The Real Blogger Status

Blogger recently redesigned the Stats "Don't track ..." option - and removed third party cookies from the picture. The "Don't track ..." wizard is now accessed from the blog URL. The wizard still produces cookies - but they are ordinary first party cookies , which are much less feared than third party cookies. But, every silver lining has a cloud.

Too often , we see the report, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I can't login to my Blogger account! or My blog was just deleted!! Neither of these problem reports are unusual - and generally, there are various control and diagnostic options which may be available, to help us recover control of the account or blog in question.

We're seeing a scattered collection of reports, mentioning problems publishing comments, using OpenID authentication. This problem appears to be related to the Blogger rollout of SSL support, for our blogs, which is currently in progress. SSL, or Secure Socket Layer, represents the next step in blog / website security - a step which the Internet community has been taking, for many years. Blogger has been using SSL (aka "HTTPS" login), in their dashboard, for several years. https://www.blogger.com That's a secure Blogger login. The problem with Blogger using SSL in our blogs is that moving to SSL requires care, to avoid confusing our readers. Lack of care will subject our readers to the well known "mixed mode" warnings . This site has insecure content. Only secure content is displayed. Firefox has blocked content that isn't secure. These are several examples of what were normal, years ago, on many websites. Blogger does not want our readers subje...

Along with problems with comments and unwanted CAPTCHA forms, we're seeing some reports about problems with persistent and unwanted interstitial displays, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . The interstitial display, and its use of cookies, is similar to the new mandatory anonymous comments CAPTCHA form . If your identity can't be determined, or your decision to view a blog can't be remembered, an interstitial warning is displayed - just as the CAPTCHA form is displayed, when your readers are preparing to comment.

The new, mandatory CAPTCHA form , for blog readers wishing to comment anonymously, has been in service for just under a week. We're seeing a variety of problems , reported in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , by blog owners and readers alike.

Problems with the Stats "Don't track ..." option , in general, are not new. Ever since Blogger added that option to Stats, years ago, it's been a problem for some blog owners. Sometimes, the problem is individual, other times (as this year) the problems are seen by more people. The most common problems with the "Don't track" option, when selected by the blog owners, involve cookies, hosted by various browsers - and interpreted by Blogger scripts. Cookies and scripts are misunderstood features in Internet life . Some countries require websites, published by their citizens, to display disclaimers, warning readers that "This website drops cookies onto your computer!" - as if cookies are are part of an evil plot.

When you go to the doctor to report a health problem, you'll likely tell him Doctor, I have a pain. and he will likely ask you Where does it hurt? If you tell him My stomach hurts. he will probably ask When does it hurt? and How long has it been hurting? None of these are formalities or mere protocol, they are systematic problem identification procedures. We diagnose problems with Blogger, using similar techniques.

Sometimes, you may find yourself reporting a problem, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken - and observe that nobody else has the same problem. If there's any normal problem activity in the forum, you might find yourself waiting - in vain - for an immediate answer to your problem report. While you wait for advice, why not do some basic analysis of your problem? A differential test set of your problem, based on some reasonably basic details, can help you see where many problems may originate.

The new two level commenting feature has been out for a short 2 days - and already there are at least half a dozen separate problems being attributed to the introduction of that feature. Not every blog owner understands how intrusive this new feature must have been, to install, into Blogger. The previous two Blogger feature releases - dynamic templates, and the New Blogger GUI, required major changes to the Blogger GUI. Two level commenting, while not requiring major GUI changes, was still challenging to develop. Two level comments required a significant upgrade to the content of our blogs, and were activated without the decision of the blog owners involved.

Have you, as a car owner, ever had the privilege of purchasing a new car? Maybe you budgeted / planned / shopped around for months, to buy the car of your dreams - certain that you would be so distinctive in the purchase of that particular colour, model, trim level, what have you? Maybe, the day after you took delivery of your new car, you drove it to the nearby shopping mall - and there, to your dismay, you discovered reality. You are not the only owner of that particular make / model / trim level. Look at all of the other people, driving your same car! Where did all of the other cars come from? People with blog problems, needing technical assistance, will go through the same reality adjustment.

We've been looking at problems with logging in to Blogger , as reported in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , for some time. In 2010, we explored a problem with the "Remember Me" option . In 2011, we had a new twist on the login problems - inability to logout from Blogger. I cannot sign out of my Blogger account, to access a different Blogger in account. Blogger keeps returning me to the same account.

One of the most frustrating problems reported occasionally in in BHF: Something Is Broken comes in very terse langauge. I can't access my blog. or slightly longer I can't access any blogs .or possibly I can't access Blogger. In situations where the blog owner, and / or any number of blog readers, are cooperative, and able to take a few minutes to perform some simple tests, we can conduct a Affinity based analysis - or possibly an Affinity / Differential Analysis.

