The Real Blogger Status

Last week, the popular display option, Lightbox, used for showing full size images in Blogger blogs, stopped working. Anxious blog owners reported that full size images are now being displayed in a normal browser window, with the browser back arrow required to return to the blog display - instead of the elegant black background overlay with the mysterious "X" which closes the overlay. The problem appears to affect all images in the blogs affected.

Too many blog owners, when they setup a custom domain for their blog, do not consider the details. We see signs of the problem, too often, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . Can someone give me step by step instructions for setting up a custom domain with xxxxxxx registrar? I contacted xxxxxxx customer service - and they told me a lot of things I didn't understand! Would it be easier just to transfer the domain to GoDaddy? The short answer here would be Yes, it would be easier just to transfer the domain to GoDaddy. Unfortunately, that answer is not completely correct - and the correction may leave you with a broken domain.

One recently identified cause of deleted Blogger blogs appears to involve brute force hacking against our Blogger / Google accounts. We've known, for some time, about blog owners receiving alerts about "suspicious" / "unusual" account activity. The alerts frequently involve locked or deleted Blogger / Google accounts - and generally include the owner having to change their password, solve a CAPTCHA, and / or provide their phone number (mobile or home phone) to login. Later, people started reporting that their blogs were being deleted - possibly as a result of having to change their password, solve a CAPTCHA, and / or provide their phone number.

Too many blog owners do not understand the unique capability of Stats - nor do they understand its limitations. We see the periodic question in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? . How do I find out how many actual people are viewing my blog? Stats does not provide unique visitor counts - Stats provides pageview counts.

Not all Blogger blog owners, using CAPTCHA screening to reduce abusive comments on their blogs, know first hand what the typical CAPTCHA puzzle can be like. We're seeing a few concerned blog owners, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , asking why they're seeing fewer comments on their blogs . I'm hearing from people that they can't post comments on my blog. I tested, and comments are working just fine. What is the problem, here? Not all blog owners bother to test the CAPTCHA, on their blogs - or even know why they don't see one, when commenting.

Like creating a blog , the task of renaming your blog involves one very important step - choosing an available blog name. When you rename your blog - as in change the blog address - you have to pick a name (address) that's not in use . Both creating a blog, and renaming a blog, suffer from one key detail - you can't identify an available address before you get started.

This week, we're seeing a few concerned blog owners, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , asking about a mysterious SECURITY WARNING popup box, on their blogs. Like the earlier concern about the transparent boxes covering the blog , this appears to be another broken FaceBook Connect gadget.