the links section starts with an < h6 > tag. Under that, I add the links with standard html like this:

From within your telnet/ssh client you can use the linux nohup command to keep your python script running after you exit shell like this:

nohup python /path/to/python_script.py

From Programous in Windows Media groups:

If you are having problems with the Secure Storage error, all you have to do is delete the following key: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{8D8763AB-E93B-4812-964E-F04E0008FD50}\Version\{B1BF B59C-19D2-46e8-B916-D0F2CF72355E} from your registry. To do this, you must:

1) Go to start menu….run
2) type Regedit
3) expand the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT node on the left
4) expand the CLSID child node on the left
5) Expand the {8D8763AB-E93B-4812-964E-F04E0008FD50} child node on the left
6) Expand the Version child node on the left
7) Highlight the {B1BFB59C-19D2-46e8-B916-D0F2CF72355E} key on the right.
Press Delete.

Jeffdav posts how to cleanly start and stop explorer.exe:

If you want to cleanly shutdown Explorer without having it automatically restart: Start>Shutdown->CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+Cancel.

This shows how to add comments to RSS feeds – nice tip!

The following tutorial assumes that you already have downloaded and installed MySQL on your Windows machine. From inside Windows here’s how you would access MySQL this way:

1) launch a command window by going to: START->ALL PROGRAMS->ACCESSORIES->COMMAND PROMPT

[NOTE: you can also get to it by going to START->RUN and typing: cmd ]
2) inside the Command Prompt window type: cd c:\mysql\bin
(or change directory to the location that you installed if you didn’t use the default install location)
3) if you don’t have a password set yet, then you can set it easily by typing the following:

mysqladmin -u root password new_password

where new_password is the new password that you would like to use

4) next, when you have already set a custom MySQL root password (step #3) then type: mysql -u root -p

PROBLEM #1: if you receive a message asking for your password then enter the custom password (you’ll see asterisk instead of the password). If for some reason you can’t figure out the password you can reset it by following the instructions here: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/Resetting_permissions.html

PROBLEM #2: If you receive a message that indicates the MySQL server isn’t running then you can start the MySQL service from within the Command Prompt by entering the following: net start mysql — you can also see a list of all running NET services by typing: net start

5) next, if the MySQL server is running and you entered in your password correctly you should now be set to communicate directly with the MySQL server from the Command Prompt just like you would if you were telnet or SSH to MySQL on a server. The command prompt should look like this now:

mysql>

You can now view your available database by typing: show databases

Wonder what all this trackback stuff is about on some blogs (those in movable type mostly)? I did. Fortunately there are nice folks like Kim that offer a good group of links here and also a nice example by Tom Coates with visuals. If you aren’t using movable type (like me) then you might consider checking out the standalone trackback.

So here is how, in detail, I added trackback to Pivot

Important: make sure to check with your host that you have the required Perl modules included. The instructions from MT say that the script author thought that the Storable module was included in the default perl 5.05 but it wasn’t in the debian package on my dedicated box so my perl install needed Storable as well as LWP in order for the trackback program to work properly. Here are the perl modules to ask your host about:

You’ll need a webserver capable of running CGI scripts (this means, for example, that this won’t work with BlogSpot-hosted blogs). You’ll also need perl, and the following Perl modules (remember, without these modules the program will not work):

File: Spec
* Storable
CGI
CGI Cookie
* LWP

* I needed to install these 

Step 1. download the trackback gzip tar file. For those who don’t know how to uncompress and untar a file, I’ll get into that shortly.
Step 2. FTP the downloaded file into your CGI-BIN.
Step 3. telnet or ssh to your server and change the directory to the location of the file you just FTP’d in step 2: tb-standalone.tar.gz. The command to change directory is cd, so if your absolute directory path was /home/sites/www/mydomain/cgi-bin you’d type:

cd /home/sites/www/mydomain/cgi-bin

Step 4. gunzip the tb-standalone file by typing:

gunzip tb-standalone.tar.gz

Step 5. untar the file. This will create a directory structure inside the cgi-bin with all the untarred files. To do this, type:

tar -xvf tb-standalone.tar

Step 6. Now that you have the directory created and the files unzipped and untarred, you can edit the tb.cgi file according to the instructions in the included README (open with any text editor) or by following the instructions here
Step 7. After editing the tb.cgi file it’s time to edit Pivot according to the instructions that say: First, you’ll need to add a link to each of your weblog entries with a link to the list of TrackBack pings for that entry.

Pivot v0.12: in the admin area edit the template file named shortentry.html, make the following changes. After comments add the trackback code listed in the README replacing [TRACKBACK ID] with %code% and yourserver with your domain.

Pivot v1.0 (Jazz beta): in the admin area edit the template file named log_entry_standard.html

Step 8. Next in the same shortentry.html template you need to add the RDF code per the README instructions: … TrackBack uses RDF embedded within your web page to auto-discover. TrackBack-enabled entries on your pages. It also uses this information when building a threaded list of a cross-weblog “discussion”. For these purposes, it is useful to embed the RDF into your page.  Make the following substitutions:

* Pivot v0.12

TrackBack ID = “http://YOURDOMAIN/*link*”
Entry Title = “%title%”
Entry Permalink = “http://YOURDOMAIN/*link*”

*Pivot v1.0 Jazz Beta

Instead of % use [[ and ]] like this [[ code ]], the name is the same inside the brackets (code, link, etc)

Note: replace * with % in link (not shown here because Pivot would convert it into the actual link)

Step 9. Next, you will need to regenerate your templates using the option: Generate Files. Once you do, go view the source of your blog to see that trackback is showing up after your comments and that the proper blog ID is being displayed when you click the TrackBack link. If you get a server 500 error, then check to make sure the permissions of tb.cgi are set to 755.
Step 10. Now it’s time to test pinging another trackback. To do this you need to go to the following url: yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/tb.cgi?__mode=send_form and fill out the form. If you get a server 500 error then it is possible that the Perl LWP module is not installed on your server, so contact your host and ask them to add that for you.

Update: those looking to start their own PHP implementation of trackback might find Jannis Hermanns efforts a good place to start. Also, I added some information on making this compatible with Pivot Beta 1.0 jazz as well as making sure that the right Perl modules are installed on the server where the trackback script will be installed.

Happy coding to you!

6 hours into the Blogathon 2003 and I’m finally getting my webcam page setup (next entry I should have the coveted links! Wow, where is the time going?!)I noticed that my server time (which is CST) is about 10 minutes behind the actual time. My webcam pictures will show the correct time. I grabbed my handy linux reference book and looked up the date command for the server and ssh’d into my box to make the change.

Just type the following to change to 2pm:

date -s ‘ 1400′

BTW the way this timer keeps going off and it puts the pressure on ya to keep posting! I was reading another blogger say that man 30 minutes go by fast, and this is true, so I have to keep this one kind of short.