The Admin and User control panels have undergone a significant revision today. The user interface for blog owners and readers have been modified and additional features have been added.

Additional features include:

• A Post Web Page function, allowing custom static HTML web pages to be inserted in the standard templates and match the look and feel of your weblog.
• A function to automatically rename photographs when a duplicate name is used, making it easier to upload images from phone-cams and digital cameras that recycle image file names.
• A function to support secure file attachments to article entries.
• A tool to record history of IP numbers for recent accesses to the Publisher Control Panel.
• Support for article keywords and searching of those keywords.
• A streamlined user interface designed to make the transition between the Publisher Control Panel and the Reader Control panel interfaces smoother.
• Support to allow complete customization of Review templates.
• ENT (Easy News Topics) support for RSS 2.0. Easy News Topics make it easier for RSS aggregators to categorize the content of your RSS feed. For details regarding the ENT specification, see this page.
• Support to enhance compatibility when switching between the Rich Text Editor and the Standard Text Editor.
• Support for RSD, Really Simple Discoverability 1.0. RSD is a mechanism that helps blogging client software find the services needed to read, edit, or post to your blog.
• Support to make inserting images in an Article entry within the Rich Text Editor easier and more flexible.

We hope that these changes allow you to manage your blog more efficiently. If you have any questions about the changes, or can't seem to find something in the user interface, please post a message to our Community Forums and we will be glad to assist.

BlogHarbor weblogs automatically create RSS newsfeeds for your blog, not only for the blog as a whole, but for each category as well. A standard component is installed on your blog called Category RSS Feed which is designed to be used as part of your header and link to the RSS feed for the category being viewed. Also available is a header component called RSS Link which links to your blog's main RSS feed.

This article will show you how to create a component for the left or right sidebar of your weblog, which will show a link not only to the main RSS feed for the weblog, but also for the Category RSS feed based on the page being viewed. This component, as seen on the sidebar of the BlogHarbor demo blog, will dynamically change depending on the Category of the page being viewed.

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In the Classroom, Web Logs Are the New Bulletin Boards according to the New York Times.

One consultant quoted in the article predicts that blogs will eventually become a more successful teaching tool than Web sites. From the article:

One way teachers say they use blogs is to continue spirited discussions that were cut short or to prolong question-and-answer periods with guest speakers.

"With blogs, class doesn't have to end when the bell rings," said Will Richardson, supervisor of instructional technology and communications at Hunterdon Central Regional High School in Flemington, N.J., who maintained blogs for two journalism classes he taught last year.

Teachers say that the interactivity of blogs allowed them to give students feedback much more quickly than before.

Globetechnology reports on the value of corporate blogging. “Whatever it is you do by marketing, you can do by virtue of a blog,” says one blogging advocate.

We've posted a number of new and updated entries to our Publisher's Manual:

Posting Articles

This chapter covers the details of posting, editing and deleting articles. The following new topics have been added:

• Categories
  Categories are a way of organizing the articles into groups and making your weblog easier to navigate. When posting or editing an article, you have the option of classifying it under one or more categories. Your readers can then choose to read all the articles in your weblog or only those posted under a specific category.
• Keywords
  Keywords are words that you can assign to an posting in order to make it easier to find using the search tool built into your weblog.
• Including Files with Articles
  If you want to include a file in an article for your readers to download, there are two ways to do it:
  • Using the File System
    A brief introduction to the file system for the purposes of explaining how to include files in articles.
  • Using Attachments Learn how to add an attachment to a weblog article, just like you add attachments to email messages.

Introduction to the File System

What the file system is, why you would need one for your blog, and a tour of the File Manager.

• Managing Directories
  Creating, renaming and deleting directories.
• Managing Files
  Uploading, renaming, moving and deleting files.
  
• Including Files in Your Blog Entries
  There may be times when you want to include an image inline with a blog entry without also putting it in a photo album. You may also want to share a file. Here's how you do it.

BlogHarbor weblogs support the use of weblog client tools which allow you to post articles and images to your weblog using a familiar Windows or Macintosh based interface, rather than the web-based interface of the Blog Admin Control Panel.

Weblog editors add additional capabilites which are not possible when editing via the web control panel, allowing advanced bloggers increased flexibility when posting articles and images. BlogHarbor weblogs support the Movable Type/Blogger API, which allows you to post to your BlogHarbor weblog using popular weblog client tools such as NewzCrawler or w.bloggar or Blogjet for Windows, or ecto, a blogging client for Mac OS X.

Ecto for Mac OS X is a new weblog client with such features as support for multiple weblogs, iTunes integration, an advanced file and image upload tool with iPhoto import, and HTML previews. The trial version of ecto is a free full-featured version that will expire after 14 days of use; ecto is priced at $$17.95.

This article will walk you through the steps of setting up ecto to access your BlogHarbor weblog.

