The big change from beta 3 to beta 4 is the addition of a 3.2-happy SpamLookup. And happy it is. I wasn’t certain it was working. The previous version had an activity log, this one is integrated in the new system-wide plug-in window. But then I happened to click on the “Junk” tab in the Trackbacks window. Yikes! 90 junk trackbacks in the past 2 days. Ayup, it’s working. Not a single comment or trackback sent/posted that should have been junk. Not a single comment or trackback junked that shouldn’t have been.

Eric’s [blog](http://www.9to5andotherwise.com) is getting creamed by comment spam. Too much of it is being moderated. I think beta 4 is stable enough that I’m going to upgrade him this week and hope for the best.

I love that the SixApart folks published a step-by-step [tutorial](http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/docs/3.2/01_installation_and_upgrade/mysql_backup_restore.html) for backing up the MySQL database. Isn’t it terrible that I had no clue how to do it before? I always just used import/export for backup. I say this because I had no choice but to wipe out my old Movable Type installation. I meant to leave it there as a fallback/backup, but since it was publishing to the same location as my main blog it wasn’t working out. Every time SpamLookup zapped a comment, it forced a rebuild of the index. That meant that my blog was taking on the old layout/old database on every spam that hit it, which was quite a bit. Get rid of the old folder, get rid of the problem. To be safe, I have a folder on my drive that contains the entire Movable Type CGI folder, a backup of the blog folder as it was right before I upgraded and a zipped file containing the old database. I will *not* lose 2.5 years of entries without a fight.

**UPDATE:** I installed MT 3.2 on [Eric’s blog](http://www.9to5andotherwise.com) this morning. Unfortunately, I still have to update his templates a bit so I refreshed to the defaults in the meantime. However, it’s doing what it set out to do. In the seven hours since installation 220 spam comments and 23 spam trackbacks were junked automatically by SpamLookup. Only one junk comment was sent for moderation. Not bad.