Happy New Year = BACK UP YOUR BLOG

I just did!

Set a reminder to back up regularly (e.g. quarterly, or more frequently if you publish very often).

Super Tech Fun Pak Too

MORE CODE-BASED HACKS

Where some bloggers embrace scripts and theme-code mods, I seek ways to use Blogger's native features to automate and add new things to the page.

After all, Blogger should deliver its functional goodness without requiring us to know about the code behind it all.

Yet here are three useful hacks including some that use code. I didn't invent these, just passing them along.

Spam in bulk? No problem!

Only you can prevent comment pollution.

photo: bicanski

Comment spam makes your blog feel unfriendly and neglected.

Here's how to wrangle the garbage—if you get a lot of it.

Comment spam? Take out the trash

Comments are great. Comment spam is toxic.

photo: donald giannatti

Comment spam harms your blog.

Here's how to wrangle the garbage, step by step.

Comment spam on Blogger:Keep it clean

photo: andrej lišakov

Comment spam hurts your blog.

Block and manage it by

• moderating comments, or requiring commenters to solve a captcha (no need to do both)
• marking spam, which trains Blogger's spam filter.

NOT feeds: exclude

In brief

• Use the NOT operator - (minus sign) in the feed url to exclude a search term.
• For multiple search terms, use AND NOT (+-).
• Follow the feed in a reader or use it to create a dynamic list in your blog.

Image: Kismalac (public domain)

B excluding A

A feed that combines two things

In brief

• Use the OR operator | (or "%7C") in the feed url to filter the union of two search terms.
• Follow the feed in a reader or use it to create a dynamic list.

image: openclipart-vectors