Fixing Comments on Blogger

A few people mentioned Blogger's embedded comment form is awkward to use on certain browsers. Here's a template tweak that makes it possible to offer the old pop-up comments as an alternative.

Here's the tweak:

Please try the <a
expr:href='&quot;https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?&quot; +
&quot;blogID=BLOG ID&amp;postID=&quot; +
data:post.id + &quot;&amp;isPopup=false&quot;'>alternative
comment form</a> if you&#39;re having trouble commenting.

The tweak can be installed as follows:

1. go to Layout then Edit HTML,
2. expand Widget Templates,
3. make a backup of your template just in case,
4. search for <data:blogCommentMessage/>,
5. paste the code for the tweak after <data:blogCommentMessage/>,
6. replace BLOG ID with the number at the end of the URL,
7. Finally save the template and double check it works as expected.

If you'd like to see the tweak in action, please take a look at my daily photo gallery. :-)

New WordPress Virus: Has Your Site Been Hacked?

Several WordPress blogs I visited this morning tried to redirect me to either gescansecurity or a Bing search for freevirusscan.

Affected blogs load a script just before the </body> tag and can be identified by searching the source for kdjkfjskdfjlskdjf. After being redirected to Bing a cookie is set to prevent the user from being redirected for 20 days.

Please take a moment to check whether your blog has been compromised.

Finally a Template I'm Happy With (For Now)

For a while I've been tweaking the template used by English Wilderness, gradually working towards something I'm happy with. Recently I decided to do a complete rebuild.

Visually I've tried to keep the template simple and familiar without any strong elements to distract from the pictures. Under the bonnet I've added a number of microformats and SEO tweaks. The blogroll is now tagged with XFN.

Does English Wilderness still look like an escapee from the 1990's? Is there anything you hate or anything you think I should change? Please let me know :-)