The Real Blogger Status

For those not yet familiar with the new "Responsive" class themes, I offer my demo 4 "Responsive" blogs - one blog per exciting theme. You can see the links to the 4 demo ("Test") blogs, at the top of the sidebar. You'll also see links to 2 live blogs, for a better idea. You have to make an effort, to find the sidebar, however. The effort is necessary, to help the "Responsive" class templates replace the "Layout" / "Designer" class templates - and their special "Mobile" template.

Earlier this year, I took a leap into the future, and upgraded this blog to use a "Responsive" class template. There are four "Responsive" templates - Contempo, Soho, Emporio, and Notable. The differences between the four include more than merely the visible design.

This month, we have a few reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , about problems Following some blogs. Why am I being blocked, from Following? Some would be Followers are taking this personally. Please, don''t do that.

Blog owners who need to export blog content are reporting confusion, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I'm trying to export my blog, but when I click "Settings > Other", there is no "Export" option! Not all blog owners realise that the "Export" wizard is now "Back up". Changes in functionality may perplex blog owners, too.

If you did not use a Blogger / Google account when you Followed this blog, years ago, you are probably not Following now . During the past month or so, this blog has gone from 5,300 to 4,800 Followers . Owners of other blogs have reported similar reductions. Look at the Reading List, in the Blogger dashboard - if you use Blogger. Is this blog listed? If so, you are Following this blog, using a Blogger account. If not, you may want to add this blog to your Reading List .

One of the more promising features of Google Domains - besides the ability to access the Google Domains dashboard using a normal Google account - may be a recently discovered option. I could not make my domain work, so I contacted Google Domains Support. They provided a simple adjustment, that actually worked! Google Domains Support appears to be available, to anyone who purchases a domain, using Google Domains.

Similar to the Google Authorship feature , FaceBook provides an author identification feature. FaceBook uses " Open Graph " code to accomplish what Google provides, with simple back and forward links. The required FaceBook OG code is added to the blog template, as metadata. To add open graph FaceBook authorship identification to this blog, I added the necessary code to the blog template. You can do the same, with your blog.

On June 4, 2013, Blogger retired their Blogger Status blog . This blog has been retired. The latest information on Blogger service availability will now be displayed on the Apps Status Dashboard . Now, The REAL Blogger Status has become, by default, The ONLY Blogger Status. For your convenience, you may find a link to the Apps Status Dashboard , in the Peer Resources gadget, in the sidebar of this blog.

One giant leap for Blogger kind? The answer to that question remains to be seen. However, it appears that Blogger is starting to do something about one problem - the frequently reported porn associated with the "Next Blog" link in the Navbar. Eventually, Blogger will be able to relax its heuristic spam blog detection, which will lighten the load of complaints about falsely detected blogs . With less complaints, Blogger Anti-Spam Team can focus on the real problem . Not bad for a Friday, especially considering yesterday's Wildfire . Thanks, Pete. Of course, we all know that this is just one symptom removed. The real problem remains. Blogger Support, apparently, being able to block all spam blogs from the "Next Blog" link is a start. It implies that they can identify the unwanted blogs. Individually identified false positives, unfortunately, will never happen. How many non-spam blogs will be blocked from "Next Blog" too? Since the "Next Blo...

It looks like this is the problem of the week. Bloggers report this when updating their template. Some publishing by FTP. Maybe another Classic templates problem? We see currently 61 threads, the oldest started 6/1, some with multiple Bloggers posting. >> (Edit 6/11) : It appears that the workaround described below isn't 100% effective . >> (Edit 6/4) : Blogger claims to know the source of the problem, and has developed a workaround . The problem is related to Ad-Sense, and is avoided by adding a line of code to your Ad-Sense snippet. (Note): If you have multiple AdSense entries in the blog, be sure to update all entries ! <div class='adsense' style='text-align:center; padding: 0px 3px 0.5em 3px;'> <script type="text/javascript"><!-- google_ad_client="ca-pub-nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn"; google_ad_host="pub-1556223355139109"; <== Add this line google_ad_width=234; google_ad_height=60; google_ad_format="234...

