Ok, here’s a fun little blog mention that we’d been meaning to post after last week’s season finale episode of The Office. If you watch the NBC show, you’ll be familiar with the dark-hearted fan-favorite character Creed Bratton. In the finale, it’s revealed that Ryan had helped Creed set up a “blog”.

Of course (spoilers!) the blog itself turned out to just be an address at the top of a Word document. www.creedthoughts.gov.www\creedthoughts wouldn’t have worked very well as a web address anyway.

But good news! Because NBC has a number of Movable Type Enterprise blogs for all their shows, they made quick work of setting up a real blog for Creed Thoughts. The show’s on hiatus for the summer now, of course, but there have already been some updates since the finale, sowe’re hoping the real Creed Bratton will keep blogging again once the show’s back in the fall. The idea has our inner Kelly Kapoor so excited!

(And don’t worry, Schrute fans, Dwight’s got a blog, too. Only he doesn’t like the word “blog”.)

All recent versions of Movable Type include a number of plugins for blocking spam, including a set of plugins called SpamLookup. We wanted to update you about a third-party service that’s affected the performance of one of the plugins, along with some easy steps you can take to fix the issue.

Recently, an IP blacklist service known as Blitzed ceased its operations. Movable Type’s SpamLookup plugin uses this service to process incoming comments and TrackBacks to determine if they are spam or not. With Blitzed shut down, a lot of you might be experiencing delays when publishing your readers’ comments.

Though we’re sorry to see Blitzed go (and thank the team for their efforts), the good news is that a free replacement is available. The SpamHaus Project has been in operation for over 9 years and has a long track record of providing excellent protection against known spammers. In addition to their technology that they allow people to use for free, Spamhaus works with Law Enforcement and cyber-crimes teams worldwide, helping them not only to block these miscreants, but also to bring them to justice.

Adding Spamhaus to your spam filtering rules is straightforward; You’ll need to make a small change to SpamLookup’s configuration. To fix follow these simple instructions:

1. Login to Movable Type. (Your account will need to have System Administrator privileges.)
2. Click on the “Plugins” link in the main navigation on the left hand side.
3. Look for the “SpamLookup - Lookups” plugin set listed among your other plugins.
4. Click “Show Settings.”
5. Under “IP Blacklist Services” highlight and replace the text “opm.blitzed.org” with “zen.spamhaus.org”.
6. Click “Save Settings.”

That’s it — your sites’s visitors should experience faster commenting times immediately, and your blog will keep blocking known spammers. If you need more information on fighting spam on your blog, take a look at the Movable Type Spam-Fighting resources on the community wiki, or contact Movable Type support for assistance.

Washington D.C.’s Eastern Market isn’t just a national historic landmark, it’s the heart of the Capitol Hill community. For nearly 150 years, the Market has nourished the community with produce, breads, cheeses, and meats direct from the people who produce them. But it’s also fed the community’s need for connection, acting as a gathering place, a social hub that ties the Hill together.

Then, late last month, the Market was closed for the first time since 1873 by a devastating fire, which gutted much of the building and collapsed part of its roof. It’s the kind of destruction that could have marked the end of the landmark, a loss that would have been permanent and profound.

Enter Save Eastern Market. The Movable Type-powered blog launched in the hours after the fire, first serving as a gathering place for information about the fire, and then acting to collect links to all of the efforts and fundraisers being held to help restore the Market to its former glory. Created by Capitol Hill residents, Jason Levine and Shannon Culbertson, who’ve long been members of the Movable Type community, the site is acting as a central clearinghouse for information about the Market and the city’s efforts to rebuild.

Especially when joined with other DC-area Movable Type blogs like DCist, Metroblogging DC and the Washington Post, Save Eastern Market shows how bloggers are helping to tell the story of Eastern Market and to inspire the community as the fundraising and rebuilding effort begins. We can’t wait to see all of these blogs post about the Market’s reopening, and we’re pleased to make Save Eastern Market a Movable Type Featured Blog.

A few years ago, Spider-Man came out and did a brilliant job of showing off the classic character, making it okay to really enjoy a “comic book movie” again. This summer’s sequel, Spider-Man 3 opens tomorrow and seems to be a lock for the first blockbuster film of the season. So naturally, we’re thrilled to make the Spider-Man 3 Official Movie Blog our Movable Type Featured Blog.

The Spider-Man 3 blog is full of the kind of content you’d expect — links to trailers, feeds for fans to subscribe to, and behind-the-scenes videos that show off the making of the film. But innovation abounds all over Sony’s efforts on the blog. There’s smart use of Movable Type’s categories feature to highlight content that includes rich media. You can find extensive use of embedded video to include clips right within the blog. And the team has reached out to the entire blogosphere by providing beautifully designed templates for use on your blog, including Movable Type templates, exclusive designs for LiveJournal users, and the first independent designs we’ve seen any major film create for the Vox community.

But most importantly, the Spider-Man 3 blog really embraces community. Nearly all of the entries tell stories of how fans are excited about the film, what they’ve done to enter or win contests, or what their experiences have been as the film gets ready to launch. Congratulations to the fans and filmmakers who’ve done some heroic web-slinging to help create and launch the Spider-Man 3 Official Movie Blog.