BlogHarbor is not a partner of or affiliated in any way with ecto, however we have tested this software and found that it is compatible with BlogHarbor weblogs. ecto was easy to download and configure, and we were able to post to our BlogHarbor weblog in minutes.

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We experienced a System Outage which affected all BlogHarbor weblogs early this morning beginning at approximately 6:50 AM and lasting until approximately 8:10 AM Eastern time.

A hardware problem this morning caused the system to fail. Unfortunately, the monitoring process did not kick in fast enough, and the system was down longer than it should have been. The affected hardware was immediately upgraded, and the monitoring system will be revised to more accurately assess the system and notify staff when problems of this nature arise.

We aim to bring you a highly reliable and available hosted weblogging service, and we are proud of the 99.92% uptime rate we have achieved since the BlogHarbor service was launched on 11/26/03. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience today's outage may have caused.

Blog admins using the Mac OS platform to publish their weblog may be experiencing some issues when using certain browsers to publish articles. This article will outline the symptoms of those problems and make suggestions for working around them.

Your users and readers will not experience any difficulties accessing your blog site using Mac OS browsers, these issues are limited to the authoring features of your weblog.

Rich Text Editor

The BlogHarbor system features the Rich Text Editor which allows you to enter text for your article and see the text as it will appear on your blog. The Rich Text Editor creates HTML for you, allowing you to create styled posts with little knowledge of HTML.

The Rich Text Editor is not supported by the Internet Explorer or Safari browsers for Mac OS.

• Disabling the Rich Text Editor may enable you to post articles using the Safari browser, but the formatting toolbar will not appear when creating your articles.
• Disabling the Rich Text Editor may enable you to enter articles using the Internet Explorer browser, however there are still problems with the Internet Explorer browser which cause articles to be posted incorrectly even with the Rich Text Editor disabled.

Best browsers for Mac OS

The best web browsers for use with the BlogHarbor system—for Mac OS users as well as users of all platforms—are the browsers in the Mozilla family. These browsers include:

• Mozilla
• Firefox
• Netscape

Recent versions of any of these browsers are compatible with the Rich Text Editor used at BlogHarbor, and will provide an excellent experience with your weblog control panel.

Mac OS 8.6 and 9.x users will find the Wamcom version of Mozilla 1.3.1 to be an excellent browser; in our opinion the Wamcom Mozilla is the best browser for Mac users who have not made the switch to OS X.

Blogging clients

As we noted in this article about NewzCrawler and w.bloggar for Windows and this article about BlogJet for Windows, it is also possible to use specialized blogging clients to post to your weblog.

Ecto

Ecto is a feature-rich blogging client for Mac OS X which provides advanced capabilities for creating and managing weblog articles.

Learn how to configure ecto with your BlogHarbor weblog.

MarsEdit

MarsEdit is a blogging client for Mac OS X designed to make weblog writing more like writing email. The product features spell-checking, drafts, multiple windows, as well as AppleScript support.

Configure MarsEdit for use with BlogHarbor by choosing Movable Type as the API and specifying the RPC endpoint of http://api.blogharbor.com/xmlrpc.cgi .

BlogHarbor weblogs support the use of weblog client tools which allow you to post articles and images to your weblog using a familiar Windows or Macintosh based sofware, rather than the web-based interface of the Blog Admin Control Panel.

These weblog editors add additional capabilites which are not possible when editing via the web control panel, allowing advanced bloggers increased flexibility when posting articles and images. BlogHarbor weblogs support the Movable Type/Blogger API, which allows you to post to your BlogHarbor weblog using NewzCrawler or w.bloggar, two popular weblog client tools.

Blogjet is a new addition to the class of weblog clients, and with such features as a built-in spell checker, voice attachments, automatic photo uploading, and an easy to use HTML editor, Blogjet is a very powerful piece of software which all Windows users at BlogHarbor should give a try. The trial version of BlogJet is a free full-featured version that will expire after 30 days of use; Blogjet is priced at $19.95.

This article will walk you through the steps of setting up Blogjet to access your BlogHarbor weblog.

BlogHarbor is not a partner of or affiliated in any way with BlogJet, but we have tested their software and found that it is compatible with BlogHarbor weblogs. BlogJet was easy to download and configure, and we were able to post to our BlogHarbor weblog in minutes.

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In response to your requests for BlogHarbor icons and logos, we've created a few buttons for you to use on your weblogs. This article will show you how to add a BlogHarbor button to your site.

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On all BlogHarbor weblogs, there exists a directory named _NewPhotos which can be found in the File Manager or uploaded to via FTP:

The purpose of this directory is to allow you to upload new images, then to create an album and import these images. For some users, this may be a more convenient way to create and populate a new photo album, especially when large numbers of images are involved.

