bitbol

While previously being somewhat inaccessible, Google took down all of their blogger services. For a while, they had a message up saying that blogger was down for "unscheduled maintenance," but has since been replaced with a 502 (bad gateway) error. The "unscheduled maintenance" makes me think that the service practically crashed itself, and Google only stepped in to rectify the problem.

Google has now formed quite a list of problems recently:

• Blogger control panel fails
• Google maps gets confused
• Google image results become annoyingly simple
• Google error in place of my blog

All of these are from within the past week. If I had money at my disposal, I would move away from google and do things myself, but that isn't much of an option at the moment.

Labels: Blogger, Google, Internet

Blogger likes being a pain in the butt, so I doubt that it bothered them that they kicked everyone out for a while to do something that very likely could have been done in the background.

Labels: Blogger, Internet, Rants

Blogger has finally listened to people. Back when I used to like blogger, it would have been the cure all for me. Now, Blogger sucks, but it got a little better for those that want to continue using it. It still doesn't match being able to use your own host though.

Now, that is one more thing that I can cross off my list of things that Blogger needs to add in order to be half-way decent for a large-scale blog.

Labels: Blogger, Internet

Slashdot has a short blurb on the fact that Blogger claims to be out of beta. I would eally disagree with this, but I don't make that decision. From the Slashdot's comments:

The new Blogger beta is, quite frankly, a disappointment. Blogger was pretty amazing when it came out years ago, but since Google bought them the brand has languished far behind competitors (Wordpress, Typepad, etc). Now Google adds a couple extra features, removes the Beta tag, and expects great fanfare. They just get ho-hum from me.

I agree that Blogger/Google was expecting too much. Before it happened, they talked like it was the best thing that had ever happened to Blogger. In reality, it wasn't much, and they broke too much in the process. While they have made some progress, it has not been enough to remove the beta label.

Among the things that they broken was the "previous posts list". This used to do exactly as you would expect: it listed ten posts prior to the page it was used on, and if it were on the main or archive page: it would be the ten most recent. Now it is always the ten most recent, even though it is the "previous" posts list. With the addition of built-in search, it lacked any ability to template those pages, as well as the same for label pages. There is just too much to do yet. Support for listing labels in classic templates is nonexistent. All this hype and lack of results is why I am planning a move to Wordpress once it is at a convenient time.

Labels: Blogger, Google, Internet, Wordpress

After what has been much too long of a wait, Blogger has finally fixed a little issue with their posting page. It was in no way a bug, but a lack of thought. It is now possible to see all of the tags used, posts or drafts, from the posting page. Previously it was limited solely to tags that had published posts only. Usability is still slightly lacking, but improving. What I would like to see is Blogger use up the whole page, instead of the fixed width currently used.

Labels: Blogger

I got all of it downloaded last night, and I don't even think that it used all of that time, it was probably done after a couple of hours. I don't think I'm going to burn them just yet, as I don't want to have them get scratched and then have to do it again.

In other unrelated news, I have unsuccessfully found any way to transfer my blog to Wordpress. I've pretty much had it with blogger, and there are a few things that it won't let me do. All these issues stem from the fact that I migrated to blogger beta, and now none of the importers will work. It also seems to be that anyone capable of creating an importer is refusing as they say blogger will break it with every update. I'm going to keep looking; I really need it. I could copy-paste, but that's a last ditch effort.

Labels: Blogger, Fedora Core, Rambling, Wordpress

It seems that Blogger has upgraded their control panel. Now it is fairly similar to GMail's, in that all the labels are listed on the side, and you can mass-select to label. I suppose this is in preparation to launch their beta as the new system, and to make life easier for those who just switch and find it near impossible to label so many posts.

I personally see this a slightly handy for seeing which labels I have used in the past, and even accounts for the couple of drafts that I am working on. Of course all is not without bugs. I have already seen this new system miscount the posts on a few labels. It is also convenient to be able to see from the control panel which labels were used on the post.

Labels: Blogger

I lived with some of the shortcomings and probelms of Blogger because of the fact that the platform is just that great, but recently they're really starting to annoy me.

First of all, they have everyone all hyped up for this great new thing, but they're taking forever to actually launch it. I would have much rather been surprised with the new system than I would to be sitting here for so long waiting for the things they promised. They really should have completed all the major features before releasing anything new.

Secondly, they're breaking things. I had no problem with the times or anything until just recently, now I had to adjust the time zone to CST, which it is not, just to compensate for their fault. Now just today, I noticed that they have broken the previous post lists. They used to show the post that came before the page you were viewing, now they just show the ten most recent.

Maybe things will be done in a few weeks, which I somewhat doubt. There was something that I read after Blogger in Beta was just released, some one comment "now it's going to be in beta for years," and I can really see this. Look how long GMail has been in beta. Google seems to be doing great at starting up these big things but it takes them much too long to finish.

