Most Important Blog-Editing Step ...

The most important blog-editing step, bar none, is looking at the blog after you've posted it.

In terms of importance, it's akin to the way "facing forward" is important when you're driving a car.

It won't take long, and it'll save us a lot of embarrassment.

If you need a refresher on the basics of editing blogs, go here:

• How To ... Edit a Blog Entry

Common Errors: Table foibles ...

Every now and again, someone will get adventurous and tinker with a table or two.

I'm not telling you not to, but just make sure you "close" your table out when you're done. Nothing will screw up a page ... the entire page ... faster than forgetting a little </table> ...

That doesn't make sense? Good, acceptance is the first step toward doing something about it. For a decent overview on the table phenomenon, try this page.

Common Errors: The Dreaded Dash

Curly quotes and apostrophes, which I've whined about in great detail over the months, only account for most of our garbled text.

The rest?

Usually dashes.

It happens when MS Word (or its equivalent) "helpfully" converts double-hyphens into hard dashes, and Movable Type chokes on those.

Best thing to do? Replace the dashes with this code:

&mdash;

That gives you the nice, smooth dash you need and none of the gobbledygook nightmares.

And it saves your editors time. And that's a good thing. Right?

Common Errors: Image won't upload

So you're adding a picture to your blog, which is a good thing, and you're rocketing along until you try uploading it to MT.

Then you get this little beauty:



So what's gone wrong?

Nine times out of 10, you're looking at an image so large that the server couldn't handle the upload.

Check the size of your photo. (Easiest way? If you're using a PC, right-click on the image and select "properties." "Size" is usually right in the middle of the box. If you're using a Mac, you're kind of on your own, though if memory serves "Apple-i" gets you some information.)

If it's a bit on the hefty side (anywhere from 50 KB up to a meg or so), make it smaller. Remember, your photo should be no more than 450 pixels wide and the "DPI" should be set no higher than 71. Anything larger than that, you run the risk of choking the system.

I have a few details on how to size a photo further down in this entry, though I should probably do a larger entry on it later. (Look for it, I guess.)

How big, exactly, is "too big"? I can't put my finger on it, exactly, but as a rule of thumb, try to keep your photos from not getting much larger than 20 or 30-odd Kilobytes.

And, as always, if none of this makes any sense, contact me.

Common Errors: A series ...

I'm hoping to set this up as an almost "FAQ" for our most common errors. If you feel I'm missing an issue you'd like to see addressed, drop me a line.