Tag: Blogger

Technologically impaired

Blogspot I’ve used so long that I have actually figured out some of its idiosyncrasies.

I have a love/hate relationship with techies. In my experience, 60% of them are condescending twits who seem to relish making people feel as though they are idiots. Worse, about half of them, I’m convinced, don’t even know what they are talking about.

Then there are the good guys. One in my office helped me discover that the podcasts I had played were eating memory on my hard drive. He showed me where it was stored, and better, how to empty my recycle bin.

I don’t think of myself as particularly adept at technological stuff. The highlight of last year, from a pure techie viewpoint, when I was able to solve Ken Levine’s problem with Blogspot; see the comments.

Blogspot I’ve used so long that I have actually figured out some of its idiosyncrasies. For instance, when you get comment captcha letters and numbers that are unreadable, you can click on that circle near the box and get another set of letters and numbers. Often, letters too close together – I cannot tell the difference between mn and nm, e.g.

One of the ABC Wednesday team has noted difficulties going to some sites. I’ve noticed that I have much better luck visiting Blogspot blogs using Firefox or Google Plus, rather than Internet Explorer.

Facebook continues to confound me. One day, I got one of those notices of places I’ve supposedly been to recently. Two of them were in places in Illinois, in 2010 (that’s “recent”?) that I’ve never been; the last time I’ve been in Illinois in 2008.

I complained, on Facebook, about Facebook asking me how I was “feeling,” as though it really cared. Someone responded how wonderful FB was to keep in touch with others. That wasn’t what I was addressing; I was talking about that faux concern for my well-being.
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A few tips for the clearly incompetent non-profits using social media.

There is a clash in WordPress 3.5, where the page-tag will affect the scheduled post results. So that YouTube video or similar item you’ll need to publish in real-time, rather than a schedule.

There was a story about a female child pornography suspect. The story didn’t make me laugh, but a comment string did.
Commenter: This seems a bit… not BoingBoing.
BoingBoing: I’ll let you know when we decide to take editorial direction from random guys on the internet.

Another online encounter that tickled me, also based on tragedy. Film critic Roger Ebert wrote about the death of a photographer killed in a vehicular accident while trying to stalk singer Justin Bieber. Ebert, surprisingly, referred to the young man as a paparazzi; I was the first of a few people who noted that paparazzi is actually the plural of paparazzo. Another commenter wrote: “Mr. Green, Poparazzi is gourmet popcorn popular in Texas. Would it then be grammatically correct to call a single kernel of their popped corn a poparazzo?”

Embracing the blogging technology

To this day, I still write my blog in Blogger, then copy and paste in WordPress, because I’m too tired/lazy/dense to figure out how to size pictures in WP.

One of the dumbest things I ever did regarding this blog was starting it in May. That’s because there are three multi-day meetings I have to attend during the year, and two of them are in May. One is my work staff training, which in 2005 was in Lake Placid. It’s only a couple of hours from my house, but it’s in the mountains.

The reason I remember this so well was that I would rush from a work session to the public library to post a blog post. If memory serves – and, increasingly, it does not – Blogger didn’t have a mechanism in 2005 whereby one could schedule a post for the next day. (And if it did, I hadn’t figured it out yet.)

It also took me weeks to figure out how to put graphics in my blog. I had READ the manual, but I just didn’t get it, until I finally did. Now, to this day, I still write my blog in Blogger, then copy and paste in WordPress, because I’m too tired/lazy/dense to figure out how to size pictures in WP, and it also serves as a backup to my primary blog. The reason I work ahead in my blog is that if/when Blogger breaks down, as it did last year around this time, it doesn’t totally screw me up.

When I started my blog in the Times Union a few years later, I remember wanting to use a picture of Dudley Do-Right and compare it with then NYS Governor Eliot Spitzer. The cartoon graphic was HUGE, larger than the page I was writing on. I had to get the administrator to fix it. Now I just write THOSE pieces in Blogger as well.

I write all of that to say that there may be some low-content days this month. This is not because I can’t think of anything to write; it’s because I don’t have time to write it. On the other hand, I DO have some significant revelation this month.

Bellowing about Blogger

I do understand the ire. My complaint with the new Blogger is not that it’s new. It’s the fact that it’s new and largely unimproved, with changes that were not at all intuitive.

 

Even though this blog is in WordPress, most of the other blogs I write or co-write are on Blogger. I stayed in Old Blogger as long as possible – when I briefly switched, about two months ago, I admit to being a tad confused, and switched back almost immediately – but now, all the blogs have the New Blogger board.

