[url=http://wonderwinds.com/hackblog.php/2005/08/07/take_control_of_your_linkblog]My blog post[/url] and [url=http://wonderwinds.com/media/improved_linkblog_controls.php.txt]the functions[/url]
Basically: you add three functions to _class_item, you modify your skins/_linkblog (or skins/skinname/_linkblog) file to call these functions, you might want to modify all your skins/skinname/_linkblog files to add a variable to control one of the three functions.
What you get: The URL you are linking to becomes the tooltip for the linkblog entry, a specified amount of text from the linkblog post is included in the sidebar (with ... indicating there is more to read if there is more to read), and a permalink icon only if there is text in the linkblog post.
In other words: You don't get no tooltip and all the text and a permalink icon even when there is nothing to read.