UK Bloggers Guide

The TypePad Free Trial, A Guide

Is a guide to signing up to TypePad's free trial really necessary? Well yes I think so. Not so much for people in the USA, you can sign up here , but for potential bloggers in the UK there most certainly is a need because of the significant differences between the TypePad and TypePad UK.

I have 4 TypePad Pro accounts for my blogging activities, but it was only 4 days ago that I discovered they had a UK version!

Main Differences:

• TypePad Billing:
  UK bloggers can pay in pounds sterling as oppossed to dollars. At today's currency exchange rate there's very little difference, but UK users paying in dollars can also find themselves paying a currency exchange fee to their bank.

• 30 Day Free Trial, Not a 14 Days Free Trial:
  UK bloggers get a 30 day free trial, not the 14 day free trial given to USA/International users of TypePad. I don't know why they're different.

• TypePad Domain:
  UK bloggers can choose to have their blog hosted using either typepad.com or typepad.co.uk.
  Regular readers will know that my No 1 blogging tip is to use your own domain name on your blog. The fact that you can choose to host your blog on typepad.co.uk should be of little consequence unless you're planning on ignoring my #1 tip :)

• Localisation:
  This is hardly worth mentioning, but TypePad have a piece of script you can include on your blog that will show a list of "Recently Update Blogs". Signing up via TypePad UK will have your blog ONLY showing recently updated UK blogs. Like I said... hardly worth mentioning. It certainly shouldn't be the reason for signing up via TypePad UK, because there's a TypePad hack here that achieves the very same result.

Payment Requirements

Both of TypePad's free trial require you to enter your credit/debit card details when you sign up. Once your TypePad free trial period is up you're automatically billed. Should you cancel prior to the end of the free trial, you WILL NOT be billed.

Which TypePad Free Trial?

TypePad offer 3 types of accounts and the free trial is available for all of them.

• TYPEPAD BASIC
  Perfect for beginners. Get a full-featured blog up and running quickly with simple yet powerful publishing tools.
  UK: £2.59/month or £25.90/year
  USA: $4.95/month or $49.50/year

• TYPEPAD PLUS
  Their most popular account. Build photo albums, maintain up to three blogs, customize your design, and use other advanced features.
  UK:  £4.59/month or £45.90/year
  USA: $8.95/month or $89.50/year

• TYPEPAD PRO
  The choice of serious bloggers. Expert control over HTML, archive types, guest authors, unlimited blogs and use your own domain name.
  UK: £7.59/month or £75.90/year
  USA: $14.95/month or $149.50/year

Important Considerations:

• You'll notice that the annual fee gives you 2 months free. So unless you're really strapped for cash, I'd recommend signing up for the annual payment plan.
• You can change your billing cycle and account type at anytime.
• Downgrading from TypePad Pro will lose you the ability to use your own domain name.

Where to Sign up for the TypePad Free Trial?

USA/International users can sign up here , while UK users should sign up here.

UK Ministry of Defence uses TypePad

I just noticed that the UK Ministry of Defence uses TypePad blogging platform. Good enough for them, good enough for me :)

http://www.blogs.mod.uk/

TypePad UK Launch - That's just so 2005

Following the billing cock up by TypePad that saw one of my UK accounts being suspended and nearly deleted, I thought I'd look in to TypePad's activities in the UK. Specifically, What were they doing to support UK users of their blog platform?

Well f**k me! First thing I discover is that they launched their UK service way back in February of 2005! how the hell did I miss that? Not the actual news of the launch, but the fact that I have 4 TypePad accounts ALL on the USA service.

Somehow, I've managed to sign up all accounts and pay in dollars. Surely some mistake? At no time, was I redirected to a UK version with UK billing. Tut.

I only discovered that there was a UK version when they suspended one of my accounts because the US version no longer process UK credit/debit cards. Nice one! (Read: TypePad billing problem could see your UK blog deleted).

So I can get to the UK version of the TypePad service via typepad.co.uk, but then a few of the pages such as 'features' and 'pricing' are blank for me.

I thought I was being all clever when I discovered a hack for the 'Recently Updated Weblogs' include, that see its only showing recently updated UK blogs, but suspect that bloggers on the UK version get this by default. See here.

