I had a hard time getting trackback set up, and figuring how to work it.  This is because I am what I refer to as Internet-retarded.  It's not that I'm incapable of figuring out how Internet technologies work; it's that as a very old person, I'm slow in figuring them out.  Kind of like the kid who's able to learn how to tie his shoes; it just takes him a lot longer than the other kids.

What makes it irritating is that for many years I was a smart young punk.  I had a computer when I was ten, for Bog's sake.  Nowadays all ten year olds have computers.  Not back in my day!  In my day you were lucky to get 64K of RAM, and if you had a tape drive you counted your blessings!  Not like today, with the Nintendo and the X-Box and the Tivo.  Why, if I had a nickel for... [SLAP SLAP SLAP]

Sorry about that.  Won't happen again.

The point is, I finally figured out how to work the trackback thingamajig, and it occurs to me that perhaps other people could benefit from my painfully acquired wisdom.  Shut up, smarter bloggers who probably wrote the scripts to handle their trackback themselves!  This is between me and the other retarded people.

Step One:  Install Trackback On Your Blog

If you use a standardized blogging package with trackback support, this is easy.  Just turn on the trackback option.

I don't use a standard system, so I got HaloScan for comments and trackback.  This is a very easy system to implement, and if you pay the nice man $12 the ads go away.  You can get HaloScan at www.haloscan.com.

I have an ASP-based blogging system called SimpleBlog, and all I had to do was insert the HaloScan script call in my .ASP page.  If you use another blogging systems that doesn't support trackback directly, then I suggest HaloScan as being easy and cheap.  (You can get it free if you don't mind little ads.)

Step Two:  Link To Other People's Posts

You should already know how to do this.

Step Three:  Send A Trackback Ping To The Person You Just Linked To

This is where I ran into trouble.  (One of the side effects of being Internet retarded is that sometimes the idea of going to Google and typing "how do I send a trackback ping" comes only after many attempts at understanding the vast mystery that is trackback.)  Sending a trackback ping lets the blog you've linked to know that you've done it. 

Trouble solved.  WizBang has a trackback-ping-sending page.  Just bookmark http://www.aylwardfamily.com/content/tbping.asp and go there whenever you've made a trackback post, and you're golden.  You'll need to know the permalink of your own post, and the trackback URL of the post you're linking to.  You can get the trackback URL by clicking on the "Trackback" link of the original post.  And that's all there is to it.  All you people who write PHP scripts in your sleep and who mock me for using ASP for my blog can stop snickering now. 

I hope this is helpful to someone out there.  And amusing to everyone else. 

Robert @ 23:52 | | | . | E-Mail This Post