Autoblogger Pro Stand Alone
Version History and ChangeLog

Autoblogger Pro is an automated traffic generation system that enables web-
masters and SEO professionals to rapidly deploy a network of keyword-targeted
blogs onto a variety of platforms. These platforms may include sites running the
WordPress content management software, as well as blogs hosted at services such
as Blogger, WordPress.com, and others.

This document details version history and major changes to the software.

Silent Updates (minor changes, or changes made in advance of an official release
date) are marked as such.

*************MAJOR RELEASE*************

Vers: 0.1 Beta (Argon)
Date: October 01 2006

***************************************

* First beta release of Autoblogger Pro Stand Alone. This version was tested and
evaluated by a small group of private beta testers in a hosted environment.
The focus of the beta was test the ability of the software to post to remote
blogs as well as the gather feedback on the user interface.

*************MINOR RELEASE*************

Vers: 0.7 Beta (Copper)
Date: October 18 2006

***************************************

* Significant UI changes, including the implementation of a brand new theme, and
the introduction of a new modular interface design that allows new features
to be rapidly incorporated into the existing UI.

* The “campaigns” tab has been moved several places to the right to account for
its place as one of the last steps before posting to a blog. The first tab is
now “dashboard,” followed by “categories”.

*************MINOR RELEASE*************

Vers: 0.8 Beta (Silver)
Date: October 22 2006 (Silent Update)

***************************************

* A new API for posting to Wordpress has been added. This new API supports a
wider variety of character sets and data manipulation, ensuring that changes
made in the future will be compatible with the format used to post out.

* Support for a login screen was added, as well as the ability to save usernames
and passwords using a cookie.

*************MINOR RELEASE*************

Vers: 0.9 Beta (Gold)
Date: October 25 2006

***************************************

* This release marked the final version of the product before retail release.
Beta testing of this version concentrated on tackling any remaining (minor) UI
annoyances, and stress testing.

* The ability to post to Blogger.com was added to Autoblogger Pro Stand Alone.

*************MAJOR RELEASE*************

Vers: 1.00 (Helium)
Date: November 01 2006

***************************************

* Original release of Autoblogger Pro Stand Alone. The release was announced on
the company’s web site, a handful of message boards, as well as through an
email to customers who owned other specific products made by the Relink.

*************MINOR RELEASE*************

Vers: 1.01 (Oxygen)
Date: November 01 2006 (Silent Update)

***************************************

* Modified a number of design elements to reflect feedback from initial users
during the first day of launch. This launch was unannounced, and was targeted
to reach customers downloading Autoblogger Pro for the first time. It was not
possible to upgrade from previous versions, and could only be installed as a
new installation.

*************MINOR RELEASE*************

Vers: 1.02 (Sulfur)
Date: November 02 2006 (Silent Update)

***************************************

* Fixed a number of minor incompatibilities with older versions of MySQL. Users
now have the ability to use most MySQL versions successfully.

*************MINOR RELEASE*************

Vers: 1.03 (Zinc)
Date: November 03 2006 (Silent Update)

***************************************

* Minor maintenance was performed on database functions, improving the speed
of Autoblogger inside of its core menus.

*************MINOR RELEASE*************

Vers: 1.04 (Calcium)
Date: November 04 2006 (Silent Update)

***************************************

* A number of functions were introduced to improve the upgrade process. It is
now no longer necessary to re-install any components of Autoblogger to upgrade
to a newer version or to apply a hotfix.

*************MINOR RELEASE*************

Vers: 1.05 (Beryllium)
Date: November 05 2006 (Silent Update)

***************************************

* Changed the installer to handle various exceptions with cURL versions. cURL
must be installed not only on the server, but also configured properly to be
used by Apache and PHP. The installer will now report these types of errors.

*************MINOR RELEASE*************

Vers: 1.06 (Fluorine)
Date: November 06 2006 (Silent Update)

***************************************

* Minor maintenance was performed on the login procedure to accommodate older
versions of PHP.

*************MINOR RELEASE*************

Vers: 1.07 (Niobium)
Date: November 06 2006 (Silent Update)

***************************************

* Improvements to the core code of Autoblogger enhance the compatibility with
Windows operating systems. FreeBSD and Linux remain the preferred environment
for Autoblogger Pro, but no new Windows incompatibilities were reported during
testing of this version.

*************MINOR RELEASE*************

Vers: 1.08 (Lithium)
Date: November 06 2006 (Silent Update)

***************************************

* Added the ability to modify posts in the database.

* Added pagination to a number of screens, including the new post database.

* Modified the installation program to report version updates, in preparation
for the 1.1 release, which should update the versions of older software upon
installation.

* Added a check for older versions to update the version number in the database.

*************MINOR RELEASE*************

Vers: 1.09 (Cobalt)
Date: November 08 2006 (Silent Update)

***************************************

* Modified the help text for adding and editing blogs to clarify the format to
be used when working with subdirectories. The blog should be defined as the
base domain being posted to. The XML URL should then contain the relative
path from that base to the xmlrpc.php file (or the name of the file being used
for that blog).

