I stopped blogging a coupla years ago when the spam problem was simply unbearable, and as I had hosted MT on my own server, I was just too busy / daunted to fool with upgrades or adding special sauce to do something about it.
My solution was to outsource: I signed up for Typepad so that i didn't have to think about maintaining the software, and I'm sure they do as good a job on the spam problem as can be done. But since this is hosted on a different URL than before (blog.unixwiz.net versus unixwiz.net/blog) I figured I had to create redirects from my main website to all the entries on the new one. Yet another thing on my todo list that I haven't gotten to.
A year later I'm finally getting around to it, so we'll see if I can power through this and make it live again.
I've been keeping a list of topics I wish to write about: time will tell whether I actually keep it up.
We'll see!
love your stuff. will keep an eye on your blog.
Posted by: Alex Chan | April 01, 2009 at 10:10 PM
Not to seem cheap or anything, but I suspect that if you're trying to get back into blogging that it might be a better idea to sign up for something like Wordpress' service. They offer a free, hosted version that is incredibly good at catching spam (with their akismet plugin, plus, you can go on vacation for a year and not come back with a (small?) hole in your pocket. Customization may give something to be desired though.
I can actually see an advantage in paying for an outsourced blog, in the sense of: "Hey! I'm paying for that! I should use it!" though. Which may be a good motivator for you :)
[ I was already pretty familiar with Movable Type, so going with their hosted service was the path of least resistance for me. I also particularly wanted to use blog.unixwiz.net as the hostname, and their lower-cost (or free?) version didn't allow this. For $150/year, this is something I don't have to think about very much -- Steve ]
Posted by: davidk | April 03, 2009 at 05:50 PM