The Real Blogger Status

People frequently observe significant differences between products from Apple / Google / Microsoft . Since all three corporations are separate (and highly competitive), they have their own corporate philosophies and development timelines. Despite all of that, Blogger tries to make their product supportable, across all corporate lines. Unfortunately, the Blogger service is not always consistently usable, with all browsers - or mobile computer / smart phone apps.

Not all blog owners appreciate the effort by Blogger, to make anonymous comments a usable feature, in our blogs. Anonymous comments have a complicated form - and people don't want to comment. They have to select certain pictures, related to a subject. When using a mobile template, they don't see all the buttons needed - and there are many steps until you finally publish a comment. Could is be simpler? With no checking pictures, with just typing few numbers, or without any security question at all? This blog owner would prefer Blogger commenting, before 2015, when anonymous comments meant unending waves of spam.

We see some blog owners reporting loss of photos, when used in their blogs, and added using Post Editor. Some blog owners take photos using their camera / phone, upload them to Google+ Photos, and publish their blog posts. Having published their post, they remove the photos from their phones, to save storage space. And once deleted from their cameras / phones, their photos vanish from their blog .

Some blog owners don't care much for the mobile template. A few blog owners simply think that the mobile template is just too plain looking. Where are all of the gadgets? These blog owners express a concern which is not too hard to resolve. If you want gadgets to be visible on a mobile display, make the gadgets visible. Of course, it's up to you, to not add too many gadgets, and make your blog impossible to read.

Occasionally, we see the query in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? How do I view my blog, in the mobile template format, using my desktop computer? This is an astonishingly easy task to accomplish. Just add the mobile template redirect suffix ?m=1 to the URL being viewed.

We're seeing a few queries recently, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , about a little used option in mobile blog publishing. Is "go.blogger.com" down? I'm trying to claim a mobile token, but having no success. This blog owner, like a few others, is trying to use a dying Blogger feature. "go.blogger.com", and MMS / SMS , was the Blogger solution for blog publishing using "mobile" phones, provided several years ago. SMS is a protocol used for sending text messages between computers, that was used on "mobile" phones, before most "mobile phones" became just pocket sized computers using "cellular" (3g, 4g, etc) networking.

We've seen a few questions about comments, supposedly published - but vanishing, when using a mobile computer, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . This symptom, as reported, reminds us of the long ago reports of "vanishing comments" - but using desktop computers . At least one of the folks who isn't able to comment said she was attempting to do so from her mobile phone. Is Blogger now losing comments from mobile devices? The answer here is not quite so ominous, though the situation is still frustrating - to both the blog owner, and the various visitors.

We've recently seen a few reports about problems with custom redirects , in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . I want to redirect my blog URL to a static home page. With a redirect in place, mobile computer users can't access my blog. Mobile browsers display an error, mentioning too many redirects.

We see occasional reports from owners of blogs with lots of video content. My readers can't view the YouTube videos in my blog, on their cell phones or iPads. YouTube video content, as uploaded through the Blogger Post Editor, uses Adobe Flash embedded code. The native browser, on Apple based mobile computers, doesn't support Flash content. Many non Apple mobile computers may be similarly limited. Before Flash became a part of the Adobe Products multimedia suite, some security experts believed it to cause security vulnerabilities. Some owners of desktop and laptop computers have blocked Flash in their browsers also.

Using the term "mobile computer" is an example of the challenges involved, in using this variety of computer. Even identifying this device, which is present in so many different manifestations, is confusing. Mobile Computer. Mobile WiFi device. Personal Digital Assistant. Pocket phone. Smart Phone. Tablet. As the use of mobile computers becomes more common, we're seeing more and more problem reports and questions, from people unable to use Blogger. Some folks would like to maintain and publish their own blog. Others would like to post comments to their friends blogs. And still others don't understand why all of the various gadgets on their blog don't work for their friends, who are also using their own mobile computers. One of the challenges of mobile computers involves the use of smaller displays, and the need to simplify the content displayed. This requires the use of special browsers and templates, which are designed to accommodate the limitations. The n...

Recently, we've been seeing a few problem reports in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , mentioning problems publishing comments on Blogger blogs, when using mobile computers. My readers tell me that they can't comment on my blog, using an iPad. Comments disappear, when they try to publish them. As with a previously explored problem with comments on a non mobile computer, this problem may involve unfamiliarity with the publishing sequence. The dialogue involved in publishing a comment, when using a desktop computer with a full size display and a non mobile Blogger template, is not simple. Depending upon the various commenting options selected by the owner, the publishing sequence may be even more complex. Blog owners may need to consider the additional details involved in comment publishing, when using a mobile computer.

