Blogs - The Meaning Of Some Stuff

[borfast]

OK, so I decided to follow the same trend as the rest of the web and get myself a blog. Instead of going with one of the many blog services, I installed WordPress on my account and I'm exploring it - for the 10th time

 

I had already installed it once on my local machine but I always thought it had too many things for a simple blog. I mean, I only want to post my thoughts on a web page and, possibly, let people comment them. Why do I need all those trackback links and pingback things?

 

I figured that if everybody uses them, they must be usefull for something.

 

So my question to you, fellow TCH bloggers, is: what are trackbacks, pingbacks and other things you may find necessary to explain to a newbie in the blogging world?

 

Thanks

[borfast]

Oh, I forgot this one: permalinks

[LisaJill]

You wanted permalinks or don't know what they are? ;ppp

 

Trackbacks are simple - a way for someone to comment on their site and let you know they're discussing the same thing.

 

So, say you write a post about ducks. (sorry been playing with Adium =) ). Say I wanted to write a post about ducks too, or wanted to respond - at lenght, or on my own site - to what you had said. I could do that then put in the trackback URL and when I post it, it will leave a "trackback" (or "remote comment" some call it) on your site. That way you know that I'm responding and there's an interlinking through the "blogosphere".

 

I have no idea what a pingback is - I do know it's not widely accepted, only in use on very few weblogs. =)

[!!blue]

Permalink is short for "permanent links." For example, when you link to an article in an online newspaper the URL may change because the article is archived or moved. So a "Permalink" means that the URL will stay permanently linked and will always work. (link: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permalink)

 

Trackback is exactly as described by Lisa (link: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trackback).

 

Pingback is a way for you to know who's linking to your entries by "pinging" them. (link: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pingback)

 

hope that helps,

!!blue

[borfast]

Man, how could I have not remembered to search WikiPedia? And A9, too (I'm loving what I see, there. my only complain is that it's not as fast as Google ).

 

Well, thanks for the info

 

I don't think permalinks make much sense, though. I mean, if I write something on my blog, it gets stored in the database with an unique ID, right? If I want to read that message again, I simply have to use an URL like "show_post.php?id=34". Either the people who thought about permalinks got it all wrong or I'm missing something, here...

 

But I still have some more questions

 

This one is specifically about WordPress: what's that "Post Slug" thing on top of the Write window?

 

Thanks again

 

 

By the way, Lisa, Adium looks pretty cool

[LisaJill]

Raul, check out the beta of adium, and growl, and while you're doing it - here's an example of why a permalink is handy:

 

http://www.lisa-jill.com/index.php/weblog/...rrrrrrrrrrrowl/ has url's to the beta and growl - very cool stuff. =)

 

what you describe WOULD be a permalink - a permanent way to get back to that information. People however want "human readable" URL's - easy to remember and give an idea of what you're cilcking on. Plus they don't want query strings in the URL for SEO purposes (not as much of a problem these days but still.

 

A post slug is a way to give your post a friendly URL without using a possibly very long title (my permalinks are the titles of the posts). So instead of grrrrrrrrrrrrowl you could put in the post slug "growl" - which might be easier to read (less r's =) )

 

Just one more option =)

 

does that help?

[!!blue]

Here's a link with *some* info on Post Slug: wordpress.org/support/7/8785 Doesn't make much sense to me tho.

 

A9's pretty coo! Is it associated with Amazon.com cuz they have the same little smiley/arrow logo. Ah, they are, just saw the bottom footer.

 

Here's more info on permalinks www.plasticbag.org/archives/2003/06/on_permalinks_and_paradigms.shtml. I don't know how you've set up your blog to access your individual entries, but I've set up mine to use the entry's time and date combo to name each entires. The link above uses the entry's title, which I don't like cuz sometimes I use the same title for entries on different days.

 

later,

!!blue

[borfast]

Lisa, Growl and Adium are for OS X and I run Linux, so I won't be able to try them. Maybe one day I'll get a Mac (I'd love to) but right now I need a PC (for college work, mostly - computer engineering) and I don't have the money to buy a second computer (which would be a Mac )

 

Anyway, about the permalinks, then basically, a permalink is a mod_rewrite rule (sort of) with a nice name

 

I don't have the time to read those links you posted, blue, but I'll get back to them when I'm back home.

 

And yes, A9.com is associated with Amazon - Amazon owns it

 

Thanks again for all the info

[LisaJill]

Well it's not a mod_rewrite rule because the posts are generally saved by that; though in some cases it certainly might be. =)

[TCH-Dick]

Raul you are not alone, as I have been trying to wrap my head around permalinks too. I have been testing out WP for a few weeks now and when you activate permalinks in WP it creates rewrite rules for you. That is if your htaccess is writable by the server, if not then you have to add them. As for MT, I'm not really sure how thay are created. I did notice that MT creates actual directories and files where as WP does not. Does anyone know why MT does this?

[LisaJill]

MT - especially prior to 3.1; was touted as a static system. It used a database but wrote actual files - less db overhead. In 3.1 they added a dynamic structure to it (combo perl / php, no comment here eh) so you can have some actual files and some served from the database, depending on popularity.