Because I Have So Much Free Time

When I first started blogging, I used Photobucket to host a lot of my images. Thinking about it now, I'm not sure why. I've used Blogger for ages, and I can just use Google for all the images I need for my blog. They even make it super easy to add photos from my phone - which happen to be pretty much the only pictures I seem to take these days. (see example 'eclipse' photo on the right)

And now, after all this time, Photobucket has decided to change things (read: they want money) so that I can no longer use my Photobucket images on my blog - not only all images going forward, which would be OK since I haven't actually used them to host any blog images in ages (did I mention how easy it is to use Google?) - but every single image that I have ever used. So, everywhere that I have an image I hosted on Photobucket (and included in my post with code provided by Photobucket), I now have this super ugly graphic telling me that I need to upgrade my account. Oh Yay.

So now I have to go back through every post looking for those ugly graphics, figure out what image was supposed to be there, and then get them downloaded from there and re-uploaded (to Blogger and Google), and then fix the code so that the images display properly. Because, of course, I have nothing else to do with my life...

Thanks, Photobucket. I love you too. (jerks)

And, yes, if I wasn't such a perfectionist, I'd just let it go. They're all old posts anyway. Except for those things in the sidebar - what were those, anyway? And the background on my recipe blog. That is the final straw! (or was - got that one fixed at least)

(jerks)

Updated

I updated my template slightly.  Did anybody notice?  Actually I just changed the background to make it look more 'springy' - but I had to mess around a bit to get it to work properly.  For some reason the footer hadn't been showing up for ages.  The text was there, but the background wouldn't show - even though from everything I could tell it should have been showing up.  I know, you probably didn't notice because you never scrolled all the way to the bottom, right?

So, to get it fixed, I had to change the template completely.  It's easy with Blogger's Template Designer - except for any extra tweaks, coding and such.  Why does changing the template take all that out, anyway?  But, I had to change to a completely different template and then change it back to the one I've been using - and then change the background image.  It's nice that Blogger updates font colors and such when you change the background, so everything looks good without too much trouble.

Then I added back the extra styling and scripts I wanted to keep - I saved all the html to a text file before I started messing with it - always a good idea, along with backing up the whole template so it can easily be restored if necessary - so I could just copy and paste the ones I wanted to keep.

Now I just need to update the pictures in my header...

Where Do They Go?

I switched to the new Blogger interface because I figured - Why not?  I'm not so sure I'm thrilled, though.  Some things are hard to find and not exactly intuitive, but the thing that is bugging me the most is that it doesn't seem to save my drafts anymore.  I have started several posts that would have been automatically saved in the past - so I didn't worry too much when I didn't finish the posts and moved on to something else.  I figured they'd be there when I got back.

Wrong!  Not there.  So I figure I can adapt.  I'll just use the Save button to be sure it saves.  Guess what?  I started a new post last night, used the Save button - and today it's not there.  Where are these posts going?  And, as I type this the page is constantly telling me that it's saving - but I just don't trust it.

I may take Blogger up on the offer to 'Switch back to the old interface' and give them some time to work the bugs out of this new one.  Anyone else trying the new interface?  Are you having the same problems?

I Think It Works

Testing the Zemanta Blogger gadget.  (It was really simple to add - use this link)

It seems to work!

At least my 'Enter' key is working, and I have line breaks.  Oh,  happy day (or night)!  Sure, I can write my posts in HTML, and I will always need that for the tweaking, but I'd much rather use the regular, visual, 'Compose' mode.

Zemanta is Breaking my Posts

I think I finally figured out my formatting problems with Blogger.  It's Zemanta!

I've been using Zemanta for a while and never had any problems until recently, unless you count all my images vanishing when I added related articles in Windows Live Writer - but they fixed that.  Overall, I love Zemanta.  It sits there right beside my compose window and suggests related images and articles, and links and tags, though I don't usually use those.  If it doesn't have anything that catches my eye, I can use 'Refine' to search for specific things.  It really is handy.

But now, suddenly, it's causing problems.  I never would have noticed if I hadn't disabled it yesterday because it was sitting on top of an email I wanted to read, and I couldn't figure out how to get rid of it.  Once it was disabled, my formatting and line breaks started working again.  I thought Blogger was fixed!  And then, I re-enabled Zemanta so I could use it - to add related content - and all my lovely line breaks disappeared!  My 'Enter' key stopped working in 'Compose' mode, and I had to go back to the 'Edit HTML' tab to accomplish anything.  While writing this post I have enabled, disabled, and re-enabled Zemanta (or is that disabled, re-enabled, and re-disabled?) just to test my theory.  Yep, the culprit really is Zemanta.

I've been using the browser extension, but apparently there's a new Blogger gadget, so I'm going to have to figure out how to add that and see if it makes a difference.  In the meantime, I would much appreciate it if Zemanta would fix this issue.  Thank you.

