Software Roll
Installed Movable Type V3.31 today. It seems to be working OK but I somehow turned off all my comments. I'm not sure how I did this so I suspect that if anything isn't working it's commenting. I'll have to keep an eye on that.
Switched over to mt-config.cgi OK although I'm still using my V2.61 main index template.
K-
I just upgraded, too. Something in my template is causing these things to appear: ���
Best thing I did was switch to WordPress. I like it much better!
Rob, I didn't get ??? showing up exactly but where I originally had special charcters such as accents and symbols like '©' I got a question mark in a small black diamond. But I thought that had more to do with my switching to mt-config.cgi than the actual upgrade of the software to V3.31. After the upgrade, when I went back into my templates and specificallly re-typed the special characters back in (like with alt-233, etc.) they came back OK.
I could never switch from MT. I've used it for too long and have too much intellectual investment; I like it well-enough and doubt the alternatives could convince me they're worth the switch. For the same reason I'll always have a PC and run MATLAB, Photoshop Elements, and Word.
K-
I resolved my problem. It was something simple. It almost always is. I also have no desire to switch to another blogging package, either. You're absolutely right about intellectual investment especially on things we use often. Switching at this point would mean more work, more time, more hair pulling, and more sleepless nights just so I would understand it. Then, I would have to lend support to the 12-15 other active bloggers at CrabAppleLane. No thanks. I'll stick to the devil I know.
By the way, what was causing those ��� to appear on my site was a line I left out of mt-config.cgi. In mt.cfg, I was using the default PublishCharset. It was working correctly so why tinker with it? In mt-config.cgi, you apparently have to specify. Adding this line to mt-config.cgi got rid of them:
PublishCharset iso-8859-1