The Real Blogger Status

This month, we have several reports from bloggers who, for one reason or another, have changed the FTP username and / or password on the domain host server, and then updated the username / password in their Blogger FTP settings . Much to their dismay, when attempting to publish their blog, they find the old username / password being sent to the remote server . I have verified it's saving my new username in the publishing settings and yes, I'm seeing the error based on the posting status. I get the following ... FTP login failed (server: ftp.domain.com, username: myoldusername, reason: 530 User myoldusername cannot log in. ) Are you seeing this behaviour, when trying to publish your blog? What is the blog URL? What is the FTP server setting? When did you make the setting change? Did you verify the problem, by examining the host server activity logs? >> Top

We've known for a while that private blogs have limitations, such as latency. If you originally publish your blog as public, and later make it private, cached copies of the blog will be all over the Internet, for anybody to read, after it's supposedly private . This week, we see another, possibly more serious limitation . Why was my coworker able to read my very private, personal, password protected blog yesterday? I had it set to "Blog Author Only" and yet she found it and was able to read the whole thing. It has never, ever been public. I started it last September and set the permissions to "blog author only" at the start for all posts. I have never invited anyone else to read it...and have never, ever logged into it at work.

Every day, we see one or two queries from confused bloggers, about these boxes. I type the URL in my browser, and get No blog found. or Why doesn't it show more than what's in my blog? or I know the URL. I can see it on my dashboard even. But the search says that it's not there. All of these observations are evidence of people who don't know what all the boxes in the browser are intended to provide.

Recently, we've seen an occasional question about mysteriously changed post editor selections. Where did my options toolbar go? or Why do I now see the new post editor? Right now, as part of the deployment of the new post editor , there are 3 selections, in Settings - Basic - Global Settings - Select post editor . Updated editor Old editor Hide compose mode If you make this change under one blog, you'll find it true for all of your blogs. I've also noted, under some circumstances, that when you accept membership in someone else's blog, and the other person was using a different post editor selection, the other person's selection will now be yours, globally. The next time that you accept membership in a blog, check your post editor setting. If the owner of the blog was using a different setting, your setting may have changed. >> Top

This week, we have various Blogger blogs reported as displaying a mysterious WMX Verification File, when main page view would be expected. This is the WMX verification file. If you are having problems with the WMX verification for your blog please visit http://help.blogger.com/bin/static.py?page=start.cs This symptom was first observed Thursday, October 22, and Blogger Support is aware of the problem. Supposedly, the problem was fixed, though some blog owners are still reporting it. We note that the Google Webmaster Central Blog: Verifying a Blogger blog in Webmaster Tools now instructs us to use the meta tag verification procedure . The "Webmaster Tools" auto-verification link from the Blogger dashboard is no longer working and will soon be removed. Is your blog showing this, in place of main page view? If you can provide some diagnostic details, you might help Blogger to help you and others. Precision here is good - and date, time, and timezone will be appreciated. What...

Every day or so, we see reported from concerned bloggers, about unknown content in their blogs. Where did those ads come from? I didn't add them! or How do I keep this other blogger from posting porn links in my blog? As we add content to our blogs, and make them fun, interesting, and shiny, to attract readers, we risk adding undesirable content. This is a constant problem.

I'll be honest here. I was a nerd in college (and I am one even now ). So this story is one that I've only seen in movies - neither I, nor my friends, got even this far. College Secret Societies Some of them have no name even. There are no published entrance rules - membership is by invitation only, and rules are communicated by word of mouth. And the initiation process starts like this: The prospective members are blindfolded, and led to a dark room. The prospective members are put into a circle, in silence. The prospective members wait, for what will happen, they are told nothing. Periodically, one prospect will feel a slight tap on the shoulder. In silence, he / she will be taken by the hand, and led into another room where they will join the elite. And eventually, those who don't get elected will open their eyes, remove the blindfold, and find herself / himself in a pitiful group of rejects, all waiting (hopelessly) for that tap. The tap that never comes.