2 posts tagged “improvements”

View other items tagged “improvements:” Photos, Audio, Videos, Books or Links. View “improvements” on Vox.

I have to blog here because new Blogger sucks even more than I thought

Feb 18, 2007
4 comments

New Blogger’s site feeds do not work, if an email from my friend Johnnie Moore is any indication. He is right: I just put my mouse over the old Atom feed button, which used to be correctly linked at old Blogger, and it gives the wrong URL—regardless of whether I have this set right in my new Blogger settings. I have just hard-coded the URL into the template code, rather than rely on the string that Blogger’s template uses (as it seems that old templates and new templates do not appear to be compatible).
In the old days, I could choose for only the home page to be updated. I no longer have that choice, and I am going through the process of waiting for the entire blog to be republished in another IE7 tab right now. Only thing is, as I typed this post, the following came up at Blogger:

Your Publish is Taking Longer than Expected. To continue waiting for it to finish, click here.

That never used to happen. And, when I click on the link, nothing happens. It doesn’t work. I had to go and republish from scratch.
   Either Blogger’s beta users never had to use Blogger to publish any posts, because I can’t see why these weren’t reported as a bug or annoyance, or all beta feedback was ignored.
   This reminds me of when Chrysler launched the Dodge Aspen and Plymouth Volaré without fully testing them, using the customer as their quality control department.
   Evidently, new Blogger should remain on beta, or we should retain the choice of sticking with the old version, which was vastly superior in every respect if you were an everyday, average Joe user like me. I didn’t ask for these changes, and I am willing to bet that the majority of Blogger users did not, either.
   I did not ask for Blogger being made less flexible, less friendly, slower, more impractical and a means through which Google can spy on me.
   Remember, using new Blogger means that your Google searches will be associated with your user name, which I regard as a violation of my privacy. You need to log out of Blogger or Google to return to the status quo. Which means, the option to keep yourself logged in is fully impractical. You need to type in your username and password each time you reuse Blogger.
   As with so many “improvements” in the computing industry, I am finding more and more reasons to hate a program or service. Well done, Google. You have just turned me off even more.
   I am still waiting for this speedier, new Blogger to finish republishing. It might never get there. That message just came up again. And the ‘click here’ still does not work.
   I am a total technophobe when it comes to installing software, but Randy Thomas and others’ suggestions I move to a customized blogging program are making me wonder whether I should overcome my fears.

The new Blogger is worse than the old one (if you’re human, that is)

Feb 16, 2007
4 comments

I can’t understand what’s superior about the new Blogger, which I was forced to change to, otherwise Google would not let me in.
   I have to type in a longer email address as my username. The cookies forget that I am even signed in. I seem to recall Blogger claiming I would not have to wait for the publication of posts because it was all instantaneous. Right now, I am at Vox while I am waiting for the publication of posts because it is not instantaneous. It’s been a few minutes. I notice no time difference between old and new Blogger.
   It lets me do tags. Great. Waste more space. I was already doing tags anyway, using other services.
   The conversion process was bollocks. The reason I am waiting is that it couldn’t convert my old template properly, rendering a few characters unreadable. I had to go in manually to change them.
   I’m stuck with that load of cobblers for now, but it is yet another example of computer types “improving” things without understanding normal human behaviour.
   Blogger should have let us stay with a choice of old or new. Let the geeks go on to the new one and talk up how things have improved, and we stupid mere mortals can stay with the old and get on with our work.
   I would have recommended Blogger had they let it be. Now, with all these “improvements”, I think I will recommend Vox.

PS.: I notice that because I have to sign in with my Google account, it keeps me logged in when I do a search. I do not want Google to associate my searches with my email account. Thus, I sign out. And when I use Blogger, I have to sign in again. There is no practicality to this.
And why should I not trust Google? I bet there are a few Chinese guys in jail with no charge behind the Bamboo Curtain who might be able to say why.