Blogger Tips 3 - Cbox Message Box (Reducing SPAM - CAPTCHA)

CAPTCHA is  working... ! I have just enabled it to reduce spam in my CBOX..   :)

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Belated Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Fitri to Muslim friends..

I am back online..    :)    I found this useful new feature in cbox and would like to share it in case you haven't seen.


Cbox added a new feature called "CAPTCHA" which require users to enter a word according to a randomly generated distorted word image before posting is allowed.

To enable it, go to "Options"->"Posting Options" or simply click setting in the above image.

Then tick the "Require CAPTCHA" box and save the change.

The next time a user post a message, the bellow will be displayed:

Hope you find this useful..

Have nice day...  :)
Anic

p/s:  My other post about reducing spam messages in Cbox - http://anic-lohas.blogspot.com/2010/08/blogger-tips-1-spam-messages-in-cbox.html

Updated:

I tried posting a message with the CAPTCHA enabled and Cbox said "Posting..." but the message didn't appear.  Not sure if this is a temporary problem.   So, try out with your own risk..  :) 

Blogger Tips 2 - Blogger Live Stats

Do you know who visits your blog?  which post is most popular?  where does the traffic come from?  which search keyword has sent them to you? which browser they use? which country they are from? etc.....

New feature added in July...  Blogger Stats

If you login to http://draft.blogger.com/home, you will see an additional tab added, the red circle below:

You don't have to configure anythig, just click the "Stats" and you will see your blog's traffic in near real time..

Really cool...

It is all quite self explanatory..  So, I won't explain more.   If you need help,  let me knew.   Have fun.

More information is available from:
http://bloggerindraft.blogspot.com/2010/07/introducing-blogger-stats.html

Blogger Tips 1 - Spam Messages in cbox Message Box

Yesterday a similar message appeared in my message box on my blog:

I really don't like my message box being crowded by advertisement or spam messages as I may miss messages for me, so I login to cbox website and see if I could delete them.

I was delighted that I was not just able to delete the message, there was also a feature in cbox that I could block users.  Luckily cbox has enabled this for their free service.  See the following screen:

Tick the message/sender you would like to delete/ban, then click the Ban/Delete option on top.

To block a sender, you could also go to the "Blocked users" options, and add the sender there.

On the "Blocked users" screen, you could specify how long you would like the user to be blocked.  Choose the "Change expiry" option to do this.  The default setting is 1 week if you don't change it.

Please take note that, the blocking is done based on IP address, so when the users' IP address changed, then the user is able to post message again.

I think a better way could be using the filtering option, however this is only provided to paid service.  I could not access it and hence not able to check how it works.

In addition to the above, in case you are not aware, there are a few options on the Options screen that you may want to change them if you haven't.   The first thing I did was to change the length of the message allowed in the message box from 100 to 200.  That is the max for free service.

Not all options are available for the free service but I am happy with what it has offered.

Hope this help bloggers who are annoyed by spam messages.

Thanks to cbox for providing this service free.

Bye now...