For security purposes, we would like to restrict access to this directory in the event that the images you uploaded were intended for import into a restricted category. By restricting access to this directory, we can ensure that images uploaded to this directory can never be seen by anyone except those authorized to to see them.

We implemented a change today which restricted public access to this directory, but soon realized that some of our users did not realize the purpose of this special _NewPhotos directory and have been using this directory to store images used in their blog templates.

Therefore, we have reverted the system back to its previous behavior, but request that any of our bloggers who are storing images in this special directory move their public images out of this directory and update their HTML and templates to point to the new location of the images. We will make this change on July 1, so be sure to update your images by then.

Thank you for your understanding, and we apologize for any inconvenience caused by this update.

PC World magazine has published an excellent article on RSS and RSS aggregators:

http://www.pcworld.com/resource/printable/article/0,aid,116018,00.asp

It's a great intro to the subject of RSS. If you're looking for quick background on the subject, an article which can help explain RSS to friends or colleagues, or more information on your RSS reader software, be sure to read this article. Here's an excerpt:

Most of us keep a mental list of our favorite Web sites--perhaps 10 to 15 destinations that we swing by every day. But usually only a few of them contain new stories that are worth reading immediately, so a habit of loading and scanning each of these sites daily can waste a lot of time.

Fortunately, you can make such time sinks a thing of the past, thanks to a Web standard called RSS. This standard lets sites publish a simple listing of headlines and story summaries. Using a simple program called an RSS reader, you can subscribe to different news feeds and rapidly sift through condensed news. When you find an item you like, you click the headline to open the Web page containing the full story.

Read the full PC World story here.

This article will explain how to add audio to your weblog using the AudioBlog.com service. BlogHarbor is not a partner of or affiliated in any way with AudioBlog.com, but we have tested their service and found that it is compatible with BlogHarbor weblogs, it's easy to sign up for and post your first audio clip, and we did receive a prompt response when we had a question.   more »

BlogHarbor allows you create restricted categories which cannot be read by just anyone -- they can only be read by people who have permission to do so. Only a reader who is logged in and has permission can read such categories. This article explains how to give some Readers Trusted Reader access: permission to view all Categories, including restricted ones and yet to be created ones.   more »

Looking to move from Blogger? BlogHarbor provides you with the ability to import entries from your Blogger-based weblog. Follow these steps to import your Blogger articles, entries, and comments.   more »

This article, written by the one and only Accordion Guy Joey deVilla, explains how to import content from your Movable Type or Typepad weblog into your Blogware-powered weblog here at BlogHarbor in just six easy clicks.   more »

Audioblog.com is a new service which allows you to post audio content to your weblog. The company states that it is compatible with Blogware, the platform upon which our BlogHarbor service is built.    more »

From Tucows' press release:

Tucows Inc. today announced the general release of Blogware, its easy-to-use weblog publishing service designed specifically for retail by the service provider industry, including ISPs and web hosting companies.

BlogHarbor was extensively involved in the beta testing of the Blogware platform upon which our service is based, and is quoted in this announcement.   more »

A number of enhancements have been made to the service. Here is a summary of some of the new features added yesterday:

Import/Export	The ability to import from Movable Type or Typepad and Blogger weblogs has been added. Additionally, it is now possible to export your weblog articles as a compressed XML archive. Access the Import/Export features from the Settings tab in your Blog Admin control panel.
Slideshows	This new optional feature places an icon near the top of group by day and grid photo album layouts which will display a Slideshow of all of the photos in that album. See our demo weblog for an example of the Slideshow feature. To enable this feature for all of the Photo Albums on your weblog, check the box labeled Enable slideshows in the Settings tab of your Blog Admin Control Panel.
Display recently updated albums	It is now possible to show thumbnails from recent albums on regular categories, including the Main Page. This feature can be enabled from the Display recently updated albums checkbox on the Category Settings page in your Blog Control Panel. Options include how many recent albums and how many columns/rows of thumbnails for each album to display.
Comment Subscriptions	It is now possible for authenticated users to subscribe to comments as well as articles. Once you have logged into a particular weblog, you will be able to subscribe to receive email notification for every comment on a particular article, category or the entire blog.
Length of syndication file	This new option in the Settings tab of the Blog Admin Control Panel allows you to indicate how many entries to include in the RSS syndication feed.
minithumb JS Photo album layout	A new Photo albums layout type called minithumb JS is now available. This new layout displays a set of thumbnails and shows the sized image below or next to the thumbnails. Javascript is used to update the sized image when your reader clicks on one of the thumbnails.

Yahoo has recently added support for RSS syndication, allowing users of the My Yahoo! service to add their own RSS news sources to My Yahoo! pages. This article explains how to create a custom component to your BlogHarbor weblog containing a button which allows your readers to add your weblog to their My Yahoo! page.   more »