Blogging Tools for Exetel (Serendipity)

[Homers]

Hello,

I've been an Exetel ADSL customer for ~5 years and have been very happy with the service and commitment! Good job guys!

After noticing that blogs are now available, I've setup a blog and had a bit of a play. Great stuff!

Now to the question... I'd like to use an offline blogging tool to upload to Exetel. Does such a tool exist?

I've tried using Word 2007 (guessing at the API) and w.bloggar. Both with limited (or no) success. Is there an offline blogging client someone could recommend?

And why do you ask? Aren't we always connected these days? Well, we're heading to Indonesia for a remote surfing trip and I'd like to record all the adventures into an offline blog on my laptop (no Internet). When we get home, viola! All the stories are online for our friends to see... and for the actual day and time I wrote them.

[SysAdmin]

Now to the question... I'd like to use an offline blogging tool to upload to Exetel. Does such a tool exist?

I did a quick search for 'serendipity offline blog' and found this link:

http://www.vavai.net/index.php?/archive ... Linux.html

Hope it's of help.

Andrew

[Homers]

Hi guys,

I've tried with both Bleezer and Blogdesk. Blogdesk actually shows Serendipity as a supported blog solution.

When I install Blogdesk, goto file -> Manage Blogs, and enter my information, I keep receiving "XML Parsing Error: Invalid procedure call or argument"

Could you guys give it a go and see if you can get it working? Am I using the wrong php file?

Thanks

[ForumAdmin]

I've asked the sysadmin to see if he can get it to work.

[Homers]

Cheers for that... hopefully it's something simple.

[SysAdmin]

Could you guys give it a go and see if you can get it working? Am I using the wrong php file?

If you go to

http://<blogname>.blogs.exetel.com.au/serendipity_xmlrpc.php

You should see why it's not working for you at the moment. All is not lost though. If you log in and go to configure plugins, install the SPARTACUS event plugin. Once done, get a fresh list of event plugins and install the 'Post via XML-RPC' plugin.

That should get you going.

Andrew

[Homers]

Thanks for the tip... I'm able to post now and download categories, but cannot directly post pictures from Blogdesk.

If I add a new entry and media from the Administration site, everything works fine. Clicking thumbnails shows the full photo and the actual post comes up a treat.

But if I try to post media (pictures) using Blogdesk, it uploads but doesn't display the photos. A thumb nail is created in the Media library (as viewed from the admin site), but when you try to open the full size photo, it says permission denied. It doesn't look like it actually uploaded the file to where it should.

I notice when the admin interface is used to upload media and put it into a post, it adds a tag similar to "<!-- s9ymdb:15 -->" where 15 is an incremented number for each photo. I'm not sure if this is required.

Any advice would be appreciated. Should I ask Blogdesk for their advice on this.

[SysAdmin]

But if I try to post media (pictures) using Blogdesk, it uploads but doesn't display the photos. A thumb nail is created in the Media library (as viewed from the admin site), but when you try to open the full size photo, it says permission denied. It doesn't look like it actually uploaded the file to where it should.

Sorry for the delayed response. I looked into this and, in part, the problem appears to be that the xml script is not setting the correct permissions on the files. I put in a workaround for you so hopefully that part should work now.

There is a potential other problem that I've not had time to look into. The files created are only 5 bytes in size (which is a tad on the small size). I'm not sure if this relates to the permissions issue or not yet but if you could give it another go, I'd appreciate it.

Any advice would be appreciated. Should I ask Blogdesk for their advice on this.

If the second issue is still in play, then I suspect that this may well be a problem with Blogdesk. I'm just short of 100% sure on this.

Andrew

[Homers]

Hi there,
Thanks for persisting. I tried again with the same result.

I installed Blogdesk onto another computer and during the install wizard it attempts to upload a small GIF. This fails... it shows the typical box with a small red x inside (server can't locate the photo). At this part of the wizard it says to try ftp to upload if the direct upload to the interface fails.

I don't know if this is supported but when I ftp to evans (dot) blogs.exetel.com.au it bombs out.