Over a year ago, Blogger introduced a useful template option for our blogs - mobile templates . Blogger mobile templates are mobile-optimized versions of our Template Designer templates. If you are using one of these templates, when you enable the mobile template option your blog will begin rendering using the mobile version of the same variant. Even if you are not using a Template Designer template, or using a heavily-customized version of one, you can still enable this feature to have your blog start rendering in a generic default mobile template that we have created. The mobile templates let computers with lower display size / resolution - aka PDAs, mobile phones, and smart phones - display the content of our blogs, without the unnecessary overhead which may be a part of our normal blog formatting. If you are viewing this post on your smart phone, it's likely that you are viewing it using a mobile template. As exciting as the mobile templates are, however, they will not repla...

Everything has its limits - even Blogger features. For a while, we've been seeing hints that mobile templates don't support a redirected Home page. How do I disable the Blogger mobile redirect "/?m=1"? Some blog owners would prefer their readers, using a mobile computer, see a redirected Home page, with a desktop template - instead of a mobile display with a dynamic Home page. Apparently, the mobile redirect /?m=1 overrides the Home page redirect / Actually, this makes sense. " /?m=1 " (the redirected mobile template URL snippet) is not equal to " / " (the redirected Home page URL snippet).

As mobile computing becomes more popular, we're starting to see questions about use of the Blogger dashboard on mobile computers (iPhone / iPod, PDA, smart phone), in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . Most recently, we're seeing people trying to use Stats, and the "Don't track my own pageviews" option, with Blogger on mobile computers. Problems with Stats and the "Don't track ..." option are not unknown, in the past. We've helped many blog owners with this setting, which is sensitive to cookie and script filtering in general - and to "third party cookies" in particular. "Third party cookies" may be filtered in any of several places, any which will interfere with "Don't track ..." .

Mobile blogging is becoming more and more popular - and it's creating an interesting challenge. Many blog owners, freed from the daily use of the home computer, are publishing multiple smaller posts, throughout the day - instead of a few larger posts, at the end of the day. Also, they are using mobile computers, and emailing or messaging the posts using Mail-To-Blogger, rather than composing the posts using the GUI Post Editor. Lately, we're seeing more and more problem reports,in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . Why are my posts not publishing? Many of the people reporting problems are mobile bloggers, not understanding about the unavoidable limitations.

For some time now, Blogger has supported use of mobile devices, for posting to our blogs. Picture blogs, containing photos taken with your camera phone, are a popular activity for many bloggers. Mail-To-Blogger , which used an email client instead of the browser based Post Editor, sent in many different formats and protocols, was the beginning. Now, we have the ability to post directly from our smart phones. You can enable Mobile Posting, for your blog, from Settings - Email & Mobile - Posting Options. Blogger provides detailed instruction, in Blogger Help: How does Blogger Mobile work? . Recently, Blogger added mobile client support, so your readers can enjoy your blog from their mobile devices. Now, new templates will include special formats designed to work better with small mobile screens. In Draft Blogger , under Settings - Email & Mobile, we have Mobile Template, where you can now enable use of a new mobile template for your blog. To make you comfortable befor...

Blogger has been using CAPTCHA ("word verification") screening , to verify human presence in various Blogger processes , for several years. This is necessary, to prevent spammers from automating the processes of creating new blogs, and submitting "unlock" requests for spam locked blogs. CAPTCHA verification has its weaknesses though; and as spammers have been exploiting those weaknesses for some time, Blogger recently added additional tokens in some Blogger processes. You may be required to provide the number of your mobile / smart phone, as a token. When you setup a new blog. When you submit a request to have your blog unlocked after being (falsely) classified as spam. When you attempt to publish too many posts in one day. This requires that your phone receive / send SMS messages from / to Blogger, to verify your identity as a person, and not an automated process. You provide the phone number of an SMS capable mobile phone. Blogger sends a verification re...

Several bloggers are reporting inability to use MMS Mobile Blogging. Reminiscent of the T-Mobile MMS outage of a couple weeks ago, except not confined to T-Mobile. This one is possibly Blackberries in A T & T / Verizon . Now when I try to post I get a "permanent delivery failure" saying I need to register by sending an email or MMS. If you're suffering from this problem (or trying to help someone else, who is), provide some diagnostics, as you are able, please. Geographic location. Make / model of mobile device. Name of carrier / ISP. Observed error message. >> Top

Currently, a few bloggers are reporting inability to post to their blogs by T-Mobile MMS Mobile, getting the advice that their carrier is not supported by Blogger. Your carrier is not supported by Blogger Mobile. Please try using Mail-to-Blogger or visit http://www.blogger.com/mobile-request for more information. If you're suffering from this symptom, please report your details in an active BHG forum thread. Explicitly state, in your problem report, the name of your carrier (T-Mobile or otherwise). And provide the make and model of your PDA / phone, and your geographical location. And tell us how long you had been using MMS Mobile with no problem. And are you able or unable to send pictures or text? (Update 10/20 23:30): It appears that Blogger fixed the problem, though in silence yet again . (Update 10/20 14:00): Blogger is looking into the problem now , and is involving T-Mobile Support. >> Top