update - Tag Archive

Why you should use and update CommentLuv

29 Replies Christopher Roberts

Just to let you know this is my (Christopher Roberts’s) 50th post on Technology Bloggers!

CommentLuv is a fantastic plugin which helps commenters get more out of their commenting experience.

Technology Bloggers has the CommentLuv plugin installed and enabled. This means that when you comment here, you get to ‘show off’ one of your recent articles by ticking the CommentLuv box, and because we are a dofollow blog, that also gives you a dofollow link back to your article.

I believe that using CommentLuv makes your commenting system more fair, and therefore increases your commenters, good PR and subsequently traffic.


As a commenter, to use it all you need to do is input your URL in the normal URL field, and then tick the CommetLuv box. If you are a registered CommentLuv member then the plugin will go to your feed and bring up your latest posts. If you are not registered, it will spider your site for an RSS feed and then return the posts from that.

So CommentLuv is great for commenters and blogger. But what’s the customer service like? Well the reply to that is fantastic!

Earlier in the week there was a CommentLuv update (2.90.8) but all wasn’t good. On Wednesday I realised that all comments were showing the CommentLuv text, even if the CommentLuv box was not ticked, or a URL present.

I fiddled with the settings, but it didn’t seem to work. So I contacted the CommentLuv team for support. Now in the past I have contacted plugin owners and it has been weeks until I got a response. However it took Andy Bailey (the plugin author) just 11 minutes!

He left a comment and saw the problem.

Andy Bailey's comment showing the CommentLuv faultHe then quickly updated the plugin and sent me it via email, asking me to beta test it, to check the issue was resolved. His second comment (below) shows that it was 🙂

Andy Bailey's comment showing that CommentLuv was fixedNow unfortunately this means that you now need to update to CommentLuv 2.90.9. Okay, Technology Bloggers is to blame for the update, sorry folks, but hey, it works great here now 🙂

Going to comment? Give CommentLuv a try.
Got a blog? Why not install CommentLuv on it?
Already using CommentLuv? Please update to 2.90.9 🙂

What are your thoughts on CommentLuv?

Thank you Andy Bailey from all of us here at Technology Bloggers 🙂

How to add an email subscription form to your blog

9 Replies Christopher Roberts

Earlier in the week, Wayne John from Southern California Web Development commented on how it would be great if you could subscribe via email to Technology Bloggers. This way you could read the latest and greatest content as an email, and then just visit the stuff that interests you to comment etc.

After a little puzzling I managed to enable FeedBurner’s email setting and add a subscribe widget to the sidebar.

Google FeedBurner LogoTo subscribe via email like many already have, please enter your email in the box on the sidebar, or even in the box below 🙂

Enter your email address to get free updates about new articles!

As this blog talks about WordPress, RSS feeds and stuff like that, I thought I might as well help other bloggers set up a similar system 🙂

What do I need for people to be able to subscribe via email?

Well first of all you need a feed. WordPress handles this nicely so that shouldn’t be too difficult! Second you need a feed manager. I use FeedBurner. It’s simple and easy to use. The problem with it at the moment is that it is really slow at updating, meaning that when I post an article at 2 in the afternoon, only 8 o’clock next morning does the feed update – for example. This isn’t a major issue for email subscription at the moment though.

How do I enable FeedBurner email subscriptions?

Click on the profile of the blog you want to enable emails for, then go to the ‘Publicize‘ tab. From here look down the sidebar and find ‘Email Subscriptions‘ – click that. You should then get a page looking a bit like the one in this picture.

Enable/Activate FeedBurner Email SubscriptionsThen click Activate!

You will then be taken to a page called ‘Subscription Management‘. Here is where you get your code! Now you can ether get the box code or get the code which links to the subscription page. I chose to have a box, but you take your pick. Add the code to your site/blog and hey presto! Test it out yourself if you like, but the code should work and your readers should now be able to subscribe to your blog via email.

Can I customise the FeedBurner code?

Yes – to a degree. I am not 100% sure what Google’s policy is on modifying the code, but I imagine they are okay with it. My default code would make Technology Bloggers ‘subscribe box’ look like this

Enter your email address: 

Delivered by FeedBurner

but my modifications make a much smother (I think so anyway) this

Enter your email address to get free updates about new articles!

Happy subscribing and happy creating readers and bloggers 🙂