Changes Are Afoot
Two fairly significant change are being forced upon me in regards to this here blog (and the others I write as well). The first is that Haloscan, the comment engine I've used for the last several years, is being put out of its misery. Which means figuring out how to move 8000+ comments off Haloscan and into another comment engine.
As the more astute among you will have noticed, there are currently two options for comments on posts. The old one that reads 0 Comments which is Haloscan and the new one that reads 0 Comments and 0 Reactions which is Disqus. The Haloscan option will be removed next week, they gave me a deadline of 2/11 to either take my comments and go home or move to their pay-for system called Echo. I'm sure Echo is lovely and all but I've been interested in Disqus for a while and rather like the soc.net aspect of the comment system. I think I'm going to give it a go. However, I'm having some difficulty in importing all of my exported comments from Haloscan. There's a widget to do it and it seemed easy-peasy but nothing has shown up as being imported as of yet. Which doesn't bode well. I will keep working on it and hope there's an automated way to populate the system with my comments.
For now though, please try to use the Disqus comment option.
The second significant change on the horizon, a little further out, is that Blogger will no longer be allowing this blog (and presumably all of the others) to publish via FTP (that's file transfer protocol, not fluffy transvestite pushing). Not sure why they are doing this and it doesn't really matter why because they are. This leaves me with two options. Either drop my web hosting and move Intellectual Poison completely on to Google's servers or look for another blogging platform.
From the couple of discussions I've had with other bloggers in the same boat, the consensus seems to be moving to a new blogging platform. Which means there's a whole crapload of code tweaking in my somewhat near future. I have ten blogs through Blogger presently with a couple of those pretty well defunct (oh poor Cheddar X and Stump Pond Journal). Not all of them would have to be moved because several are Blogspot blogs and won't be affected. But enough will be affected that I may just relocate the whole kit and kaboodle.
Which should be fun trying to do in the midst of moving my physical house as well. And everything else on my ridiculous laundry list of tasks.
Dec 25, 2008As the more astute among you will have noticed, there are currently two options for comments on posts. The old one that reads 0 Comments which is Haloscan and the new one that reads 0 Comments and 0 Reactions which is Disqus. The Haloscan option will be removed next week, they gave me a deadline of 2/11 to either take my comments and go home or move to their pay-for system called Echo. I'm sure Echo is lovely and all but I've been interested in Disqus for a while and rather like the soc.net aspect of the comment system. I think I'm going to give it a go. However, I'm having some difficulty in importing all of my exported comments from Haloscan. There's a widget to do it and it seemed easy-peasy but nothing has shown up as being imported as of yet. Which doesn't bode well. I will keep working on it and hope there's an automated way to populate the system with my comments.
For now though, please try to use the Disqus comment option.
The second significant change on the horizon, a little further out, is that Blogger will no longer be allowing this blog (and presumably all of the others) to publish via FTP (that's file transfer protocol, not fluffy transvestite pushing). Not sure why they are doing this and it doesn't really matter why because they are. This leaves me with two options. Either drop my web hosting and move Intellectual Poison completely on to Google's servers or look for another blogging platform.
From the couple of discussions I've had with other bloggers in the same boat, the consensus seems to be moving to a new blogging platform. Which means there's a whole crapload of code tweaking in my somewhat near future. I have ten blogs through Blogger presently with a couple of those pretty well defunct (oh poor Cheddar X and Stump Pond Journal). Not all of them would have to be moved because several are Blogspot blogs and won't be affected. But enough will be affected that I may just relocate the whole kit and kaboodle.
Which should be fun trying to do in the midst of moving my physical house as well. And everything else on my ridiculous laundry list of tasks.
Christmas Morning
As I write this, my house is quiet save for the dripping of the rain outside my window. We've been getting a good amount of rain this last week but I'm ready for a few warm sunny days again, preferably during my winter break.
For the last three days, Blogger has been broken and I've been unable to publish anything which just gets enormously frustrating amid an already enormously frustrating time of the year.
This has been a "down" year for Christmas in our house in terms of volume but I think we've made a few steps forward in terms of quality of presents. And in the thought behind some of them.
My favorite gift I've given so far is a pair of hand carved and painted Tiki masks for my wife's hair salon that has a Hawaiian theme. One is a bit garish but should look cool on the wall, the other is more subtle.
My favorite gift for myself so far is a Nerf N-Strike Maverick six shooter. It was extraordinarily satisfying to unload all six suction darts on Dr. Phil's face last night.
For now, I'm going to enjoy the peace and quiet with a cup of coffee and the morning news.
Merry Christmas to everyone!
Jun 7, 2007For the last three days, Blogger has been broken and I've been unable to publish anything which just gets enormously frustrating amid an already enormously frustrating time of the year.
This has been a "down" year for Christmas in our house in terms of volume but I think we've made a few steps forward in terms of quality of presents. And in the thought behind some of them.
My favorite gift I've given so far is a pair of hand carved and painted Tiki masks for my wife's hair salon that has a Hawaiian theme. One is a bit garish but should look cool on the wall, the other is more subtle.
My favorite gift for myself so far is a Nerf N-Strike Maverick six shooter. It was extraordinarily satisfying to unload all six suction darts on Dr. Phil's face last night.
For now, I'm going to enjoy the peace and quiet with a cup of coffee and the morning news.
Merry Christmas to everyone!
Time for the Semi-Annnual "I Hate Blogger" Rant
Blogger used to be the top of the blogging heap and they have maintained an extraordinarily low barrier for new bloggers to get started with pouring their thoughts and wishes and rants out into the blogosphere.
But they have not improved with the times, they have not made the software easier, more accesible and simple. They've made it more of a pain in the ass to use, less accessible and annoying. The addition of eastern font symbols is nice, for people that need or want to use them. I do not, will not and would just as soon be able to turn them off entirely.
Why? Because the stupid setting auto-resets itself to on no matter what I do. And adding several extra steps just so I can write a blog post that will still sometimes render poorly is just a freaking unnecessary pain in the butt.
Whether it will actually drive me to migrate to something different is another question. We'll have to see.
blog comments powered by Disqus
But they have not improved with the times, they have not made the software easier, more accesible and simple. They've made it more of a pain in the ass to use, less accessible and annoying. The addition of eastern font symbols is nice, for people that need or want to use them. I do not, will not and would just as soon be able to turn them off entirely.
Why? Because the stupid setting auto-resets itself to on no matter what I do. And adding several extra steps just so I can write a blog post that will still sometimes render poorly is just a freaking unnecessary pain in the butt.
Whether it will actually drive me to migrate to something different is another question. We'll have to see.
Labels: blogger