До последнего времени я просто задыхался под кипами спама, каждый день выпалывая по сотне а то и больше непрошенных комментариев. Все изменилось после того как я установил и сконфигурировал MT Blacklist. Сейчас я горя не знаю.

I am getting tons of comment spam on this blog. I was trying all means provided by core Movable Type, I also set nofollow. No effect.

And finally I found the ultimate solution! It's the MT plug-in called MT Blacklist. After I installed it and set just three filters on magic words: Poker, penis and pharmacy I immediatly got rid of approximately 50% of spam comments. It also helps that the plug-in is coupled with centrally maintained database of malicious URLs, which is always up-to-date. Any user can report abuse and it will be recorded in the database.

The most effective feature however is amazingly simple. One can set number of URLs allowed in a comment. Absolute majority of spam comments includes more then one URL. By setting this number to two I managed to get rid of all remaining spam.

Just noticed that some of my travel photos are very difficult to find. To help with navigation in addition to my small Image Bank page I created top-level Travels Index. For now it's referencing Poland, Taiwan, Istanbul and new Egypt pages. And will expand.

Оказывается, фотоотчеты о некоторых поездках вообще не доступны на моем сайте. Чтобы облегчить навигацию я добавил оглавление к тем путешествиям, которые не входят в Банк Изображений.

I have no idea what cialis is, but somehow I am getting around 20-40 comments with this suggestion posted on this blog daily. Blogspam - it is. Only casinos online overdid this mysterious substance.

To fight spam I simply configure my blog such that HTML is stripped out of comments. All spammers need is higher ratings on search engines. Since I strip HTML, they won't get any rating increase. This means that if spammers are technically savvy, they would leave me alone. Apparently they are not. That's why I have to remove tons of spam regularly to keep my site clean. IP-filtering not helping et all. Bastards change IP-addresses daily. I gave up when my list of forbidden addresses grew to almost 300.

Today I turned HTML on again. Do I want to help spammers to earn their difficult bread? Not quite. Major Blog builders together with major search engines came to a solution allowing to fight blogspam. The key is the rel="nofollow" attribute on all reference tags in comments. Blog software inserts this attribute automatically while search engines know to ignore such links in their ratings.

I don't think that spam will stop anytime soon, but smarter spammers and their customers will have to turn away from blogs to other solutions.

Finally I got around and kicked my Russian blog. The first entry is about the exhibition which has just finished. It includes page with complete list of photos and some notes and comments in regards to the exhibition. Добро пожаловать!

Since I am getting inquires on what equipment I use for my photography and for producing this site, I decided to blog it. I am not sure if it's of any help or even interest to anybody, but at least I don't have to answer same questions over and over again. For the start I list my cameras and my lens right here. Sometime later I will probably review my other gadgets and may even cover particular items in more depth. Provided there is an interest.

For mainstream photography I stick with Nikon 35 mm SLR cameras.

What is my goal? Do I have a goal? Why am I switching to Weblog from simple static photo site? Am I going to preach you, teach you and try to change the world? Good questions. The short answer is not. I am going to blog you for sure though. I just like the idea of blogging and visit some blogs when time permits.

My friends are all over the place and mostly very busy, I feel like loosing some of you just due to luck of time to communicate. I hope with this blog it will become easier to keep in touch. I am planning to write a bit about my life and adventures in Japan and other places I lived and visited.

I also would like to add some dynamics to this site. It has been stalled for years. Of course I was and still very busy with Valuecommerce project. But there are other purely technical issues. To change static site I have to write HTML pages, test them, then upload to my site with FTP. With Movabletype all I need to do is type the text and push Publish button. I can push this button from anywhere in the world, all I need is a browser.

I am using MovableType for my WebLog. First I tried to post Japanese or Russian text I found that all characters converted into HTML-Unicode which is bunch of &# and digit codes, e.g. if I enter my name in Japanese　アナトル or in Russian Анатолий it's was converted into something like &# 26085; on the entry screen. At the same time the page was displayed correctly on the public site itself.