Interestingly, the "Edit posts already published" feature within blogdesk works smoothly... it downloads the photos correctly etc.

Thanks!

[SysAdmin]

I installed Blogdesk onto another computer and during the install wizard it attempts to upload a small GIF. This fails... it shows the typical box with a small red x inside (server can't locate the photo). At this part of the wizard it says to try ftp to upload if the direct upload to the interface fails.

The Joy of PHP.

PHP has a base64_decode function. This function does not fail on bad input. This function has a strict flag. The strict flag is not as strict as the name implies as it still does not fail on bad input.

So what was basically happening was that Blogdesk would send the image, unencoded.

The xmlrpc plugin would try to decode it and, if that failed, use the raw data.

Unfortunately GIFs begin with a few characters of plain text and this, I believe, is making PHP think that all is right with the world and that the data should be decoded.

All was not right with the world and the sky, consequently, fell.

Uploading JPEGs would work (barring the permissions issues which I thought I fixed for you but did not). They don't begin with a plain text header.

I've now definitely fixed the permissions issue and added extra checks to work around PHPs joy inducing goodness. It's been tested. It should work (for all flexible definitions of 'work' ).

I don't know if this is supported but when I ftp to evans (dot) blogs.exetel.com.au it bombs out.

We do not provide FTP access to the blog sites.

Andrew, now enriched with Joy.

[Homers]

Mate,

I don't know if anyone told you today, but you're a legend. Thanks heaps as everything it works a dream now.

Plus I don't think anyone has responded during a technical investigation (I work in IT security as an engineer... hence no blogging experience) in a more hilarious manner... top marks.

How in all that's holy did you figure out the php process?

I hope it was at least an interesting challenge for you. Glad you have joy!

My surf holiday blog documentary (ahem, starting tomorrow) will now be a simple affair of landing back in Sydney and clicking the upload button.

Beers on me!
I

[SysAdmin]

Mate,

I don't know if anyone told you today, but you're a legend. Thanks heaps as everything it works a dream now.

Excellent.

I hope it was at least an interesting challenge for you. Glad you have joy!

For certain definitions of 'joy'.

My surf holiday blog documentary (ahem, starting tomorrow) will now be a simple affair of landing back in Sydney and clicking the upload button.

Wonderful.

Just as a heads up, the changes I needed to make were submitted and accepted by upstream. Unless things go wonky versions 1.38 and up will have the fixed code in them.

Andrew

[barywhite]

Hi Andrew,

Is the XML RPC still available for use?

I noticed Steve referred to it on his blog, but when I go to the URL to access it I get a message:

Code: Select all

The XML-RPC API Interface to Serendipity is no longer bundled because of ongoing security issues with this API and not many people using it. Thus you need to install the XML-RPC Plugin to use the XML-RPC API. The URL to use in your applications will NOT change - as soon as you have installed the plugin, you will again be able to use the API.

When I go to the same URL on Steve's blog (http://steve.blogs.exetel.com.au/serendipity_xmlrpc.php) I get an different message that looks like it's installed and working.

So then I went looking through the config stuff etc and installed SPARTICUS, then tried to find the XML RPC in the list toof plugins to install but it's not there? If I look at the XML file that is downloaded it has the XML RPC plugin in it as well as a lot more that aren't available to install. Is the list of 'available to install' limited to a set of approved plugins?

Cheers

[SysAdmin]

So then I went looking through the config stuff etc and installed SPARTICUS, then tried to find the XML RPC in the list toof plugins to install but it's not there? If I look at the XML file that is downloaded it has the XML RPC plugin in it as well as a lot more that aren't available to install. Is the list of 'available to install' limited to a set of approved plugins?

Thanks for the report. I've fixed the memory usage limits so that you'll
now be able to view the event plugins available for install. the XML
plugin in question is listed.

Please note that the 'install event plugins' link os provided after the
sidebar plugins.

Andrew

[barywhite]

Thanks Andrew! Works well

Only issue I had was that - as has been mentioned earlier in the thread - I was unable to upload any images. I got around this by uploading them to my home.exetel.com.au web space by FTP instead. Live writer supports this.

Thanks again.