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Formatting and Line Breaks

I probably shouldn't say anything for fear of jinxing it, but it looks like Blogger has the formatting thing fixed.  It has been bugging me that I couldn't see my cursor in Compose mode, that all the line breaks kept disappearing, and that I couldn't even insert line breaks in Compose mode.  What was up with that?

OK, never mind. I just tried hitting enter, and nothing happened - except that I couldn't type anything new until I switched to Edit HTML mode. And when I go back to Compose, my line break disappears, and all the text is in one big block.

Is this bothering anyone else? I thought maybe it was an issue with Firefox, but since I've been using Chrome, I've had the same issues. I really, really hope they get it fixed soon.

Do Follow and Spam?

When I changed my template on Sunday, I forgot all about changing it so that comments are do follow.  When I went looking for the directions I originally followed, I couldn't find them - the page was missing!  So, I went searching for instructions and found these:

Edit your template HTML with widgets expanded and replace:

<a expr:href='data:comment.authorUrl' rel='nofollow'>

with

<a expr:href='data:comment.authorUrl'>

Basically, just remove the part that says rel='nofollow'.

I did a search (CTRL+F) for comment.authorUrl, deleted the nofollow attribute, and saved my template.

While looking for the directions, I noticed that some people have stopped making their blogs Do Follow because it encouraged spam.  I'm probably asking for it here, but I haven't had a huge problem with spam.  Sure, it happens every once in a while, and I did have one commenter who repeatedly left spammy comments on one post.  I had never used comment moderation until then, but now I have it set so that comments on any posts older than 30 days have to be moderated.  So far that seems to be a decent compromise.

Any comments?  Have you made your blogs Do Follow?  Does it seem to encourage spam, and if so, how do you handle it?

Backup!

Just a friendly reminder: Back up your blog!

Blogger has been extremely reliable, and I've never had a problem, but I would certainly hate losing all my posts and the associated comments if something ever did happen. Now that Blogger has the Export feature, it's so easy to do a quick backup. Just go to your Dashboard, then click Settings, and at the top you have the option to Import blog, Export blog, or Delete your blog. DO NOT delete your blog, that would be a bad thing! Do click the Export blog link, and then click the button to Download Blog. When your browser asks what you want to do with the file, Save it.

I'm trying to remember to back my blogs up every month, and I save the file with my blog name and the date - for instance, alwaysbcmom-06-01-2009. Since I was backing mine up, and the hardest part of this whole process is actually remembering to do it, I thought I'd remind you, too.

You're Being Tracked Now

I logged into Google Analytics today, and it's working now. I'm guessing it just doesn't work when you put the code in a widget, and it needs to be right in the html? Or the code changed. Or something. (Obviously something)

I'm still unsure about most things. Do I have to use the widgets for things? Or can I just put it in the code like I'm used to? Trial and error, I guess.

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No Visitors Since 8/17?

I just logged into my Google Analytics account and noticed that it stopped tracking everything the day I switched to the New Blogger. What is that about? I copied the code into a widget, but that doesn't seem to be working. So now I deleted that widget and copied the code directly into the html. I hope that works. Is anybody using Analytics with your blog? How did you make it work?

I went looking for Analytics widgets gadgets, but they all said they were broken.

Because Lynn Asked

I added some pictures to the header. It is more fun with pictures, isn't it? Probably I should have been doing something more constructive with my time, like clean my house maybe, but now I have pictures in my header.

I've also been playing around with the template on one of my other blogs, and I realized the New Blogger does not work the way I thought it did. I thought the point was that you could change things easily. Well, maybe some things are 'easier' but the fact that changing your template means that a lot of your widgets get deleted and have to be rebuilt and replaced just seems to defeat the whole purpose. The html widgets are easy enough, because all I have to do is paste the html in and save, but what about those link lists? Having to paste in site name and link separately, over and over? Not my idea of fun. Is there an easier way?

It's All New to Me

I finally switched to the 'New' Blogger and a new template. I like the layout, but I'm not sure about the 'New' Blogger and all those widgets or gadgets, or whatever they're calling them now. I think I finally got it figured out, but I feel like I have less control now - even though I can edit the html, it doesn't act like it's going to work.

Let me know what you think, OK?

Schedule Your Posts

Did you notice that you can now schedule your posts in Blogger? When I posted my Sky Watch Friday post last night, I set the time ahead to 12:02am Friday, so the date would show up as Friday instead of Thursday. Yes, I know, I'm picky.

So, I published my post, but it didn't show up on my blog. I knew Blogger was working on this feature, and it was available in Blogger in Draft, but I didn't realize it was LIVE already. (It just became available yesterday.) I think this is going to be great. Now, whenever you set the post date and time to a future date or time and click "Publish Post" that post will be scheduled to appear in your blog at that date and time. How cool is that?

Of course, since I wanted my Sky Watch Friday post available immediately but with today's date, I had to go in and fix that. It takes an extra step - first I had to publish the post with the current date and time. Then, once the post was published, I just had to edit it, change the date and time to the future, and hit "Publish" again. Since it had already been published, it remained published, but I could future date it.