In the "Western" world, and for the young of heart, there is one very special day of the year, celebrated by (almost) everybody - December 25, aka "Christmas" . While this was once (and still is now, for many) a religious holiday of great importance, for many young people it is important as a secular holiday - you get presents. For celebrants of both the religious and the secular versions of Christmas, this is a time of joy. But, there's a sadness here too. Not everybody that I know always gets everything that they would like to get, even for Christmas. The lack of unlimited funds makes Christmas a time of anguish and depression, for some people.

I'm scared of elephants, if they're allowed to run wild. What time is it, when an elephant sits on the hood of your car? OK, Chuck, I'll bite - What time is it? Time to get a new car. LOL. Many years ago, when I moved to California, and having heard of the possible damage to your car (probably, an uninsured expense too) should an elephant sit on it, I put up a sign in my back yard. No Elephants Permitted Here! And, apparently the sign served its purpose - I haven't seen a single elephant in my back yard - or sitting on my car - since I moved here. An unlikely tale, you probably say. More crudely, you'd ask me What have you been drinking today, Chuck? So, what's the point of this narrative? Just this, that most bloggers may not waste time in putting up signs to keep elephants away - but they have other, stranger superstitions . My favourite examples of the latter would be advice from some bloggers about how to avoid the mysterious bX codes , the equal...

Computers today are simply another consumer product - and provide challenges accordingly. I, and others like me, can remember not so long ago, when that was not at all true . Blogs, which are in part a computer product, are simply another part of that scenario. Not so long ago, my personal web page, based on a web host called Angelfire , was just a collection of links to a few dozen web pages which I enjoyed reading, linked in a static community called The Line Around The World . I did all of that because it was kewl, and because other geeks like me were doing that. Now, people like my mother (who actually could do this if she tried) are creating online scrapbooks and diaries, and publicising their daily family activities online. My web page (which is now a domain cluster ) provides advice to thousands of bloggers, daily. And all of the above illustrates the expanding blogosphere - and the problems, too.

This month, we have had a few reports of problems logging in to Blogger, possibly involving the "cookies" which retain login information from one online session to the next. Many security issues are deeply frustrating, to the folks who have to endure the problems. This becomes more frustrating, when you understand that the code from Blogger.Com has no choice in the matter. If Blogger.Com requires cookies (as most web sites do), and if cookies aren't being retained by the browser , the Blogger scripts can't function. And when you have a setting that's created under "Blogger.com" and read while your blog is being accessed (under "BlogSpot.com" or whatever non BlogSpot domain your blog is published), you'll need third party cookies enabled. The really frustrating issue is that many security products, constantly "evolving" thanks to economic pressure (free enterprise competition) and security pressure (never ending hacking att...

Have you ever visited your personal physician, and instructed him My neighbour has the same cough as I have. Her doctor prescribed xxxxxxxx medicine. I want a prescription for xxxxxxx. Hopefully, not. Your doctor, if he has any professional capability, will know that a smoker's cough (in your 80 year old neighbour) won't be treated the same way as an influenza infection (in you).

Blogger has thousands of computers that they control and support - their servers. They have millions of computers that they don't control, but still try to support - our computers. They can support, to some extent, Blogger running on our computers. Their ability to support us is greatly enhanced when we can accept the responsibility for the problems that are our own . Then there are the remote servers, to where we publish blogs by FTP. They don't own, or support those computers. Very few of them do we own or support either. When we try to FTP a blog update, and something goes wrong, what do we do? Can we check a log anywhere on the remote server? Not easily. Neither can Blogger Support. The remote servers, that host blogs published by FTP, are computers owned and supported by third parties. Blogger Support can't get even the feedback from the third parties, that they would from us if the problem was our locally published blogs running on our computers. Any problem ...

How many people know what etiology is? Wikipedia defines it as ...the study of causation It's a fancy term for cause and effect. Fancy or not, though, it can have useful applications in real life. In the medical world, it might be used in a study of the spread of an epidemic. In computers, we might apply its principles for analysing a chronic network problem, as in deciding if multiple people, reporting the same symptoms, implies the existence of a major, widespread computer problem. Have you ever been to a hospital, and seen many sick people? If you did go to a hospital, would seeing the many sick people there lead you to conclude that there is a worldwide epidemic in progress? Most people are too analytical to lead to that conclusion. They know that a hospital is where sick people are expected to be seen. Oddly enough, though, many folks who wouldn't make an assumption about a medical epidemic, based upon being in a hospital, will visit a technical help forum,...

All of the companies that I've worked for in my history, which had computers, controlled everything rather tightly. Businesses do that. Businesses owned the big computers, aka mainframes. We, as programmers, would write code. We would test the code. We would give the code to a computer operator, who would run the code as a job. We would train the computer operators. All code ran on company owned and controlled computers, over company owned and controlled networks, maintained by company trained personnel. Every change was made, and tested, by people working for the company. Very tightly focused, and controlled.