For awhile now .. there have been times where I’ve censored a blog post because I didn’t know who might read it. Especially lately, when I have lots of stories about substituting, not that anything is inappropriate .. but I’d like to be able to bitch or celebrate about jobs without worrying that one day my very public blog will come up if somebody googles my name. The catch is .. that most of the time I don’t care who reads my posts. Especially I post like this one which will have some technical suggestions that might help somebody who I’ve never met before. Also .. I like RSS readers, it drives me crazy when somebody I really like goes private on Blogger and don’t get RSS updates anymore.

So part of this site will be going private, most of you probably wont notice .. but if you want to make sure you’re getting all my updates go [create an account] for my site now :) If you made an account in the past (like in the last 3 years) it should still be there .. there’s a link to [recover your password] on the [login form].  Also, if for some reason I don’t personally know you, I’d love for you to introduce yourself, send me an email or a comment so that I make sure to give you access.  Also .. that means that sometimes when you visit my site, you’ll have to check to see if you’re logged in. Over in my sidebar you’ll see a link to Log in (or if you’re already logged in, you’ll see Log out). As of 2/23/09 the sidebar is on the left side of the page, the  Log in / Log out link is under the title Meta.

Angelle and Mike emailed me last week asking if I knew of some sort of solution to be able to mask parts of a blog, allowing certain people or groups access to private entries or categories, which is exactly what I’ve wanted to do for a long time now. WordPress has built in roles, or a way to control access to your blog, but they really only pertain to allowing people to edit and post to your blog, not really for managing your subscribers (or readers) After a bit of research I believe I have found a way to do it through wordpress with the help of a plugin called [Role Scoper]. Role Scoper allows you to set controls for subscribers to your blog. It also does alot of other fancy stuff for blogs that have multiple authors, editors .. etc. none of which I’m interested in right now. I’m planning on writing up a Role Scoper 101 post this afternoon, once I iron out how I’m going to make it work for me :) For now .. just go ahead and create an account for my blog so that I can use you all as guinea pigs!