I'm pissed off with TypePad. This, on top of my list of TypePad Problems.   

TypePad adds New Blog Templates

The designers over at TypePad have been busy creating more blog templates for their users. The two new designs are names "Kinetic" and "Squares" and are available in a variety of colors (shown below).

It's worth noting that the screenshots I use below are of a basic blog set-up. These templates look far more impressive when using mixed media such as photos albums (as shown in the image on the left).

"Kinetic" TypePad Theme:

Live Demos:
The Kinetic (Cyan) TypePad template.
The Kinetic (Olive) TypePad Template.
The Kinetic (Orange) TypePad Template.
The Kinetic (Red) TypePad Template.

   

   

"Squares" TypePad Themes:

Live Demos:
The Squares (Blue) TypePad Template.
The Squares (Green) TypePad Template.
The Squares (Grey) TypePad Template.
The Squares (Pink) TypePad Template.
The Squares (Purple) TypePad Template.
The Squares (Red) TypePad Template.

   

   

   

Source : Give Your Blog a make over with a new theme
See Also : TypePad adds 2 Nature Themes to their Blog Templates

Blog Showcase - Toy Talk

Here's my first blog showcase. It's a UK blog, powered by TypePad, called Toy Talk.. It covers Toy news, reviews and features on everything from action figures through to wooden toys.

It's a straight forward 3 column design, with good use of affiliate marketing adverts. Not too cluttered.

Check out Toy Talk

TypePad Billing Problem could see your UK blog deleted

Recent changes to the TypePad payment process severely affects UK users of TypePad, in fact you could find your account/blog deleted if you don't act in time. I recently got an automated email from TypePad for my thumblounge.com blog account. It told me that my account had been suspended and would be deleted by midnight GMT.

We're sorry to say that your TypePad account with the member name 'thumblounge' has one or more unpaid invoices. Your invoices may be unpaid due to:

a billing error caused by your bank
a change in your billing address
or because your credit card has reached its limit.
Currently, your account is still active, and your weblog is still available for visitors to view. However, if the invoices in question are not paid by at midnight GMT, your account will be automatically suspended.

You may update your credit card information here or you can access it through your TypePad account by going to Control Panel, Account Info, Update Credit Card.

Once valid payment information is entered and approved, your account will be reactivated.

We appreciate your prompt attention to this matter. If you have a question, please open a Help Ticket within TypePad and select 'I have a billing-related question or problem.' Thank you for using TypePad.

I checked my online banking and found that there was plenty of cash to cover their monthly fee and that no recent attempt had been made to debit the card. Hmmmm?

I submitted a support ticket asking them to explain the problem and this is the response I got.

The issue here is that our payment processing system has changed how they handle billing foreign addresses. This causes the AVS error that you see when updating your credit card.

What we could do, though, is try moving you to our UK portal to process this charge successfully. This is only a billing related change; it does not affect your weblog.

Would we be able to move your account to this portal? Please let us know if you have any other questions.

So, UK users of TypePad should submit a support ticket requesting that their account be moved to their new UK portal BEFORE the next billing cycle or you could find your TypePad account and blog deleted within few hours.

See also : TypePad UK Launch - That's just so 2005

New TypePad hack for UK Users

Here's a cool little TypePad hack for UK users of the TypePad hosted blog platform. It's a small change to the 'Recently Updated Weblogs' that has your UK blog ONLY showing recently updated UK blogs. Not a huge change, but certainly goes someway to keeping your content relevant to your UK readers.

Look for script type="text/javascript" src="<$MTStaticWebPath$>status/new-updates.js in your advanced template and change it to script type="text/javascript" src="/.shared-uk/status/new-updates.js

UPDATE (17th September 2007)

This TypePad hack is NOT neccessary if your TypePad account is running on the TypePad Billing Platform. It'll only show Recently Updated UK Blogs by default.

Check out http://www.ukbloggersguide.com/tips/2007/08/typepad-uk-laun.html

About to showcase TypePad and UK Blogs

I usually spend a couple of hours a week looking for new blogs. I'm keen to see what other small organisations and individual bloggers are achieving on a modest budget. Some of the blogs I come across are outstanding.