A quiet evening at home? Not Tonight. We're sorry, but we were unable to complete your request. When reporting this error to Blogger Support or on the Blogger Help Group, please: Describe what you were doing when you got this error. Provide the following error code and additional information . bX-sp4hmm Additional information uri : /2006/12/connecting-two-dissimilar-networks.html host : nitecruzr.blogspot.com This information will help us to track down your specific problem and fix it! We apologize for the inconvenience. So much for using PChuck's Network for giving advice tonight. And I'm apparently not alone , either. Looks like it started about 17:35 PST . Doesn't affect all blogs, either - PChuck's Network (my exemplary victim, here) is down, but The Real Blogger Status is up. Both are New Blogger with Classic templates. The Real Blogger Status - Beta , New Blogger with Layout template is also up. 3 hours later, nothing in Blogger Status . And I don...

Up to now, if you wanted a blog (web site) named myblog, you had 2 choices. Setup myblog.blogspot.com, hosted by Blog*Spot, and with all of the shiny features of New Blogger 2006 . Setup myblog.com (myblog.org, ...), hosted by a host of your choice (and extra cost in most cases), but with less features than a Blog*Spot hosted blog . Now, there is a third choice. Setup myblog.com (myblog.org, ...), hosted by Blog*Spot . You pay for the DNS listing, which tells your reader's computers where your blog is. You setup a DNS entry, pointing "myblog.com" to "ghs.google.com". You setup Blogger to publish to the custom domain. For a description of a packaged version of this process, see my chronicle Using The "Buy A Domain For Your Blog" Wizard . If you setup your domain using "Buy A Domain", or using Google Apps directly, you'll automatically get a Google Apps account for your domain. If you buy your domain through a third party DNS host, you ca...

Exciting news here. It appears that Blogger, in an effort to make it possible to handle the ever increasing problem level, is now issuing problem codes, rather than diagnostic messages, when specific problems are experienced. The old familiar, monolithic We apologize for the inconvenience, but we are unable to process your request at this time. Our engineers have been notified of this problem and will work to resolve it. appears to have been replaced by some very unique error codes.

Blogspot appears to have been up all day, so my blog viewers, apparently, didn't lose interest. My hit counts are almost equal to a month ago; though discounting the fact that half of my viewers are reading this blog, not my main one, we are still suffering. But Blogspot, today, was not the concern. Blogger was the story today . Since today, the action was in the forums, mainly Google Blogger Help: Something Is Broken , and Publishing Trouble , that is where today's story comes from. From What the *%^%$ Is going on with Blogger?! , drjewest writes It really is tragic because its just another example of American indifference to customer service. When the country is bankrupt and has to receive foreign aid in a few years maybe folk will wake up and do their jobs. But of course then it will be too late. From What the *%^%$ Is going on with Blogger?! , Blogger Employee writes We're currently having some trouble with one of our databases. This is likely the cause of the pro...

So back to my immediately previous reason for publishing this blog. One of my friends emailed me today, and he appeared to take the "403 Forbidden" message personally. Chuck, if you don't want me viewing your blog, just let me know. Or why am I getting illegal access? In a later IM, I confirmed that what he saw as "illegal access" was actually our dear friend from the weekend, "403 Forbidden". But that got me thinking. This was one friend, and HE was able to email me, and help me set the matter straight with HIM. But what of the hundreds of strangers who got this message? Will they ever try again? Possibly not , based upon this one thought on Blogger Forum . My visit statistics, as measure by SiteMeter, are about back to normal. Except, 20 - 25% of my current statistics include THIS BLOG, which I added yesterday. Discounting this blog, which did not exist before last weekend (and which I started as a result of last weekend), my numbers are down 2...

See these Blogger Support tickets: [#415414] Forbidden / Permission Denied [#416206] 403 Forbidden [#417267] 403 Forbidden See these discussions: Blogger Support Forum Blogger Support Forum Blogger Forum Blogger Support Forum Current open issues . 5 years later, I figure out what "403 Forbidden" really means .