Labels: Blogger, Rants

I recently made a feature request to Blogger about getting something that I really want. Here is a comeplete list of things that I would like to see from Blogger some day:

• Tags/labels/categories - They're getting there, but they still lack in the ability to allow it in custom templates. Once this is implemented, it will make me so much happier.
• Customizable search template - Currently, there are conditional tags for templates that allow you to give you more template control for the main page, archives, and post pages. Now that search has been added so that it is built into the blog template, I would like to be able to customize what goes on. For example, it would be nice to be able make it just titles, or the other thing that would make me happy would be allowing pagination, which could be a number set in the settings.
• Blogger for domains - Google just made a big step with Gmail by allowing you to use your own domains for Gmail, calendar, and chat. Now I would like to see that happen with Blogger. I would be overjoyed if they listen to this. With the new Blogger in Beta version, the whole idea is dynamic serving. If you want to have your own domain, you have to host it. By allowing you to use your domain through Blogger, you get the best of both worlds. You get the domain for your blog and all the dynamics of Blog*Spot. This would even be something that I would be willing to pay for. - 1/5/07
• Built-in commenting forms - One of the things that I like to have is the ability to keep a consistant design across the entire site, but currently that is somewhat ruined by having to shift to blogger.com in order to make a comment.
• Page-by-page browsing - This would be in much the same fashion of other places like how the high-profile Engadget does. This would include allowing you to add something like: # Older posts.
• Search operators - Now that search and labels are built into the blog, it would be nice to see the option to use operators in the search like -label:blogger to see anything not labeled blogger. -Added 9/19/06
• Labels by draft/etc - Now that there has been a list of labels added to the side of the control panel, it would be much prefered if there were a way to limit that by whether or not it was published. Right now it always included everything, no options. -Added 10/19/06

If even a few of these end up happening, I would be that much happier sticking with Blogger. Blogger is a great platform, but I think that there is still much room for improvement.

Labels: Blogger, Future

My blog has finally become able to switch over to the new Blogger platform, I must say that I somewhat disappointed right now.

The only feature that I want out of this whole deal is the tags. I want to make it that much easier to organise my blog. Other than linking my blog to my Google account, I don't even care for many of the other features.

I'm really surprised that there really isn't much of a change to the whole interface. I expected there to be the biggest revamp ever, but nothing really changed. The only change that I have to get used to is the fact that I need to use a different username and password to log in with. It is a little weird though, that everything is updated instantly, a big change from sitting there while it updates.

Perhaps others will be getting more use out of all this, but to me, this is a long wait just to get use of tags. I could always switch to some other system, but I have no idea how to modify templates. Blogger gives me what I need, and has the ability to migrate all this to my own server, if I ever get one, or just leave it hosted freely here until that day arises.

Labels: Blog, Blogger

After what has probably been much more of a wait than it should have ever been, Blogger is now fessing up to an upgrade. Blogger has always been my blogging platform of choice, but we'll have to see if they can live up to it after the upgrade. Here are some of the features they have listed, and what I think about them:

• Feeds - Feeds and comment feeds are great, but I think they're getting a little too carried away by making a feed for every post's comments.
• Dynamics - This is a great addition, at least for those hosted through Blogger. I honestly can't believe that they have used static pages this whole time. Now, the pages will be created when you access them, not from files that require updating manually to change.
• Access control - According to this, they plan to allow you to limit the access to your blog to those that you choose. Based on email, you list who you want to see your blog, which is a great plus seeing how some people only use their blog to cater to an audience of a few people. You also have a better idea of who sees what you post, rather than the world in general.
• Labels - This is something that Blogger really needed years ago. They are just now allowing you to use labels to sort posts. I would love to be able to use labels, because it gives you way to read posts by topic, rather than sifting through the whole blog.
• Layouts - Here is something that I don't really care for. Although Blogger is catering to a larger audience by making it much easier to create the look and feel you want, I see it as making things too easy. When it is set up through a control panel to allow to change colors, you make it easy enough for what I would expect to be preteens and teens who think that using every color ever created is cool. Much of the reason that I never look at blogs hosted on Xanga is because of the fact that you give options to easily create the most disgustingly colored page in history. While this won't be the case for all, I do see it happening.
• Google accounts - Perhaps one of the greater things of the upgrade is the fact that Blogger is finally being integrated into Google. This means just that many less logins and passwords to remember, and allowing you to connect all of your stuff better (like Gmail).

I can see there might be a bumpy transition, and some getting used to, but I hope that this is a change for the better. With any luck, all the greatness of the old Blogger will still be there, but with the addition of all the new features.

Labels: Blogger