The Real Blogger Status

In my previous post, The Real Blogger Status - Beta , I predicted that the Blogger Beta would cause resource reallocation within Blogger, and stubborn holdouts who continue to use Classic Blogger will soon find themselves without service or support. Today, in Google Blogger Help - Publishing Trouble: Is something wrong with Blogger today? (and there is an open ended question that in itself should have acquired 200% more trolls than it did), I see a copy of the latest botmail : Hi there, This is an automated update from Blogger Support. We are currently focusing all of our efforts on Blogger in beta, and are unable to provide personal responses to other issues. What the hell? Personal responses?? When have they ever provided personal responses ? And please don't try and count Blogger Employee appearing in Google Blogger Help as a personal response. This was a true C&C moment . (Edit): In Google Blogger Help - Something Is Broken: Unable to provide responses - because th...

Those of you who are artistic, and handy with Photoshop or another image processor, eventually decide that having a blog labeled in text is boring. So you spice it up. And one of the easiest things you can do is to replace the blog title with a picture. (Question): Does this blog use a Layouts template? If so, read about Customising The Header In A Layouts Template Blog , first. (Note): The code below has extra line breaks liberally inserted, to avoid yet another post / sidebar alignment problem . The hardest part in doing this is to get the image hosted somewhere. If you use Flickr, Photobucket, et al, this is not an issue (hopefully you know the URL). You can't do image upload when editing your template. If I want my image hosted by Blogger, this is what I do. Create a new post in the blog, and Title it "Photos" or whatever. Upload my picture to the post. Look carefully at the code created in the upload. In my case, I have <a onblur="try {parent.deselec...

I have several Blogger blogs, among the various websites and other web presences that I maintain. Two of my biggest blogs - PChuck's Network , and The Real Blogger Status - simply can't be migrated, given the current level of problems , and of design deficiencies , to Blogger Beta. The latter blog (this blog), which I call RBS, absolutely won't be migrated to Beta, until there are no more Classic blogs. Maybe this blog won't ever be migrated. Having said all of that, I will move ahead with using Blogger Beta. There are just so many improvements in Beta, which I have discussed in detail, separately , that I intend to enjoy. This blog will continue to exist, though, probably as long as I base my web presence in Blogger. I'll use static links between this blog and the Beta, in various mirrored posts . And, I'll have dynamic digests - syndicated feeds, for instance my Blogger Beta feed . See the RBS Beta mirror post for a project description, complete with code...

Possibly the biggest problem with New Blogger 2007, right now, is the confusion over authentication. Under classic Blogger, you could have a Blogger account, with an account name. That account could be tied to any email account, with any email service. By default, New Blogger 2007 ties your Blogger access to a Google account. Blogger Beta Google Adsense Google Groups Google Mail Google Talk Google Sitemaps What happens if you want to switch accounts for various reasons? One of the desired features in Blogger blogs was the ability to restrict access, ie allow only authenticated users to view a blog. Google decided to include this feature in its Beta Blog release, and decided to use Google accounts for the authentication. Unfortunately, this creates a problem with people who are currently authenticated using Blogger accounts . And Classic blogs likewise have trouble with people who are authenticating only with Google accounts . Remember, you can have any Google account managing your ...

One big problem with Blogger, right now, is the confusion over authentication. Under classic Blogger, you could have a Blogger account, with an account name. That account could be tied to any email account, with any email service. Blogger Beta ties your Blogger access to a Google email address. Unfortunately, even though you're not using Blogger Beta, you may be affected by changes to Classical Blogger, which support the Beta. Blogger Employee seems to consider this possibility. And Blogger Buzz: Beta Update! describes issues that are relevant here too. One reader writes of using the same account and password, in both Blogger and Google, and experiencing this problem. He reports a successful workaround, achieved by changing the password on one account.

Occasionally, after you have your blog for a while, you tire of the URL. Maybe the blog content changed in focus, or maybe you discovered that the current URL is too similar to another better known one. So you decided to pick a different BlogSpot address. Whatever. So you selected an available URL, went into Settings - Publishing, changed the address, and republished to the new address. Fine. Then you discovered that you can still see the old URL. Not so fine. What you did was similar in effect to someone switching to external publishing . Like someone who switched to external publishing, you can still see the old blog. Hopefully, it still has your contents there.

I'm a network troubleshooter, and got into Blogging only recently, when I needed to setup a website quickly. So when I hear Bloggers describe problems that may well be network related, not related to the silence at Blogger , my ears perk up. So today I see mention of possible DNS or MTU problems accessing blogspot.com. Before Upgrading to Beta - READ THIS , first seen 8/23 in a subthread. We're sorry, but we were unable to complete your request. , first seen 8/23 in a subthread. And here's an ongoing problem. When you're in Post Edit, you see (on and off, constantly) Could not connect to Blogger.com. Saving and publishing may fail. Google Blogger Help - Something Is Broken: Image Uploading Update DNS / MTU problems can have varied symptoms. You try to browse to http://www.example.gov, and you get a cryptic Firefox can't find the server at www.example.gov. We can't find "www.example.gov". The classical 404 Not Found The also classical white screen, wi...