* Added the ability to post to WordPress categories. Autoblogger Pro will post
to the name of the category the feed was originally pulled using. For example,
if you have defined your feeds as “cars” and “trucks,” Autoblogger will post
feeds defined under “cars” into the WordPress category “cars,” and will follow
the same behavior for “trucks.” If these categories do not exist on the Word-
Press site you’re posting to, it is likely that posts will be displayed in the
main category defined for the blog.

* Added a variable to allow Autoblogger users to “override” errors given by
improperly configured hosting providers. This allows a user to circumvent the
strange error messages (or lack of an error message) presented to Autoblogger
if a host refuses to perform the steps necessary to properly configure their
servers. This will flag ALL posts as “successful,” and so should only be used
in an environment that has previously been confirmed to work properly.

*************MAJOR RELEASE*************

Vers: 1.10 (Xenon)
Date: December 01 2006

***************************************

* Added the ability for advanced users to define a list of random headers and
footers to be used when posting out. The new system utilizes a scripting
language to define headers and footers as rotating rules, allowing a user to
define a number of possible values for these rules. Autoblogger Pro selects
which rule to use, randomly, as it posts. Variables such as %%permalink%% and
%%source%% can also be used inside of random rules.

* Improved debugging during the “posting” phase, reporting more errors.

* Corrected an issue where a number of areas would fail to strip slashes from
older MySQL databases. Autoblogger Pro should now function identically on
newer databases as well as many older versions.

* Changed the update method for campaigns, improving the way data is stored.
Autoblogger Pro should no longer attempt to post duplicate entries when the
XML URL is incorrectly set.

* Added text to show the category, feed, and post title for every post attempted
regardless of success.

* Added the ability to limit the number of posts Autoblogger Pro will make from
a specific feed, per time it is run. In most cases, this will be a limit per
day.

* Autoblogger will now compare a post’s permalink to determine if a post is a
duplicate, instead of using a combination of the post title, source, and
permalink. This should resolve some duplication issues in the database. Care
should be taken to avoid feeds that change permalinks from pull to pull,
although these feeds are extremely rare.

* Fixed an issue where a feed that did not contain post dates would not be able
to be posted to a blog using Autoblogger Pro. Now, for feeds without dates,
Autoblogger will simply assign the current date and time as the article is
posted to the blog. This provides legacy support, as the next fix should
actually prevent it from ever happening.

* For feeds without dates for each entry, Autoblogger Pro now uses the date and
time of the pull for the database field post_date. This should allow for a
much more natural error-handling of dateless feeds.

* Changed the way rewrite rules, relink rules, sourcelink patterns, headers, and
footers are input into Autoblogger Pro. They are now defined using large text
boxes, which provides two main advantages: 1) It’s much easier to type in the
larger format, and 2) it will now accomodate editing HTML rules without trying
to display the HTML on the page.

* Added the Autoblogger version to the footer of the interface (thanks for the
suggestion, Khaled!) for ease of identifying your currently installed version.

*************MAJOR RELEASE*************

Vers: 1.20 (Iridium)
Date: December 15 2006

***************************************

* Changed the method for using cron. It will now require the command to use a
username and password to authenticate itself, rather than cookies. This new
method increases the ease of use for users without advanced knowledge of using
the cURL utility with cookies.

* Despite attempts to keep the coding environment for Autoblogger Pro at the
level of PHP 4.x, changes in technology have forced us to migrate to the 5.x
platform. We do not anticipate any affect on the compatibility with older
systems, but will keep a closer eye on backwards compatibility and 4.x testing
for all future versions.

* Removed extraneous backslashes from various locations, including the campaigns
screen and the posting interface.

* Added the ability to use regular expressions (regex) with Rewrite rules. This
feature is intended for power users to strip out incompatible blocks of text
in their feeds, as well as to remove undesireable elements from the posts
before they reach a webmaster’s blog.

* Added a Markov Engine to the post process. Campaigns set to take advantage of
this new engine will now shuffle the text of a given post before sending it to
a webmaster’s blog. This will create some variety in the posts Autoblogger
uses to create a blog.

*************MAJOR FEATURE RELEASE*************

Vers: No version change
Date: September 2007 (Silent Update)

***************************************

* Added Linkspinner - Linkspinner is the multiple Link version of the Relinker. It will allow you to add multiple outbound links per keyword/phrase. In addition the Keyword or phrase used for the relink can be multiples as well this makes it much easier to manage multiple keywords.

* Added Feedspinner - Feedspinner is the multiple version of the rewriter. By setting up a rewrite rule, you can change a word or phrase to another word or phrase from a wordset (random words/phrases). Once a word in a set is triggered the random engine will replace with another word/phrase within the set This is primarily used to increase keyword density and allay duplicate content concerns.