With that in mind, I figured I'd share them with you with two new regular features on the UK Bloggers Guide. Each week I'll simply showcase blogs that go the extra mile in both blog design and blog functionality. I'm deliberately NOT taking the subject matter in to consideration, because I inevitably come across blogs that are of little interest to me personally, BUT really are excellent blogs none the less.

Regular readers will know that much of what I write on the UK Bloggers Guide is aimed at users of the TypePad hosted blogging platform and UK bloggers regardless of which blog platform they use. So I'll show case these seperately where applicable by creating two seperate categories.

UK Blog Showcase
Showcasing UK blogs regardless of the blog platform in use.

TypePad Blog Showcase
Showcasing blogs (UK and International) that use the TypePad blog platform. Worth noting that I will only featur TypePad blogs using 'Advanced Templates' so other TypePad uses can see what's being achieved in terms of design and functionality. Very little point in making a big whoop about Typepad blogs using one of the stock templates.

Turning Your Existing Web Site into a Blog PT2

In this, the second part of 'Turning your existing Website into a Blog', I look at the key technical considerations.

FILE NAMES & PATHS
When moving any existing web site, you need to consider the impact that it will have on your search engine listings. TypePad only uses the .html and .htm file extension for it's pages. If your existing site also uses these, the move to TypePad is almost painless.

Even if you're using other page extensions such .asp or .php, but you only ever link to folder paths and NOT the actual pages, then for you it is also painless.

For example. On smstoday.co.uk all of my pages used the .asp page extension such as smstoday.co.uk/free-sms-text/index.asp but I only ever linked to the folder smstoday.co.uk/free-sms-text/

This meant that the move would have no negative impact on my search engine placements as long as I replicated the folder structure correctly.

If your existing site does link to internal pages with any page extension other than html or htm, then you need to consider the impact this will have on your search engine listings before moving to TypePad.

DOMAIN NAMES AND TYPEPAD
If you're planning on using a new domain or even a new sub-domain of your existing site, you really have no need for this guide, just get over to TypePad and get started.

For those of you wanting to use your top level domain TypePad offers a Domain Mapping feature so you can use your existing domain seamlessly with your TypePad Blog.

You'll need to be sure that your current domain host allows some custom control over the DNS records that describe your domain and have the ability to create and modify A, MX, and CNAME records. Worth noting that my domain host DOES NOT support any of it, but achieved the same result by changing the "www record" for me.

When you create your account with TypePad, you'll choose a unique account name. For smstoday.co.uk my account name is "smstext". TypePad creates your blog url using the account name. i.e. http://smstext.typepad.com

My domain name host has set up http://www.smstoday.co.uk so that it's mapped to http://smstext.typepad.com

IMPORTANT - It's very important to note that the domain mapping can take up to 24 hours to take effect. You will need to have all of your existing folders, pages and images in place on your TypePad account BEFORE requesting that the domain mapping take place.

NO FTP ACCESS
You'll need to get used to the fact that YOU ARE NOT GIVEN FTP ACCESS to your TypePad account. All of your files are uploaded using your browser. This can take a little getting used to at first, but I never gave it a thought after a week or so.

SERVER SIDE INCLUDES, BUT DIFFERENT
TypePad does allow use the use of server side includes, but NOT in the traditional sense that you simply upload the file you want included in various pages of your site/blog. They use ".inc" file extension.

Instead of uploading a .inc file that your have created locally, you create a .inc file in your account and paste the html in to it using your browser, then "save" and "publish". Once saved and published, you can call the .inc file in to any of your site/blog pages

That's it for now, to be continued...

How to become a Hot Member on MyBlogLog

Following yesterday's highlight of Top Tips on using MyBlogLog, a reader asked "How do you 'Apply' to be a hot member. I was tagged as a hot member by a few people, a nice ego boost. I didn't know there was an application"?

We'll I've looked in to it, and there is no formal application process as such. Robyn Tippins, Community Manager at MyBlogLog writes "Think you deserve a spotlight? Know someone who is a Hot Member? Tag them (or yourself) Hot Member, or let me know via email at robyn@mybloglog.com".

So it seems that it's simply a case of being noticed and dropping Robyn an email the most direct route to being noticed. You can read about the most recent Hot Members here on the MyBlogLog blog, in a category named Rockin' Members (huh?).