…particularly if your blog is running wordpress, or blogger, or typepad, or one of the off-the-shelf software or service blogs: don’t make people log in to add a comment*.
*Obviously, there’s a caveat. If you’re Kotaku, or Scoble, or some other massive blog, then you can do it, because people will. But for your personal blog? Unless you’re *waaaaay* popular, just don’t. Obviously, that means you can get comment spam – like I do. But I’m using a homebuilt hack, not a well-designed and maintained system. So I can’t install a Kaptcha module and have done with it.
So…this entry on Mat Stace’s blog isn’t getting a comment from me. Or rather, I’m going to comment here, where he’ll probably never find it, more’s the pity. My comment: If you’re having problems configuring a linux box, it’s always worth installing webmin (google it). For simple configs and amendments, webmin can turn 45 minutes of hunting for docs, hunting for config files, and figuring things out into a couple of clicks.