My intern at work was having fits. For everything she wrote, there were no page breaks. So I finally sat down and actually looked at the post settings, on the right of the screen. The bottom button gives one the option to either add page breaks – tiresome and tedious, and the default setting – or Press ENTER for line breaks, which is what I had always done. It was my major problem besides the Post Settings box seeming to jump to the left and right, opposite whatever direction I pointed the cursor; still annoying. But not enough to mention. But that Send Feedback button in the bottom right of the screen – is there any way to get RID OF IT?

Oh, and someone else was having difficulty I was not, which was getting to the editing page of the posts.

So I was humored by the fact that SamuraiFrog was complaining that people were complaining about Blogger; terribly meta. I was amused because I hadn’t seen any complaints at that point. THEN Ken Levine expressed his displease with Blogger (and Facebook, and rightly so); I did, though, solved one of his frustrations, and he thanked me in the comments. Dustbury cites Roberta X’s disdain. Demeur got so ticked off that he gave Blogger the middle finger and started a WordPress blog.

I do understand the ire. My complaint with the new Blogger is not that it’s new. It’s the fact that it’s new and largely unimproved, with changes that were not at all intuitive.

Something that REALLY annoys me on the Internet are those lists where you have to click on a dozen or more pages to get to “the Answer”. One of them Jaquandor pointed to, the ranking of Stephen King’s books. At least the slideshow goes five books at a time, but there seems to be no book at all in 2nd place.

Now this a good and proper thing to do. That Texts from Hillary page has hung it up.

“As far as memes go – it has gone as far as it can go. Is it really possible to top a submission from the Secretary herself? No. But then when you get to text with her in real life – it’s just over. At least for us. But we have no doubt it will live on with all of you on the Internet.”

 

Oscar Micheaux, Pioneering Black Film Director

Micheaux should be celebrated for forging new ground, and providing early roles to some of the finest black talent of the day.

Much of this info is from Rotten Tomatoes:

Oscar Micheaux (January 2, 1884 – March 25, 1951) was the first major African-American feature filmmaker, the most successful African-American filmmaker of the first half of the twentieth century, and the most prominent producer of race films. He directed the first black film (The Homesteader, from 1918, now lost, based upon his own novel) and he was the first black person to direct a sound film (The Exile, from 1931). “His work was a corrective to the prevailing stereotypes of blacks that were rampant in Hollywood at the time. However, his films are not particularly remembered for their quality, and contemporary critics find his treatment of working-class African Americans to be problematic. Still, Micheaux should be celebrated for forging new ground, and providing early roles to some of the finest black talent of the day (like the great Paul Robeson, playing a duel role in 1925’s Body and Soul).” Having seen one or two of his films, I’d definitely agree with this assessment.

More about Oscar Micheaux here and here. Watch this four-minute tribute video, then go to YouTube and type in the name of Oscar Micheaux.
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And on a completely different subject: People with Blogger blogs – PLEASE (I’m begging here) turn off WORD VERIFICATION…it takes too long trying to spell out weird words and most times I have no clue what the letters are – which means I have to type in words more than once. There are even pictures showing you how.

Blogspot, Why Hast Thou Confoundeth Me?

One of the great things about these blog sites is supposed to be that it should be EASY.

A couple of days ago, I needed to post something on a Blogger website. And it was time-sensitive. So I go there and insert the info that I needed to do. I could save the post, but I could not publish it to save my life. I hit the Publish button and it sat there, disinterested.

I went to one of my colleagues, who had the exact same problem with the site on Internet Explorer, but no such difficulty using Firefox. So, I downloaded Firefox, and voila, success. And just in time.

Jaquandor was having the same problem. He discovered this fix:

Go into your blog’s settings, and then, in the “Basic Settings” tab (the left-most tab, should be the one that comes up first when you click into your Settings), scroll down to near the bottom, where you can choose which version of the Blogger editor you’re using. If the radio button for “Old Editor” is selected, change this to the “Updated Editor” or whatever it’s called. Publishing will then work.

Subsequently, I did that as well, just to cover my bases.

I also seemed to have trouble leaving comments on certain Blogger websites lately, including, as it turns out, Jaquandor’s. SOMETIMES, the fix was, when asked if you wanted Blogger to remember you, is to NOT click that button.

Then there’s this weird issue in which Blogger (or Google, the same thing) wants me to empty my cache before it recognizes me when I visit certain other Blogger sites; I did it, but I don’t GET it.

One of the great things about these blog sites is supposed to be that it should be EASY. I don’t want to know how the light bulb works, I just want to not trip when I walk into a dark room.

But blogging is taking ever so much longer, and it’s not writer’s block, it’s mechanics. Mechanics I have little capacity for, and moreover bore me. I want easy, Blogspot. OK?

The It Gets Better sermon by one of our co-pastors this week.

Ultracrepidarian.

 

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