JS-Kit called it an "upgrade", but I'm not of the same opinion.
I'm talking about the comments, of course. Tried leaving one lately? It's not as simple as it used to be.
This blog is fast approaching the 5-year mark. When I started blogging, Blogger's comment system didn't have a character-recognition feature to filter out the junk, and the spambots ran amok. Haloscan offered a simple, free comment system that a lot of people were using. I installed that & was happy enough with it that even though Blogger did get their comment system upgraded to the point where it worked a lot better, I never bothered switching back.
Well, now JS-Kit has purchased Haloscan & all of us Haloscan users were given the option of "upgrading" to Echo (which is that -- thing -- that you see now when you try to leave a comment).
I wish I'd taken the option of exporting when it was offered, but I had no idea how radically different the Echo was going to be.
I'm now trying to get my comments back onto Blogger's system but even that is complicated by the age of my blog - it would seem that I have got an old-school Blogger setup, to the extent the uninstallation instructions at JS-Kit direct me to go to a tab that does not exist for me. If you're a Blogger blogger, you probably have something called "Layout" that maybe features buttons that you click to change features? I have got something called "Template", which is a window that shows the HTML for the blog. Customization was all done by pasting code into that same window. There are no buttons to click to revert.
Ain't progress wunnerful?
Anyways, I've got somebody at JS-Kit trying to help me out (I think, although I never heard back from her after I tried to clarify about the non-existent tab - I suspect they are a bit swamped, though, so I may just be working my way up the queue). I do hope to be back on Blogger comments before too much longer.
Whether all the comments left on Haloscan ever make it into that system remains to be seen. That's a sad thing to contemplate - I frequently think the comments end up being as interesting, if not more interesting, than my original posts!
BTW if there happen to be any other "old-school" Blogger users reading this & you have any hints, I'd love to hear them.
If you can figure out how to use "Echo", that is!
:(
14 comments:
It also seems as if Bubbles has gotten into the system. At the end of each comment, there's "Like -- Reply."
Like, totally!
I've now upgraded my Blogger template to the newer version. I now know who's following this blog. All my blogrolls & useful trip planning tools are gone. I have hopes that I will be able to restore without major issues & maybe this will finally motivate me to update things (like, I think I was still linking to the 2006 tide tables & cruise ship terminal & I was still showing a link to my old favorite webcam, which had apparently ceased to exist a couple of years ago). Having upgraded, I was able to follow the JS-kit instructions for uninstallation but exactly one comment actually made the jump - your last one. It's way past my bedtime so I am throwing in the towel until tomorrow. To be continued. Sigh.
ps - it kills me that this thing can't even find MY gravatar & says that you should find me on Haloscan. I can't find me on Haloscan, good luck to the rest of you!
Dearest Bonnie. I'm reading your blog while listening to Thomas Friedman's Hot, Flat and Crowded. I thought I'd leave a comment as I'm told a mistake could make life "nasty and brief". It is an odd contrast, your optimism verses our problable future.
Please forgive me for experimenting with your JS.kit by posting a picture of the wife and I at Lake Chabot in California. Thanks and good luck. P.S. I've dropped 26 pounds since the picture.
Thanks, Jim!
This blog started out a little more liberal rant-y, but then I decided to ignore everything that was wrong with the world...la la la.
No, that's not really true. It's more that 99% of the time, anything I have to say has already been said a thousand times already, and said a hundred times better than I would be able to (coherent arguments take more time to construct than I have time to spend on them, especially the way my job has increasingly eaten into my leisure time). Plus I'd say most paddlers are already concerned liberal types, so me regurgitating what I've read in the Times & heard on NPR is really just preaching to the choir. I think the people who find this blog enjoy the idea that there actually IS something of nature/Great Outdoors even in the middle of NYC. I feel lucky to have found that out & I guess that's what I really like sharing.
Plus I got a little self-conscious when my folks started reading - they're pretty conservative & my dad in particular has little patience with emotional arguments, it's got to be if a, then b, if b, then c, a, therefore c.
Very nice picture. If JS-Kit had managed to get the basics right (like showing links to commenters' blogs, and their avatars) I would probably leave it alone - but they just went to town on the bells & whistles without holding onto the basics that Haloscan managed to carry out just fine. I just went & found your blog by Google searching "Saltwater Jim Blog"! I shouldn't have to do that. And I haven't heard back from Anna at theor help desk, I further figured out last night that the next step involves somebody at JS-Kit synchronizing my JS-Kit/ex-Haloscan comments with Blogger comments, and I asked her to please do that, and...nothing. Maybe they are taking a little New Year's vacation. All that hard work they've been doing in the name of "the death of comments". That's their claim. Doing a great job, too!
oof. cranky today, aren't I? Think I should check the weather & see if I can't get my bummed-out butt out on the bay.
I hate technology!!! Never talk about religion, politics or global warming. Structure fire at 2 AM got home at 10 AM. was 4 degrees when we went out last night. River is frozen right across.
dennis g
Bonnie, 8-) , you're missing the point =-O =-O =-O . Who cares if the basic :-P stuff doesn't work :-D as long as we can use these waycool :-$ emoticons. Verbal communication is just so hard without them :( . Just imagine how much better Shakespeare would have been if he'd had these >:o to use O:-) O:-) O:-) .
Alas, poor Yorick ( =-X ), I knew him.
To be :) , or not to be :( , that is the question *DONT_KNOW* .
Shall I compare thee to a 8-) ?
Oh, oh, I'll like - reply! That's so keeewwwwl! :) :-D :) :-D
Reminds me of when the national laboratory where my dad worked when I was growing up changed things around.
He called it "redisorganization."
Hey, I have an avatar!
O Docker is right, but I am waiting for audio punctuation along the lines of Victor Borge's "Phonetic Punctuation" system of reading.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF4qii8S3gw
Like - Happy New Year!
wait, now people are leaving comments (I'm getting them by email) & they aren't showing up here...
On the plus side, one of the invisible comments is from Carol Ann, who says she has an avatar now.
I've turned off JS-kit for the moment - there were 4 comments that didn't show at all, Dennis G's & the two of Carol Ann's that actually got the avatars. It's New Year's Eve, I haven't heard from JS-Kit in long enough that I suspect they all decided to go on vacation, so I will just let Blogger handle comments until such time as JS-Kit bothers to check their messages.
This too will pass ...
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